Hebrews 1:3a And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power......
We saw last time that God's Word is powerful. The Scriptures provide us with more information on this subject, though, and we are going to spend a few weeks meditating on various aspects of the power of God's Word. This week, we will focus on its creating and sustaining power.
It was the Word of God that was instrumental in creation. God spoke, and created things were formed out of nothing. It is the Word of God that sustains all created things in their state of existence. But for that Word, everything we see and touch and taste, and we ourselves as created beings, would melt away into the nothingness from which His Word summoned us. We do not often think of this, perhaps - that it requires power from God to maintain the existence of all the things He has created, and that this power has the same source as that which brought the universe into being - the Word of God! We should meditate on this with awe and wonder - and realize in a new way how utterly dependent we are upon God and His graciousness.
There are two other things we should note in our text, though, which are well worthy of our pondering.
First, the text speaks of Christ as the One whose Word has the power to sustain all things. The writer to the Hebrews speaks of Christ in terms that are totally Divine. He equates Jesus with God the Father and ascribes to Him the power to sustain the Universe by His Word! We should recall that Jesus is called the Word of God and the Creator by John in the first chapter of his gospel. He is the Living Word of God. This same Word, Christ the Creator, is He Who sustains all things now!
But second, realize that we have in the Bible the written Word of God. God has spoken, and has caused His words to be written down for us. Is it surprising that the Word of God in the Bible is powerful, seeing that the spoken Word of God has power to create and sustain all material things? The difference is that God's written word is powerful to create and sustain spiritually. It is through the written Word that we receive the new creation and are fed and sustained as children of God. Given that this is true, we ought to see anew how audacious it is, and how outrageous it is, if we treat the Bible as though it was a book composed by mere human authors and therefore devoid of Divine power. How appalling to possess a copy but never read its contents!
In the light of this thought, let's start to read our Bibles again this week, or if we have been reading them, let's do so now with renewed reverence and awe.
