He was still speaking when a luminous cloud spread over them; and a voice was heard from within the cloud, which said, »This is My Son dearly beloved, in whom is My delight. Listen to Him.«
Jesus however remained silent. Again the High Priest addressed Him. »In the name of the ever-living God,« he said, »I now put you on your oath. Tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.«
And the Word came in the flesh, and lived for a time in our midst, so that we saw His glory–the glory as of the Father's only Son, sent from His presence. He was full of grace and truth.
No longer do I call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from the Father I have made known to you.
The Message which He sent to the descendants of Israel, when He announced the Good News of peace through Jesus Christ –He is Lord of all– that Message you cannot but know;
And it shall come to pass in the last days, God says, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall have dreams;
and if children, then heirs too–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ; if indeed we are sharers in Christ's sufferings, in order that we may also be sharers in His glory.
But in dealing with truths hitherto kept secret we speak of God's wisdom–that hidden wisdom which, before the world began, God pre-destined, so that it should result in glory to us;
yet we have but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things and for whose service we exist, and but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we and all things exist.
for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it–the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in Him.
and to show all men in a clear light what my stewardship is. It is the stewardship of the truth which from all the Ages lay concealed in the mind of God, the Creator of all things–
For to which of the angels did God ever say, »My Son art Thou: I have this day become Thy Father;« and again, »I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be My Son«?
Through faith we understand that the worlds came into being, and still exist, at the command of God, so that what is seen does not owe its existence to that which is visible.
how shall we escape if we are indifferent to a salvation as great as that now offered to us? This, after having first of all been announced by the Lord Himself, had its truth made sure to us by those who heard Him,
but Christ was faithful as a Son having authority over God's house, and we are that house, if we hold firm to the End the boldness and the hope which we boast of as ours.
Inasmuch, then, as we have in Jesus, the Son of God, a great High Priest who has passed into Heaven itself, let us hold firmly to our profession of faith.
For the Law constitutes men High Priests –men with all their infirmity– but the utterance of the oath, which came later than the Law, constitutes High Priest a Son who has been made for ever perfect.
with no father or mother, and no record of ancestry: having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made a type of the Son of God–this man Melchizedek remains a priest for ever.
In that case Christ would have needed to suffer many times, from the creation of the world onwards; but as a matter of fact He has appeared once for all, at the Close of the Ages, in order to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
He was pre-destined indeed to this work, even before the creation of the world, but has been plainly manifested in these last days for the sake of you who, through Him,