Yvonne Abdullah

Q4. (Hebrews 2:3b-4) In what way has the truth of salvation been confirmed to you? Would signs and wonders help or hinder establishing the truth of Christ's ministry today? From which portion of the Bible have you formed your opinion of the value of signs and wonders today? The truth of salvation has been confirmed to me. God touch my heart to receive God's promises, truth and faithfulness. It is salvation, so great that no other can compare with it; so great that none can fully express, nor yet conceive, how great it is. It is a great salvation that the gospel discovers, for it discovers a great Saviour who give his life for me, one who has manifested God to be reconciled to my nature, and reconcilable to me; it shows how I may be saved from sin and misery, and be restored to holiness and happiness. The gospel discovers to me a great sanctifier, to qualify me for salvation and to bring me to the Saviour. The gospel unfolds a great and excellent dispensation of grace, a new covenant; the great charter-deed and instrument is settled and secured to all those who come into the bond of the covenant, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah, the Lord of Life and glory, Lord of all, and possessed of unerring and infallible wisdom, infinite and inexhaustible goodness, unquestionable and unchangeable veracity and faithfulness, absolute sovereignty and authority, and irresistible power. This great Lord of all was the first who began to speak it plainly and clearly, without types and shadows as it was before he came in my life. Now surely it may be expected that all will reverence this Lord, and take heed to a gospel that began to be spoken by one who spoke so as never man spoke. God is good Ps. 145.9, as are His purposes and everything He does. God is sovereign Ps. 103.19, so there's nothing that is outside of his control., God promises believers that he will work all things together for their good Rom.8:28., God keeps his promises 2 Cor.1:20,These facts form a framework that can help us as we seek to understand the Lors's presence in every situation.

Q3. (Hebrews 2:1) In what ways are we not immune to drifting away from the gospel? According to the author, how can we successfully resist the tendency to drift? How did Jesus describe this phenomenon of "drift" in the Parable of the Sower? It is the great concern of every one under the gospel to give the most earnest heed to all gospel discoveries and directions, to prize them highly in his judgment as matters of the greatest importance, to hearken to them diligently in all the opportunities he has for that purpose, to read them frequently, to meditate on them closely, and to mix faith with them. We must embrace them in our hearts and affections, retain them in our memories, and finally regulate our words and actions according to them. We shall sustain if we do not take this earnest heed to the things which we have heard: We shall let them slip. They will leak, and run out of our heads, lips, and lives, and we shall be great losers by our neglect. Learn, (1.) When we have received gospel truths into our minds, we are in danger of letting them slip. Our minds and memories are like a leaky vessel, they do not without much care retain what is poured into them; this proceeds from the corruption of our natures, the enmity and subtlety of Satan (he steals away the word), from the entanglements and snares of the world, the thorns that choke the good seed. (2.) Those meet with an inconceivable loss who let gospel truths, which they had received, slip out of their minds; they have lost a treasure far better than thousands of gold and silver; the seed is lost, their time and pains in hearing lost, and their hopes of a good harvest lost; all is lost, if the gospel be lost. (3.) This consideration should be a strong motive both to our attention to the gospel and our retention of it; and indeed, if we do not well attend, we shall not long retain the word of God; inattentive hearers will soon be forgetful hearers.

Q2. (Hebrews 1:2-3) What about the author's description of the Son makes you think that the Son described is himself divine? What role does the Son have in doing the Father's will according to these verses? [1.] God hath appointed him to be heir of all things. As God, he was equal to the Father; but, as God-man and Mediator, he was appointed by the Father to be the heir of all things, the sovereign Lord of all, the absolute disposer, director, and governor of all persons and of all things, Ps. 2:6, 7. All power in heaven and earth is given to him; all judgment is committed to him, Matt. 28:18; John 5:22. [2.] By him God made the worlds, both visible and invisible, the heavens and the earth; not as an instrumental cause, but as his essential word and wisdom. By him he made the old creation, by him he makes the new creature, and by him he rules and governs both. [3.] He upholds all things by the word of his power: he keeps the world from dissolving. By him all things consist. The weight of the whole creation is laid upon Christ: he supports the whole and all the parts. When, upon the apostasy, the world was breaking to pieces under the wrath and curse of God, the Son of God, undertaking the work of redemption, bound it up again, and established it by his almighty power and goodness. None of the ancient prophets sustained such an office as this, none was sufficient for it. the apostle having proved Christ to be superior to the angels by whose ministry the law was given, and therefore that the gospel dispensation must be more excellent than the legal, he now comes to apply this doctrine both by way of exhortation and argument.

Q1. (Hebrews 1:2) In what way do you think the author of Hebrews is using the word "Son"? As a metaphor? As a biological relationship? How would a Son's words have more weight than a prophet's? Here the author begins with a general declaration of the excellency of the gospel dispensation above that of the law, which he demonstrates from the different way and manner of God’s communicating himself and his mind and will to men in the one and in the other: both these dispensations were of God, and both of them very good, but there is a great difference in the way of their coming from God. ObserveThe way God communicated himself and his will to men under the Old Testament. Of the persons by whom God delivered his mind under the Old Testament; they were the prophets, persons chosen of God, and qualified by him, for that office of revealing the will of God to men. No man takes this honour to himself, unless called; and whoever are called of God are qualified by him. The persons to whom God spoke by the prophets: To the fathers, to all the Old-Testament saints who were under that dispensation. God favoured and honoured them with much clearer light than that of nature, under which the rest of the world were left. The order in which God spoke to men in those times that went before the gospel, those past times: he spoke to his ancient people. the patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the prophetic; his mind concerning the Redeemer: to Adam, that the Messiah should come of the seed of the woman, to Abraham, that he should spring from his loins, to Jacob, that he should be of the tribe of Judah, to David, that he should be of his house, to Micah, that he should be born at Bethlehem, to Isaiah, that he should be born of a virgin. the different ways in which God though fit to communicate his mind to his prophets; sometimes by the illapses of his Spirit, sometimes by dreams, sometimes by visions, sometimes by an audible voice, sometimes by legible characters under his own hand, as when he wrote the ten commandments on tables of stone. God’s method of communicating his mind and will under the New-Testament dispensation, these last days as they are called, that is, either towards the end of the world, or the end of the Jewish state. The times of the gospel are the last times, the gospel revelation is the last we are to expect from God. There was first the natural revelation; then the patriarchal, by dreams, visions, and voices; then the Mosaic, in the law given forth and written down; then the prophetic, in explaining the law, and giving clearer discoveries of Christ: but now we must expect no new revelation, but only more of the Spirit of Christ to help us better to understand what is already revealed. Now the excellency of the gospel revelation above the former consists in two things:— 1. It is the final, the finishing revelation, given forth in the last days of divine revelation, to which nothing is to be added, but the canon of scripture is to be settled and sealed: so that now the minds of men are no longer kept in suspense by the expectation of new discoveries, but they rejoice in a complete revelation of the will of God, both preceptive and providential, so far as is necessary for them to know in order to their direction and comfort. For the gospel includes a discovery of the great events that shall befal the church of God to the end of the world. 2. It is a revelation which God has made by his Son, the most excellent messenger that was ever sent into the world, far superior to all the ancient patriarchs and prophets, by whom God communicated his will to his people in former times. And here we have an excellent account of the glory of our Lord Jesus