Hebrews 1:5–14

The Jewish system was set up in connection with angels. But Christ has taken a position much higher than that of angels, because the name He inherits as His own — that is, a revelation of what He is — is far more excellent than theirs. So the writer quotes several Old Testament passages about the Messiah, to show what He is compared with the nature and position of angels. What these passages meant to a Jew who believed is plain... it was their own Scriptures that proved the Messiah was to have a position far more excellent and exalted than that of angels.

In verse 7 we have a quotation which plainly states the nature of angels and the reason why they exist. They are spirits in their nature and they exist as ministers to serve the Divine will.

He is clearly addressed as man born into the world, for "this day" belongs to time, not to eternity... This is all the more striking because angels too are called "sons of God," as in Job 1:6 and Job 38:7. The sonship shared by all spiritual beings whom the "Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9) created is one thing; the real relationship of a "begotten Son" is another... Here, in the condition of a creature, is One who is more than a creature. Men may be "offspring of God," and angels "sons," yet neither of them reach this place or inherit this name.

The first Scripture quoted is from Psalm 2:7. God never spoke such a word to an angel. It applies only to Christ. But how? The apostle John loves to dwell on His eternal Sonship... How is He viewed here? As Son of God born in time. We see Him so in Luke 1:32, and still more clearly in verse 35. Taking flesh did not lower His Sonship at all. He was Son of God from eternity, and He was no less Son of God when born of the virgin Mary, as He is in resurrection and forever in glory.

Adam was a son of God because God breathed life into him. An angel is a son of God as a created spirit. To either of them God might say, once he had been brought into being, "You are My son." But it seems unbelievable that God should say this to either of them before he came into the sphere of creation. Yet the LORD could and did speak this way to His own Son. The whole force of the quotation from the Psalm depends on its being true of the Son alone, who was the Eternal Son without any begetting — true of Him even before He was begotten in time as man.

Why is it that the King in Zion can stand against all the hatred and opposition of the enemy?... it was because that King in Zion was His Son. "I will declare the decree," says the Son; and then He declares it. "You are My Son," God had said to Him; "today I have begotten You." He is in His kingly place as Son of God, and who can set himself against the Son of God with any success?

The apostle strengthens this with a second quotation. It applied first of all to Solomon, but only as a picture of another. Even as Builder of God's house, the true Son of David was not Solomon but a Greater One, whose house and kingdom would both last for ever... But the point here is, "I will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son." On both sides these relations will be all that they imply.

How could any creature, however blessed, be to God all that the name SON means? He alone stands infinitely above all creatures. He alone could present to God, in manhood, what called out every affection of God's heart, and He alone was an object fully worthy of those affections. He alone could give God a response that matched them.

When God introduces the Firstborn into the world, all the angels are called to worship Him. God presents Him to the world; but the highest of created beings must then cast themselves at His feet. The angels of God Himself — the creatures that are nearest to Him — must do homage to the Firstborn. The Firstborn is the Heir, the One in whom the glory and power of God begin to appear. It is in this sense that the word is used. It is said of the Son of David, "I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth" (Ps. 89:27). So the Messiah is introduced into the world as holding this place in relation to God Himself. He is the Firstborn — the immediate expression of the rights and the glory of God. He has universal pre-eminence.

The angelic beings around the throne of God could not worship anyone who was less than God. No creature, however blessed by God, or given divine power, could rightly receive such honour. The idea would be sinful in the extreme. Angels know who the Son is, and that He died for man on the cross… They know well to whom worship belongs. John was once overcome by the bright shining of an angel and by the wonderful things made known to him. He "fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed him these things." The angel refused at once. He would not take the homage, but rebuked the mistaken apostle: "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets. Worship God!"

So there is no ground for doubt. "Angels" are meant here, and they are commanded to pay supreme honour to the Son as the risen and glorified Man — yet He is no less a divine person. If He were not, worthiness as man and given dignity could not justify the homage God claims for His Son from the highest creatures of heaven… He may take a place of humiliation, or a place of glorious rule, for the glory of God and the blessing of creation. In personal title and divine nature He is as truly Supreme as the Father or the Holy Spirit. To think otherwise is to disown His true Deity.

Of His first coming, Scripture says that Christ came into the world, that He was sent, that He was born. Here Scripture says He is brought, or introduced, into the world… So the promise that the First-begotten will be brought into the world again points clearly back to His earlier expulsion from it. Man drove Him out in disgrace when, by the grace of God, His beloved Son was crucified in weakness. He will re-enter it in majesty, according to the power of God.

The apostle's aim appears to be this: not to fix the time when God brings the Firstborn into the world, but to prove the universal homage of all God's angels to the glory of the Son. Whenever that moment is, past or future, the homage stands. And Luke 2:13-14 is a beautiful witness to it. There is no ground at all to limit "the firstborn" to resurrection… At the same time, we freely allow that the fulfilment of Deuteronomy 32 or of Psalm 97 as a whole awaits the Lord's second coming.

This happens when He brings Him into the world, or "habitable earth" — His kingdom of a thousand years. The psalm describes Him coming into the habitable earth as Judge, to take His place and reign. As He comes, the One who once came as the Babe of Bethlehem comes in the clouds with power and great glory, and the hosts of heaven come with Him… There He is, the Object of angels' worship. This was never said of any angel. Angels are worshippers, not objects of worship.

God is jealous for the honour of the Son. If He commands the angels to own and respect the personal rights of the Firstborn, then we may be sure of this: the redeemed must and will gladly yield to Him their unbounded adoration. They will adore Him not only as the Firstborn of all creation, but as the Firstborn from among the dead (Col. 1:15, 18).

The writer sent this letter to Hebrews, and that explains the comparison and contrast between Christ and angels. A Hebrew saw angels as the highest and holiest beings, second only to Jehovah Himself. God also gave the law through angels (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19), and angels served in other well-known ways in Israel's history. So these beings held a high place in the Jewish mind. … Angels are only servants. Scripture never says that they occupy a throne, because they cannot reign. But Christ has a throne, and His redeemed will reign with Him.

It has pleased God to give these agents of His power this nature of spirits. But of the Son He says, "Your throne, O God!" By His own will God makes His angels spirits, or flames of fire. But of the Son we never read that God makes anything of Him.

According to the apostle, "He makes His angels spirits" states a fact about the nature of angels. That is a much higher fact than making "the winds His messengers," as some would have it. Either translation is possible, so the language alone cannot settle the meaning. This shows two things. No part of His creation stands separate from Him, and no physical agency is anything but the embodiment of His will. The spirits, who carry a responsibility of their own, represent Him and are subject to Him. They receive their character and their gifts from Him, according to His will.

Angels fall into various orders and ranks. But all of them, from the archangel down to the least, are servants. They have no relationship to God founded on redemption. They are servants, and never rise out of that position, nor do they wish to. Angel life has two great marks: unquestioning obedience and active service (Ps. 103:20; Heb. 1:7, 14).

Of them we read that "God makes His angels spirits (winds) and His ministers a flame of fire." And again, "the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels." At God's command they get ready to serve, in whatever the saint needs or the occasion under the throne of God calls for. They formed a travelling chariot to carry Elijah to heaven, and to carry Lazarus to Abraham's side. They now form chariots of war when the hostile bands of Syria surround Elisha. They have drawn the sword to strike a guilty city. Or with the strong hand of love they have dragged the unwilling one out of the doomed city. They are either as winds or as fire. They are messengers of mercy, and executors of judgment.

This quotation comes from Psalm 104, the psalm of creation. Here God is speaking of His works of creation and providence, and of the messengers He uses. They are angels, beings who excel in strength and delight to do His will. He makes the angels spirits, and they go like the lightning or like the wind, quick and certain in their work. Theirs is a blessed position, a place of exaltation as far as man is concerned — but after all, they are ministers. And as we read in the last verse of this chapter, "Are they not all ministering spirits?" They do not only serve God, going out as the rushing wind or the flame of fire to do His will. Are they not ministering spirits, sent out to serve us?

Do not confuse the language of verse 8 with that of verse 9. Verse 8 states the Lord's Divinity outright. It gives the sceptre of righteousness to the Son as something that belongs to Him from the first, as the Judge of all the world. In the other verse we see Him as the Perfect One. Jehovah bears witness to Him, and gives Him the rewards of righteousness as the Man of God's pure approval and delight.

The past too is not forgotten, nor ever can be by God. "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness." Such was Jesus as man here below; for in truth He is both in one person, neither more truly God than man, nor man than God.

To love righteousness is to hate its opposite, iniquity. The more intense the love of righteousness, the more intense the hatred of iniquity.

"He loved righteousness, and hated lawlessness," though it cost Him His blood, and being forsaken and bruised by God.

God addresses Him as God, since He is a divine Person. Yet He is still seen here as the perfect Man on earth, the One of whom it can be said, "Your God has anointed You." Because of His moral perfection — His love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity — God has raised Him above all those He associates with Himself in grace.

Because of this His God — remember, here He is Man, and so the expression "His God" is fitting — has anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows, or companions. Kings of old were anointed with oil, but the Lord was anointed with the Holy Spirit. These words also show that in His kingship He has companions.

Though the measure is greater, the character of the gladness is the same. It is the same excellent oil which anoints Him in glory that flows down to us here. The same Spirit that rests on Him has come to all those who belong to Him. We share in the same gladness with Him.

These companions are the believing remnant of Israel. By grace He has made them His fellows. Yet He stands above them all, for by His love of righteousness — and that, at all costs — He was perfectly pleasing to God.

A new and surprising comparison now comes in. It is not a contrast, as with the angels, but a difference of degree only. He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Angels are no fellows to the Son. They stand in complete contrast with Him, as we have seen. His fellows are none other than those for whom God has appointed this glory, by the exceeding riches of His grace: to be conformed to the image of His Son; for He is, and is to be, the Firstborn among many brothers.

How beautiful to see the largeness of grace and truth. After this lofty owning of Messiah as God by God comes the fullest acknowledgment of others. He Himself is no more ashamed to own us His companions or fellows than God is to own Him God.

Still more remarkable is the sixth quotation, from Psalm 102. Wonderful as His glory is in Psalm 45, Psalm 102 surpasses it. No human being would ever have known the real meaning of this psalm if it had not pleased the Spirit of God to give it in this chapter. The little word "and" shows that in verses 25-27 God addresses the Son of God as the Creator of all things.

It is certain from Hebrews 1:10 that there is a change of speakers at verse 25. For while the beginning of the psalm, in its full meaning, can only be the utterance of Christ suffering for His people, the apostle by his reasoning on and application of Psalm 45:5-6 and Psalm 102:25 shows that we have, in these last, God's answer to the divine sufferer.

The divine title differs. It is the name every Jew owns as supreme and belonging to God alone. The title "God" can be used in a lower sense of those who represent His authority as kings or judges. Compare Exodus 21, Exodus 22, Psalm 82. But Jehovah, translated "LORD" here, is only ever used of God in the highest sense. It is His name in His special covenant relationship with Israel, as the Everlasting and Unchanging One.

In Hebrews chapter 1 the writer credits creation to the Son (verse 2). Lower down he quotes Psalm 102:25. The other passages referred to are quite clear. But this third reference would lead the simplest believer to conclude that Jesus is Jehovah.

God addresses the sighing One in Gethsemane, the blessed Son of God in His place of lowliness, as Creator and Maker of heaven and earth! When everything around us crumbles to nothing, He will remain in His eternal power and glory. Could two extremes seem further apart? On one side, utter need and helplessness — the complaint of One crying out in weakness to God. On the other, the answer comes from the very throne of God, addressing this pleading One as God over all, blessed forever.

Christ mournfully pleads, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days." Jehovah replies: "Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain." The crucified One was Himself also the Eternal. That is a blessed mystery, and the foundation of all God's counsels of grace and glory.

Here we see His eternal glory in the visible creation, and also in contrast to it. The One called "God" is now called "Lord" — the first name pointing to His supremacy, the second to His authority. He has founded the earth and formed the heavens, and so they declare His glory. 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.

When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside like a worn-out garment. Then 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. That is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will last.

What divine power we see in the touch of His hands as He went about as the meek and lowly Jesus of Nazareth. And all that divine power that made the heavens and the earth was still in His hands. He went about as Man doing good and healing all whom the devil oppressed. Now He used that power in love and grace to meet the needs of His creatures. Above all, what divine perfection His work on the cross shows, as He hung there in seeming weakness by the nails in His hands.

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 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."

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.

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."

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).

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

One more quotation (Ps. 110:1) completes this series. Here He is Son at rest after His work is finished. Man rejected Him, but He waits for God to act and make His foes His footstool, while He Himself sits at the right hand of God. So the testimony is complete, and every quotation fills its place perfectly.

To whom is that said? Who could be addressed like this? God never spoke that way to any created angel. To serve, not to sit, is what marks them out. God could not offer such a place as that Psalm describes to any mere man. To the Son of God before He became man such a word would have been quite out of place. From all eternity He could, and did, sit on the throne of God. But to Him as incarnate, how suitable! ... Always divine, but now a man too. ... He must be God as well as man — God to be there at all, and man for God to speak to like this.

No angel was ever invited, as He is, to sit on that throne. In fact, though the saints are to sit with Christ on His throne in the age of His display, no angel ever will. God made angels to serve, not to reign; they never did and never will.

He has His own right to sit down at God's right hand. But in this Psalm He is invited to take His place on high, because God is satisfied with the great work He has accomplished.

Jehovah acknowledges Him as Lord and places Him at His right hand, but it is "until…" Something lies ahead of Him. The seat He is to occupy is very high, yet it is only for a time, until what lies ahead comes true. The day of His poverty is over. The day of His patience has begun.

And the Lord Jesus Christ, rejected by man, is sitting at God's right hand as Man, expecting until His enemies are made His footstool. Patient grace is working meanwhile to call sinners to a knowledge of the salvation which He has wrought.

Psalm 110 declares Christ's present glory. It explains the puzzle of Christ exalted above, while men reject Him outwardly and He has none of His rights yet here below. ... At last, when His enemies are made a footstool, Christ appears in person to tread them down.

Christ is not yet sitting on His own throne... But the day is coming when He will put down His enemies and sit on His throne. According to the Scriptures, the present state of things is this: Christ is sitting at the right hand of God — until He makes His enemies His footstool. Look at all the wars and tumults and misery and wretchedness and superstition around us. Do you think that Christ is sitting on His throne?

One thing remained to complete this chain of glory: the place Christ holds now, still in contrast with the angels. That place rests on two things — the divine glory of His Person, and the completion of His work. It is at the right hand of God, who called Him to sit there until He had made His enemies His footstool. To which of the angels has God ever said this? They are servants on God's part to the heirs of salvation.

There are rulers in the angelic world — "rule and authority and power and dominion" (Ephesians 1:21) — but their rule only extends over beings of their own order. Dealing with angels, Hebrews 1:14 asks, "Are they not all ministering spirits?" Yes — God created them all to serve, right up to the archangel himself. As far as Scripture tells us, God made only man to have dominion over others.

The ministers are angels. The receivers of the ministry are heirs. They are fellow-heirs with Christ. They are heirs of a Father whom they know and rejoice in as their Saviour and their God. Once sunk in sin beyond all natural hope, they are now, through grace, made in Christ the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. The inheritance they wait for is one single word: "Salvation." Christian salvation is not just an escape from wrath. God sends His angels out to help those He counts worthy of such ministry, because they bear the title of His Son.

They are only spirits, glad to serve, according to God's will, such humble creatures as those who once were fallen sinners, but who will be heirs of salvation.

Take the Epistle to the Hebrews. There, too, salvation is always presented as a future thing. "He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him." The verse means God's people, not the unconverted, when it speaks of coming to God through Christ. For whom is He a priest? For the believer only. So in Hebrews the one who needs saving is the believer, because salvation there covers all the difficulties of our journey through the wilderness.

Still, it is a blessed place they occupy. God has appointed them to bring protection, comfort and support in this life to those destined for eternal glory. No doubt we owe far more to angelic ministry than we notice in matters of physical strength and wellbeing. Yet as spirit beings they keep their ministry completely hidden. They are content to remain unknown to us, so that only God gets the glory for it.

We are not told in what way, except that they protect us through God's providence. If God had given us details, that would open the door to the imagination of unbalanced minds. Instead we have this great comfort: angels, unseen and unnoticed, minister to us in a way that is enough for our needs, and God directs them in His love and wisdom.

They minister now to those who are the heirs of salvation, who bear the title of sons in His Son and who have His life. How little God's people make use of this comfort! It takes an active and simple faith to see the real workings of angels' ministry in what people brush off as accidents of time and place.