Hebrews 1:4-14 — Don McClure

Christ Is Superior to the Angels

Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels saith he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all of the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity. Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above all thy fellows.

And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they shall wax old as doth a garment. And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

But to the angels saith he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. How are they not all ministering spirits? Send forth a minister to them, who shall be heirs of salvation.

Prayer and the Purpose of Hebrews

Father, we thank you for your word, even the reading of it. And as we study it now, we ask that you'd open our hearts. Lord, the way that the word of God loves you and exalts our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we ask that it would do its work today.

Your Holy Spirit would just see to it that as we study it that you are more and more exalted within our hearts and within our lives, within our walk, within our whole realm of our life being more and more submitted to you, seeing your power and your glory and your majesty as your word reveals it.

So minister to us, Jesus, in your wonderful name we ask it. Amen. You may be seated. If you were not with us last week, we began going through the book of Hebrews together. And just to reflect for a moment on it, we don't know the writer of the book of Hebrews for sure, but it's been assumed through history that it's the Apostle Paul.

There are a few that don't agree with that, but to me, I'm comfortable with that since the predominant historians and church leaders and expositors of history have believed him to be. But there is perhaps some room for question on that.

We do know though that it was written though to the Hebrew believers in a sense that had come to Christ. And one of the things that was happening though in the early church is that all, of course, the church was initially all Jewish believers.

It wasn't until Acts chapter 10 when Peter was at the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, that the gospel began to be opened up to the Gentile world. But until then, it was all Jews. Well what was happening to them is that once the, you know, the synagogues were realizing they were losing their people here to this thing called the church and believers in Christ, one of the approaches that they had with them was that, well, okay, it's all right if you want to believe in Jesus, I suppose.

But there was an argument they shouldn't particularly even do that. But many of them were struggling because of the fact that the Judaizers, those trying to bring them back under Hebrew theology, back into Judaism, were coming along and saying, wait a minute, how in the world could you possibly leave the synagogue?

How could you leave the temple? How could you leave these things? Did not God give us Moses? And they'd realize, well, yes, he did. Didn't he give us the law? Yes, he did. Didn't he give us Aaron? Yes, he did.

Didn't he give us the priesthood? Yes, he did. Didn't he give us the sacrifices? Yes, he did. Well, how can you leave those? Fine, if you want to believe in Christ too, great. But you can't leave these things.

You can't just simply, when you know something came from God, are you now going to say they never were from God? And so there was tremendous pressure and they were, well, maybe we shouldn't. And they were being drawn back under Judaism, back under the law, back under the Mosaic principles, back into the priesthood, back into sacrifices.

And so the writer of Hebrews is trying to deal with this because he's essentially has the task of saying that Jesus Christ is better than Moses, better than Aaron, better than the priesthood, better than the law, better than the tabernacle, better than the sacrifices, better than all of these things, simply because he is the fulfillment of them.

And that when the fulfillment is come, that which is in part is no longer needed. Essentially, all of these things, they foreshadowed Christ, that when Jesus Christ came, you would realize it was him that fulfilled all of these things.

So when the fulfillment has happened, that which pointed to it is no longer necessary. It's as if, in a sense, somebody is off on a journey and you have a picture of them. And you've had all these descriptions about somebody and you've learned to love them and care for them and they're away.

But finally the person appears and you have the photograph of them and you can look at that and see the photograph and see them and that ought to just draw you to them. But now, in a sense, it's as if they're saying, well, you can't forget the photograph.

But when the real one is there, that's precisely what you can do. You don't need the photograph. How would you like to be somebody that they'd fall in love with you and they'd seen your picture. Now you came and you spent time with them and all they did was stare at the pictures.

Oh, wow, look at this and talk to the pictures and say, hello, hello, I'm over here, right here. You'd want to grab the picture and tear it up. Don't need the picture. I'm here. I'll never leave you, forsake you.

Well they were going back and forth between the reality of sharing Christ and enjoying him and back to the religious order that prepared the way for him. And so the writer is wanting to say, you don't need it any longer.

Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Old Covenant

Well with all the tasks that he has and through Hebrews, he's going to be going through these things and teaching and showing how Jesus is indeed the fulfillment of all of these things. But the first task that he has is one that maybe we consciously wouldn't think of as a huge one, but it is a very important task and particularly important with the Jews.

And that was to show the fact that Jesus Christ is better than all beings. The first of them that he's got to deal with are angels. And before he even gets on to any other beings, any other religious aspects or sacrifices or leaders that they have ever known or other ways that God has ministered to them in the past to prepare them for Christ, the first topic are angels.

So that's why he, in verse four, he says, being made so much better than the angels. He's making a statement and then he's going to spend the rest of the chapter reinforcing the fact that Christ is better than angels.

Now to the Jewish mind, angels were pretty awesome, I suppose to everybody, but particularly to them, I suppose in all the people of the world. As far as creation is concerned, just a little bit about angels, I think that is important first is, is that man, as far as humanity, we are the highest level of earthly creation, but angels are higher than man in the sense of aspects of creation.

Hebrews 2 .9 says, but we see Jesus who would have made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Here the Bible tells us that man, Christ became a little lower than the angels. He became a man that he was enabled to suffer death.

And human beings have this uncanny capacity to die. That doesn't happen with angels. They are, they're beings, they're spiritual beings that they have no frailties. They're not subject to human infirmities and hunger and thirst and all the weaknesses and the aspects of time.

And they're not lower in terms of the love of God or the plan of God for man. That is higher. But in terms of just creative design, angels are higher than men. They're spirit beings. They don't have bodies, at least as we know them, not after Jesus was risen from the dead and he came, you know, to the disciples and they jumped back in fear thinking that he was a spirit.

He says, Hey, spirits have neither flesh nor bones. Touch me and see. He says, I'm real. They were thinking that they had seen an angel or seen a spiritual being. He says, no. He says for the spirit has neither flesh nor bones as you see me have.

So they don't have bodies like we do, though they do have bodies. First Corinthians 15 says that there are bodies terrestrial and there are bodies celestial, a terrestrial body. That's what you and I all walked in here in today.

That's made out of terra firma. That's what hands for terrestrial and that's made out of earth. It's an earthly body, but then there are also celestial bodies or spiritual bodies, heavenly bodies. And those are angelic and a different body, though angels are capable of appearing in human form.

And Hebrews chapter 13 tells us there that sometimes you might entertain angels unaware. Who knows? You might be sitting next to one right now. Somebody said, Oh, no, I have proof. That's not the case.

But the but you'd never know. One day we may actually get to heaven and find that literally angels physically in a sense were revealed to us in one way or another, appearing in human form, because the Bible suggests there that such a thing happened in the course that happened a number of times in the Old Testament very clearly and in the New Testament as well.

We find that, you know, that the disciples did that themselves when they ran to the tomb of Jesus and there were angels there and they spoke with them. And they conversed with them and they didn't even realize at the time that they were angels that they were speaking to.

So they are around and they are able to communicate with us in various forms. Galatians 1 8 says, but though we Paul, the apostle Paul writing, he says, though we or an angel from heaven preach unto you any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Here Paul suggests there, he says, an angel may even come to you and tell you some other thing. An angelic spiritual being may try to reveal to you a gospel that is different than that which Jesus Christ said and in which we the apostles have laid out.

And if such a thing happens, let him be accursed. And tragically, there are entire religions that have been based upon a revelation given by an angel. And tragically, you know, I'm sure many of us know people that, you know, the angel Moroni, you know, who supposedly came along, spoke to Joseph Smith.

And personally, I don't argue with that. I think that such a thing may have actually occurred, although what he revealed obviously was a different gospel, as Paul said, if somebody does come and do that.

So that very well may have occurred that a spiritual being revealed himself unto him. But as Paul suggested, though, the tragic thing is, is that somebody that would preach another thing ought to be accursed.

And the Old Testament, we find that angels even wrestled with men very tremendously involved in life and in human life all around us. It appears from the Bible, they were all created simultaneously. Colossians 116 says for by him, Christ, were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, that whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.

And so here we have at one point there, the whole spiritual world, the physical world, visible, invisible, whether the thrones, dominions or powers and talking about this whole angelic structure, that they were all created seemingly simultaneously at one time.

They're unable to reproduce. They're neither male nor female, no cohabitation. Matthew chapter 22, some people came to Jesus wanting to know, you know, here a man, he's, you know, married to a woman. He dies.

She marries his brother and goes on through this whole sequence and all of these things of the various marriages. And they said, now when she goes to heaven, who's wife, who's going to be married to who?

You know, and this whole thing, a question that maybe others have as well. But at any rate, Jesus answered and he said unto them, you do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of heaven.

And so here we have something to where, you know, they were created, they're neither married nor given in marriage. They don't participate in such activities and reproduce. And so, but there they are.

There doesn't appear to be any change at all in the number of them. There does appear to be a time at which different opinions of different theologians were one of the common ones or somewhat common is that there were 1 .3 archangels, Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer and Lucifer, son of the morning, why are they so far fallen from heaven?

It tells us in Isaiah 14 for the, I said in my heart, I shall be sent above the highest. I shall exalt myself above the throne of God and be above the angels. And because of his pride, he fell and from heaven.

And when Lucifer fell is that if he was an archangel, who knows if he was, it is suggested by revelation chapter 12, verse four, that one third of the angels of heaven fell with him in a sense that like God being a trichotomy himself, father, son, and Holy spirit is that he created in a sense, almost this tremendous order of which we know little about, but have pictures of in the Bible of this whole order of angelic beads were perhaps archangels, three of them over these powers, principalities, spiritual powers, rulers of darkness in almost as if they're ordered out like generals and lieutenants and captains and sergeants and you know, whatever else like there's this entire order and structure of these angelic in the angelic world.

But here when Lucifer fell, a third of them went with him now known as fallen angels or demons of which we have no idea how many there are. There's assumed to perhaps be billions upon billions of them.

The good thing is, is that there's still good ones, two good ones for every bad one fallen one, which is nice to know. Sometimes I think that the bad ones are outnumbering the good ones in around me, but they keep fighting working their way through.

Angelic Nature, Ministry, and Spiritual Authority

But at any rate, there's many references to Bible, I mean, to angels in the Bible. Yesterday, I was sitting in the airport coming back from a conference. There was the old Testament. There's some 105 direct references to angels, but then there's a number of others of heavenly hosts or about 105 alone, just angel angels.

In the new Testament, there's 166 references to angels. And so there's even more in the new Testament that there are in the old Testament, interestingly enough. As far as some of the things of their nature, they're very intelligent beings, though limited somewhat in their intelligence.

Peter tells us in his epistle that angels are looking in, watching us to learn things from God. And they, so they seem to know what they need to know to do their job, to do their ministry, but it seems to be somewhat limited.

They're very intelligent. They're emotional beings. They rejoice. The Bible says that the salvation of one person, when one person just turns their heart over to the Lord, each time there's this wonderful joy in heaven that happens over it.

They seem to be in all sorts of different forms. When you get around the throne of God, Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah says, in the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.

Then he goes on and he says around about his throne there, there were seraphim. And it says that then we had with wings and it says with two, they covered their face with two, they covered their feet and with two, they did fly.

And we have these six winged, you know, seraphim around the throne of God. There's the cherubim that we get these pictures of again, and beautiful, glorious, angelic sorts of being that we usually kind of have the picture of when we think of an angel.

And yet at the same time, they appear at times very common in one sense or, or, or normal, as we may just think of another being. We're told in Jude in verse six about them that they themselves will actually be judged.

They given, they will be, they're responsible for things and to get their jobs done, so to speak. They seem to dwell absolutely everywhere. They're in the third heaven or the highest heaven or around about the throne of God.

They're in the heavens plural, which is the creation. And then they're on the immediate earth that we're around involved basically everywhere that in all of creation and in heaven. And as I said, it appears that there's billions of them.

No way to essentially know how many of them. When you look at revelation and you see some of these pictures there, as John saw, he just saw, you know, millions upon millions, 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 times 10 ,000, I mean, just numbers of angels that would just be massive in number, extremely powerful.

And sometimes you would see in the Bible where simply one could wipe out a segment of an army, massive power, Elisha in the book of Kings, one time when a servant goes out and he sees there the King of Syria, you surround him in his army and there's just a couple of them.

Oh, he goes, it is terrible. It's unbelievable. We're surrounded. It's history. And Elisha didn't even get up. He says, Oh Lord, open his eyes. And he tells him to go out and he says, take a look. And there he goes out and all the heavens are just open and just filled with all of these beings.

They're protecting in horses, chariots of fire, this unbelievable spiritual world. They're watching over Elisha and his servant and what there is around you and me at times. I have no idea, but I think sometimes when we get to heaven and we look back and we know even as we're known, we will come to the realization that God dispatched unbelievable forces sometimes to care for us, to watch over our lives.

They're so powerful. It takes as humans can't handle them. It takes God's spiritual power to, to deal with them. Sometimes they're very powerful. As I said, they're a very complex organization essentially as well.

Ephesians 6, 12 says that thrones and dominions and powers and principalities and all these rulers of darkness in high places throughout the Bible. They're involved in many, many events, very, very commonly found, whether again, you open up heaven, you see things in heaven, they're very involved in heaven and they're messengers of God.

You'll see even in a Bible, in Jacob's ladder, there were angels ascending and descending that back and forth and up and down. You wonder sometimes around us and you know, that behind this little veil between the physical world and the spiritual world, that there's this thin veil seemingly between us on God's tremendous ministry that he has of his angels ascending and descending, caring, ministering, serving us.

The Lord for the most part has made it clear he doesn't want that veil pierced. He doesn't want us to have, you know, seemingly a great, though he wants us to know that it is there and it is happening.

He doesn't want it to capture our attention. It's never to be the focus of anything in the sense because of the great tendency that we have as human beings made lower than the angels that the appearance of an angel, we would immediately worship it.

We would be, you know, just sense there the scene, the spiritual world and how we would fall. Even the apostle John, with all of his maturity and all of his godliness, even his old age there of all of his rock solid life in Christ there, when an angel appeared to him in Revelation, he just fell down and began worshiping him.

Just couldn't stop himself in the awe of what he had actually just seen there. And the angel says, stop it. You know, he says, worship God, don't worship me. You're going to get us both in trouble. You know, sort of a thing.

It's kind of where, you know, the great tendency almost that we would have there in this, you know, to fall prey to giving undue attention to something that God wants us to realize. No, there's one God and one mediator between God and man.

I have many resources that I have using and carrying out my plan in your life, but I'm the one that loves you. I'm the one that cares for you. And so God has, there's this veil and behind it, there's this whole network, this unbelievable spiritual world that's involved in us, in our lives and ministering to us.

They minister to Christ after his temptation. You see them taking him and just, again, you know, ministering to him after this terribly difficult time there of fasting and hunger and thirsting for the 40 days out there and as they came and ministered.

But again, they minister to the saved and to the unsaved in many ways, be long before we were saved. Through the Bible, we find they watch over the church. They answer prayer. They deliver from danger.

They protect us. They, they watch over little children. They encourage us. They ultimately in the book of Revelation, they come in and they announce judgment and will be used by God to inflict the penalty in ways in the book of Revelation.

And so they are awesome beings, unbelievably involved in all of our lives. There's not a one of us that I don't believe, you know, that hasn't had tremendous ministry through our lives by angels many, many times, constantly, particularly when you drive home.

Maybe they're very busy, but the just kidding, but anyway, but maybe not. But as far as the Jews were concerned, when we get back here to Hebrews itself and some of the tasks that they have is the Jews had a great awareness of angels, you see, and they had tremendous respect for them.

They were very, very powerful to them, but they had essentially departed from a right or a correct biblical view of angels. By the time that the new Testament had come along, they knew how important they were.

They were very aware of how involved they were in the old Testament and God using them, but they thought that they were the highest being in all the world next to God himself, of which, and that they were literally the mediators between God and man, which is not correct.

They're not. They thought essentially angels, that they were a council of angels, a senate essentially of angels. And the Jews being monotheistic and saying that there is the Lord our God is one God. There was one being that was God, but unlike that where we now know of the Trinity, that we'll see, you know, that God, the Holy Spirit is God, Jesus Christ is God, and God the Father is God.

They're all God, but they just saw the Lord our God as one, but they didn't see the trichotomy of his being. They didn't see the other dimensions and the fullness of the shared identity and all one, but yet three.

And because of that, when the Bible, when Moses, their greatest leader to them and many of them said in the beginning, God, that's Elohim, plural, created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1 26, when it says, and God said, let us create man after our image that troubled them terribly.

It was very clearly conjugated in the plural in the Hebrew. And they're saying here, God is saying, let us create man after our image. And so their assumption was, was God was speaking to a senate, a council of angels of which he, you know, they as mediators of him is that he is saying, let's do this speaking to them.

And even in the aspects of creation, which we now of course know is not true. But as far as the Jews were concerned in the old Testament and their leadership, they thought these angels is for somehow or another don't really know how it happened, but in their own history, they believe that there was seven, what they called present angels, kind of like a supreme council of angels.

And under them, there was some 200 angels that were in charge of keeping the universe on course, how they came up with that. Nobody knows, but there was angels in charge of just keeping track of the calendar, the never ending succession of days, angels that watched over all the aspects of the earth and everything within it from the, the revolutions of the earth, keeping it on course, all the weather conditions of it, hail rains, snow, wind, clouds, all of this physical aspects in the structure, in the sense of the planet of angels, you know, over in charge of hail, fire, lightning, all of these various things.

They were just angels is sitting there at control panels in one sense, kind of doing this angels, a frost angel of dew, angel of rain, all of these things going on. They've also believed that there were recording angels that recorded every word ever spoken.

And so that when somebody would stand before God, the books could be opened. These angels just took dictation all day long and everything you said that, boy, am I thankful for the Lord's forgiveness, but the blotting these things out.

So the Jews though, they believed as well that the old covenant was essentially given to us by angels. They believe that angels were mediators between God and man. And in one sense, they were, we're told by Stephen in Acts chapter seven, in his sermon there, as he preaches, he tells us that angels dispensed the law, that there was literally that according to Stephen in the new Testament, this is his statement.

Galatians 319 says, wherefore, then serveth the law. It was added because of the transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. You're talking about until Christ would come, but he says, and it quote, unquote, the law was ordained, it says by angels.

And so here we have where the, you know, even Paul writes and he says, angels ordained the law. Stephen says they dispensed it essentially there. And so the Jews had this great tendency of this tremendous honor and respect, and even some with worship towards angels.

And the result of it was, is that when Jesus came and he ministered and the world realized in the body of Christ, even realized, obviously Jesus was no man. Even as Nicodemus said, you know, we know thou art come from God for no man can do the things outdo us, except God be with him.

And so there's no question Jesus was not man, that he was of God. But in Gnosticism, it was very common in the early church. They believed that Jesus was an angel and that they had put him there in the category of, of one of these angels, probably to some, one of the seven present angels and the greatest that had perhaps ever visited the earth.

So it is something there to where they, you know, we're trying to deal with this and writing there to the church there to the Hebrew church here and in the book of Hebrews, because the Jews were messing with Gnosticism.

Now the early church was messing with, in a sense, and they were worshiping angels. Colossians 2 18, Paul writes to them, he says, no one cheat you out of your reward, taking delight in false humility and the worship of angels.

There's this tendency of sometimes where you can see people, they can worship angels. They can worship saints. You know, you get very caught up in, you know, St. Christopher being their guide or some sort of a thing, or the different angelic beings that they'll guide me.

And this angel helps and whatever we look for spiritual beads other sometimes in Christ. But Paul says that when a person does that, that's false humility. As he writes about it, he said, don't even mess with a thing like that.

Yes, angels are involved. And yes, there's been great ones before. And yes, there's this great ministry that does go on. And he says, but don't ever, ever worship one by any means. And so here the writer of Hebrews, that's all backdrop a little bit now to seven verses that we'll look at here.

Seven Ways Christ Is Greater Than Angels

And because his job now is to show that Jesus Christ is very simply, he's better than he's not an angel. He is better than the angels, than any angel that you ever would would dream of. So he gives us seven Old Testament passages dispensed by angels in a sense to show that Jesus Christ was better than them.

And first of all, he tells us here in verse four, he says, being made so much better than the angels as he hath by an inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Here it is something there where the Jesus, the writer wants to say that Jesus Christ, he is better, first of all, than any angel in the sense by name.

He is somebody there that in verse five, he says, you know, for under which of the angels say at any time, thou art my son. When did God ever, ever turn to an angelic being ever anywhere in all of the Bible anywhere and say, you are my son.

And this day have I begotten thee. And here, first of all, Jesus Christ is better by name, just the name of who he is. First of all, he's remote from all of the others just by even his earthly name. When Jesus humbled himself, he was always God.

We'll look at that in a moment. Even when he was man, he was God. But even as man, he was still God in such a way there that he never looked even at an angel higher than man. But he looked here at a man and said, you're my son.

And he says, so he's greater by name in the sense that he has never says, I'm your father. You are my son. But that was a role, that was a relationship that Jesus had for 33 years modeling for us his humility.

But it was something Jesus was not the son before, you know, he took on human flesh nor the son after. He merely took that role of submission while he was here, you know, and clothed in humanity. But all the time he was God, for it tells us in verse eight, but under the son, he saith, who God under the son, God says, thy throne, oh, God, is forever and ever a scepter of righteousness.

He looks at him and the father looks at the son, one when he calls him by his earthly title, and he says, you're still greater in your earthly form than any angel. You're greater by name, and you're also in true name, you're greater because you're God, thy throne, oh, God, your God, the father, looking to the second person, the Trinity, the son, as we know him, and he says, you know, your throne, oh, God, is forever and ever.

Here, Jesus Christ is the first thing that the writer has to say is there. Find me an angel ever, ever with all that they said, all that they did, as wonderful as it was, that even fits into a category like this.

No, he is God. He's wonderfully, powerfully God. He's eternal God who became a man and became the son for his redemptive work. But the sonship began at a point in time, it says there in verse five, it says, for which of the angels hath he said at any time, thou art my son this day, have I begotten thee?

He was always God, but there was a day that he was begotten, in a sense, came in as son. And then he went back essentially to be fully God again, sitting upon his throne, though always God, as John one tells us in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God and by him were all things made that was made. And so he's greater, first of all, by name, that there when you just look and realize that any Hebrew believer that would look around and is confused and saying, well, was he an angel?

He says, absolutely not. There are no angel ever that has any royalty like this in the sense of being called God, let alone in even his lower earthly form, the son of God. Secondly, he's greater by worship, for it says in verse six, he says again, when he bring it, the first begotten into the world, he says, and let all the angels of God worship him.

And here it always, always, always the lesser, always worships the greater. And here is something there to where angels who had always worshiped Jesus and God before now at one point in time, when the second person set down a lot of his aspects of his royalty, who being in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he humbled himself and he took upon himself a form of servant who became a man that day.

At that point in time, he was God at that moment, remain God. But he took on human flesh that was lower than the angels, even then in his lower estate under which of the angels hath he said at any time, thou my son.