Christ: the Superior Message, Part Four

I. CHRIST, the SUPERIOR MESSAGE

A. Common Jewish Questions Anticipated

1. "How could Jesus be better when He had a human body? Are not the angels better than He because they had no human bodies to limit them?"

B. Context of Angelic Ministration in Jewish Thinking

• a. Acts 7:53; Gal 3:19
• b. Jesus came to be the last Adam, Heb 2:5-13
• c. Jesus came to defeat Satan, Heb 2:14-16
• d. Jesus came to be the sympathetic High Priest, Heb 2:17-18

C. Christ is the Superior Message

1. John 1:1-3, 14

• a. Jesus is the Messenger & the Message

D. Christ in His Deity & Humanity

1. Heb 1:1-14; cf. Heb 2:1-18

• a. Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D.
  --- without confusion
  --- without change
  --- without division
  --- without separation

E. Commentary of Adolph Saphir on vv5-10
"He now wishes to show us what humiliation and sufferings He endured upon earth, and that these did not merely not interfere with His glory, but are the meritorious cause of his exaltation."

F. Considering Today's Texts

1. Jesus, the Founder of Salvation, vv10-11

• a. made perfect through sufferings, v10
• b. the one source of sanctification, v11

2. the "psalm of the cross", v12

• a. Psa 22:22
  --- John 20:17

3. two quotes, v13

• a. Psa 18:2, v13a
• b. Isa 8:18, v13b

4. Jesus' incarnation gives life, vv14-16

• a. angels & prophets merely offered hope in Him
• b. Jesus destroyed the devil's power over death, v14
• c. Jesus delivered the redeemed from the fear of death, v15
• d. Jesus directs His saving grace to men not angels, v16

5. Jesus incarnation fulfills the Sacrifice & the Sympathizer, vv17-18

• a. Saphir quote

6. Jesus' incarnation is the "open secret"

• a. Saphir quote