Grace For The Journey

  The Bible says in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the gory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  and in Hebrews 1:1-3, “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last day spoken to us by His Son, who He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His 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.”  Nothing else can be added to this revelation.  Nothing more is needed.  Christ’s coming has fulfilled the prophetic word.  He has appeared one time at the end of the ages (Hebrews 9:26).  He has made one sacrifice for sin that needs not to be repeated.

Jesus is God’s full and final Word.

God has spoken in His Son.

What else is there to say?

The significance of what He has said and has accomplished

Means that we need no other word from God.

One of the greatest errors of the modern prophetic movement is the failure to believe that Jesus is God’s final Word.  Some in the Christian church are looking for further revelation.  They look beyond the Old and New Testament revelation to dreams, prophecies, and visions.  They believe God is still speaking outside the Scriptural revelation.  Clear biblical teaching is sometimes dismissed because of so-called “new revelations.”  But . . .

We should not be looking

For God to speak

In new and special ways.

He has spoken clearly and finally in His Son.

Someone has said, “Believers await the return of the Son (Hebrews 9:28), but they don’t expect a further word from God.”

God has spoken His last and best word.

No further word is to be expected,

For the last word focuses on

The life, death, and resurrection of the Son.”

Jesus is God’s final Word to man.  Let us therefore hear Him!  This is God’s desire for all mankind.  When Jesus was engulfed in radiant glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, God the Father said to the three disciples that were on the mount with Jesus, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him” (Matthew 17:5).  Like all of God’s commandments, this is exclusive – what He says is not only of utmost importance but nothing else matters if we miss hearing Him.  This phrase has the very words which Moses delivered, when he spoke of the Messiah, the great prophet like unto himself, that should be raised up among the Jews; saying, “unto Him ye shall hearken”, Deuteronomy 18:15.  So that these words, “hear Him” . . .

Most clearly point to Christ,

As being this prophet,

Who is to be heard,

And He only;

Not Moses, but He,

The prophet Moses prophesied of;

Nor Elijah, or any of the other prophets,

But one greater than them all:

Hear and believe His prophecies,

Concerning His sufferings, death, and resurrection,

Listen to, and embrace His doctrines,

As coming from God,

And being divine

And as having a divine authority upon them,

And being confirmed by miraculous works;

Submit to His ordinances,

And obey His commands,

Hear Him always,

And in all things.

God’s people are bidden to turn from every human teacher, even those as revered as Moses and Elias, to listen to our Lord.  To “hear Him” will lead from error and sin into truth, righteousness and fitness for heaven.

How we need to hear what Jesus has to say . . .

1. About the way to God – John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

 2. About the will of God – John 6:38-40, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He have given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who see the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

3. About the work of God – John 3:14-15, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so much the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

4.About the worship of God – John 4:23-24, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

5. About waiting on God – John 14:1-3, “Let ot your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Christ has come.

The saving promises of God

Are fulfilled in Him.

He is coming again,

But all things have been accomplished

For the saving of His people.

He has won the battle and the victory cry has been sounded.  The revelation of God in the Son is full and definitive.

• This revelation is not fragmentary, but complete.
• It is not temporary, but permanent.
• It is not preparatory, but final …

God’s revelation in the Lord Jesus Christ is . . .

• Superior in character, because it is complete.
• It is superior in time, because no revelation will follow it.
• It is superior in destination, because it is to us.
• It is superior in agent because, unlike the Old Testament, which came through feeble human prophets, it has come through God’s Son.”

To whom are we going to listen?

That is the question!

Let us listen to the Son.

Revelation has its consummation in Him.  The progress of revelation has its ultimate peak in the person of Jesus Christ, the One who reveals God in both deeds and words.

Years ago, there was a commercial on television.  I still remember it well.  It involved a young professional telling someone at a social event that E. F. Hutton was his broker.  When he said this, all the background chatter ceased.  Everyone stopped their conversations to listen to him.  The narrator of the commercial then said, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.”

 Lewis Johnson, one-time professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, said, “We measure the worth of words by our opinion and regard for the speaker of them. I know this from my own experience in teaching and writing. When Calvin speaks, I listen. When Owen speaks, I listen.  When Hodge speaks, I listen.  When Warfield speaks, I carefully listen.”

If we listen to others

And value what they say,

How much more should we

Listen to God and Jesus

And value what He says?

God speaks.  He communicates.  He makes Himself known to us.  And when God speaks, every ear should be attentive to what He says.  When God talks, all the world should become silent.  Every ear should strain to hear all that God says.

For what God says

Is of more value and worth

Than all other communications combined.

The introduction to the book of Hebrews contrasts most eloquently the revelation of the past, in which God spoke to His old covenant people through the prophets, to the revelation of the last days (the Messianic age), in which He spoke to His new covenant people in His Son, “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” and “has in these last day spoken to us by His Son” (1:1-2).

The contrast is one that shows how God spoke in times past with how He speaks in these last days.  There is an older communication which took place long ago, at many times and in many ways.  And there is a newer communication in these last days … by His Son.

The author of Hebrews doesn’t speak despairingly of the revelation of the old era, but he indicates that the greater revelation is in the Son of God.  We do not despise or devalue the Old Testament Scriptures, for they are God’s revelation, but they point to God’s greater revelation in His Son.

The apex of revelation is the Christ, the Son of God.  There is no greater revelation than Him.  He is God’s climatic revelation to man.  The Son of God is the Word of God (John 1:1); He is the Word of God incarnate (John 1:14).

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

 Pastor Terry

 Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”