Hebrews 1:1-4 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, whom 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, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

But if all the writer did was tell us that the Son is fully God, we might wonder why He is a voice that we humans can hear. We might marvel that within the Godhead there is a plurality of persons, but it might take us no closer to those persons within God’s being.

But the writer of Hebrews in this section, as in the whole book, is showing us that the Son is not only God in the fullest sense, but the Son is also Man in the fullest sense.

II. You Can Hear God Through the Son Because He Is Man

And here he gives us three ways that the Son is fully Man, the Anointed Man.

a) The Son is the Ascended King-Priest

when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

The Son Himself, using His own Person, and His own assumed human nature, became man, and purged our sins. The writer doesn’t tell us how here; he’ll do that at length later on. But here he simply tells us that the Son did the work of a priest – the purging and cleansing of sin.

Priests were people with equal sympathies with God and man. They were men themselves, and so had sympathy with men. They were representing men to God as members of the human race, but also men chosen by God. They were making atonement for those people before God. They had sympathies with the holiness of God, with the need to cleanse sin. They were placing their hands on both parties, so that men could approach God, and God could draw near to men.

The writer says the Son did that for us, and then it says, He did something unusual. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (a reverent way of saying, the right hand of God). Now in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, for all their amounts of furniture, there was one kind of furniture that it never had: chairs. There was nowhere to sit in the Temple, because the priests weren’t meant to sit. They were meant to stand and move and do their work, and then exit. Priests didn’t sit.

What kind of person sits down? Biblically, sitting down at the right hand meant being the chosen king.

Psalm 110:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

Ephesians 1:20-22 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,

That doesn’t mean an actual chair in Heaven, with Jesus sitting on the right. It means that when Jesus ascended, as God-man, He took up the position of the man who is King. He is the King-Priest, as was Melchizedek, whom we’ll study later on in this series.

Why should you listen to the Son? Because He is a human like you, with full sympathies for your condition. He successfully dealt with your obstruction to knowing God: sin, and is now at the right hand of God as ruler over the realm.

This exaltation of Jesus as King-Priest leads us to the second thing the writer says about the Son of Man:

b) The Son is Heir of All Things

whom He has appointed heir of all things

The heir of all things means that He stands to inherit the universe and its glory. Didn’t He have that inheritance before His Incarnation? He did as Son of God, but the Bible is here referring to His victory as the Son of Man. This is an appointment that has taken place after His Incarnation.

There is now a Man in Heaven, who stands to inherit the universe. That Man is the chosen man, the God-Man, the Messiah. He always had the right to rule as eternal Son, but He now has the right as Messiah, as the obedient Son who suffered and triumphed. This is what Paul means when he writes:

Philippians 2:8-11 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

God has joined the name of Yahweh to the human name Yeshua. Yahveh Yeshua, Jehovah Jesus is the title to which all will bow. That is the name which will receive all glory, and that is the name to which you must join yourself to if you wish to know God. All history is headed to bow at His feet.

You realise, of course, that God is not a name. God is a title, and a noun. Yahweh is a name, but a name that remains mysterious and abstract: I Am That I Am. Yeshua, Jesus, means Yahweh is salvation. We now have the ineffable made effable, the invisible ruler of all now the visible prince of the universe.

Why should we listen to the Son? Because He is the Appointed Man, with the name and person to unite you with God.

That mention of the name leads us to the third description of the Son of Man.

c) The Son is Supreme Over Angels

having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. (Heb. 1:1-4)

Now if the Son is fully God, wasn’t He always better than the angels? He was as God, but as we’ll find out, man in his fallen state is now lower than the angels. But the God-Man obeyed where Adam fell, triumphed, and is now the only Man in the universe higher in rank and power than Michael, Gabriel and all their host.

Ephesians 1:21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

1 Peter 3:22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.

People look to angels as mediators between them and God, they think angels can bring them closer to God. But the writer of Hebrews says, no the angels are a different race to us. There is a man of our race, who is now exalted above the angels – the God-Man, the Son, Jesus Christ.

Notice how in the space of four verses, the writer has shown us that Jesus is the Messiah: Prophet, Priest and King. He is the prophet: God has spoken through Him. He is the priest, He purged our sins by Himself. He is the King: the one seated at God’s right hand, the heir of all things, king over men and angels.

So what do we do with this? Paul told us that the days of looking for other ways to God are over.

Acts 17:30-31 “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

The B.C. days are gone. The A.D. Days have come. After the better, eternal, perfect Son has come, every choice besides him is drawing back, away from God, into unbelief.

But for the Christian who is convinced that Christ is this person, there remains a question. Are you drawing near to God through Christ, or are you drawing back? If you have become fully persuaded that Jesus is the person through which you will hear God and know God, to what degree are you drawing near?

We speak so casually of being Christ-centred. But are you? Does your corporate worship on Sunday look like someone drawing near to Christ? During the week, does your private worship look like one drawing near? We call ourselves Christian – Christ-ones, but are we drawing near to God through Him, or are we quietly drawing back? Are we, as the writer will show us drifting from the Word, doubting the Word, or having dullness toward the Word, despising the Word, or even defying the Word?

Nearly two thousand years ago three men went up a mountain with Jesus. In a moment they saw Him as the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of His person. They saw Moses and Elijah, the law and prophets speaking to Him of His death, and could see He is the ultimate prophet, priest and king. And when Peter began to nervously jabber, a voice came from Heaven:

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5)

That’s the message of Hebrews. That’s God’s message to us today.