This week we are filming the next in our Book by Book series - and it is the Book of Hebrews.
The most disappointing message that keeps coming up in modern day approaches to the Book of Hebrews is "Jesus is better..."
The underlying idea is that the Old Testament had a way of revelation/salvation that...
1. Was essentially non-Jesus or non-Christian.
2. Provided revelation without the mediation of God the Son.
3. Provided an inferior form of salvation without the Cross, without the blood of Jesus - even that the blood of animals achieved a lesser form of salvation.
4. Was valid and effective in its time, but that it was replaced/superseded by a better way.
I have even been listening to a sermon series on Hebrews that begins by saying that Hebrews was written to combat the desire to go back to something "good" rather than going forward to what is "better".... that the Law was a "good" way of salvation, but that has come to an end now that something "better" has come.
The preacher says that the temptation is not "bad versus good" but "good versus better"...
If any of this is true, then Jesus is not ESSENTIAL - but rather He is an UPGRADE.
Maybe He is an incomparably great UPGRADE... but if any of this is true, then revelation/salvation is possible without Jesus, God the Son.
I just don't believe that.
I really do believe John 14:6 - that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life... and that nobody can come to the Father other than through Him.