Christmas is Revelation

A man hears from God. This is revelation. He responds in obedience and begins to order his life according to that revelation. He writes down the revelation. He builds an altar to the God who has addressed him. He tells his family and friends what he has heard from God. That is the beginning of religion, something which can be described by a human observer about the activities of another human being.

Most people do not want to simply be part of a religion. They want to know that the religion has a divine and supernatural reality behind it, that it is based on revelation.

The author of the Book of Hebrews starts his treatise by reminding the readers of a long history of God’s revelation among them: In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways (Hebrews 1:1). “Hebrews” are the people who sprang from Abraham, the father of the faithful. The ancient root of the word “Hebrew” may mean “to cross over,” referring to Abram leaving Ur of the Chaldees, crossing the Euphrates River, and coming to Canaan. This journey was in response to a word God spoke to him. God told him to leave Ur and go to this new land. This word from God was a revelation to Abram. The God of the universe spoke to him and wanted to be his friend. Abram responded by believing God and doing what God told him to do.

Thereafter followed a long succession of men and women who heard from God and sought to be faithful, people like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Ruth, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Every Sunday these first readers, followers of Jesus, heard readings from the ancient texts of Moses and the Prophets.

The God who had been speaking spoke again. This in itself is not something new. He is the God who speaks as well as the God who acts. This time, however, the nature of the revelation is qualitatively different. In contrast to how God spoke in the past through the prophets, this time he spoke to us “by his Son.”

The long history of prophetic speech is what Judaism is about. It was legal in the Roman Empire to practice the Jewish religion. This business about God’s Son was a new idea. And it was not legal in the Roman Empire to adhere to that religion. The author of Hebrews went right to the sticking point—Jesus Christ, his person and work.

THE NEW REVELATION IS FAR SUPERIOR TO THE OLD ONE: But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe (v2)

Anyone would prefer to deal with the Son rather than other messengers. When you are dealing with the Son, you are dealing with the Father. The new revelation is superior in every way to the old one because it is all about what the Son unfolds.

As would be typical with a Father-Son relationship, this Son is both the HEIR and the AGENT. He is the HEIR because the Father is giving everything to his Son. To use a Saints metaphor, this is like Tom Benson passing on the Saints to his granddaughter, Rita Benson LeBlanc. The Son is also the AGENT of the Father’s activity—“through whom he made the universe.” Rita Benson is stepping into the limelight as the new Owner. Everyone is going to have to deal with her now. The Son has been the agent of the Father for all Eternity. This was so even before the universe came into existence. So he holds this position of HEIR and AGENT for time and eternity.

The Son is described here in three other ways (Hebrews 1:3-4):
1. The Son is the RADIANCE of God’s glory. The glory of God RADIATES from the throne room like the sunlight radiating from the sun, and that RADIANCE is his Son. We have never seen anything like this on Planet Earth. We have heard second hand from the prophets. But we have never before heard from the Son himself who is the Father’s very essence.
2. The Son is the EXACT REPRESENTATION of the Father’s nature. We have had glimpses of God in the past. We have pieced together the revelations that came through the various prophets and patriarchs. We have a faithful representation of the God who made us and loves us, but it is done in PENCIL, in black and white, and the resolution is not too sharp.
Now comes the Son. He is the revelation of God in living color, in HD 1080p and Dolby sound. He is the 12 megapixel revelation of God.
3. He SUSTAINS ALL THINGS by his Powerful Word. The Son is the power which sustains this universe and holds it together. The very fabric of being would unravel without the Son holding it together.

This is the New Revelation, far superior to anything that came before, which makes us Christians instead of Jews or pagans or atheists or agnostics.

The Son’s work is described in one half sentence, “He had provided purification for our sins” (v3). This is what the Son of God accomplished. He came to deal with sin.

Then he sat down at the position of power in the throne room of heaven. He sat down because his WORK was DONE. This is the meaning of “it is finished” which Jesus uttered from the cross.

And this is the meaning of Christmas. God has “in these last days” spoken to us through his Son who revealed the very nature of God, died on the cross for our sins, and sat down at the center of the universe having completed the work he came to do.