Pray for me, and pray for yourselves, that we might grasp some of the profound lessons contained in our text. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” I was thinking about this verse Wednesday, when I said the Lord hadn’t given me a subject for this morning. At that point, I didn’t consider myself sufficient for this theme – and I still feel that way – but the Lord wouldn’t let me go on to something else. So, obviously, the Lord answered our prayers. The question is: “To what end?”
This verse is confusing to me in several ways. One of which is that it is like an island in the midst of an ocean of other thoughts. It doesn’t, at first glance, appear to be directly linked to what Paul has said, or what is coming up. But going back to the previous verse and then to Hebrews 11 and 12, there is a bit of context. The great heros of the faith, shared their testimonies and then eventually left this world for the better one. And yes, “we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses, before whom we are running our own race,” but we need to be “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” – Hebrews 12:1-2. And we are to “remember them which have the rule over us, who have spoken unto us the word of God; whose faith we are to follow, considering the end of their conversation” – verse 7. Those heros are gone, and the witnesses to our lives often mean very little, and many of our Bible teachers have passed away as well. But – “Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” He will always be there for us.
Besides its parenthetical nature, something else which is difficult about this verse is its grammar. The Holy Spirit hasn’t given this statement a verb. It is not a proper English sentence. We have to assume, and then to insert, a verb of our own. In my studying, I noticed that various commentators differ about where to put their choice of verbs. Some say, “Jesus (IS) the Christ, the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” For them the emphasis is on the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed of the Father. But then others tell us “Jesus Christ (IS) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” For them the meaning is that Jesus Christ is eternal, unchangeable, and ever lasting. While I agree that we have to put a verb in there, and “is” appears to be the best choice. Maybe we should put our verb in both places. It appears to me “Jesus IS the Christ and THEREFORE, He IS the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
With this in mind I have given this message the ridiculous title: “Our Ineradicable, Perdurable Saviour.” What? “Ineradicable” is an almost unpronounceable, antiquated word which means “undefeatable.” After today, I will probably never use that word again, and I don’t expect you to use it either. And then “perdurable” means “undying,” because Christ Jesus is utterly unchanging and unchangeable. Because our Saviour is all-powerful and absolutely unchanging, He cannot be defeated.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
If this verse said only, “JESUS (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” it would mean one thing. If it simply said “CHRIST (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” it would mean something else. Together, Jesus’ name and His title tie together the Son of man and the Son of God – the God-man. Together, they take us into a world entirely different from each of them individually.
And of course, “yesterday, to day, and for ever,” are referring to the past, the present and the future. Obviously, “yesterday” is not talking about something within the past twenty-four hours. It is an undefined period extending from this moment back to the beginning of time – and even beyond. Within the divine Trinity, Christ Jesus is exactly who He was at the time of the creation of the universe. But even more than that, as the eternal Son of God, He has never changed – even from when there was nothing in existence except the Triune God.
And who Christ Jesus was during His earthly incarnation, He is still today. Reading the last book of the Bible, and peering into future, who do we see sitting next to God the Father? We see the “the LAMB slain from the foundation of the world” – Revelation 13:8. In the future we see a Lamb, and we are told that He was slain from eternity past. And then between the somewhat silly terms “eternity past” and “eternity future,” who did John the Baptist see? “Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The eternal person, to whom Paul referred in our text, is the Saviour of sinners. He is the one who is highlighted four verses later – the one who suffered outside the gates of Jerusalem “that he might sanctify the people with his own blood.” And this Saviour, Jesus the Christ, has always been as He is right now; He has never changed. In Acts 1, an angel told the disciples, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” It is always “this SAME Jesus,” because “Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
But WHY, and HOW, is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever?
He is “perdurable” and unchangeable, because He is God, and therefore He bears all the attributes of deity. Christ Jesus is divine; He is God – the eternal God. I will not try to prove this to you. If you believe the Bible you must believe Christ Jesus is God; that “He and the Father are one” – John 10:30. “In the beginning was the Word (Christ Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” – John 1:1. “In Christ Jesus dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” – Colossians 2:9. Paul said, there is no controversy about it, “GOD was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto Gentiles, believed on in the world (and) received up into glory” – I Timothy 3:16. Christ Jesus is “the brightness of God’s glory, the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, and when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” – Hebrews 1:3.
And as the eternal Son of God, everything said about God the Father might be said about Him, and more. God is “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God… (and so) to whom should be honour and glory for ever and ever…” because He is and will always be – I Timothy 1:17. And as such, the wrath which we see Christ showering down upon the Jewish money-changers in the New Testament, He still possesses against the false, and mutilated, and rich religions of today. And the doctrines which He taught two thousand years ago are still to be taught today. And the holiness which He demanded earlier is still demanded today. “Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
As I was thinking about this verse, trying to make it clear in my mind, and looking through the scriptures for something to share with you, I discovered…
Several Biblical “before and after” pictures of Christ Jesus.
If you use a computer or smart phone to access social media, you’ve probably been tempted to follow a dangerous rabbit trail with the enticing words, “Look at this famous star from the 70’s, and how she looks now.” Often the enticers suck people in with some sort of example – a couple of before and after pictures. They usually take a flattering picture from the past, paring it with the most unflattering picture of some famous octogenarian – after all the Botox, after all the booze, and after all benders have done their worst. Sometimes it is hard to tell that they are pictures of the same person. But when it comes to my Saviour, if there is any change at all in the before and after pictures, the current picture is even more glorious than earlier one. In my somewhat shallow Biblical survey I found five of these “before” and “after” pictures of “Jesus Christ (who is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” And they all look very much alike.
For example, in Revelation 1, when the glorified Lord Jesus was revealing to the Apostle John His messages to the seven churches, He describes Himself as “the beginning and the end.” “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which IS, and which WAS, and which is to come, the Almighty.” “Alpha” and “omega” are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet; they are the beginning and the end. The speaker in that chapter is clearly identified as Jesus Christ, and He who is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,” further says, “I am the origination of all things and the culmination of all things.” As much as it might be said of God the Father, it is true of Christ, “In Him we live and move and have our being,” from the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, until the day we leave this world. And the fact is, this is true of everything.
Digressing only slightly – this unchanging One is both the Creator and the Sustainer of all things. Colossians 1 tells us, “by him (Christ Jesus) were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Praise God that He who created all things out of nothing is the unchangeable God who continues to provide life to those living things which He has created. Colossians 1:16 says: not only were all things created by Him, but they were created for Him – they were created for His glory. Again, He is the beginning of all things, and all those things end in Him as well.
He also said of Himself in Revelation 1:8 – “I am… the Almighty.” That is a declaration that He is the absolute and sovereign King of kings. And that has been a fact since before the establishment of time – before the creation of the world. That is why He could tell lifeless bodies to “come forth;” why He could turn water into wine, and how He order schools of fish to enter specific fishermen’s nets at specific times. Christ is, and always has been, “the Almighty.” What a joy to serve the Almighty, knowing that our “labor is not in vain in Him,” because He is ineradicable.
Every physical law which Christ established at the beginning of time, is still functioning as He originally ordained it – because the unchangeable Creator maintains them. The sun rises and the sun sets. The great-grandchildren of the first butterfly are still producing butterflies. The rain drop and snow flake fall to the earth; they run to the sea and evaporate into the atmosphere to begin over and over again. The earth has not crept closer to the sun, to be consumed by its heat, because the perdurable, undying Christ Jesus has set the bounds of the seas and the universe.
Oh, and by the way, the rest of the laws established by God are as well maintained as the sunrise and sunset. For example, there is the law which says, “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” and “the wages of sin is death.” Science is extending the average human life-time, but whether the death angel strikes a person down at 30 or 70, death is inevitable, because “Jesus Christ (IS) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” And just as the Son of God was holy when Isaiah was invited to look into His throne room, He is holy today. Just as He judged Egypt and Babylon and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He judges sin today. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Creator and Maintainer, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. Everything that He ordained in the beginning He is maintaining today.
In the chapter just prior to our opening scripture, Paul shares with us another “before” and “after” picture. In writing to Christian people, people of faith and dependence upon the Saviour, he speaks of us as, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” By definition, an “author” is the creator of an original work, whether it is in written, graphic, or recorded. An author is the original source of something. In this case Christ is “the author of our faith in Him.” And He is the “finisher of our faith,” which means, He is the one who brings it to its completion – its consummation. Again, praise God, that our Saviour “Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” In this case we are talking about saving faith – justifying faith – which begins and ends in Christ Jesus. Faith is the gift of God; it is not of ourselves. Whosoever puts his Holy Spirit-supplied faith in Christ Jesus, shall not perish, because he has been given eternal life in the perdurable, undying Saviour.
The undying, unchanging, eradicable and undefeatable Saviour maintains that which He has authored through his constant intervention on behalf of those who put their trust in Him. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” – Hebrews 7:25. “Who is he that condemneth (one of Christ’s saved) it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” – Romans 8:34.
I will close with another of those scriptures which speak of Christ as the beginning and the ending.
In Revelation 21:6, near the conclusion of our Bibles, we hear the Lord Jesus say, “It is DONE.” It is done – it is finished. It is similar to what Jesus said on the cross, as He died in the flesh. “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” The work of redemption was fully completed by Christ. Nothing was left but for you to receive it by faith. In Revelation 21:6 Jesus said, “It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” Toward the conclusion of time as we know it, the ever-living, never changing Saviour will say once again, as He did “in the last day, that great day of the feast, (when) Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” – John 7:37. At the end of time Christ will repeat Himself, saying, “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” In both scriptures, the Saviour was referring to eternal life which is found only in the unchangeable Christ.
The “overcoming” to which the Lord refers has nothing to do with our strength or ability. It speaks of our willingness to let the unchangeable Saviour overcome all things on our behalf. This is a vital part of the gospel message: you and I have no strength to overcome our sin and guilt. We must be willing to abandon all personal hope, casting it aside to grasp, by faith, the eternal Saviour.
Hebrews 13:8 is a glorious verse; one on which we can hang our hats; rest our souls. If you will humbly turn to Christ Jesus, putting your trust in the work which He accomplished on the cross, He will save your soul from eternal damnation. And by the fact that He is ineradicable and perdurable, you can rest assured that your soul will be safe in His hands for ever. “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” And why? For one reason: “Jesus Christ (is) the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Praise His holy name.