The Politcally Incorrect Guide to the Bible.

Another volume in this worthwhile PiG series that aims to debunk the idols of our age - this time they have enlisted Robert Hutchinson on the Bible.

Punchy, thrusting, nervy and pugnacious, this volume dismantles the attacks on the Bible, argues for its integrity and authority and addresses many of the current attacks on Scripture concerning sexuality, liberty and other questions.

This series is a great resource to use for teenage children who enjoy reading. There are suggestions for further reading, quotations and plenty of of nose-thumbing.

We have reinforced that the Bible has been foundational to exploration, science, liberty and freedom and much more.

This stands as a great popular repost to the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens and the latest rock-throwing exercise from the "village atheists".

Vintage Chesterton on Youtube

Here is some old footage and recitation and another.

And J R R Tolkein on The Hobbit.

Reading...

Sermon 30th December 2007 - Christchurch

The Climax of the Covenant
Heb 1:1-4 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,..

Introduction
In the late 1980s there was a rather silly and foolish film called, "Honey, I shrunk the kids". The plot is obvious from the title. But the same thing could be said about us Evangelicals and our vision of the gospel: who shrunk the gospel?

For example take a look at the new version of Isaac Watts' "Joy to the World" where the line,
"He comes to make His blessings flow/ far as the curse is found,"

is replaced with,
"He comes to make His blessings flow/ wherever guilt is found".

This is a reduction of the gospel: the old version saw salvation extending to all creation, the modern as "personal guilt".

At the same time, there have been a spate of books in the last few years, Steve Chalke's "The Lost Message of Jesus", The Lost Gospel of etc.. that express the view that our understanding of the gospel is lacking in some way.

One cannot help sympathizing with that sense, because in some ways it's true, just not in the way that most of the "lost" books describe.
E.g. "4 steps to Jesus" approach, or self-improvement, wholeness, me-gospel, and me-songs.
Our vision of the gospel is a reduced one, when you compare it to the grand vision that Hebrews gives us here in 1:1-4.

The challenge: is our vision of the gospel big enough to align with what we find in this passage?

I. The Gospel is the History of the World
vv1-2a. In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,..
The epistle bursts open, without any of the usual introductions and greetings (hence all the questions about authorship). Whatever the story, this is how God wanted it to look.
Hebrews is written to new Christians, who were formerly Jews (Hebrews) and whose greatest temptation is to fall back into Judaism and the lure of the judaizers.
Therefore Hebrews is all about the transition from Old to New Covenant and what that means.
Therefore, the gospel in 1:1-4 starts with history.
The argument runs like this: God spoke all through the Old Covenant (OT) in many ways: through prophecy, ritual, types, songs; through proverbs, laments, etc.. but now he has spoken to us by his Son.
From immaturity to maturity; form anticipation to realization.

When? "these last days..". What are the last days? The period of the Old Covenant when Christ appeared to bring the old to completion establish the new.
Brown: "in the end of these times". Hence "the meaning is towards the conclusion of the Jewish dispensation." The last days was the period that ended the old covenant – AD30-AD70.
See also 9:26 ".. Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages ..." (see also 12:25-29)
Also I Cor 10:11, ".. us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come."
Not the last days of the history of the world, but the last days of the old covenant.
This reveals Messiah as the prophet.

Therefore the gospel is the true story of the world, the history of the world. The gospel is much bigger than a personal salvation or a renovation programme.

II. The Gospel is about all creation and all of reality.
v2b. ..whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
Messiah has been appointed heir of everything.
This alludes to Ps 2:8. "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession".
The purpose of the incarnation, and of the cross and resurrection is that Christ would inherit the world – the whole creation.
Philip E. Hughes: "his inheritance is the innumerable company of the redeemded and the universe renewed by virtue of His triumphant work of reconciliation."(p.39).
The world is under new ownership, a new man is in charge, a new Adam.
Look at how this linked back to creation: Christ, as the eternal Son of God, created all things, now as the incarnate Son of God he redeems and therefore inherits all things.
To be truly Christ-centered is to see all thing in terms of Him. Not to lock Him away in our inner life, or the church, but to see Him as He is – integral to all things.
E.g. the problem with modern education is not merely falling standards etc, but the shear idolatry of not confessing Christ in every subject, science, English, art or whatever.

III. The Gospel is about God's glory revealed.
v3a. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word...
Now Christ is shown as the shekinah glory of God – the glory cloud that led His people through the wilderness and filled the Temple's Most Holy Place.
Messiah is the full glory revealed. That glory was largely shut away in the Most Holy place, now it is fully revealed in Christ, Another Old to New Covenant argument is implied here.
Calvin: "when you hear that the Son is the glory of the Father's glory, bear in mind that the glory of the Father is invisible to you until it shines forth in Christ.."
He is distinct from the Father, but completely related and connected to the Father, "the exact representation of his being..". (see Jn 14:9; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; 2 Cor 3:1).
Christ is also the Sustainer of the universe: the ultimate reason why this creation does not collapse into nothingness, because it is directly sustained by Christ, the Son of God (Col 1:17).
Modern Science sees impersonal "natural forces" as the "cause" behind everything. This idea is unbiblical and must be rejected.

IV. The Gospel is about the new government of the world.
v3b. ...After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
So, "purification for sins" refers us to Leviticus and Numbers and whole law of sacrifice and the laws of purification: Christ as Priest.
The High Priest could not sit down in the Most Holy place – there was no rest under the Old Covenant. Now Christ has sat down in the Most Holy place of heaven.
But the link is to the ascension and His sitting down at the right hand of the Father. He has assumed the government of the universe. He enters into His inheritance – the rule of the world.
Messiah suffered so as to rule and to reign. We don't think of the Cross properly if it is not strongly linked with the ascension and present reign of Christ – it is one work.
So here is Christ as King – ruler of all creation and Lord of the nations, now.

V. The Gospel is about the superiority of Christ.
v4. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
Therefore, isn't that better than the angels? No angel did any of that kind of thing, only the Son of God. These 1st century Jewish converts there was a temptation to follow teaching about angels.
P. E. Hughes tells us that the Dead Sea sect believed and taught that there would a dual -Messiah, one king and the other priest, but that both of them " would be subject to Michael, thus assigning supremacy to an angelic being in the expected kingdom."
That's the kind of thing that Hebrews is combatting.
We are more likely to relativize Christ's dominion in some other way: pietism, the religion of the inner life; or to compartmentalize our lives and therefore Christ's dominion.

Conclusion
Let's return to the original challenge: how large and expansive is our vision of the gospel?
How Christ-centered are we?
To be Christ-centered is to see everyhting interms of Him as the Creatror, Sustainer, Redeemer and King over all things.
Do we grasp that? Is that what we are telling people?