Christ’s Superiority

A recent study in the New Testament book of ‘Hebrews’ has given rise to consideration of why anyone should accept Christ as superior to other religious leaders and their teachings and beliefs. ‘Hebrews’ is written, predominantly, to first century Jews struggling with how their new faith fulfilled or superseded their previous Mosaic system and also to those who for a variety of reasons had opportunity to research the life and claims of Christ and yet still decide to reject him as their Lord and were opting instead for another religion (usually some form or variation of Judaism). It is also written to those who for whatever reasons were indifferent to Christ, this provides the parallel or contextualisation if you will to current 20th-21st century culture.

The author asserts that Christ is superior in his person and work in every aspect. This is not just applicable to ancient and modern Judaism but also to modern main stream religions, (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc) but also to any number of mystical or new age alternatives and to the ever popular secularism. What follows are some condensed notes (borrowed largely from a MacArthur Study Guide) introducing the discussion of Christ’s superiority. Hopefully they will provide some incentive for further thought and debate.

The recipients
There were three basic types of people in view throughout this epistle.

a) Hebrews who were intellectually convinced and committed to Christ
The book of Hebrews was written to give confidence to floundering believers. They had been raised in Judaism, but they received Jesus Christ as their Saviour. The result was tremendous hostility. They were ostracized from their families, persecuted by their own countrymen, and suffered greatly.

They should have been mature, but they weren’t. They had no confidence. They were in danger of returning to the patterns of Judaism. They were not in danger of losing their salvation, but they were in danger of confusing their salvation with legalism. They couldn’t make a clear-cut break between the New Covenant in Christ and all the ceremonies and patterns of their old life in Judaism. These people had gone beyond Judaism by receiving Jesus Christ, but they were still hanging on to many of the Judaistic rituals that had been so much a part of their life. That’s understandable when their friends and countrymen were persecuting them. They were in great danger of creating a ritualistic, legalistic Christianity. The temptation was to bolster their faith in Christ with trappings of Mosaic ritual. Similar to a child when learning how to swim lacks confidence and wants to rely on floatation devices, if they are to develop in their swimming ability they must let go and strengthen their body and breathing. Likewise a Christian must let go of religiosity and cling to Christ!

b) Hebrews who were intellectually convinced – but had no commitment to Christ
They are only half way there. With Christianity, there are no halfway houses. These people knew the truth about Christ, but never committed themselves to it. You’ve probably met people like that–they are intellectually convinced that Christ is who He claimed to be, but they’re not willing to put their faith in Him because they refuse to acknowledge their inability to save themselves and cast themselves upon the grace of God! This group is guilty of the greatest sin anyone can commit, Rejecting Christ.
Chapter 10, verse 26 says, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” Hebrews 10:26

c) Hebrews who were neither convinced nor committed to Christ - Indifferent
In Hebrews 9 He speaks directly to those people: In verses 27-28 he says,
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

The purpose of the book of Hebrews is three-fold. First, it affirms the finality or completion of Christianity as a revelation. The author states that Christianity is the ultimate, final revelation from God. There is no requirement for a subsequent revelation beyond the closed canon of scripture.

Secondly, the book of Hebrews was written to show the symbolical or typical character of the Mosaic Law and its regulations. By typical, we mean ‘type’ or ‘example.’ The Old Testament sacrificial, and priestly system was an ‘example’ of Jesus Christ.

Third, Hebrews warns against apostasy. The Jews at this time faced two realms of apostasy that needed to be addressed. First, there were those Jews who came to believe in Christ, but because of the pressures put on them, they returned to Judaism. Many of us who have come to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour may feel pressured by societal mores to return to the church/religion where we were born / raised. If we do not return, we are told that we are breaking cultural and family tradition and deserting the links to our heritage. The author’s message to the Hebrews is ‘you can not go back’. If you do, you have not fully understood the revelation of God given through Jesus Christ.

The second realm of apostasy that existed was the turning back of those who never fully came to trust Christ as Lord and Saviour. They had progressed along, evaluating the person of Christ, and the revelation given in Him, but then they turned back to Judaism before they experienced salvation.

The theme of the book of Hebrews can be stated in three words: ‘Christ Is Superior.’ Hebrews demonstrates that Christ is superior in His work, in His person, and in everything connected with Judaism. The point of the author is to prove this fact to the Hebrews by demonstrating Christ’s superiority in the context of Old Testament revelation. Therefore, it is paramount that we understand this point. If the book of Hebrews is correct, the revelation of Jesus Christ supersedes everything and everyone else. It resolves all the questions regarding the other world religions, other worship practices, and the lost people who do not respond to the truth of the Gospel. Everything is measured in the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 1, VERSE 1
The author jumps right away to the first area of Christ’s superiority over the Old Testament Prophets and over the angels. There is no attempt to convey the fact that God has already revealed Himself. The fact that God is a superior being who communicates to man through prophets is already assumed. This a presuppositional presentation, it is not seeking to defend or debate the ultimate cause or truth, rather speaks from the position of truth. Those that come to God must first believe that “he is”. You cannot argue someone into faith; it is a work of God the Holy Spirit.

The writer says, ‘ Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets…’ We are told that God ’spoke’ by the prophets. The emphasis is on the manner of God’s speaking. He wants to contrast two kinds of revelation: inferior and superior. The inferior manner of revelation as seen in verse1 - the Old Testament manner of revelation is compared to the superior manner of revelation - the revelation of Jesus Christ in verse 2.

The Religion Box - an illustration courtesy of John MacArthur.
You and I live in a natural box–we are bound by our existence in time and space. Outside our natural box is the supernatural. Deep down, we know the supernatural exists outside of ourselves, but we can’t know anything about it on our own. There are people who want to discover the supernatural, so they start a religion. They run to the edge of the box and try to chisel holes in it. They figure that a hole will let them crawl out of the box and find God. The various religions of the world are all trying to accomplish the same thing– to escape the natural and enter the supernatural. But there’s one problem: No one can do it. The natural man cannot escape into the supernatural.

You can’t take your clothes off in a phone booth and come out Superman. You cannot transcend your natural existence. If you are ever to know anything about God, it will not be because you escaped to God, but that He spoke to you. You cannot discover God anymore than a bug could understand me. We can’t even condescend to a bug’s level, but God can condescend to ours. He literally became a man and burst into the box to tell us about Himself. That’s what revelation is all about.

Every religion in the world is man’s backward attempt to jump out of the box. But Christianity takes the opposite approach: Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost ” (Luke 19:10). When God burst into the box, He did so in a human form. The name of that human form was Jesus Christ. That’s the difference between Christianity and every other religion in the world. Many people think you can believe in any religion you want. However, you won’t find God by doing so. Every religion is man’s attempt to discover God. Christianity is God bursting into man’s world and telling man what He is like. Man is incapable of comprehending, identifying, or understanding God at all on his own. God must first invade his world. And He did!

Chapter 1, VERSE 2a
Now, the superseding revelation encompasses all other revelation given to that point. This is the point in verse 2a. The writer says (regarding God),
‘… but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…’

God speaks to us the same way today - through His Son. Hebrews was written to teach us what God has to say about His Son. But the problem is that many people today will act just like the Jews concerning the revelation of God. Just as the Jews refused to recognize new revelation, so too, many people today are missing the revelation that God has given us in His Word. What a tragedy.

The next statement the author makes in the first part of verse 2 is that God has spoken to us ‘…by His Son.’ One will notice that in verse 1 God spoke by ‘the prophets.’ Now in verse 2, the definite article ‘the’ is lacking. The emphasis instead is on the relationship between Christ and God, Christ’s ‘Son-ness’ if you will. He is not ‘the prophets,’ rather He is ‘Son’ of God. A prophet is a messenger, while Christ is THE MESSAGE!

So, as a personal challenge, you might be a professing believer, you might attend a Bible teaching church, you might have been baptized, but that is not the issue. The issue is, have you come to understand that Jesus Christ, the revelation of God, died a horrible death on the cross, and will provide eternal salvation for you, the moment you place your faith in Him alone as your personal Saviour? If you do not do this, you are like the Jews who ignored and rejected His revelation, and are deserving of eternal punishment from God. The time of Salvation is today. Do not wait a second longer.