Daily Meditations

Hebrews 1:3b Jesus is the exact representation of God have no arguments with the doctrine of the Trinity, even though it does not appear in the Bible. What does slightly worry me is that many Christians rank the three persons, so that God the Father is top, Jesus Christ is next, albeit slightly diminished, and then, at the bottom,  comes the Holy Spirit! That may not be deliberate or necessarily the position taken by all, it is certainly not what is taught here in Hebrews. Jesus did, of course, hint at deference to His Father when He said things like “ I must be about my Father’s business.”  We unwittingly read this in a human context and assume that He was behaving like any good, obedient Son. He was! But the relationship is far more complex than the paternal one that we humans understand. The man who walked the earth as a humble healer and teacher from Nazareth was and is, fully and wholly God!  Every quality and attribute that we assign to God the Father is e...

Hebrews 1:3a The exact representation of His being We all know how impossible it is to actually look at the sun in the sky. It is so bright, so brilliant, that unless there is cloud cover or we are wearing dark glasses, we will damage our eyes by trying to observe this heavenly wonder. But, the sun would not be the sun unless it shone brightly, would it? The glory of that heavenly object is revealed by the radiance that pours out of it. It is the same with Jesus Christ the Son of God, He has always existed, but His true glory is that the fulness of the radiance of God Almighty that shines from His being. He is God and everything that we can possibly know about God shines out from Christ, everything that God wants us to know about Himself can be seen in His Son.  The author of Hebrews takes this a step further, Jesus is not just a well-designed replica of the original, He is an exact representation of God. If we look closely, we cannot see anything that would distinguish the Son fro...

Hebrews 1:2 Heir of all things Phew! How do we embrace all the truths that are wrapped up in this short verse that extols and expands the roles and the significance of God’s Son? Firstly, He is God’s declaration to the world; every word and every action of Christ Jesus is a word to us from heaven. He is the outspeaking of God which is why John confidently refers to Him as the “the Word.” (John 1:1) He is the fulfilment of the predictions of the prophets, He is the explanation and the extension of everything that had been previously known, Jesus is God speaking to us.  We should never underestimate the power, authority or significance of Christ for this world, indeed the entire universe, was created by Him and for Him, and will, one day, be ruled over by Him. The insignificant rabbi from Nazareth, dismissed and ignored by so many, is actually the ultimate inheritor of our planet and will rule over it in the ages to come. Everything and everyone that God created, is intended for Him....

Hebrews 1:1 God speaks through His Son Remember, this wonderful book of the Bible is written primarily to Jewish believers, men and women steeped in the Scriptures and who have made their faith into a religion that stood head and shoulders above any of the world’s great faiths. Does this mean that Hebrews is not really for us Gentiles? Of course not! What it does is to bring the Jews and the Church seamlessly together and it shows how both have an equal part in the plan of Almighty God.  The Jews are highly privileged; they are God’s earthly people with a heritage that includes a specific land and access to all the revealed words of God up to the coming of Christ. When we read about “the Scriptures” in the New Testament the authors are not talking about the Gospels or Paul’s letter or any book of the Bible between Matthew and Revelation; the Scriptures are the Tanakh or what we call the 39 books of the Old Testament. When Paul wrote  “ All Scripture is God-breathed and is usef...

  After a wonderful pilgrimage through the Psalms of the Bible, it became a dilemma to try to work out where to go next in our musings. I pondered Ephesians, since that is a wonderful, heavenly explanation of who we are and all that the Lord has done for us, it also covers the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and the nature of the spiritual war that we are involved in. However, it is impossible to take a verse from Ephesians and writer a bite-size commentary on what it means! Then it became clear, it has to be Hebrews. No Scriptures are more quoted in the Book of Hebrews than the Psalms, in fact the writer composes much of his letter as a series of arguments from the Psalms showing us how Jesus came to fulfil so much of what is written by the ancient songwriters. The Book of Hebrews was written for Jewish believers in Christ, and it sets out to confirm that He fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures particularly as High Priest.  The author of Hebrews remains anonymous alt...

Psalm 150:6 Praise the Lord! In terms of our journey through the Psalms, this is a sad moment indeed. The last verse of the last Psalm is before us. It has been such a rich and fulfilling expedition that I am tempted to go back and start all over again! The Lord has led us through green pastures beside still waters, He has also carried us through the valley of the shadow of death and bid us dine with Him at His banqueting table. Personally, I have faced death on three separate occasions whilst being on this journey and yet, here I am, living and breathing and still praising the Lord! It’s time to move to pastures new and I invite you to come with me. However, before we leave, there’s one more anthem to sing, one more special offering to bring before the altar of our God. If we are living, breathing creatures, then we are called to “Praise the Lord.” That is partly what our lungs and our tongues are for, to take deep breaths and then utter exclamations of glory and honour to the incredi...