God Has Spoken..... By His Son

Reading: Hebrews 1

Text: “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, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”

Hebrews 1:1 to 4 NIV

There once were a group of goldfish who lived in a bowl. They had lived there as long as they could remember and none of them had ever left the bowl and come back to tell what was on the outside. One day, one goldfish asked another, “What do you think is outside the bowl?” This question generated quite a bit of speculation and, after a while, the goldfish came up with several possible answers to this problem. One goldfish suggested that there was nothing outside the goldfish bowl. He maintained that, since he could see nothing in the side of the bowl other than his own reflection, it was silly to believe in the existence of anything that could not be seen. Another goldfish suggested that perhaps the goldfish bowl was surrounded by another goldfish bowl and that this bowl sat inside another bowl which itself was in a bigger bowl. He theorized that there might be an endless succession of goldfish bowls. A third fish stated that the goldfish bowl must have come into existence just by chance and that it was the result of a ‘big bang’. He described this phenomenon in very big words so that the other goldfish would be suitably impressed.

However, there was one little goldfish who was unhappy with all of the theories of his companions and he decided that the only way to find out what was on the outside the bowl would be to try to leave it. With this in mind, he circled three times and then swam straight up as fast as he could.

The other goldfish watched him as he jumped out through the shimmering surface of the water. They continued to watch, but the brave little goldfish never returned. After a while, the first goldfish said, “He must have ceased to exist, because we all know that nothing can exist outside the bowl.” The second goldfish said, “Oh no, he moved up to a higher plane of existence. He has gone on to that larger bowl.” The third goldfish said, “You are both wrong. He has evolved and changed into a new life form.” And to this day, the three goldfish still disagree as to what happened to their small companion.

We are not goldfish, but we do share a similar characteristic. We all live in a bowl that we could call the natural world. By this, I mean that we are bounded by time and space. There is a whole world of the supernatural that is unknown to us because we are limited by our natural bodies. We are unequipped to know anything about God or about angels or about life outside our own physical existence. But we do not have to remain ignorant about these things. God has spoken. He has spoken through prophets and He has spoken through dreams and He has spoken through signs and He has spoken through His written word. Most importantly, He has spoken through His Son. Jesus Christ entered this world by becoming one of us.

This is the message of the book of Hebrews. It is that God has made Himself known to man by becoming a man in the person of Jesus.

The writer begins the book of Hebrews in the form of an essay. He skips over the customary salutation and greeting that would normally be found in an epistle and goes right to the heart of the matter. He is going to talk about the fact that God has spoken. This is not argued. It is not proven by the author. It is simply taken for granted as an obvious truth. God is on the outside of the goldfish bowl of our physical existence. He cannot be seen by our eyes or measured in a laboratory. He cannot be reproduced in a test tube. This means that, unless He had spoken to us, we could never know Him.

Now the scriptures tell us that God has spoken to mankind at many times and in many ways. He spoke to Job out of a whirlwind; He spoke to Joseph in dreams; He spoke to Moses in a burning bush; He spoke to Joshua through an angel; He spoke to Samuel as a voice in the night; He spoke to Elijah is a still, small voice; He spoke to Daniel in a vision.