Sermon Tone Analysis

WHO IS THE CHRIST OF CHRISTMAS?

Hebrews 1:2-3

 

*INTRODUCTION:* In December 1903, the Wright brothers Orville and Wilbur telegraphed their sister Catherine that they had flown 120 feet and would be home for Christmas.

She told the editor of the local paper and he said that was great that they would be home for Christmas.

He completely missed the point by not acknowledging that they had flown.

How many people over the Christmas holidays miss the point of Christmas?

Many of the TV shows and commercials say it is a time of festivities, parties, Santa Claus, gifts and being with family and friends.

Most people miss the real meaning of Christmas and even Christians can get caught up in all the things that people associate with Christmas and miss the point.

But this morning I want to share with you the real meaning of Christmas by examining the Christ of Christmas.

Scripture has a lot to say about Christmas.

There is the prophecy of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, beginning in the first book of the Bible right after the Fall (Gen.

3:15).

Moses speaks of a great prophet one day.

The prophets predicted the entrance of the Messiah from His virgin birth to His place of birth in Bethlehem.

Isaiah foretold of His sufferings for the sins of humanity.

And there were even those prophecies of His Second Coming and ruling and reigning.

So the Old Testament predicted the coming of the Messiah.

In the gospels, you read of the historical event of Christ’s coming into the world and the supernatural things that were associated with His birth.

The gospels tell of the angel speaking to Joseph and Mary about the birth.

The gospels tell of the angel who appeared to the shepherds and the magi who came to visit this King.

The gospels even give the genealogy of Christ to prove His humanity.

So the Old Testament predicted the coming of the Messiah and the gospels reveal the birth of the Messiah.

Yet, it is the letters of the New Testament that reveal the significance of his birth.

In other words, they described the deity of the Messiah.

They instruct us on why He came and what he accomplished.

You can read about it in the letters of Paul and Peter, but it is the letter of Hebrews that I want to focus on this morning.

In order for us to understand our passage this morning, I need to give you a brief summary of who this book was written to.

It was written to three categories of Jews: 1)Jews who were convinced that Christ is the messiah and accepted Him in salvation; 2)Jews who were intellectually convinced but have not accepted Him as Messiah; 3)Jews who were unconvinced that he was the Messiah at all.

So the writer of Hebrews was writing to these Jews to convince them that Christ was better than everyone and everything in the Old Testament.

He was better than Moses, Aaron, and Melchizedek, the prophets or angels.

He had a greater covenant than the covenant of the Old Testament.

In comparison, He was greater than anyone or anything offered in the Old Testament.

Therefore, the writer of Hebrews was trying to convince his readers to accept Christ.

So this letter informs us of the greatness of Christ and why Christmas is so important to us.

I hope and pray we are convinced of this message this morning before we leave.

So turn with me to the first chapter of Hebrews and let me read the first three verses, this morning.

PREPARATION FOR THE CHRIST

God has spoken to humanity through various means in order to communicate His truths and reveal Himself to us.

For example, God has spoken through dreams, parables, types and symbols.

He used narrative, poetry, law, doctrine, warnings, encouragement, moral and ethical means to provide His truth.

First, God spoke through the prophets to men. 1 Peter 1:20-21 says, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” His revelation of Himself and salvation of man begins in Genesis 3:15 (the promised seed) to the final judgment on the ungodly in Malachi 4.

So over a period of 1500 years, God spoke in 39 different books of the Old Testament to communicate His truth.

The amazing thing to me is that God spoke.

Folks, we live in the natural world and there is nothing we can know of the supernatural world unless God communicates to us.

It is interesting to see so many religions who try to discover these truths for themselves, but they are unsuccessful.

We would know nothing of God unless He communicated to us.

Sure God has given us general revelation with the creation of the world and our conscience.

We can learn a lot from these two elements, but we cannot know God specifically without Him telling us.

So it is through special revelation that is the written word which sheds light on the attributes and mysteries of God.

In other word, God reveals Himself to us so that we can know Him and respond to Him.

This revelation of God throughout the Old Testament is progressive.

He revealed more and more of Himself to the people over a period of time.

We know more today, than those in the time of the writing of Scripture because there is no more Scripture left to be written.

Therefore, the Scripture is complete and sufficient to answer any need we might have in life.

So God prepared the way for the Messiah by communicating to the fathers (Jews) about the coming Messiah.

PRESENCE OF THE CHRIST

But it is in these last days these truths are revealed in Christ.

What are the last days?

That is a term that refers to the Messianic period.

The last days began when the Lord Jesus came.

There's a long period of last days.

We're still in it 2,000 years later.

John said, "My little children, it is the last time."

The New Testament says, "He has appeared once in the end of the age."

The last time, the end of the age, the last days began when the Messiah came.

It was the last days of revelation, for the canon, the testament, the text was completed then.

It was the last time God spoke until He utters His voice again in His Kingdom.

Yet *in these last days* God* has spoken to us in His Son*.

It is the Son that reveals the Father.

What the writer of Hebrews does for us is put the identity of God in a human analogy - the Father~/Son relationship.

We know that no Son is an exact reflection of their Father, but Christ is.

This Christmas many people want to make Christ a good teacher, a moral man, a prophet, a fake, a criminal, a phantom, or a political revolutionary, but that is not the Christ of Scripture as we will study this morning.

Some will say He was the highest form of humanity or a spark of divinity fanned into flame to reach his full potential and that same potential lies within us or a higher source.

There's an interesting note that I just make to those of you who look at the text perhaps more closely.

It says in the Greek, "He has spoken unto us by Sonness."

The word "His" isn't there.

By Sonness.

In other words, the article is absent.

In the past He spoke by prophetness, or He spoke through prophets.

Now He speaks through Sonness.

And the emphasis then is not so much on the person of the Son as the quality of being a Son.

In other words, being a Son is better than being a prophet.

He is stressing the quality or the nature of the term.

He has elevated the quality of His spokesman.

And that fits into the text of Hebrews because the whole book of Hebrews, basically, compares Christ with everything else.In this passage, we will notice four ways in which Christ has revealed God to us.

PREEMINENCE OF THE CHRIST

 

I.

CHRIST REVEALS GOD’S PERSON - (1:3a)

            The writer says Christ *is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature*.

The word *radiance* means “to emit light or splendor, to shine from.”

Christ represents the manifestation of God.

In other words, the Son is the shining forth of God’s glory and the likeness of the Father.

Just as the sun was never without and cannot be separated from its brightness, so God was never without and cannot be separated from Christ.

John 1:1, 14 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . .

and we beheld the glory of the only begotten from the Father.”

There has never been a time when Christ has not been the radiance of God’s glory.

Yet, the brightness of the sun is not the sun, so the Son of God is personally distinct from that of the Father, even though the divinity is essentially one with the Father.

Without looking at Jesus we would never be able to see and enjoy God’s light.

John 1:4-5 speaks of Jesus as having life and is the eternal light who overpowers darkness.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”(Jn.

8:12).

With Christ being the radiance of God’s light, we do not have to walk in darkness, because without Christ all there is is darkness.