Hebrews 1:5-6, PRBC March 29, 2009 AM Service

Father, now as we open your Word, we ask that you would be with us as we do this, understanding hearts and minds, to understand your truth, and to remember what we learned, we pray in Christ's name.

I can see it coming, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Yesterday morning,

I was riding, as most of you know I do, I was doing a 33 .5

mile ride, and I was racing someone, namely myself. It's really neat to live in these days where I have a little gadget on my bike, it's a

GPS unit, and when I get done with the ride, I can go back and look at a map of the whole thing,

I can even put it into Google Earth and zoom over it, it's amazing what you can do these days. I can't see myself on it, but that's a good one, and it's coming,

I'm sure, which is sort of scary, but I can also put rides into it so that I can race myself, so I can take a ride

I did before, and I can put it in, and it'll put me and then me, and so I can race me, and I can guarantee you it's a really good training thing to do, but I was racing me, and I was ahead by the way, and I came to this one spot in the ride where I keep forgetting that on Saturdays there's a lot more people on the trail than there are, let's say, at 5 a .m.

on a Tuesday morning, and I was going to the Thunderbird Road, and if you've been there, you know where this trail is, there's a spot where there's guardrails, they're big thick metal guardrails on both sides, not very wide, generally

I don't run into folks there, but somebody was having a birthday party in the park, and going through I had a little trouble, but not too much, coming back

I could see what was coming, there was a fella, and he's carrying, I don't know what this thing was, but he's carrying this big old box of wrapping paper, and he's going right where I need to go, well,

I started yelling back underneath the bridge, coming through, please stay to the right, I'm doing everything

I could to try to avoid a problem, but he just didn't want to listen to me, and so I'm climbing this hill up behind him, and he's not giving way, he just keeps on going,

I'm going right or back, right or back, and right as I get to him he decides to turn and take up the whole thing to see who's coming, and I was a nice guy, instead of running into him,

I rode right into one of those big old guardrails, thankfully got my feet out of the clips fast enough not to flip over the thing, but it was a sort of embarrassing situation,

I saw it coming, and you know how right at the end everything goes into slow motion, I mean, this was only 24 hours ago, and I could just see that guardrail slowly coming at me, and I'm hearing myself yelling,

I saw it coming, there was nothing I could do about it, well, how am I going to connect that story to Hebrews chapter 1, you're wondering, well, let me tell you something,

I am, as most of you know, I do a lot of debating and apologetics, and I know some of the toughest biblical questions out there,

I mean, they get thrown at me, but someday I think I'm going to write a book, the toughest questions, two of the hardest questions that I know of in all the

Bibles, that I haven't even figured out yet, it's going to take a lot of work to get through them, two of them are in this book, and yet I keep plodding on, and I know that no matter how slowly

I go, eventually I'm going to get to them, I see it coming, but there's no way to stop it,

I'm going to get to them eventually, and of course I want to get to them, because when you work through the toughest questions, that's when you get the greatest rewards, and this is a tough book,

I want you to look at your Bible, and I want you to just page through a little bit, and hopefully your

Bible, maybe in some way, sets out Old Testament quotations, maybe it does it in italics or bold,

I know the New American Standard, it does it in capital print, but look through this book, and see how many citations of the

Old Testament text there is in Hebrews, you are soaked in the Old Testament text when you read this book, and when the

New Testament cites the Old Testament, issues come up, troubling questions come up, and today as we work through verses 5 and 6,

Lord willing, at least in this morning time, we start really running into this use of the

Old Testament by the New, and some of the toughest questions have to do with that very issue, and as we start looking today at the use of the

Old Testament and the New here in Hebrews chapter 1, we are going to start laying some foundations, we are going to have to start laying some foundations that will help us as we work through the rest of this book, because I have become convinced the more

I have read and studied this book, that it is without a doubt one of the most ignored of the

New Testament books, when I hear Christians talking about their favorite books, very rarely do

I hear someone say Hebrews, and I do not hear a lot of preaching other than from certain portions of Hebrews, and to try to walk all the way through it, it is a big task, no choice about it, but if we can lay a foundation now, it will help us as we work through these things, and I want to assure you that given that the subject of Hebrews is who

Christ is, the supremacy of Christ, the work of Christ, the cross of Christ, the mercy seat, grace, all these things are so much a part of the message of this book that it is worth the work that it will take, and I assure you, it is going to take us some work, this is not easy preaching, it is going to be hard on me, and for you as the listener, it will be very easy to tune out, to not follow the references, to not go to them, but I would like to encourage you, the reward is worth the effort, the reward is worth the effort,

I was watching something, I found a channel that I had never seen before, and just briefly they were talking about how you become a navy seal, and they were showing the process by which you become a navy seal, and there is a certain week you go through that you sleep about two hours this entire week, they drag you out in the seashore where the water is 58 degrees and you have to sit there locked arm in arm with the rest of your class in the surf, trying to keep your breathing going, and they are shaking, it is only the toughest can possibly survive this, but one man said something,

I heard him say it, and I thought that is a wise man, he is standing there and he is shaking, and it is during one of the brief breaks that they had, and he is going, a few days of pain, a lifetime of pride, and he kept going, and there were people quitting right and left, but you see he was not focused on what he was going through right now, a few days of pain, a lifetime of accomplishment pride, good attitude when it comes to the fact that there are times that there is a section of the word of God that requires us to go through a little pain, a little bit of work, a little bit of thought, it might be a little bit uncomfortable, but the reward is truly worth it, so let's dig into it and take a look at it,

Hebrews chapter 1, we have been working through it, we will read the beginning of verse 1,

God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages or the world, and he is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his being or his nature, and upholding all things by the word of his power, 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 better or more excellent name than they, for to which of the angels, verse 5, for to which of the angels has he ever said, you are my son, this day

I have begotten you, and again I will be to you as a father, and you shall be to me as a son, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him, now, we have already laid the foundation before, if you weren't with us then,

I apologize for that, but we can't go back and recover everything, just a brief reminder that the writer is beginning his exhortation to Hebrew Christians to remain strong against all the pressure that is being put upon them to go back to the old ways, go back to Judaism, make sacrifice in the temple, deny that Jesus is the final sacrifice, deny the supremacy of Christ, and so he's beginning by the demonstration here of who

Jesus is, and the first four verses, he's already sort of laid this out for us, as presented

Jesus in very, very high words, a very exact representation of the nature of God, now he begins the demonstration here, beginning in verse 5 to the end of this chapter, demonstrating that Jesus is superior to the angels, now we need to keep in mind the world view of the people to whom he's speaking, if you're superior to the angels, it's not that you're just sort of a super angel, or an archangel or something like that, the only thing that is above an angel is

God himself, so if Jesus is superior to the angels, the greatest of God's creations, then

Jesus is in fact truly deity, and so he begins the rhetorical question, verse 5, to which of the angels has he ever said, you are my son, today

I have begotten you, now most of us have reference editions of the bible, and in that small little print in the center column, side column, however your bible has it, you will have references that will tell you where these various texts are taken from, and you can see that this is a citation of Psalm 27,

Psalm 27, let's go ahead, and I think it's important that we look at these texts, because I know that even in my preparation this morning,

I have learned things, because I took a little more time to look carefully at the Old Testament texts that are being cited, and when we go back to the 2nd

Psalm, we are immediately struck by something, hopefully we are aware of the fact that the 2nd

Psalm is a very strongly messianic psalm, it is a psalm that is cited a number of times in the

New Testament, that refers to, for example, look at verse 12, do homage to the son, that he not become angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled, how blessed are all who take refuge in him, who is this son that is being talked about here, and in verse 7 we have the text that is cited in Hebrews, I will surely tell the decree of Yahweh, Jehovah, he said to me, you are my son, today

I have begotten you, you are my son, today I have begotten you, now immediately we have many questions that come into our minds, how do we understand prophecies in the

Old Testament that clearly had a fulfillment in their day, and yet not a complete fulfillment, so many of the messianic psalms,

Psalm 110, Psalm 2, Psalm 22, had a meaning when they were written, it is not like this psalm is written and then people start looking at it and they go,

I have no idea what is going on here because this isn't going to be fulfilled for many many centuries and so it is just some type of language that makes no sense to me at all, these were the hymns the people of God, they had meaning to them when they were first written, but we know without a doubt that during the intertestamental period, that period between Malachi and the coming of Christ, that about 400 year period, that the

Jews themselves recognized that no one in the Old Testament had completely fulfilled even the prophecies that were there, they recognized that even though maybe

David fulfilled a part of this prophecy, or Solomon fulfilled a part of this prophecy, that there was so much more to these prophecies that had not yet been fulfilled, and so there was a recognition, there was a looking forward to the one who would come who would fulfill these things, it was recognized that these had partial fulfillment, but that there was going to be a greater fulfillment than the one to come, that is why there was such a strong messianic hope at that particular point in time, and so when we look at Psalm 2, we can see fulfillments at that time, we can see how in some ways these would speak of the

Jewish kings and the role that Israel had, but they would speak in such grand terms that they were pointing to a greater fulfillment in one who is yet to come, and so the writer asks in a rhetorical way, to what angel has

God ever said you are my son, today I have begotten you, clearly the one who is being addressed in the second

Psalm has a special relationship and a special nature, this has never been said to one of the angels, and so if this is said to one and no angels ever heard this, then clearly the one about whom it's being spoken is not angelic in his nature, he is not an angel, but what does it mean today

I have begotten you, this in and of itself could take up two or three sermons if we really wanted to dig into it, there has been a lot of controversy over the history not just of Hebrews chapter one, but the entire interpretation of the

New Testament regarding this idea of Jesus being begotten and especially the phrase today

I have begotten, there have been some who have said well, you look at its use in Acts or something like that and it refers to the resurrection, it refers to the resurrection and so the fulfillment is that when

Jesus is resurrected, then this is when his sonship is proclaimed to the whole world, it vindicates his claim to have been the

Son of God, he claimed to be the Son of God and now the vindication of it is he has been risen from the grave to the dead and therefore he is the

Son of God, others say no, no, no, this has to do with the incarnation, it's difficult to come up with a simple answer to the multiple uses of this particular text, there are some that seem to attach it to the resurrection, but I think both here and in verse six, we have to ask the question, you have today

I have begotten you and then in verse six when he brings the firstborn into the world, it would seem that there is a parallel between the two and there would be some who would say well, especially that verse six when he brings the firstborn into the world and you'll notice

I'm not saying when he again, I'll address that translational issue in a moment, but when he brings the firstborn into the world, sounds like the incarnation, that sounds like when

Christ first comes into the world, but you'll notice I think there's a better way to go because when it says the world in verse six, it is speaking of, it's not the normal terminology for the world, it literally is the inhabited world, it's not cosmos which we would think of as the normal term for world here, it's a different term that is being used here and I think that both in verses five and six, what we have here is

Christ in his enthronement, his exaltation after the resurrection, that is when his voluntary humiliation has been completed and he has indeed been vindicated in the resurrection and now he has taken the position of the one who indeed as the preceding verses in verses three and four talk about who's bearing all things, he has made atonement for sin, he has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high and in that position of exaltation is seen to be superior to the angels, is seen to be the one who has been vindicated in his claims to be the son of God and so if that is the case, then this idea of today

I have begotten you is not talking about what has taken place in eternity past, the relationship of father and son never had any beginning, there was never a time when the father was not the father, there was never a time the son was not the son, this confuses many people, this confuses many who have been given false teaching throughout their lives because they take human relationships and they say well look, if Jesus is a son of God, there had to have been a time when he was not, when he came into existence because every son is begotten by his father and then he begins that relationship of father and son, so they're taking the creaturely terms and they're trying to project everything that means back upon the divine, that's always a very scary thing to do, any type of terminology that God uses to describe his unique nature to us that draws from our experience, you have to be very careful not to project back upon God the limitations of these human terms and human relationships, any analogy of the trinity for example will break down at some point because God is unique and therefore to use any language that is not unique, you have to be very careful to allow it only to speak to a certain extent and not go beyond that and read into God things that are non -unique because they come from the creaturely realm, and so when we talk about the relationship of the father and the son, it is not that there was a time when the father was alone and then there's this thing called begettal and now the son comes into existence, these terms when used with the father and the son are eternal in their nature, they have no beginning or end, they are simply recognizing the relationship that exists between the father and the son, if God did not use these types of terms, we could never distinguish between the father and spirit, we would not be able to tell who's who in essence, and so as John Calvin rightly put it long long ago, in scripture

God lisps to us, he deigns, he condescends to use language that we can understand but it is just like when we talk to the little baby, you know over in the nursery now that we've got the little babies, and when you talk to those little babies we use this strange language,

I don't know where we learned it, we never went to class to learn it, but some people even their faces get contorted and there's this, you start talking this strange way you hope no one's watching, but even if they are they'll understand, and some people don't like the idea that God is speaking to us in this condescending way, he's condescending to use our language so we might understand, but that is exactly what is going on, and if you have a problem with that then maybe your views of God or your views of man are a little bit out of kilter, maybe you have too low a view of God and way too high a view of man,

God does condescend to speak to us in terms we can understand, and so it is not that in the exaltation of Christ he becomes the son of God, but that it is in the exaltation of Christ that that is proclaimed in its fullness in a way that had never been proclaimed before, for by rising from the dead through the resurrection you have the full vindication of all the claims of Christ, and so we have in verse 5 a rhetorical argument, these are words that can only have to do with one who is personally related to God himself in a way that no creature ever could be, these words could never be said to an angel, and yet they are said to the son, you are my son, today

I have begotten you, Psalm 2 7. Then we have the phrase and again, giving us a second reference, this is 2

Samuel 7 .14, let's go ahead and take a look at 2 Samuel 7 .14,

2 Samuel 7 .14 takes us back and once again into the story of David, who truly is the primary messianic figure, both in the

Psalter and elsewhere, 2 Samuel 7 .14, let's go back to verse 13, he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever,

I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me, when he commits an iniquity I will correct him with the rod of men and strokes the sons of men, but my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul whom

I removed from before you, your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever, your throne shall be established forever, in accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David, and so David has made a request and God through Nathan has responded and has promised that the

Lord will indeed, verse 11, the Lord also declares to you that the

Lord will make a house for you when your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom, isn't it fascinating how the

Lord does this, yes, there is a partial fulfillment in this in Solomon, there is the fact that he does build the temple, but by using this more general language and then this discussion of this eternal kingdom, there is again, and this was again seen by the

Jews during the intertestamental period, a greater fulfillment that is yet to come, and so this one, there is a partial fulfillment in Solomon in the building of the temple, but there is much more yet to come, so the writer of the

Hebrews is again saying to what angel could these words ever be said, no angel has ever been described in these ways, and if you look at the two quotations together, what do they have in common, the idea of father -son relationship, you are my son, today

I have begotten you, I shall be to you as a father, you shall be to me as a son, father -son, who is this one, he has spoken to us by his son, verse 1, so the point being made is there is this one who will be the son of God in a particular and peculiar way, yes men were called the sons of God in the

Old Testament, but there is going to be one who is going to fulfill that language in a way that no created being, no angel, the greatest and highest of God's creations could ever fulfill, then verse 6, here is where we are going to have to do a little work, and I don't know about,

I know it is hard to communicate this to you, but I got all excited when I was studying this, when, now there is two ways to translate the beginning of verse 6, we need to handle that first, a lot of translations say when he again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, and so you can translate in such a way that is referring to a second time, when he again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, that is one way of translating it, that is grammatically possible,

I know that is what the numeric experience says, but the ESV goes a different direction, and it says, and again, when he brings the firstborn, so it is paralleling, notice in the middle of verse 5 you hit his head, and again, being the beginning of a citation of an

Old Testament text, so you can understand this to be, he again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, or, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says, now,

I go for the second option, I think it is best to render it, and again, this is just another citation, but then there is an introductory phrase, when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says, and then we have the quotation, and so I don't think we have to be going, all right, well, which is this, this is the first coming, second coming, is the first coming, the previous one, and now this is the second coming, and so on and so forth,

I think that is missing the point, and there are people who argue with that, for example, BF Westcott would argue very strongly, it needs to be when he again brings the firstborn into the world, but I don't think that is the strongest way of rendering it, so I think the

ESV has the best rendering there, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, what does firstborn mean?

Now, what I'm going to tell you right now is important for understanding this text, but it's also very important if you happen to be anywhere on a

Saturday morning, ask Brother Miller, and the Jehovah's Witnesses show up, because Brother Miller will tell you one of the first things the

Jehovah's Witnesses said to him when he began talking to him, was started talking about firstborn, I believe in Colossians 1 .15.

What does firstborn mean? Greek term prototokos. It does not mean first created, and in fact, by the time it's used in the

New Testament, it becomes such a well -known term that the emphasis on birth, it almost completely disappears.

The emphasis of firstborn is always on preeminence, power, and authority.

In the Old Testament, Israel is described as God's firstborn, but what does that mean?

Israel clearly was not the first nation that Yahweh had created, but it was the nation that had preeminence in his purposes.

God was doing what he was doing through the nation of Israel. So firstborn does not mean first created.

It means the one who has preeminence over. So in Colossians 1 .15, when it says, when it speaks of God's firstborn, it then goes on to say that that firstborn is the one through whom all things have been made.

The one who is, in essence, the creator of all things. It is a title of exaltation, and why does it fit here?

Well, what have we just seen about the proceedings through Old Testament texts we're citing? Sonship, relationship, and so here you have the emphasis upon the preeminence of this relationship, and the writer's talking about when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him.

Now, the term worship here is a term that can be used with something other than purely religious worship.

It can be used, for example, in those contexts where you had a Roman centurion, just a plain old

Roman soldier, isn't just going to come walking up to the Roman centurion and go, hey bud, how goes it?

When a Roman soldier sees a centurion or even a higher officer, what's he going to do?

When he comes before him, he's going to salute, or he's going to bow the knee, he's going to put his head down.

There's ways of showing reverence to that person with a greater position, and this term can mean that.

There's no advantage to saying, oh no, it always just only has one meaning. No, there are times it can mean that, but there are other times when it means pure and full religious worship.

In the book of Revelation, you have the instance where after John has seen all these amazing things, he's overwhelmed and he tries to proscuneo worship the angel who has shown him these things.

What does the angel say? Don't do that, proscuneo worship only

God. And so in a religious context, there is no room for this.

Men tried to proscuneo worship the apostles, and they tore their clothes.

No, no, no, we're just men, don't do that, only worship

God. Now clearly, this is a religious context, and so we're talking about religious worship, but where did that come from?

Where is this citation coming from? Well, again, you might have a reference over the side that will direct you to Psalm 97 .7.

So let's take a look at Psalm 97 .7, and it's possible.

Psalm 97 .7 says, let all those be ashamed who serve with graven images, who boast themselves of idols, worship him, all you gods.

Well, it's possible that the writer of the

Hebrews is looking at that term God, sometimes Elohim is used in the plural to refer to angels or angelic beings or powers.

It's possible, but I think there is a better explanation.

This is where if you start if the blood sugar level's dropping, you've been sitting for a little bit too long, if we were in a conference on the

Lord's day, it's about when I'd have everybody stand up and shake a neighbor's hand, sit back down so you get the blood flowing again. This is where you need to tune in, because I find this absolutely fascinating, and I hope you do too.

We have to remember something. What Bible is the writer of the

Hebrews using? That may sound strange to a few, but you're going, but he's in the

Bible, so how could he be using the Bible? But remember, the New Testament writers are writing people who already have a

Bible. We call it the Old Testament. The Jews call it the Tanakh, the Torah, the

Neb, the Im, and the Kedvim, law, prophets, writings. But what version did they have?

Well, they must have had the King James. Not quite. It's old, but it's not that old.

No, it didn't have the King James. It was the language at the time. That's what they have. It's called the

Greek Septuagint. Some people say Septuagint. My Greek professor said Septuagint, and when you've heard it that many times that way for many years, it just sticks.

That's why I call it the Septuagint. It means the 70. It was a Jewish translation done before the time of Christ, about 200 years before him.

It wasn't done all at once. The five books of Moses were done very, very well.

Some of the prophets were done very, very well. Psalter is okay. There are some sections that weren't done very well at all.

So it was done by different people at different times, maybe down in Alexandria, Egypt, Argeno. But by the time of Christ, there was a

Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. One thing we know without question, the writer to the

Hebrews is quoting the Septuagint. And there is going to be no way to work through the book of Hebrews, however long that takes, without running across one simple reality.

There are times when the Greek Septuagint is different than the Hebrew Old Testament. There are differences.

And this is one of them. What do I mean? Well, there's a much more probable place where this is coming from.

It's coming from Deuteronomy 32 -43. Go ahead and look at it.

Let me point out that I will read Deuteronomy 32 -43, but I will read it from the

Greek Septuagint. And the chance is 99 .99

% that the English translation you're going to be reading will be following the

Hebrew Masoretic text. So compare what I have with what you have.

I will now read for you Deuteronomy 32 -43 from the Greek Septuagint. And it reads,

Rejoice, O heavens, along with him, and let the sons of God worship him, and let all the angels of God ascribe strength to him.

For he avenges the blood of his sons, and will avenge it, and will recompense punishment to his adversaries.

Even to those who hate him, he will recompense it, and the Lord will cleanse his people's land.

The end of the Song of Moses from the Greek Septuagint. The second line is,

Let the sons of God worship him. This seems to be where the writer of the

Hebrews is getting the citation of Hebrews 1 -6 from the

Greek Septuagint, which his audience would share with him. And he's interpreting the sons of God as the angels, because they are frequently identified as the angels.

And that makes sense, because the second, the third line of the Septuagint says, Let all the angels of God ascribe strength to him.

There is something in Hebrew called Hebrew parallelism, where you'll say something twice, and when you say it the second time, you are re -describing it as a way of expanding one's description of something.

It's called Hebrew parallelism. It's right there found in Deuteronomy 32 -43 in the Greek Septuagint.

Now it's interesting, very interesting to me, that until the middle of the last century, what you had was the

Greek Septuagint reads one way, and the Hebrew reads a different way. But how many of you know what happened in the middle of the last century?

When a shepherd boy threw a rock, and it went down a hole, and he clanked against something.

I'm talking about, of course, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran Scrolls.

And the fourth cave, the Qumran Scrolls, a Hebrew version of the book of Deuteronomy was discovered.

It was all Hebrew, primarily. And in that scroll, guess what?

Deuteronomy 32 -43 reads just like the Greek Septuagint. So it was known in the

Hebrew language, in the Hebrew version of the time before Christ, the same reading we have in the

Greek Septuagint. But there's one more thing. This is, sorry, some of you are looking at me, why are you excited about things like this?

Well, I think maybe even Brother Miller will understand why I'm excited about things like this. Who's being described in Deuteronomy 32 -43?

Who is to be worshipped? To whom is strength to be ascribed?

Yahweh. Yahweh. Jehovah God. Why do

I say the two different words? Well, Jehovah is the traditional term we use, but it's not what the

Jews said. The Jews, by the time of Christ, wouldn't even say the divine name, but they did earlier.

And the best pronunciation is Yahweh. Four letters, Yahweh, it's the name of God, the

Old Testament. And who is being described in, if you were sitting there, if you were one of the first people to hear this epistle being read out, maybe in your congregation, and you're sitting there with the

Greek Septuagint, and you go, I'm familiar with that text, and you go to Deuteronomy 32 -43, and you start reading this, you're going to go, oh, but wait a minute.

When it says, let the angels of God worship him, the sons of God, that's

Yahweh. Yahweh is the one being worshipped here. How can this

New Testament writer, how can this writer of the Hebrews, take a text that was about Yahweh, in a religious context of worship, and they're monotheists, once you've got, you're applying this to the son.

Yeah, you are. You see, I've never seen this before.

Most of my time in verse six has been spent on what prototokos means, and what proskuneo means.

But finally, when you get to preach on something, you get to spend a little more time with it, and to dig back and find out that in verse six, because I want you to keep this in mind, when we get to verses 10 and following, this is going to become really important, because there's this phenomena in the

New Testament that's extremely important to understand, how can the monotheistic authors of the

New Testament, they believe in one God, how can they take texts from the

Old Testament that could only be used of that one true God, could only be used of Yahweh, turn around and use the book of Jesus?

What does that tell you about their belief? Well, young people, you go off to university, you can go over here to ASU or anyplace else, even

Glendale Community College, and you're going to have people standing up there telling you all this stuff about the

Trinity, the deity of Christ, that came hundreds of years later in the Council of Nicaea, when

Constantine forced Roman paganism on the church, and nobody believed that.

I hope when you hear that, you sort of go, well, right here in the

New Testament, in a book that scholars believe was written before the destruction of the temple in AD 70,

AD 70. So way back there, we have someone writing to Jewish Christians in a unique situation, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, and he didn't have any problem whatsoever identifying

Jesus as Yahweh. Don't tell me Constantine forced somebody to do that.

This came hundreds of years before Constantine. He was making an argument that would have required anybody sitting in the congregation with their

Greek sentence in their laps to go, you're telling me this Jesus is

God? He's got a greater name than the angels. He upholds all things for the word of his power, exact representation of his person, the radiances of his glory, and now you're applying to him the very words that would be used of Yahweh in the

Old Testament. Who do you think, the writer of the Hebrews, thinks Jesus? Only one of the things to ask about verse six.

When is this? Like I said, I think this is in the enthronement of Christ, and the inhabited world includes the heavenly realms, and so he,

Jesus has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high. He's been vindicated as the son of God.

His claims have been shown to be true, and what the angels do, they worship him.

He's not one of them, he is worshipped by them. So let me conclude our thoughts this morning.

We'll be continuing by the way this evening with verse seven. Let me conclude our thoughts this morning asking you a simple question.

How do you view Jesus Christ? That is the question for every generation.

Do you view him as merely a mythological figure? Someone who's made up by religious people in the past?

Maybe a good moral guide? If the very angels of God, the powerful angels of God who live in the very glorious presence of God are to bow in his presence, what about you?

If you have not bowed the knee to this glorious one? The scriptures tell us that someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

Revelation chapter five, the picture is given where all created things in heaven and earth bow before he who sits on the throne and the lamb, the son of God, Jesus Christ.

Everyone someday will confess the truth of what is being said right here. But you see only now in confessing that truth is it unto salvation.

Today is the day of salvation. And if you have not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, I say to you the gospel commands you to repent and believe, to embrace the glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But if you're a Christian here today, and I imagine most of us are, not all of us, but most of us are. May I just make one quick application?

How joyous should be our service to one who is so glorious and majestic?

We are called the service of Christ. We pray often about the fact that we are looking forward to another work of service.

Service to who? Service to Christ. And yet the world will constantly beat us down in our thinking to where we lose the sense of joy.

Think of the high calling to be called a servant of this one whom the angels bow to adore.

Should we not have the greatest joy, the greatest happiness and blessedness to serve the one whom angels adore?

I don't know about you, but it excites me. Not only to dig into his word and to see what was really going on and to see the consistency and to enter into what the word is saying, but then to step back and realize, yes these words were meant initially to encourage

Jewish believers to press on, but don't we need encouragement as well?

The world wants to rob us of our joy and keep us from being servants of Christ, but when we keep our eye on the prize, when we keep our eye on who

Jesus really is, the world cannot rob us of our joy.

What a privilege, brothers and sisters, to be servants of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that reveals to us the glory of your triune majesty.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we thank you that we still are caused to be amazed as we ponder what you have done in Jesus Christ.

The fact that this glorious God would condescend to provide for us salvation, causes our hearts to go out and rejoice, causes our hearts to desire to do what's right in your sight, to not live in sin, but to live in righteousness, all to the glory of Christ.

We thank you for this glorious gospel and we indeed rejoice in it as we ponder this day.