GOD
Hebrews 1:1
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, (Hebrews 1:1)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD Spoke
When we get to the book of Hebrews, God introduces Himself in the very first word. He presents Himself in the sovereign universal word GOD. To many He would be the unknown God, for man has denied Him through the ages, but GOD presents Himself in this wonderful book of Hebrews. The first word . . . GOD is a stop sign. And as your stop and think, What am I here for, what am I looking for, and who is this in these three letters of GOD? THIS is the Sovereign and Omnipotent God of all things.
It is this GOD who gives you breath, who counts the first beat of your heart and the very last beat and breath of your life. He is this GOD Almighty that has created all things. Every atom and every minute particle obey His commands. He created the world that we call Earth for the habitation of mankind; it was to be such a glorious place until Adam brought sin into the world, and at THAT moment there was a fracture between the temporal world and the spiritual world. Adam became alienated from God, and future generations, by sin, would go further and further away from their own Creator. There is no other book in the whole canon of Scripture that begins with the word GOD. Not only do we see a great Creator, but He presents Himself as a holy and righteous Being to mankind. And this GOD is directly connected to man by His Spirit, and according to Hebrews 1:1 GOD has spoken to man by His very word out of His own mouth. Man has been directed by God the Spirit to record the words of God . . . spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. And God has settled His holy word in heaven forever. This great and all-powerful God has declared of Himself that He is the very Author and the very Word of God. It was holy men of God who spoke and wrote His words as they were led of the Spirit of Christ.
Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: (1st Peter 1:10) Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. (1st Peter 1:11) Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. (1st Peter 1:12)
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2nd Peter 1:21)
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:18)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
THE CREATOR
Over and over through the entire canon of scripture God declared Himself as the Creator of heaven and earth. The very first revelation that man received from God was that God Himself was the Creator of ALL things. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) First the heavens were created and then the earth, and this would develop into the SEEN realm and the UNSEEN realm: the temporal and the spiritual. Heaven would be the place of God’s throne, and earth would become His footstool. The great Architect, the great Designer, through His determinate counsels, planned His complete creation from the beginning to the end. God PLANNED the entire history of the heavens, the entire history of the earth, and the entire history of mankind BEFORE He spoke His creation into existence. And the beginning of the creation of God was the Creator: Jesus Christ.
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: (Ephesians 3:9) To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, (Ephesians 3:10) According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:11)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
THE WORD
It is the Lord Jesus who is LORD of every word under His authority. He has bound it together as a continuous stream of the history of man. He has stamped upon the word of God His holy and righteous authority: thus saith the Lord is the very voice of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus declared, during His manifestation upon the earth, that the very words that He spoke were spirit and life. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63) There is no other that could make this declaration, for the very words that He spoke by the prophets are His very declaration of His divine thoughts and actions. By the word of God, He has created all things, and by the word of His power He maintains all that He has created including the very words that He has given full of spirit and life, and it is by these very words that the creation began. The very beginning of creation was by the Word of His power as the beginning of the creation of God.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:3) And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)
Notice in Revelation 3:14 that it is these things saith the Amen, the completion of every word that He has spoken, He has sealed every word with the finality of His power. He brought the beginning of the creation of God and He has sealed that creation with the finality of His Person, the Amen. He also declares that He is the faithful and true witness from the very beginning. He has been faithful to the determinate counsels of God. Through His foreknowledge and His past understanding He has directed and intervened in the history of the children of men. He has moved whole nations by the word of His power, and He has declared who would rule and lead in this world so that man may know what is in man’s being: that man (through sin) cannot acquire the goodness of God, and that man MUST be born of the Spirit and sealed with that same Spirit and be moved in His total creation from the spirit of man to the spirit of God. When the Lord Jesus stated that He is the beginning of the creation of God, it was His breath, it was His voice through His Spirit that began the book of Hebrews, and in the second verse of the book of Hebrews, God proclaimed it was through His Son that He created the worlds. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:2)
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: (Colossians 1:15) For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:16) And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Colossians 1:17)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: (Ephesians 3:9) To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, (Ephesians 3:10) According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: (Ephesians 3:11)
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:18)
As the Lord Jesus spoke the words of spirit and life through His Spirit, He recorded the works of His own creation. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: (Hebrews 1:10) Here we see the chief Architect following all the plans that the determinate counsels of God had prepared before the heavens and earth were formed. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. In Chapter 2 of the book of Acts, verse 23, is the only place that you will find the determinate counsels and foreknowledge of God. These words are surrounded by the manifestation of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in the fullness of time. The most important epic, the most important time is identified by the determinate counsels of God that Christ was delivered by God the Father to be the savior of man. The Person of Christ, the image of the invisible God manifest in the flesh was sent from the holy halls of heaven to be the holy Man on earth.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: (Colossians 1:15)
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
THE SACRIFICE
Do you see the mystery that God, the invisible God, hiding Himself throughout the history of mankind, only revealing Himself by signs and wonders, and visions of His Person? And then, in the mystery, God was manifested in the flesh to present Himself as the holy sacrifice and the righteous Man to take away the sin of the world. The ONE GOD bore one image, the same image that He had created man in and that image of the ONE GOD was Jesus Christ. The name Jesus Christ or the name Jesus is a name that He held BEFORE the creation of heaven and earth. He already had the Body that was prepared for Him which would be manifested in the fullness of time. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: (Hebrews 10:5)
As Abraham said of God in Genesis Chapter 22 that God Himself would provide, would be the sacrifice. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? (Genesis 22:7) And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. (Genesis 22:8) The Creator, the beginning of the creation of God, the true and faithful witness, the Upholder of all truth, the ONLY ONE who is the Word of God and complete authority of the word of God, the Lord Jesus is the ONLY ONE who can relate Himself to man with the words, thus saith the Lord. For this is the voice of God IN Jesus Christ. As Abraham climbed mount Moriah with his son, his only son of promise, Isaac, for God had identified Isaac with the promises that He had given to Abraham that all the promises of God would go through Isaac, all the future of a nation that would be called Israel was seen in the future in Isaac. The multitude of the children of Israel as the sands of the sea and of the stars of heaven were all seen in Isaac. Abraham knew all these things would be fulfilled in Isaac and when God told Abraham to take thy son, thine only son to one of the mountains of Moriah. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. (Genesis 22:2) God gave Abraham the exact instructions, the exact spot, where God would fulfill all the promises of God in Jesus Christ. Christ would be offered on THAT EXACT spot where Abraham built the altar to offer his son. It would be known in the days of Christ as Golgotha, which by interpretation is the place of the skull. Remember the enemy of Israel, the giant of the Philistines, Goliath, who cursed the armies of the living God when David took the head of Goliath to the place of the skull approximately a thousand years before Christ was crucified. When Abraham was at THAT spot, He was there to offer a burnt offering. The burnt offering is the ONLY offering that takes in ALL of humanity, and the burnt offering was offered in its fullness on that tree where Christ gave His life as an offering for the sin of the whole world. And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. (Ephesians 5:2)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
THE BURNT OFFERING In the fullness of time, Christ fought and won the victory over the fullness of sin.
As Christ came in the fullness of time to bring the fullness of God’s love to man, so the devil, the old serpent, brought all evil against the Son of God. As Christ was manifested in the flesh, He suffered the pains of evil through the evil hearts of man as they crucified Him in the flesh. However, in the Spirit, He offered Himself to God as a holy and complete sacrifice for the sin of man. In the spiritual realm He offered His soul and saw the travail of His soul for all the sin of mankind. Unless sin was taken out of the way, death and the works of the devil could not be destroyed, so the Son of God, in the burnt offering took on the fullness of God’s wrath against sin to both justify and redeem man unto Himself. In the flesh He endured the belligerence of man and man’s cruel sadistic violence and in the darkness, He endured the fires of God’s wrath and judgment for the sin of the whole world. In the fullness of time, He fought and won the victory over the fullness of sin. The GodMan with a pure heart suffered the hatred and enmity of man against himself. Man would slay his Creator who was the image of himself. In the mirror of man’s own flesh, man denied his own Creator, and killed the Prince of all life.
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: (Acts 2:22) Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: (Acts 2:23)
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him n the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. (Acts 3:13) But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; (Acts 3:14) And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. (Acts 3:15) And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. (Acts 3:16)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
WRESTLES WITH MAN AND SIN
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. (Genesis 32:24)
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. (Genesis 32:25)
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. (Genesis 32:26)
And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. (Genesis 32:27)
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. (Genesis 32:28)
And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. (Genesis 32:29)
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Genesis 32:30)
And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. (Genesis 32:31)
As Jacob on the earthly side wrestled with Christ through the night, so Christ, on the cross wrestled with sin through the night, so that He could be the Savior of man and perfect man in His own image. Jacob is the perfect example of man wrestling against God over man’s sin. Jacob was born the supplanter, and until he met God on that fateful night, he wrestled all of his life against the purpose of God. It was the sin within Jacob that caused him to wrestle through the night. The example is given to us to show us the depth of sin within us that it is THAT sin and the presence of that sin that wrestles against God, and that sin prevails until God supernaturally touches us and changes us to walk with Him. Jacob looked on the face of God IN Jesus Christ and wrestled through the night. His sin was so strong that Christ had to touch him in a supernatural way and in that touch, Jacob became Israel, a prince with God. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. (Genesis 32:28) Even the wrestling of the manifest image of God could not overcome the sin of Jacob; supernaturally the Spirit of Christ had to touch Jacob in the hollow of his thigh, the place of power and strength, and in that transaction, the spirit of Adam in Jacob was replaced by the Spirit of the Living God as Jacob looked on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Genesis 32:30) For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2nd Corinthians 4:6)
The symbolism in Genesis Chapter 32 is fulfilled in the manifest image of the invisible God on the cross of Calvary when darkness came over the face of the whole earth while Christ hung on the cross, He wrestled with the sin of the supplanter, He wrestled with the sins of all man, and He wrestled through the darkness until a new day dawned; a day unlike any other day for the manifest image of the invisible God had removed sin and defeated death and the works of the devil.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: (Colossians 1:13) In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: (Colossians 1:14) Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: (Colossians 1:15) For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:16)
In verse 24 of Genesis Chapter 32, the manifest image of God (Jesus Christ) met Jacob in the night and wrestled through the hours of darkness until the rising of the sun. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And even then, Jacob prevailed. This is to show us the power of that sin within us that it can only be taken away by the divine action of God in the new birth. A man must be born again. Through this encounter of the manifest image of God with Jacob we would get a glimpse of the long path of sin and the end result of God’s divine action when Jacob was changed to Israel, a prince with God.
Jacob had traveled through the wilderness of sin. And as with all man in Adam, we wrestle against God because of that inherent sin that Adam passed on to us. We wrestle against our own salvation. God declared that Christ died for the ungodly, and that He removed the sin of the world and that God’s love is open to man through believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet there few who give in to the love of God. Most men continue to wrestle with sin and their lives become a continuous night of wrestling with God until they draw their last breath. For those whom God touches they are changed from the temporal to the spiritual in their new birth; therefore, they now have strength over sin, so we must remember that the strength of sin is death. When the day breaks and shadows flee away, we step out of the darkness of sin as a new creature in Christ, we now have a new heart, a new spirit, a new name, and a glorious salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ and we see God face to face in the spiritual world. And we have become a prince with God IN Christ waiting till we will be transformed into His very image. I like to think of our transformation when we have been glorified in the presence of Christ as a return to the glory that Adam once had. And yet, it is still yet a GREATER glory, for now, through the love of God Christ has redeemed us to God. We know the fullness of God’s love and as sin is taken away, we no longer wrestle with God. We are embraced with a love eternal that through His divine power He cannot let us go. He will keep us until the very moment that we are transformed into the image of Christ by His love.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (1st John 3:1) Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1st John 3:2) And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1st John 3:3)
It is the love of God that could not let us go. The love of God touched us through God’s dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. From our birth, He wrestled over our sin. The spirit of man in Adam reviled Him, and the spirit of Adam wrestled through the night until daybreak and the shadows faded into the sunshine of our new birth.
They took Him by night from a garden and brought Him before the chief priests to abuse Him, to beat Him, and to mock Him. The very ones who had been given the authority of God mocked their very Creator. They spit upon Him. They pulled out His hair. They beat Him viciously about His head. The sinful seed of Adam mocked the Lord of glory. They wrestled with Him throughout the night, condemning their own souls by refusing their very Creator and God. And then through their counsel, not willing to bear the responsibility of the death of the Man Jesus Christ, they delivered Him to the court of Rome. As Pilate’s hands could never be cleansed, so their hands also would be soiled with the blood of Christ. God in the flesh had not called a legion of angels. He had not brought down fire from heaven although He would despise the cross, He suffered at their hands for the JOY that was set before Him. When He was reviled, He did not return their wickedness upon them. Even with Jacob as He wrestled the whole night with man’s sin He reviled not against Jacob, instead Jacob left His presence as a prince with God. Thousands of years have passed since He wrestled with Jacob, and then at the cross of Golgotha He wrestled with the seed of Jacob and the seed of the Gentiles in the fullness of time. When God informs us that Christ was made of a woman and made under the law in the fullness of time, we must understand that as Christ would climb to the top of the mountain and hang upon the cross that sin also had come to the fullness of time. He bore that sin and the fullness of that sin upon His own Body on the tree. Christ wrestled with the weight of our sin and its penalty which is death, He wrestled with all the evil that could be produced from the knowledge of good and evil back to that tree in the garden and through the history of mankind, past, present and future, He wrestled through the darkness and then the darkness passed. The light brought forth a glorious new day, and although He was still suffering on the cross, He could say in His Spirit with all the power of God, It is finished. The finality of His work was finished. The wrestling over sin was finished. He commended His Spirit to God the Father for all righteousness was complete in Him. As He had promised at the Jordan, speaking to John the Baptist, He had completed God’s righteousness.
Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. (Matthew 3:13) But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? (Matthew 3:14) And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. (Matthew 3:15) And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: (Matthew 3:16) And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17)
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The Sovereign and Omnipotent GOD
REVEALS HIMSELF
The Lord Jesus had fulfilled ALL righteousness in Himself. And now man would have no excuse for God, his Creator, the beginning of the creation of God, had laid down His own life that He might take it again in resurrection glory. The joy that was set before Him was about to commence on the day of His resurrection as the fulfillment of a new glorified Man who ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God as the glorified Redeemer of all those who trust in Him. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man, ascended to the highest heaven and received a glory that He had procured on the cross of Calvary not only for Himself but for all those who trust in Him. The sheep of His pasture would share His glory throughout all eternity. The brightness of God’s glory has never shone brighter than as it has in Jesus Christ. The express image of God in Jesus Christ has declared His power and His majesty through the work that He accomplished on the cross of Calvary.
Hebrews 1:3 is not just a statement concerning God’s dear Son. It is a REVELATION of His glory, His majesty and His power to all man that they might understand that God was IN Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. We can travel back to the days of Isaiah when he wrote many times: thus saith the Lord to specify to us that God has spoken. That the very words that were penned were from the very mouth of God.
I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. (Isaiah 43:11) I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God. (Isaiah 43:12)
I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. (Isaiah 43:25)
It is the voice of God declaring His deity as the ONLY true God, and the Creator of all things, and that there is no other God but He ALONE. And this same voice that spoke to Isaiah was the same voice of the beginning of the creation of God in Jesus Christ. For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:18) In the book of Isaiah in Chapter 45:18 we have the same voice, the same manifest image of God that declared in the gospel of John that His words were spirit and life. No other could make that claim. Only the seed of deity in Jesus Christ could make this claim as the manifest image of God on earth. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63) These words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament are from the same mouth as the ONE who spoke the words to Isaiah in 45:19-23.
I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. (Isaiah 45:19) Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save. (Isaiah 45:20) Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. (Isaiah 45:21) Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22) I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. (Isaiah 45:23)
The words spoken in Isaiah 45 are fulfilled in Philippians 2. First, we have Savior, the sacrificial lamb of God in verse 5 -8. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Philippians 2:5) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: (Philippians 2:6) But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:7) And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8) Here we have the Savior of man, the ONLY Savior going through the door of death and casting our sins away. The finality of Isaiah 45 is the SAME God, the SAME Savior who brought salvation to us through His suffering and work on the cross of Calvary. However, as the lonely Jesus suffered on the cross, now, by God He is exalted higher than the heavens.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: (Philippians 2:9) That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; (Philippians 2:10) And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11)
Notice that these verses from Philippians in the New Testament are fulfilling the very words that the Lord Jesus spoke in Isaiah 45:23. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. The Lord Jesus IS the ONE God, the ONE Savior, and the ONE true image of the invisible God. He IS the fullness of the Godhead bodily; He is the ONE GOD manifest in the flesh. We, who have received Him within our heart, soul and spirit, have been embraced in His great love and this is something that we need to think about on this side of the cross: we have been born again by the power of God, we have been brought to the birth by God’s Spirit wrestling with us over our sin, and now we have come to that birth to glorify God in our being here on earth we have a new life, a new spirit, a new love in our heart and our new message from God the ONLY Savior Jesus Christ. Our whole life now on earth is for the purpose of God. All our labor in the gospel is to glorify God in the Person of Jesus Christ. And all the words that we write or speak are to GLORIFY the Son of God. The same Christ of the New Testament is the same Christ of the Old Testament. He is the same beginning of the creation of God in Isaiah as in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He is the Creator of all things, and His voice has never changed in that He is the God of the Old Testament from the beginning, and He is the God of the New Testament to the very end. We have ONE voice of God IN Jesus Christ, and His voice through His Spirit speaks to us in the epistles through to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He proclaims of Himself as the Son of man that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. The Lord Jesus closes the book of the Revelation with the words from the only true witness of God as He fulfills the last words of His testimony, He reminds us of the name given from heaven I JESUS, and then we read the words of Revelation 22:16 -21.
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. (Revelation 22:16)
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: (Revelation 22:18)
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:19)
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20)
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Revelation 22:21)
The Lord Jesus closes His final words as the true witness of God, the beginning of the creation of God for HE IS THE AMEN. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)
© Copyright 2023, Michael Haigh
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All Scripture references are from the King James Bible. (KJB)