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).

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!

We should only be listening

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.  The Bible says in Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at various times and in various way spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son . . .”

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 and fuller 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).  God has spoken … Are you listening?

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.”