Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m having a really good day today as it looks like the sun is starting to break through the dark clouds I created. I do appreciate your prayers for my continued wisdom in a particular area in my life. I also think Jin-Roh for his comments. No. Not everything is about the Trinity, but we’re going through the Bible to see what it says and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Actually, I’m looking forward to Revelation as I’m reading that now and realizing how much it says about Jesus. We usually go there for eschatology, but it says much about who Jesus is.
Tonight, we’ll be in the second chapter however of Hebrews and we’re going to read verses 1-4:
1We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,3how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
We’ve been warned not to ignore this great salvation we have. The message that came through angels was binding. The message that comes from the Son who is superior to the angels then is even more binding upon us.
Note however that we have strong Trinitarian interplay going on in this passage. In speaking about the salvation, to which we should recognize that the question of salvation is inextricably tied in with who Jesus is, such that you cannot have a Jesus who is less than deity and still have so great salvation.
This salvation was first preached by the Lord. Note that the Lord is so easily used to refer to Jesus. We’ve already noted that the author has used the term Kurios to speak of Jesus and did so in a way that indicated his sovereignty over creation. At this point, the name of Jesus hasn’t even been mentioned. He is either the Son or the Lord or God.
While the eyewitnesses who heard Jesus confirmed the message, God himself testified to it by the working of miracles. Miracles are not events done in a vacuum. They are done to display a message and confirm it. The message I believe in the miracles was what the kingdom of God would be like in its fruition. For instance, there were healing miracles because sickness and suffering will be absent when the kingdom is fully realized.
However, that is not the end of the testimony. The Lord announced, God testified, and the Holy Spirit distributed gifts of the Spirit as an agent of God to show the truth of the message. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that brings about the continued preaching of the gospel message.
Thus, all the persons of the Trinity are involved in the good news of the gospel. This is a Trinitarian passage that fits in with the model that we have seen before. We cannot have a full gospel without having the Trinity.