If you would like our free newsletters on various religious topics, just send us an email at cdebater at aol.com and free newsletters will be sent to you by mail. Just provide your postal address in your email. The following are samples of some of the newsletters we have available. Does God Believe in Atheists? Part 1 Seventh-day Adventism, true or false? The agony of deceit. The origins of Muhammad's religion. Spiritual warfare. Are psychic mediums communicating with ghosts or demonic spirits? Testimony to the eternal Godhead, the Trinity. From tradition to truth, a priest's story. An Evaluation of the Oneness Pentecostal Movement Mormonism Counterfeit Christianity Turn or Burn Jehovah's Witnesses Deceived Deceivers Links to these newsletters can also be found at our website www.biblequery.org Once on the homepage, simply click on the menu icon at the upper left-hand corner. Then click on the Newsletters button. Feel free to print them out. 1 Peter 3.15 says, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. I just want to commend to you our speaker today, Dr. Tom Nettles. Dr. Nettles is one of the foremost church historians and a great blessing to not only Southern Baptists, but to evangelicals across the world. He has done a tremendous work of scholarship and writing articles and books. He graduated with his MDiv and his PhD. right here in Texas at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where he taught for a number of years. And he taught at Mid-America, and he taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. And starting in 1997, he taught at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as the church history professor and historical theology professor I had the great benefit of studying under Dr. Nettles in 2005, but Dr. Nettles goes way back with this church and our founding pastor, Jackson, to the early days of trying to spread Reformed theology here among pastors in Texas. And so we are delighted to have him to come. Help us celebrate the 45th anniversary of this church and to preach the word of God to us this morning. Come, brother. Thank you. Well, it's been a beautiful, wonderful time of worship today. I have enjoyed being with you and hearing the word and hearing the prayers and participating in the partaking of the symbols of our Lord's body and blood, showing our union with him and showing the perfection of his redemption for us. So thank you for inviting me. Thank you for letting me share in this. I want you to turn with me to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 1. I'm so accustomed to turning on a mic and everything. I'm not supposed to have a mic right now. Okay, okay. I'm going to focus on verses 1 through 4, but I want to read the entire chapter because I believe that beginning with verse 5, we have the writer giving us something of an exposition of what he has spoken about in verses 1 through 4. So Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, and I'm reading from the English Standard Version. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, or by a son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did he ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you." Or again, I will be a father to him, he shall be to me a son. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels' winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end, will have no end. And to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Are they not all ministering spirits set out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for this word. We pray that the glories that it speaks of of our Lord Jesus Christ will become clear as we think about these things together. Help me as I seek to proclaim your word. You have chosen that through the lips of fallen men, men who have experienced the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it is through their lips and through the gifts you have given that people shall hear these wonderful truths of the gospel. So we pray that you would bless your calling and bless your gifting and bless your people in these moments that we have together. For we pray it in Jesus' name, whose glory we simply cannot comprehend, whose power and majesty transcends all that we can imagine. whose loveliness will never be exhausted by our view of him, even in heaven, for we shall continually see the unfolding of his power and his might and his wonder and his love and his reflection of all of these things related to you by the work of the Spirit. So we pray that you would bless us now as we look at your word. In Jesus' name, amen. I think that probably the hymn was selected on purpose, that second verse begins, O Perfect Redemption, the purchase of blood to every believer, the promise of God, the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives. Because I told Greg I wanted to preach on O Perfect Redemption. That's what this passage is about. talks about a perfect revelation. That would be the first point that I deal with. The revelation that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ is a perfect revelation. We're going to talk about this revelation and this redemption comes in a perfect person. We look at him as both God and man. And then we're going to talk about the perfect work that he has done. So let's look at the text and see how the writer unfolds these things for us. He says, Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. Now notice that the word here says that it was at many times and in many ways. We know that there were dramatic effects that some of the prophets had. Jeremiah was told certain things that he should do. Isaiah was told certain things he should do. There was drama involved in what they did. There was weeping. There was proclamation. There was isolation. All of these things were the many ways in which God spoke. There was the direct confrontation of the Word. There were warnings. There were promises of great blessings of salvation at many times and in many ways. These prophets spoke all the way from the town of Enoch the seventh from Adam all the way through John the Baptist who was the last of those pre-messianic prophets who himself saw the one that they had been talking about and was able to announce above all the other prophets as he laid his eyes on him, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's the reason that Jesus said that of all those born among women there's none greater than John the Baptist because John the Baptist was the prophet appointed by God who did not merely see the future and speak about Christ as coming in the future and talk about the things that he would do, but he saw Christ himself, he pointed to Christ himself, He said this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was the one involved in showing that this message of repentance was a message of salvation. He baptized the Lord Jesus Christ showing that He would give Himself unto death and He would be raised from the dead. All of these things John the Baptist did. When we have Enoch, the record that we have of what he said, it was a message of absolute fallenness. It was a message of great perversity. It was a message of what had happened to the world since the fall of Adam and Eve and before the flood. And he announced these things. But we also then had prophets that came that would announce not only do we see the world in a perverse state, not only do we see it fallen, but we have prophets who would talk about one who was coming, that would talk about redemption, that would talk about our sin being laid on him. As Isaiah says, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. We have Jeremiah talking about the new covenant that will come where the law is written on our hearts. We have Ezekiel talking about taking out the heart of stone and putting in the heart of flesh. And so there were many times and in various ways and we have an increasing amount of material that is given to us, increasing clarity about what this Messiah will do, how this world that is so fallen and so perverse, which Enoch talked about, all the way until the time when this Messiah comes and he will turn the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children he will bear our sins and he will be seated at the right hand of his father who sent him all of these things were proclaimed and now we have the one who has come the prophets spoke in this way many of them various times various ways but we also know that they often were not very confident of their calling they were not confident of their qualifications We have Habakkuk wondering how in the world God can do what he's doing and questioning God, saying, Oh God, aren't you too pure to behold evil? How can you punish your people through these Chaldeans that are going to come? And then he challenges God. In chapter 2 of Habakkuk he says, I will set myself and I will wait for him to answer me and he'll tell me why he's doing these things this way. And we have Jeremiah saying, oh, I'm just too young. I cannot do this. And God tells him, no, I've called you. I've ordained you before you were in the womb. This is what you're going to do. I'll make your forehead like flint. And then we have Jeremiah having these lamentations all the way through. We see that he is wondering why, and lamenting the various sins of the people, and the rejection of his message, and his being put down in a pit, and then his being taken out of that land during the invasion, and taken down to Egypt, and all of the turmoil that comes to these prophets. And we have Jonah who is told to go, and Jonah does not want to go. Jonah tries to escape, but in this one through whom the Lord has spoken now. We do not have this partial way of revealing. We do not have just an incremental gaining of knowledge about him. We do not have any kind of insecurity about his message. We do not have any kind of weak and perplexed man who does not understand what is happening, but we have one who proclaims himself to be God himself. He is one who knows the Father. He is one who is absolutely confident of His knowledge, confident of His work, confident of His victory. He is one that is called a Son. In these last days, He has spoken to us by a son it's a it's a word that does not have an article with it and so it usually carries the idea that he is one who is of the nature of a son he is not a created being he is not one who has come uh simply as solely as a children of man although he was born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who are under the law but he is one who is of the very nature of god he is a son he partakes of the nature of his And since his father is eternal, his father is omnipotent, his father is immutable, his father is holy, his father is righteous, his father is powerful, he partakes of the nature of his father and he himself is all those things. He is the prophet who is not insecure, who is not lamenting the call that he has. who is not resisting it in any way, but he is the one who has absolute and perfect confidence in his standing before God. We remember that when Jesus was talking to his disciples in the book of John in the 14th chapter, and he talks about he's going away, and they ask him, Lord, where are you going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, he says, you would have known my father. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. And then Philip says, Lord, show us the Father. It is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long that you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, that there is a vital union between myself and the Father? that who the father is in himself and all of his attributes. I am. I am that because eternally I am proceeding from the father. Eternally I am generated by the father. Eternally the father is my father and I am his son in that I share his nature. The Father is in me and I am in the Father. There is an unbroken union between the Father and myself so that when you see me, you see every attribute of the Father. When you see me, you see one who possesses all the power of the Father. Haven't you seen this when I fed the 5,000? Haven't you seen this when I walked on water? Haven't you seen this when I cast out demons? Haven't you seen this when I healed those who were blind and those who had leprosy and those who could not speak? Haven't you seen this? Haven't you seen that I control all things, that I am the unique moral power of the universe, that I am the one who has created all things and I control all of nature by my own hand and by my own word? Haven't you seen this? Do you not know that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? How can you say, show us the Father? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Both my words and my works are from the Father. He dwells in me. What the Father does through me is what I myself would do because I am of the nature of my Father. The words that I speak, in fact, my very being is itself an expression of who the Father is and so in these last days he is not spoken to us through one like Jonah he is not spoken to us through one like Enoch he is not spoken to us through one even like Moses except that he was the one that Moses that to whom the promise was given about whom the promise was given to Moses when he said a prophet will arise like you but this prophet will speak the words this prophet will be eternal He is not one like Jeremiah who said, I'm too young, I cannot do this. He was not one like Habakkuk who questioned how God could do some of the things he did. He was a son. He was not like those prophets. He was in the Father. The Father was in Him. If we've seen Him, if we've heard Him, the words that He speaks are the words of the Father. In times past, God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets, at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, He's spoken to us by a Son. Now, we see that he is the perfect revelation. All that he says and all that he does is an unvarnished, unmistakable, infallible revelation of who God is, who the Father is. And this is also manifest to us through the work of the Spirit. who came upon the Lord Jesus Christ and who worked even within his humanity to bring him to a point of righteous perfection so that there was a perfect operation of Father, Son, and Spirit in the work that Christ had done. So he is a perfect revelation. Now when the Lord Jesus Christ went back, his revelation was not complete. He told his apostles that I have yet more to say to you, but you cannot bear these things now. But when he, the spirit of truth, comes, he will lead you into all truth." And so Christ, in his ascension, we learn that he gave gifts to the church. And we have these gifts spoken of in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and Ephesians 2.20, Ephesians 3.5, Ephesians 4.11, throughout this that these apostles that were given, the apostles who were to receive the words of God, these apostles who were to be inspired by the Spirit to recall these things of Christ, to recall His words and to interpret for us what Christ's work is, the apostles were to carry on the work of Christ. They were an extension of his own prophetic ministry. And when their work was done, when they had said what they had to say, then Christ's prophetic work was perfect. It was complete. All that he was going to say to us about his person, about his work, about redemption, about the future, about resurrection, about forgiveness, about justification. All that he was going to say about that, he had lived within himself and he has revealed and explained to us then through the apostles. And so we have a perfect revelation. We can rejoice in this. We can worship God with great joy because he has not left us in darkness, even more than we can absorb, more than we can know. more than we can understand has been told us by the Lord Jesus Christ himself is recorded in the pages of scripture as given to us through the apostles that he gave to the church. He revealed these things, these things that were hidden from before the foundation of the world. The mystery, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 3, was revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit. The apostles were given this, the prophets in the various churches where apostles could not be, they were given revelation and then the revelation was complete. A perfect revelation that is the foundation of this perfect redemption. The second thing we see in this text is that it is the perfect person who brings this redemption about. We learn very quickly that this person is, in fact, God. We see his deity. The text tells us he is spoken to us by a son, one of the very nature of God. And then an exposition of this, he says, whom he appointed the heir of all things. We learn more about that later. Why is he the heir of all things if all by his power and by his glory and by his dominion he already owns all things? How can he be appointed the heir of all things? Well that is because of his work of redemption and it is right that he be appointed the heir of all things because his redemption was wrought in his deity as well as his humanity. So he is appointed to this by God the Father because of a work that he has done that is complete and this work that he has done is possible only because of the person that he was. He has been appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world. God's power, God's rationality, God's beauty, God's purpose was manifest perfectly through the power of the sun in bringing the world into existence. All of the power of God was manifest in this. The revelation that we have, that we have spoken about, is something that actually began in the creation because the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. We learn from moments one that even His eternal power and Godhead are revealed to us through the things that are made so that they are without excuse. God's work of revelation and the Son's work of revelation was begun in the time when He called these worlds into existence. The Father, the Spirit, all manifest their power through the Son as He speaks and brings the world into existence, through whom He created the world. He says then also that He upholds the universe by the word of His power. The same Word that brought the world into existence is the Word that sustains it. The same Word that called all things to be as they are, that put within them all the mechanisms by which they operate, that caused the perfect symmetry of the world, that caused all things to work in accordance with perfectly rational laws, but things that go far beyond our ability to grasp and understand. We will spend our entire lives in the lives of all the scientists, in the lives of all the philosophers, in the lives of all those who do experimentation, discovering the secrets that are in the world, learning more and more about how to subdue the earth, and all of it in reality is an exploration of the beauty and the power and the wonder and the excellence and the infinite knowledge and perfect rationality of the speaking of the Son. He upholds all things by the power of His Word. He upholds the universe. He called it into being, and that same being that created it is the being that holds it into existence in that very way. Jesus is the one who speaks to us through the universe because he is God. He has brought it into being, and he sustains it in its being. He created it, he upholds it, and he is therefore the heir of all things, as we've already seen. Well, we know he is God not only because of his creative power, but because the words that are describing a hymn or words that are very powerful indeed. It says, In these days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. the radiance of the glory of God, all the rays that come from God. Those rays consist of the very essence of the One through whom they are coming. He is the radiance. The sun is a powerful source of energy and the rays that come from the sun have all the same elements, all the same power in them and shed their light upon the earth and give everything that the energy of the sun is designed to give to us. He is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact imprint of His nature. This is why Jesus could say, He that has seen me has seen the Father. If you've heard my words and you know that they are words of wisdom and words of truth, then you've heard the Father. If you've seen my miracles and you've seen my power, then you have seen the work of the Father. If you have heard my prayers and understand my absolute dependence upon the Father, my perfect submission to His will, and you realize that the confidence I have that I have been sent by the Father and I will be sustained by the Father because the glory of the Father Himself is bound up in the work that I'm doing, then you know that I am the perfect representation of the Father. He that has seen me has seen the Father. He is the exact imprint of his nature. And so his deity is something that makes him the perfect person. But also it is his humanity. Notice what it says in verse 4. It says, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." Well, was it his name as son already more excellent than theirs? Wasn't his position as son, as being God, already more excellent? What does the writer mean? Has he made a mistake? Has he gone back on his own word here? Is he trying to fool us? Is he trying to move us from one position and say, ah, fooling, this is what I really mean. No, he's talking about the same person. When he says, having become is much superior to the angels, then he has in mind that there is something that caused him to be below those glorious creatures. And we learn, as the writer goes on and explains these things, we learn exactly what that is for. And so he doesn't waste any time getting to it. In Hebrews, the second chapter, when he's talking about the promises that God had made to humanity out of Psalm 8, When he said, you've made him a little while lower than the angels, you've crowned him with glory and honor, you've put everything in subjection under his feet, and then he goes on to say, but it's clear that now when he promised you put everything under his feet, nothing is left that's not under his feet, but we do not yet see man in that position. So what happened? Well, there was a fall. The world was under a curse. Thorns and thistles infested the ground. Animals became wild. Humanity was turned against itself. Nature was turned against humanity. Humanity now only makes its living through great toil and sweat and fighting the curse of this world. And so the text tells us, but we see Him, in verse 9, we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. And then he goes on to say in verse 10, for it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all come from one origin, or all have one nature, or all are of one. He's saying that this one shares our nature. He is like us. So we have this strong affirmation of the deity of the one who is the revealer, the perfect revelation. And we also have an affirmation of the humanity of one. Look at what he says in verse Verse 10. You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth from the beginning, the heavens the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same. Your years will never end. To which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand? till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." He had come. In a sense, he had made enemies. Psalm 2 tells us that the kings of the earth have risen up against him and warns the kings of the earth to turn to the sun lest he be angry. And so this exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the point at which he has become as much superior to the angels, this exaltation comes after a great victory he has won. And this great victory he has won not only is in his deity, but in our very nature. It is in the nature of those who need redemption. It is in the nature of those who have fallen. It is in the nature of those who are experiencing the curse, not only in themselves, but in the fallen world. And He has come and has absorbed all of that into Himself, and because He has done this successfully, having made purifications for sin, at that point He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty, having become as much superior to angels. as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. And so we see one who for a little while was made lower than the angels, taking our nature upon himself, winning a victory that we could not win, having completed it, perfected it, so that it is now a reflection of the holiness and the righteousness, the beauty, and the intelligence and creativity of God, the perfect manifestation of it, and so he is set down at the right hand of the majesty on high. But we see also Not only is he God and not only is he human, but he is not these two things in separate persons. That would do us no good if he were simply separate persons, if he were God who is inhabited by a human or if he is a human that is simply inhabited morally by God so that God controls his mind and controls his morals, but he is one person. He is mysteriously this one who is God-man. He has a full divine nature. He is the Son of God. He is one of the nature of a son. He has a full human nature. He is one with us. He was born of a woman, born under the law. He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit at the same moment that the power of the Most High overshadowed him so that the Holy Thing conceived in her was to be called Son of God, Son of the Most High. That one person at the moment of conception without any fragmentation of time at all, the eternal generation of the Son absorbed to himself that human nature that was a result of the impregnation of Mary by the creative work of the Holy Spirit so that that single person is to be called Son of God. That single person is the only one who is qualified to do the work that he was called upon to do. He must do a work that is honoring to God, that is infinite in its excellence, that has a perfect understanding of the mind of God and the will of God and the purpose of God, so he must be God. He must share everything about God, everything the Father knows, everything the Father is, he must be. But he also must represent us, that single person must take to himself all of the burdens that we had, but he must not have to pay for himself in any sense. He must not be liable to God's wrath, he must not be liable to any kind of punishment, but he must be able to take to himself the burdens of another. And he can only do that if he is fully human, if he shares our nature. And so this one was the perfect person. We see verse six says, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. So in verse five, we have an affirmation of the eternal deity. in exposition of what he has said when he says that he's revealed himself to us by a son. He says, for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Well, that is a quotation out of Psalm chapter two. When he says, after he has talked about all the things that the son is going to do, he says, verse seven, I will tell of the decree. In other words, I'm going to tell something that was decided by decree before the foundation of the world. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. This happens in eternity. These are the words of the father to the son, speaking of the fact that he is in reality the begotten son of God, the one begotten of God. First John 5 says very clearly that the one begotten of God keeps him, keeps those who believe in him. And this is the generation of the Son in eternity. I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession. And so this is confirmed then when he comes into the world, it says, let all God's angels worship him. So this is one who eternally was in the nature of God. This is one who was born of a woman. This is one who shares our nature. This is one who can perform a perfect redemption because he is infinite in power and glory. This is one who is unified in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. The third point, this leads us then to our third affirmation, is He has done a perfect work. That is, a perfect work of redemption. He has done everything that needed to be done because He is the perfect revelation of God. He is the perfect person in which these things can be done, and He accomplishes it with absolute fidelity. So He has done a perfect work. Notice what verse six Going back to verse four, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He had performed his work. He had done it. It was complete. It honored the father so that now he is put in the position of the redeemer king. The one who reigns over the world after the curse has been removed, after everything that relates both to the justice of God and the mercy of God has been accomplished in him. He is the one who will show the power and wonder and justice and righteousness of God in condemning the unbeliever. He is the one that will show the grace and the mercy and the righteousness of God and the loving kindness and the patience of God by redeeming the elect and ushering them all the way into heaven. Verse 8 says, Of the Son, He says, your throne, O God, is forever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. What does it mean that he loved righteousness and hated wickedness and as a result he's been anointed with the oil of gladness? What does it mean that he has become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs? It's because the work that he was sent to do was to live a life of perfect righteousness, to be tested in every point like as we are yet without sin, He was the one who offered up loud cries and tears to God, to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. And being made perfect, Hebrews 5 tells us, being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all of those who obey him. He is set down at the right hand because he loved righteousness and he hated wickedness. He gained a perfect righteousness in himself. He showed the horrible nature of wickedness by becoming a propitiation for us. Hebrews 2 again tells us. beginning with verse 17, Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. So he became a propitiation. He was a substitution because he took our nature He loved righteousness. He hated wickedness. He showed it by his life of righteousness through being tested. He became perfect and therefore the source of eternal salvation to all who trust him. And after that perfected righteousness was his, he went and he showed further the power of righteousness by becoming a propitiation for our sins. And then he showed that this sacrifice was fully accepted because God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand. because he has loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. He has become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." We have the affirmations of his perfection in chapter 2, verse 10. It was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Then chapter 5 verse 9, in being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Chapter 6 verse 20, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf having become a high priest forever. after the order of Melchizedek, he is being forever the high priest, means a perfect sacrifice has been offered. Chapter 7 verse 28 where the writer of Hebrews again emphasizes this, for the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, But the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever." And Jesus knew the very moment in which this perfection came when he said, it is finished. He was given the wine and he said, into your hands I commit my spirit. It was over. It was finished. The propitiatory work was done. He completed that which other things could not make perfect. Chapter nine, verse nine says, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. Chapter 10, verse one, for since the law has, excuse me, has but a shadow, of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. And then verse 14. for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." So this is a perfect offering, a perfect propitiation offered by one who had perfect righteousness so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow. He's been given the name that is above every name. Joseph was told, you will call his name Jesus. for he will save his people from their sins. Mary was told that you would conceive of the Holy Spirit and the child would be named Jesus. In chapter 2, when they carried him and circumcised him, they named him Jesus. Philippians 2 says, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Peter preached, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This is the perfect person who is the perfect revelation, who brings about the perfect work in order that we might have a perfect redemption. He has overcome the curse. Enoch's prophecies about the wickedness in the world was a true prophecy that set forth Great perversity that comes shows the depths of how those that are made in the image of God can express their rebellion, express their immorality, and express all kinds of perversities. But then we begin to see that one is going to come because of a covenant relationship that was established immediately, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, and that this covenant would continue through Abraham, and then it would be set forth in Moses, and then it would be set forth to David, and to all of his posterity, and finally, it would result in a covenant relationship in which not only a perfect redemption would be offered, but the work of the Spirit to make us see that and receive that and want that, the covenant in which the heart is changed. And then Jesus Christ himself comes and he consummates in himself all of these prophetic words. He overcomes the curse that is in the world, He subdues the earth to himself. He redeems a people for himself. He rescues this people from not only the curse of this world, but because there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. But he redeems them also from the curse that is on them because of their sin. So the writer of Hebrews is speaking to us about something that we desperately need, the most important thing in the world, the thing that transcends all political wisdom and all scientific wisdom and all philosophical speculation, the thing that transcends all artistry and all beauty that we can manufacture as we try to copy the things in this world, that transcends all of these because it is a perfect redemption. So let's thank God for the redemption that he's brought about in the one through whom he spoke the world into existence, the one who is the heir of all things, the one that he continues to uphold the world by, but the one who is now, because of his work, sat down at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Let's bow for prayer. Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for the redemption that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that we would see him as our only hope, that we would flee to him. We pray that we would see him, in him, all the beauty of perfect deity. We pray that we would be able to sing with great conviction of heart, Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, O thou of God and man the Son, thee will I cherish, thee will I honor, O thou my soul's glory, joy, and crown. Amen. Wow. Y'all can't see it from your vantage point, but affixed inside the pulpit is a gold plaque that says to the person who's in the pulpit, usually me, sir, we wish to see Jesus. And this morning in Hebrews 1, I certainly saw Jesus. Thank you very much, Dr. Nettles, for that great blessing. If you like our YouTube channel, please subscribe. by clicking on the subscribe button and then by also clicking the bell above to get an automatic update whenever we produce another YouTube video for our See Answers TV channel. Please share our videos with your friends and relatives. May God bless you. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what is done for Christ will last. See related videos by tapping or clicking screens.