Jesus - the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever - Pt. 2

 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.  (Hebrews 13:8-10 ESV).

 

You may not be sufficiently in awe of this statement that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. It does almost read as an afterthought for the writer as he closes his letter. However, it is one of the most essential declarations in all the New Testament. Let me try to put the significance of each time period in a single sentence.

 

Yesterday: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same yesterday as he is today because yesterday is when Jesus Christ showed us in history what he is really like.

 

Today: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same today as he was yesterday because today is where we have fellowship with him and relate to him as the person we know by reading about his life and work yesterday.

 

Tomorrow: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same tomorrow as he was yesterday and today because all our hope for everlasting joy hangs ultimately on relating to him, not just his gifts.

 

God has chosen that we know Jesus Christ - and God, in and through Christ - by reading about him in a Book that records his life and work from yesterday. God does not ordain that we know Jesus by skipping the historical, once-for-all self-revelation of the incarnation and substituting mystical avenues of communion now. The Christ of today must be the same as the Christ of yesterday or we cannot know the Christ of today. We know him and commune with him through the Word of God about him from yesterday.

 

And what we know about him from yesterday enables us to know him personally now, by his Spirit. The Spirit takes the things of Christ and makes them real and personal and present and powerful and precious in our lives now. This historical, factual Christ whom we have come now to know and love and cherish and exult in is the Christ we will increasingly know and enjoy forever and ever - if he is the same forever. And that is why forever is so important. Believe in this Jesus! He truly is better!