A noted theologian said that Hebrews is one of the three New Testament commentaries on a single Old Testament verse: “The just shall live by his faith,” found in Hab. 2:4 The book of Romans talks about what it means to be considered as just; to be justified is one who has been declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. The just shall live by faith. The book of Ephesians expounds on the words "shall live," and it tells us about life as a justified person -- the new life in the Spirit. Finally, the book of Hebrews takes up the last two words, "by faith," and it shows us how what constitutes saving faith.
The concept of faith is sorely misunderstood today by many people. Great faith is presumed to be conjuring up an intensity of believing in something; something you want to see happen. But it’s not the size of your faith or the intensity of faith that matters. Jesus said "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed" in Matthew 17:20, you could move mountains. So it is not quantity that is essential to faith - it is the quality of your faith. It is what you faith is founded on that is important. What is the object of your faith? The strength of faith is directly related to the strength of what you believe in. What are you believing in? Or better yet, who are you believing in? What kind of a person is he?
When Hebrews talks about faith, the author wants us to see the object of faith, because our faith will be strong if we believe and understand that the object of our faith is strong. That is why this is the most Christ centered book in the New Testament. It focuses on Jesus Christ. If we see him as he is, we cannot help but be strong in faith. Ironically, in addition to be the most Christ centered book in the New Testament, it also quotes more from the Old Testament than any other book. Which shows us that Christ is the theme of all the scriptures.
Again and again in scripture we are instructed in phrases such as, “Looking unto Jesus,” “we would see Jesus,” “keep your eyes upon Jesus,” and so forth. All instructions to see Jesus, to look unto Jesus, to focus on Him. And yet how do we see Jesus? He is the word of God made flesh. And during His life time you could see Him in person. But after His death He ascended into heaven, as it says in vs.3 and now is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So how do we see Him now? Can we see Him now? Or is He just a figment of our imagination? Does this mean that we should conjure up a mental image of Jesus and let that be the way we see him? Maybe we should find a picture or statue that some artist thinks represents Jesus, and we should hold that image in our minds, so that we might “see” Jesus.
On the contrary, if we are to see Jesus, in all of His glory, then we must see him in the word of God. Only in the word can we be certain that we see Jesus in truth. If we are here this morning to worship Jesus, then we should remember that He said, “God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” You cannot see a spirit, they are invisible. But we can see Jesus, because we see Him in HIs word, and His word is truth. The word of God is how we see the complete manifestation of Jesus Christ. And let me add that it is a more complete picture found in the word, than even was seen by the eyewitnesses of his incarnation. They saw a man in the flesh. In order to see Jesus for who He was, that is God, they had to hear His words. We have the full revelation of His words which they did not have. So we can see Jesus even more clearly than they did.
In fact, in his flesh, it is very likely that it took even more faith to see Jesus as God. The flesh would have gotten in the way. Isaiah 53 says that in His flesh he was not good looking. In His flesh he had no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him with favor. Isaiah even goes so far as to say that in His flesh, He was the kind of person who you would naturally want to turn away from. Such a person would be hard to imagine as being the Son of God. We would imagine that he would be handsome, rugged, built like a Greek god. In all the ancient artistic works of pagans, and even many Christian art works, the figures of deity are well formed, attractive, muscular. But Isaiah says that he was nothing like that. And so we find in the scriptures the most complete picture of Jesus.
The author of Hebrews wants to give to the Christian Jews a more complete picture of Jesus, in order to strengthen and inform their faith. In the first three verses, he has told us that God has spoken in these last days, most completely and finally in His Son. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. And as the word made flesh, he is superior to every other word that was spoken in times past by the prophets. Jesus is far superior to the prophets, in that he is not just bringing a message from God, but He is God, and He is the Word of God. He is not just a messenger, He is the message; the word made flesh, the word manifested.
Then, in the section we are looking at today, still on this subject of messengers, he says that Jesus is greater than the angels. Angels are messengers of God. That is what the word aggelos (an-ga-los) means, a messenger. In vs14 speaking of angels it says “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” So now the author contrasts Jesus with the angels, and shows us through the scripture that Jesus is superior to the angels. In vs3 and 4 he says, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” And he is going to tell us in the next verse that more excellent name, which is the name Son. And we will look more fully at that in a moment.
Now in order to show the superiority of Christ, he gives seven Old Testament quotations. Note that he doesn’t give their reference. There were no references in the scriptures at that time. References came many years after the Bible was completed. References and superscriptions are not inspired, by the way. They were added by early transcribers of the scriptures to aid in studying. So when the author quotes from the Old Testament, he doesn’t give a reference, he just begins to quote, as if the recipients were well familiar with the texts.
And yet the underlying purpose of his writing is that the Hebrews had grown dull in their faith. They had grown lazy, and were in danger of slipping back into formulaic Judaism, of going through the motions, of relying on rituals, of becoming religious, but having lost their first love. And yet they knew the scriptures to the point that he scarcely has to give any sort of reference, knowing that they were well familiar with these texts. I wonder, by contrast, how many of us find the following verses even the least bit familiar. Have we also become formulaic, do we rely upon rituals and the practice of external religion, but inwardly perhaps we are drying up?
The answer to our hard hearts, to our lost love, to our lack of zeal for the things of God is that we need to see Jesus. We need to look at Him in all His glory, and we need to see all that He has done for us, to make us His own. Let’s then look at these seven quotations, and let’s pray we see Jesus more clearly, that we might be conformed to His image.
So the author begins by saying: “For to which of the angels did he ever say, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You?” It’s a quotation from Psalm 2:7 which says, “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’”
The contrast the author wants to show is between a Son and a servant. Angels are servants, but Christ is the Son. Christ is greater because of his relationship to God, the fact that he is the Son of God. Angels collectively were sometimes called in the scripture sons of God. But no angel individually was ever addressed as the Son of God. Now the Hebrews understood that this Psalm spoke of the future Messiah, in which the fullness of the kingdom of David would be found.
And by the way, here is the answer to the cults. Both Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ was nothing more than an angel, the highest created angel. They identify him with Michael, the Archangel. But this passage in Hebrews destroys that theory, for Christ is a Son, and not an angel. To what angel did God ever say, "Thou art my Son.”
The second quotation comes from 2 Samuel 7:14,. “I will be his father,” says God, “and he shall be my son.” In 2 Samuel 7, after David aspired to build a house for the Lord, the Lord pronounced a blessing on David, and upon his house and kingdom, that is called the Davidic covenant. It consisted of promises that God would bless David’s heirs, and would establish his throne forever. Though Solomon would be a son to David, and God would bless his kingdom, it was understood that in the Messiah the promise would be fulfilled.
In this covenant, David is told that he’s to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, and an eternal kingdom. Now if he is to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, then obviously it’s a descendant of David who’s going to sit on that throne. Now, what kind of a descendant must David have if he is to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, an eternal kingdom? The answer of course, is he is going to have a Son who is immortal, begotten of God, yet who will be of the tribe of Judah, of the line of David.
Now the question arises, in what sense is Jesus begotten? In what sense can God say, “today I have begotten you?” As Christians we believe that Jesus is eternal, that he existed in the beginning with God, as it says in John 1. “He was in the beginning with God.” He coexisted with God. So how was He born of God? Well, I believe he was begotten of God when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she became with child. The Word of God, the eternal Son, became flesh, was born of a virgin, and dwelt among us. The eternal Son laid aside His glory and took upon himself all the vicissitudes of humanity.
When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son, he revealed that Jesus would be fully God, born of a woman, and of the line of David. Gabriel said in Luke 1:32, "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” So, Christ is the Son of God, the name above every name.
The third quotation is found in Verse 6, “But when He again brings in the firstborn into the world, He says, ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him.’”
“When he again brings the firstborn into the world,”is a reference to the Second Advent. The second coming of Jesus Christ. The author has just spoken of the first advent of Christ, when He is born a Son. Now he speaks of the second advent, when the Son returns to earth for His church.
Note that He is called “the firstborn.” In Psalm 89:27 God says, ““I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.” Christ is called the firstborn because he exists before all creation and because creation is his heritage. Then in our text he says, “when He again brings the firstborn into the world…” The term for world is the inhabited world. Not cosmos, but oikoumene, the inhabited world. In other worlds, into this world of which we are a part.
Now, consider the term “worship.” “Let the angels of God worship Him.” This text comes from Psalm 97:7. Since he’s already been said previously here in this passage to have been appointed heir to all things, it would be natural then to speak of Him being introduced to His inheritance. And part of his inheritance is the worship of the angels of God; that is his legal heirship. All the angelic host is to render him divine worship. We only worship that which is superior to us. The worship of the angels at Bethlehem is testimony to the deity of the baby in the manger. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress said, "If Jesus Christ be not God, then heaven will be filled with idolators." In Revelation and Daniel, as books that give us a view into the heavenly realms, we see ten thousand times ten thousands of angels engaged in worshipping the Son. So he is seen to be greater than angels by the demonstration of their worship.
The fourth quotation is taken from Psalm 104;4 which relates to the ministry of angels in the kingdom of God. Angels are spirits, according to vs14. Yet though their ministry is on a supernatural plane, and conducted in the spiritual realm, yet it is inferior to that of the Son of God. “Who makes the winds His messengers, and flames of fire His ministers.” Metaphorically the angels are said to exhibit characteristics of fire and wind, things which have immense power. But nevertheless they are created things which God controls and uses for His purposes.
Contrast that ministry to the next quotation, the fifth, which is taken from Psalm 45:6 which speaks of the Messiah. “Thy throne O God, is forever and ever.” And then vs7, “Therefore, (O)God, thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” In a greater sense than could ever be attributed to the successors of David’s throne, this Messiah is addressed not only as God’s Son, but also as God. He is both God’s Son and God.
Now this is not the only place where this designation is given to the Son. Besides John 1:1 which I quoted to you earlier, I would remind you of Isaiah 9:6; “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of [His] government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”
The throne of the Messiah God, the Psalmist says, is forever and ever. His Kingdom will never come to an end. His kingdom is characterized by righteousness. Therefore God has anointed Jesus with an office far above His companions. His throne is exceedingly great and eternal. HIs throne is above all things, all powers, and all principalities.
The sixth quotation is taken from Psalm 102:25-27. As the Psalmist reflects upon his own mortality, and the brevity of his life and his reign, he extols the eternal nature of the kingdom of the Son. He says the Son of God laid the foundations of the earth, and all the heavens are the work of HIs hands. Though the heavens and the earth grow old like a garment and one day will be made new, yet the Maker remains. His days will never come to an end. His kingdom endures forever.
The seventh quotation, which concludes the argument, comes from Psalm 110. The author says, “But to which of the angels has He ever said, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet.” Already we have seen reference to Christ sitting at the right hand of The Majesty on high, in vs3. Now he expands upon that theme, asking which angel was ever given that position? The answer obviously is none of them.
Jesus Himself claimed at His trial that from then on they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Father. The Council condemned Him to death for blasphemy after hearing that. But it has stood since that time as a principle doctrine of Christianity, that Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father where He ever lives to make intercession for us.
The most exalted angels are those whose privilege is to stand in service to God around His throne. But none of them has ever been told to sit on the throne next to Him. The angels, in vs14 are described as ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. They stand ready to speed to help those whom God has claimed as His own.
This salvation was purchased for us at such a tremendous price. The very Son of God became flesh and took on humanity. The Creator would lay aside His glory and put on the vesture of humility, to offer His life as a substitute for the sins of His creation. What a fearful thing it must be to reject such an incredible sacrifice by such a magnificent Savior. These Old Testament scriptures speak to the supremacy and sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Even the mightiest arch angels must bow to Him. And yet He has given mankind the choice to believe in Him or reject Him. The question today is will you bow to Him? Will you submit to Him in faith and obedience as your Lord and your God? That is the means by which we inherit salvation. The just shall live by faith in the Son of God.
As the second chapter asks us in vs3, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? I pray no one walks out of here today without bowing to Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, and trusting in Him for the gift of His righteousness. The just shall live by faith. Simple faith in who Jesus is, and what He came to do, results in His righteousness being transferred to us, and our sins put on Him, that we might be justified, and have life in His name. Worship the Son. Psalm 2:12 gives both a blessing and a curse, as a divine response to either your faith in Him or your rejection. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.”
No comments:
Post a Comment