Note: At the local church I pastor, I preached through the book of Hebrews in 2011, with an eye to "fixing our eyes on Jesus." In this blog, I am reproducing the emails I sent to my congregation by way of Monday morning follow up. Some will recap the message; some augment; and some bring greater application. The sermon audios themselves can be found at www.rpcwc.org. My goal in posting them here is keep before us the Jesus we need to see as the ground and focus of our faith, and the Jesus we want others to see for the sure hope of salvation.
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I get this as a pastor all the time. My guess is you do too if you are seen as the “religious” person in your family or in your office. Someone will give you give you some book on some general spiritual topic or forward some email that has some vague connection to religion, with good intentions that it has value, that will be meaningful to you— a potato that looks like Jesus, a story of someone who died and was drawn into a light that gave a profound feeling of peace and well-being.
Well meaning people view something other worldly as containing spiritual substance and, therefore, being of value. Nowadays, teaching about angels falls into that category. Awe of angels contributes to some sort of vague spiritual experience.
It's hard to say what prompted the writer of Hebrews to contrast Jesus with the angels as he lays out Jesus' C. V. as the Messiah of God. There's nothing to suggest that his original audience venerated angels like those did to whom Paul was writing in Colossians (Col. 2:18). But even without the precipitating reason, it becomes clear to us why Jesus was distinguished from angelic beings.
Angels were spirit beings from the heavenly realms, sent from God, who sometimes took human form. They are mysterious, mighty, even majestic creatures. But they not qualified to save. In contrast to the angels, the writer of Hebrews builds the case that Jesus is the Creator God, the One worshiped by angels. In contrast to angels, Jesus is the Savior, the One heralded by the angels. In contrast to angels, Jesus is the One about whom the entire Old Testament prophesied, the One into whose arrival angels longed to look.
Something spiritual and other-worldly is not sufficient for salvation. The writer of Hebrews takes great pain to bring us to examine the resume of Jesus and, in so doing, to bring us to examine the basis for our faith. Some vague spirituality will not save. Only the Savior described by God Himself in who He is and what He would do (and did do) will atone for our sins and reconcile us to God. No generics--only Jesus. No substitutes--only Jesus. No other way given by God by which we must be saved.
On the reverse side of Jesus' exclusivity is this. We who have fled to Christ in repentance and faith have great hope. We will not be disappointed. It is this Jesus on whom our faith rests and this Jesus whose curriculum vitae we hold up to others as God's given Savior for sinners.
