They shall perish, but *thou* continuest still; and they all shall grow old as a garment,
The words here are not the writer's own. They come from Psalm 102, where God speaks to His Son. That raises the question the whole chapter drives at: who is this Person? Heaven and earth wear out, and He stays.
These words answer a cry of distress. The One crying out, His days cut short, is the same One who laid the earth's foundation.
The One crying out of all this distress laid the earth's foundation. The heavens that then darkened over Him were the work of His hands. But the material creation, in the form we know, will perish, while He stands and endures. Its days will be numbered. Heaven and earth will show the signs of decay and age. But He will be the same, and His years will have no end. Notice how He speaks in His humiliation of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). In Jehovah's reply to Him, He speaks of "Your years." They run through all generations, and they will have no end.
The chapter has already called the Son God. Someone could argue over that word, so a second psalm follows with a Name no one else can carry.
The Psalms are cited to show that the Son is addressed there as God (Ps. 45:6-7). A fault-finding Jew might object that the same book describes rulers and magistrates in the same way (Ps. 82:6). So another Scripture follows, one that gives Him the incommunicable Name: "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning... they will perish, but you remain."
Two words carry the weight here: "you remain." What do they claim?
They speak of One who stands connected with creation at its widest — the heavens and the earth. Creation is temporary and perishable, and its removal leaves Him unaffected. He "continues still," and this is the meaning of the word "remain." This is not exactly about His essential and eternal existence. It means that while He is joined to what passes away, He abides.
The heavens and the earth show His glory. Their ending shows it too.
He has founded the earth and formed the heavens, and they therefore declare His glory (Ps. 19:1). But "they will perish." He has decreed that they will not continue in their present form. Their very destruction underlines that He is the eternal One: "You remain."
Wearing out is not the same as being written off. God is not finished with this creation.
When God calls a thing old He has finished with it... but God has not yet finished with the first birth or the first creation. We sometimes use the expression "old creation," but this term is not found in Scripture. The nearest approach to it is in Hebrews 1:11, "they will wear out"... So we are still connected with the first birth and can glorify God in it. And He will yet fill the first creation with His glory, as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
And His remaining is the reason to expect something better after the wreck:
He is no distant God, no uninterested onlooker at anything His hands have made. He rules it as truly as He created it. If He sees fit, for some good reason, to dissolve His handiwork, He has the perfect right to do so, and the power. Yet He Himself remains! And if so, will not His continuing guarantee something greater and better — a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells?
People we leaned on pass away. The letter answers that at its start and again at its end.
They have gone, but Christ remains, with perfect love in His heart and perfect power in His hand... There is no difficulty He cannot enable us to overcome. There is no danger He cannot keep us from. There is no question that can arise which He cannot settle. He is our stay and resource — our all. With this presentation of Christ as the unchanging One the letter opens, and with this it closes. In the first chapter He is hailed as the abiding and unchanging One — "You remain" and "You are the same." Others pass away, but He remains.
- Sufferer. God answers One whose days were running out — the glory shines at the lowest point.
- Creator. They name Him with the Name that belongs to God alone, settling who the Son is.
- Remains. "Remain" means He continues still — standing beside what passes away, untouched by its removal.
- Perishes. Creation wears out like clothing, and its very collapse is what proves His permanence.
- Resource. Because He remains, a new heaven and earth lie ahead. Nothing that fails around us leaves us without help.
and as a covering shalt thou roll them up, and they shall be changed; but *thou* art the Same, and thy years shall not fail.
The closing words of this verse come from Psalm 102, where a suffering Man begs God not to cut His life short. Hebrews says God spoke that reply to the Son Himself — so who is this Person, untouched while heaven and earth wear out?
The quotation is not a general statement about God dropped into the argument. It is a reply, and everything turns on who receives it.
Jesus, in His humiliation, pours out His broken heart to Jehovah. The Psalm looks ahead to the rebuilding of Zion. If so, where would this struck-down Messiah be? If He is cut off in the middle of His days, how could He be there? God's answer is that He, the holy sufferer, is Jehovah, the Creator who made and orders all things. What a testimony to His unchangeable deity!
The wording itself carries the contrast. The Sufferer speaks of what is short; the answer speaks of what has no measure.
The One who is crying out of all this distress laid the earth's foundation. The heavens that darkened over Him then were the work of His hands. But the material creation, in the form we know, will perish, while He stands and endures. Its days will run out. Heaven and earth will show the signs of decay and age. But He will be the same, and His years will have no end. Notice how in His humiliation He speaks of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). In Jehovah's reply to Him, He speaks of "Your years." They run throughout all generations, and they will have no end.
"You are the same" describes what He is in Himself. The same expression returns at the end of the letter.
It is the same word (ho autos) in Hebrews 1:12 and Hebrews 13:8. His person as God is the foundation of all His offices and works. In this way the letter opens with the most glorious proclamation of this truth. Heaven and earth pass away, but Christ does not. The works of God's hand perish, but the One of God's anointing never can.
An owner uses a garment, then lays it aside. The One who lays creation aside is the One who made it.
When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside as one would a garment no longer worn. He will establish a new creation in which righteousness will dwell. But in that new creation He will be the same. As He was and is, so He will always be. He is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will remain.
The letter uses the phrase again in Hebrews 13:8, and that later verse looks back to this one.
In verse 8 our thoughts are also carried back to the things we started with in Hebrews 1. There we discovered the words in Psalm 102: "You are the same, and Your years will have no end." The psalm speaks them not to God in a general way, but to the One we know as our Lord Jesus Christ. The great statement that He is "the same yesterday and today and forever" expands this thought. Of whom could anyone say such a thing except One who was and is God?
Grief is where this truth is felt most sharply.
Our loved ones pass out of our sight, but He remains. It is a blessing for all believers at all times to realise that He remains. It is never more precious than in the deep sorrow of losing someone we love. Homes on earth break up and hopes on earth collapse. Then we can look up into His face and say, "You remain." And as He looks down into our stricken hearts with infinite compassion, He answers back, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
- The cry. Messiah asks not to be cut off in the middle of His days. Jehovah's reply tells Him He is the Creator.
- The contrast. In His humiliation He speaks of His "days." The answer speaks of His "years," which run through all generations and have no end.
- The title. "The same" (ho autos) is a statement of who He is in His person as God, and it is the foundation of everything He does.
- The change. He will set creation aside like a garment once it has served its purpose. A new creation comes in, and in it He is the same.
- The anchor. He remains and is the same. So the believer who watches everything else wear out has a fixed point no loss can move.