Series: Hebrews: The Superior Christ (Week 1 of 3)
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
April 15, 2009

Woodrow Kroll: Welcome to the international ministry of Back to the Bible. Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll.

Tami Weissert:  And I'm Tami Weissert. Join us as we continue our study in Hebrews on the superior Christ. So grab your Bible; flip it open to the New Testament Book of Hebrews.

Woodrow Kroll:  Yeah and today, Tami, we're going to look at a very hot button for the Jewish people in Hebrews because we're talking about Jesus being superior to even Moses.

Tami Weissert:  You know, in the 21st century church, that's not a concept that we struggle with. But back then, yeah, it wasn't the case.

Woodrow Kroll:  Yeah, it was hard for them to accept. But, you know what? We have the same difficulties today.

We have a lot of so-called prophets out there who have a gospel to preach that is different from the Gospel of the Bible. And we have to kind of know where we're going to put our allegiance. Are we going to put our allegiance in what the Bible says or in what these new prophets say?

Tami Weissert:  You know, Dr. Kroll, when you look back at history, especially church history, on this idea of where you stand on the Person of Christ, it is very important.

Woodrow Kroll:  Yeah, that's true. Almost every heretical group goes a little bit left of center when they come to the doctrine of Christ, Christology.

Who is Jesus? If people can't answer that question correctly, then almost everything else they believe is going to be a little off the bubble, as well.

And you know what, there are a lot of people today, and you've got to make a decision, "Am I going to follow the latest pop-guru guy who says that God wants me to be healthy or God wants me to be wealthy; or am I going to follow the prophecies of God's Word?"

Well, we're going to answer those questions today here on Back to the Bible.

(Music)

Woodrow Kroll:  In the late 1400's, Michelangelo sculpted and painted some of the greatest works of art that we have today. He's the man who created "The Crucifixion" for example; or the "David;" the "Madonna and Child." He did the "Moses."

But it was not until he was finishing the work of the Sistine Chapel as an old, old man that we really discovered the real talent of this man. He saved his best work for last: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Well, when we get to the list of prophets in the New Testament, and the list of prophets in the Old Testament, we see that God saved His best prophet for last.

We're looking today at Hebrews 1, to begin with, at least. Hebrews 1, to learn a little bit about Jesus and the other prophets that He was superior, even to the other prophets in the Bible.

Now if you have a Bible and want to follow along, Hebrews is the place. Hebrews 1:1, "God, Who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son."

Now, I don't want you to forget that the real key to the Book of Hebrews is everything in Hebrews is designed to show Jesus better than something else. That word "better" occurs time and time and time again; and always in the relationship to Jesus being shown as superior to something else.

Today we're going to find that Jesus is superior to all the prophets of the Bible. Pick your favorite prophet. It could be Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Maybe it's Daniel. Daniel prophesied during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and Cyrus and Darius; long prophesies of Daniel.

Zephaniah was the great prophet; he was the great-great-grandson of King Hezekiah. Maybe your favorite prophet is Isaiah or Amos or Micah or someone. But God saved the best of all the prophets to when He got to His Son, Jesus.

Now notice in verse 1 it says that the prophets spoke in many ways, in many periods of history, and revelation for them came a little at a time, bit by bit; it's progressive revelation.

One prophet had an understanding about one thing; another prophet had an understanding God revealed about something else. Each of them had a little piece of the pie to put together.

But when you get to Jesus, the whole pie is here. The "Chef" is here, if you will. So when you get to Jesus, it says, "By His Son," that's the prophecy that shows that this fragmentary kind of prophecy of the Old Testament is now over. Jesus understands all that is the mind of God.

Now the question then is, In what ways is Jesus superior to all these other prophets? And the Bible has an answer to that. Hebrews 1:2. Notice that He is superior in His position over the other prophets. Verse 2 says, "Has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the worlds."

The position of "heir of all things," means that He is over everything in God's creation. That is not true of the prophet Isaiah. That is not true of the prophet Elijah. That is not true of Mohammed or any of the prophets of other religions.

It is true, however, of Jesus. Jesus is God's Son; the prophets are God's servants. And that's a significant difference. Jesus is the heir; God appoints Him as Messiah; He is over everything else. The prophets are there to serve the heir of God and the people of God.

What you see here in this verse is a reference back to Psalm 2; I'm not going to take the time today to read Psalm 2, but you ought to take the time at some point and read Psalm 2:2-8 because you'll see those very verses repeated right here in the early statements of the Book of Hebrews.

Now Jesus is superior to the prophets; He's the One that John the Baptist points at, and only the One John the Baptist points at and says, "There He is; there's the One who takes away the sin of the world."

Jesus said, "I speak what I've seen and what has been given to Me by the Father." He is a Prophet in a long line of prophets, but He's better than all the others because He doesn't have to wait for God to reveal things to Him; He already knows what's on God's mind. Why? Because it's His mind, too.

So when Jesus says, "I am a prophet," He is saying, "I am unlike any other prophet." When God says, "I spoke by other prophets, but now I speak by My Son," He is saying, "Jesus is superior to all the other prophets; I've waited to the end; the best is here; He is superior in His position to all the others."

But notice also, He's superior in His power to all the others. He can do things others cannot do. It says at the end of verse 2 that by Him or "through Him also God made the worlds." That means then that Jesus is the Creator God of Genesis 1:1.

Now I don't want you to miss this. Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

The word "God" there is the general word for deity, Elohim. But that Elohim who does the creation is the Old Testament whose Name is Jehovah, in the New Testament we most frequently refer to Him as Jesus. But He is still the Elohim, the Creator of Genesis 1:1.

In fact, Ephesians 3:9 says God created all things through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the agent of creation. He is the God who actually did the act of creation.

When we get to Colossians 1:16, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven; that are in earth; that are under the earth; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things exist" (paraphrase).

That's the way that Paul says to the Colossians, "Jesus is the Creator of Genesis 1." So in Genesis 1, God creates. In Colossians 1, we learn that it's Jesus who is the God who creates.

"In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God; the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him (the Word), and there was nothing made that was not made by the Word," (John 1:1-3, paraphrase).

So John 1 says the Creator of Genesis 1 is Jesus. Colossians 1 says the Creator of Genesis 1 is Jesus. And now in Hebrews 1, it tells us the Creator of Genesis 1 is Jesus.

So the 24 elders in the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, in chapter 4, verse 11, they fall down before the Lord Jesus, and they say to Him, "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will, they were existing and they are created."

That means, then, that Jesus did something the prophets can't do: He created the world. That means He's in a position the prophets can't possibly ever be in: He's in the position of being the heir of all things.

You know over time, we have a tendency to think that if we're in a significant position that the world kind revolves around us, you know. Presidents and premiers and fathers, you know; lots of people get in that kind of position.

But the interesting thing is that when people have a good sense of who Jesus is, they don't recognize their abilities; they recognize His ability.

Years ago, one of the great kings of England, a man by the name of Canute. He reigned in the 11th century, 1014 to 1035--Canute got tired of everybody saying how great he was.

So he ordered his chair to be taken out to one of the seashores of England, and they have a lot of them in England; took his chair out and he set it down in the sand facing out to the ocean while everyone in his kingdom watched.

And he says to the tides, "I want you to stay out; don't come in and get me wet." And of course, he sat there long enough for the tide to come in and just engulfed him. And his point was this: "I may be the king of England; but I am not the Creator of the world."

The prophets of this world may have done wonderful work; they may have had a message from God; many of them did. But none of them is the heir of God; none of them is equal to the Lord Jesus; and none of them is the Creator of the world.

So Jesus has a position, He has a power, He has a personality that is extremely superior to all the other prophets. And you know what? That's not all.

There are other things the Bible says about Jesus being superior to prophets that the Jewish people of the first century needed to hear and everybody of this century needs to hear.

I'll be back in just a minute to talk about other ways in which the Bible presents Jesus as superior to every prophet who has ever lived.

(Music)

Tami Weissert:  Settle for what’s good or experience the superior?  That’s the decision the author of Hebrews asked his readers to make.  Hi, this is Tami, and our new study guide, Hebrews: Our Superior Savior walks you through the Book of Hebrews to help you consider the uniqueness of Jesus, why He’s so superior, and what that means to your life. 

Hebrews: Our Superior Savior supplies the focus, the insight and the perspective you need to gain a true understanding of God’s Old Testament laws and the Savior who more than fulfilled them.  So, let this study guide lead you through each chapter of the amazing Book of Hebrews.  It’s a great resource for yourself, but you’ll also love the discussion it generates in a Bible study group!

And listen, if you've never ordered from us before, now's the time because we have something special to go along with your first time purchase. Get the details when you call us at 1-800-759-2425

(Music)

Woodrow Kroll:  Let's go back now to the first chapter of Hebrews because we're looking at how Jesus compares to other prophets. It tells us in verse 2, actually in verse 1 and 2, that God used to speak by the prophets, but now He speaks by His Son.

And that is to say that there are going to be others in the New Testament who are prophets, but none of them can match the Son, the Lord Jesus.

So when we think about Jesus, we think about His power; He created, the other prophets did not. We think about His position; He was the Heir of God, the other prophets were not.

Look down at verse 3. We learn a third thing about Jesus in relationship to the other prophets; and that is, He is superior in who He is. His person is superior to all the other prophets.

Let me read into that by starting at verse 1. It says God spoke by prophets in various ways. He, in the last days, now verse 2, He's spoken to us by His Son, Who is the heir of all things by Whom He made the worlds. Verse 3: "who being the brightness of His [God the Father's] glory and the express image of His [God the Father's] person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

Now don't miss those two expressions in the first part of that verse. "Being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person."

Jesus radiates the brightness of the glory of God the Father. Moses does not; Aaron does not; Miriam does not; Jeremiah does not; Isaiah does not.

Go through the list of all the prophets you know by name; none of them radiate the glory of God. Why? Because there is this sinful part of our lives that is just a shield to the glory of God shining through us. That was not true of Jesus.

The other day I mentioned Michael Hart's book, The 100*, you know, a ranking of the 100 most influential people of all time. Michael Hart ranked the people he felt were the most influential. And he ranked them 1 to 100. Number 1 was Mohammed; number 2 was Isaac Newton; number 3, Jesus.

I want to submit to you, Michael Hart really didn't know Jesus very well, because Jesus is not a prophet like Mohammed was a prophet. Mohammed received a message, he claims, from god, from Allah, and that message after his life was written down in the writings of the Koran and other writings of the Muslim faith.

But Mohammed never claimed to be the heir of God. His life was not such that he could make such a claim. In fact, the way he lived was not such that he could make such a claim.

Mohammed never claimed to be the Creator of all mankind, the Creator of the world. He was of the world; he was not Creator of the world.

So the claims of Jesus are very different from the claims of other prophets. But when you get to this verse, verse 3, you find out that the person of Jesus is way different from the person of other prophets.

Sir Isaac Newton, Mohammed, the 99 others on Michael Hart's list, can never claim to be the "brightness, the radiance of the glory of God" or the "express image" of the person of God.

No one would dare make that claim. But Jesus did; and others made the claim about Him. And they made the claim stick.  I think that's the important thing.

Now what is he talking about here? I want you to notice the verb, at least the verb form, first of all. It says, "Who being the brightness of His glory."

Now you remember the other day when we were talking about Hebrews 2, we said that He was "made a little lower than the angels."

The difference between being made something and being something is a difference in time. You are made something you were not before. If you "be" something, you are something; it's something you already have been.

So when it says, "being in the brightness of His glory," Jesus didn't become the "brightness of God's glory." He wasn't made the "brightness of God's glory." He was the "brightness of God's glory."

Being in that form, being in the "brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person," Jesus came as a prophet to do what other prophets could not possibly do. And that is they could not possibly be the person of Jesus.

So first of all, He is not made in this image; He is this image. And then that word brightness there; the word is radiance; the word means "shining forth from the Father."

Basically it's related to the rays of the sun, you know. The rays of the sun go out from the sun. We see those rays and seeing the rays, we understand that we're seeing the sun.

That's the same thing Jesus does. You see the Son, you see the Father (John 14:9). If you don't think you're looking at the Father when you look at the Son, then when you see the rays of the sun, don't believe you're looking at the sun, because the image is exactly the same.

So he says first of all, He is the radiance of the glory of God; and then secondly, He is the "express image of the person of God."

Now what does that mean? Well, if you've ever had occasion to do any stamping, you know that when you put the stamp on a pad, you put it down on a piece of paper that there is something left on that piece of paper that is the express representation of that stamp.

Same thing is true when you take a ring and you put a seal on a ring, and in clay, in the Old Testament often they did this. Jesus is the "express image of the Father." That is to say every characteristic the Father has, Jesus also has those characteristics.

Every thing that's in the mind of the Father is in the mind of the Lord Jesus. When it talks about Him being the "express image of the Father," remember that the Bible says, "No one has seen God at any time," (John 1:18). You can't look into the face of the Father, just like you can't look into the face of the sun.

But when you see the Son, Jesus, you are seeing the Father. That means He is the "express image of the Father." "The only begotten Son of God," Who comes from the bosom of the Father, comes to us to represent the Father because He is exactly what the Father is in His personality.

He radiates from the Father; no prophet could make that claim. He is the "express image of the Father;" no other person could make that claim. And then notice thirdly, it says, He is the "express image of His person." He is the express image of the person of God.

Now lots of people today want to know God. They want to be spiritual; they want to find out what God is like. They just don't know how.

And they run around and they sit in holy spots in the earth, and they sit cross-legged and they try to commune with mother earth or somebody else; and they come away very disillusioned because what they are not getting is the person of God.

They're getting the concept of what God ought to be; they're just not getting the God of the Bible. Now the Bible's pretty clear about this. You want to get an image of the person of God; you want to know Who God is; you want to get to know God well; you get to know God, the Son well, and you will get to know God the Father.

The more I get to know Jesus, the more intimate I become with Him, the more intimate I become with the Father. He is the real thing. He is the genuine article. Why? Because Jesus is superior to all the prophets in what He does, Who He is, the power that He has, and specifically, in His person.

Look at this, "Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

What did Jesus do as a prophet? Well He represented the Father; He spoke for the Father. He says, "The Words that I speak are not my own, they are from the Father above," (John 12:49, 50).

But Jesus did something for me that no other prophet can do for me. He "purged" my sins, and when He finished, He "sat down at the right hand" of the Father.

We talked a little bit about this yesterday. Jesus is superior to all the other prophets because while the prophets may speak for God, at least the true prophets speak for God, Jesus did more than speak for God. As God, He came to die for me, and that is not true of any other prophet.

By the way, it's not true of any other scientist, either. So wipe Isaac Newton off of your list. Wipe all the 99 on Michael Hart's list in his book, The 100, none of those people can compare to the Lord Jesus because Jesus is superior to all of them; superior to all angels; superior to all people; superior to all the prophets.

Nobody delivers a message like Jesus delivers because nobody's message is about himself purging me from my sins. And that's only true of Jesus.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to go to God's heaven, you have to go in God's way. And Jesus is the only way there is. I'll be back in just a minute to wrap up for today.

(Music)

Tami Weissert:  You know, the world says that one religion is as good as the next, that all roads lead to heaven, and that you shouldn't be so . . . you know, "picky"! But that's NOT what God's Word says. In fact, the book of Hebrews makes it clear that Christ is superior in every way. And the best part is that we can have a personal relationship with Him.

Now, if you want to learn more about all that's written in Hebrews, then don't miss any of this exceptional series. But if that's just not possible, then here's your solution. Order the Hebrew series on CD or DVD! Both formats include the entire series; it's over 6 hours of Dr. Kroll's teaching ready for you to listen to or watch at your convenience.

And listen, if you've never ordered from us before, now's the time because we have something special to go along with your first time purchase. It's a perpetual desk-top flip calendar, filled with daily Bible verses and comments from Dr. Kroll. It's called Our Passionate God, and it's sure to grace your desk, and your day!

So again, give us a call to order the complete Hebrews series on CD or DVD! And remember, if this is your first purchase from Back to the Bible, be sure to mention it and we'll send you the desk-top flip calendar, free of charge. Just call our toll free number at 1-800-759-2425.

Well, Dr. Kroll, the whole way through the teaching today, particularly the last segment, I think you mentioned that nothing compares to knowing Jesus Christ. And that kept going through my mind that nothing compares to Christ. Nothing; nothing.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, that's what impresses me about the Book of Hebrews. Let me be honest with you, Hebrews is not an easy book to study because so much of it is written to Jewish people, and you know, if you're a Gentile, you just don't have that background.

But if you keep in mind that the purpose of Hebrews is to compare Jesus to a variety of other things, and Jesus always comes out on top, then you've got the idea of what Hebrews is about.

Tami Weissert:  OK now, tomorrow, yet another comparison, but not to a being and not to a person.

Woodrow Kroll:  No, tomorrow we're actually going to compare Jesus to the Sabbath rest. We're moving on into chapter 4 tomorrow, and we want to see exactly what the Bible says, what it means when it says, "There remains for the people of God a rest."

If you're feeling a little weary today, you may want to have that rest. But do you know what it is? We're going to compare the Sabbath rest of the Old Testament with Jesus as the Eternal Rest in the New Testament. All that here tomorrow on Back to the Bible.

Well thanks to you for being a part of our discussion today. Thanks to you for joining our personal Bible study at home, as well. It's always good to have you as a part of our study group.

God bless you; I'm Woodrow Kroll. My prayer is the same everyday for you at this time, that you would have a good and godly day. For of what lasting value is a good day, if it's not also a godly day?

*The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, Michael H. Hart, Citadel, 2000.

Scripture in today's program comes from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.