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“Who being the brightness of his glory.” Brightness means “the outshining”; it means “the effulgence.” The material sun out in space gives us a good illustration of this. We could never know the glory of the sun by looking at it because we can’t look at it directly—it would blind us if we tried. But from the rays of the sun we get light and we get heat, and probably we get healing from it. That is the way we know about the sun. Now in somewhat the same way we would know very little about God apart from the revelation that God has given in His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the brightness we see. No one has seen God, but we know about Him now through Jesus Christ. Just as the rays of the sun with their warmth and light tell me about the physical sun, so the Lord Jesus reveals God to us today.

“The express image of his person.” That word “express image” is the Greek charaktēr, the impressed character, like a steel engraving. We get our English word character from this. We say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God because He is God. He is not just the printed material; He is the steel engraving of God because He is the exact copy, the image of God. Paul said in Colossians 2:9, “… in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” How wonderful He is!

“Upholding all things by the word of his power.” That little baby Jesus lying helplessly on the bosom of Mary in Bethlehem could have spoken this universe out of existence. He upholds all things by the word of His power. He not only created all things by His word, but He holds everything together.

Have you ever stopped to think about the amount of power that is required to hold it together? Man has learned very little about that power, but he has learned something. For instance, man has discovered the atom, a little bitty fellow. And when man untied the atom (they call it splitting the atom), he sure did release a lot of power. Who put all that power in the atom? Who holds all the little atoms together? The Lord Jesus Christ. He furnishes the program and the purpose; He is the person of God, and He is the preserver of all things. He not only created the universe by His word, but He holds everything together. If He let go today—well, since you and I are held on this earth by His glue, His stickum, which we call gravitation—we would go flying out into space. He holds everything together. This universe would come unglued without His constant supervision and power. He is not like an Atlas holding up the earth passively; He is actively engaged in maintaining all of creation. As far as I can see, that is greater than creating it in the beginning. He keeps the thing running, keeps it functioning. This is one of the tremendous things He is doing today.

“When he had by himself purged our sins.” The Lord Jesus Christ provided the cleansing for our sins. This, by the way, is the only purgatory mentioned in the Bible. He went through it for you and me; there is no purgatory for anyone who trusts Christ because He purged our sins. He has paid the penalty for them. How wonderful He is! The purging was accomplished by what He did on Calvary for you and for me. And today we are accepted in the Beloved. The one who comes to Christ receives a full redemption and complete forgiveness of sins.

“Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” This actually is the message of Hebrews. The Lord Jesus received a glory and a majesty when He went back to the Father’s throne that He never had before. There is something in heaven today that was not there twenty-five hundred years ago or in eternity past, because in the glory now is the Man with nail-pierced hands and the prints of nails in His feet and a spear wound in His side. Even in His glorified body they are there, and when we see Him, we shall know Him by the prints of the nails in His hands. Twenty-five hundred years ago He was God, but today He is the God-man.

“Sat down” does not indicate that He is resting because He is tired—or that He is doing nothing. It means that when He finished our redemption, He sat down because it was complete. This is exactly what the seventh day meant in creation—God rested on the seventh day. Was He tired? No. As John Wesley said, when He created the universe He didn’t half try. He rested because it was complete; there was nothing more that He needed to do.

Never, since I have been a pastor, have I been able to close my desk and go home with the satisfaction that everything has been done. There is always something incomplete—you should see my desk right now! My work is never complete, but Christ sat down because His work of redemption was complete. Friend, you cannot lift your little finger today to add to the redemption He wrought for us on the cross. He has completed our redemption, and we are complete in Christ. In Colossians 2:9–10 we are told, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” We are made complete in Him, made full in Him, and we are accepted in the Beloved.

The present ministry of Christ is another aspect of this. This, I think, was in the mind of the writer who said, “There is a man in the glory, but the church has lost sight of Him.” His present ministry can be expressed like this: He died down here to save us; He lives up there to keep us saved. He has a ministry of intercession, a ministry of shepherding, a ministry of disciplining His own. Although He is at God’s right hand now, He is still vitally interested in those who are His own, and He is available to us.

My friend, what do you need? Do you need mercy? Do you need help? Do you need wisdom? Whatever you need, why don’t you go to Him for it? If you ask Him to intervene in your behalf, He will work it out according to His will (not yours). Prayer is not to persuade God to do something that He didn’t intend to do; prayer is to get you and me in line with the program of God. And Christ is at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. We can obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is the present ministry of Christ, and it makes these verses in Hebrews pretty real to you and to me. My friend, Buddha can’t help you; Mohammed can’t help you; no founder of the modern religions can help you. A friend told me of how he was healed by a so-called faith healer who is now dead. I asked him, “Can she help you now?” He retorted, “No, of course not, she is dead!” “Well,” I said, “Jesus is alive. Our Great High Priest is alive today.”

When we were at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem I heard a thrilling story about a group of young people in Moscow who unfurled a banner at Lenin’s tomb on Easter Sunday morning. The banner read, “Lenin is dead—Jesus is alive.” Then they sang some resurrection songs. I don’t know that anyone was won to the Lord through this, but it certainly was a brave effort on the part of youth, and their message is the message of the Book of Hebrews. “Lenin is dead—Jesus is alive.” He is the One who can help us. He is the One to whom we can turn. This is the great message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. When He “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” He took with Him a glory that even God did not have, which was the body in which He had wrought out your redemption and mine upon this earth. He gave Himself; He shed His precious blood that you and I might have life.

McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 5:508-510