The Son of Royalty (Hebrews 1:8-9)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 1, and we're going to read together verses 5 through 14. For to which of the angels did he ever say,

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You are my son, today I have begotten you. And again, I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

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And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him.

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And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.

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But of the son, he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.

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You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.

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And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.

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They will perish, but you remain, and they all will become old like a garment, and like a mantle you will roll them up.

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Like a garment, they will also be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.

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But to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?

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Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

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Let's bow together before we begin. Father, without the ministry of your

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Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our minds to illuminate your word to us, we are hopeless to be able to understand it in any true and spiritual and meaningful sense.

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And so we confess our need for you today to give us that insight and that illumination. We pray that you would send your spirit to be our teacher and our guide, and that your word may be our concern and your glory may be preeminent in our minds as we consider who

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Christ is and what he has done. May you be honored here in the midst of your people through the preaching and the hearing and obedience to your word we ask in Christ's name.

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Amen. One of the themes that we have seen pop up over and over again in this first chapter of Hebrews is the theme of the sovereignty, the rule, the kingdom, the authority, and the dominion of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And in that series of seven descriptions that are in verses one through four, we saw a number of ways that the author of Hebrews shines the light on the kingdom and the rulership of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He is the creator of all things, that as he spoke, he has the authority and dominion to speak and to bring everything into existence.

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Everything that he has created, he is also the heir of so that it all belongs to him by decision of the father, by the authority of the father.

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And not only that, but he upholds all things by the word of his power. So everything that he created, he possesses and everything that he created and possesses, he governs and upholds and maintains, sustains it, directing it from where it was when it was created all the way toward its predetermined and appointed goal.

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He carries all things along to that end. And then he has, having made purification of sins, he has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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So just those descriptions alone present to us a Christ, a king who is the sovereign over all of creation, over everything that is created, everything that he possesses, everything that he maintains, and now he sits at the father's right hand.

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And then as if that doesn't do enough to reinforce the theme of the rulership of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the author turns to a series of Old Testament quotations. And we have seen this theme come up again and again in that series of Old Testament quotations.

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For instance, he quotes right out of the gate Psalm two, which is a messianic Psalm where God says, as for me,

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I have installed my king upon Zion. And that is God's answer to the raging of the nations and all the kings of the earth that rebel against him.

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God's answer to that is to establish his king and to give to that king all the nations as his inheritance.

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And then he says in Psalm two, to that king whom he has installed in Zion, let all the nations and all the kings of the earth bow down to him and do him homage, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

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Then he quotes second Samuel chapter seven, which is the promise given to David that God would seat a descendant of David upon his throne and give to him the nations and his dominion would be an everlasting dominion.

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It would go on forever and ever. There would be no end to his kingdom and over the house of David and over the land of Israel, he would rule and he would reign forever.

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That's second Samuel chapter seven. And then he quotes from Psalm 97 verse seven, which is a

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Psalm describing the coronation of that king that this God is made king and he is coronated.

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And at that event, which is still future to us, all the angels will be commanded to bow down and to worship him.

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So that is the theme of kingdom that's woven through those first seven verses. And now we return again to another kingly Psalm, another

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Psalm that deals with the king and with the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're looking today at verses eight and nine of Hebrews chapter one, and we are looking at him as being the son of royalty.

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Hebrews one, eight and nine quotes Psalm 45, which is the Psalm we're going to be turning to in just a moment.

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So all of this development of this theme of him being the king, the ruler, the sovereign, the creator, the owner, the possessor, the sustainer, and the governor of all things, all of that is intended to set him in stark contrast with the angels.

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And it is really that contrast with the angels that is sort of the backdrop of this entire first chapter.

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The author wants to show us that Jesus Christ is greater than the angels. He is not an angel. He is not one of the angels that has been exalted to a great position.

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He is by nature greater than the angels because all of the angels worship him. To none of the angels has

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God ever called them his son, the son in a unique sense. To none of the angels has

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God ever given possession of all things or told any of the angels that they will rule the nations or seated one of the angels at his right hand of the majesty on high.

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So with everything else set aside that we know of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the angels, just what we find here in Hebrews chapter 1 clearly shows us that Jesus Christ is no angel.

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He's greater than the angels. The angels worship him. They are the servants, verse 7, he is the sovereign. Their job is to serve and to worship.

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He is the one that they worship and serve, Jesus Christ is. So he is the sovereign. They are the servants.

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They minister. He is the one to whom they minister. They sing his praise. They exist to faithfully serve him and to glorify him.

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So now we turn to verses 8 and 9. And as I said, these two verses are pulled from Psalm 45. And we're going to be returning back to Hebrews 1 here in a moment.

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But you know what we have been doing all the way through this first chapter is every time we see a quotation from an Old Testament text, we want to go back to that Old Testament text and examine it in its context.

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So we have some idea of what the connection is between that and Hebrews chapter 1. So turn back to Psalm 45 while you keep your place here in Hebrews 1.

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Psalm 45. And we're going to work our way through this entire Psalm. First, a word of introduction about this.

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I want you to try as best as you can as we go through the Psalm to forget for just a couple of minutes that it is quoted in Hebrews chapter 1.

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I want you to forget that connection. Just think of Psalm 45 in its own context as its own entity.

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And we're going to see what this Psalm is about. So forget the connection with Hebrews 1. The connection is verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 45.

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That's what's quoted in Hebrews 1. But I want you just to think of this Psalm as it is written, as the author would have intended it, as it sits in its own context.

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That's going to raise for us a couple of questions, a couple of problems, but we'll answer those problems before we turn back to Hebrews chapter 1.

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The introduction to Psalm 45 says it is a song of love. You see that before verse 1? It's a psalm of love.

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A song of love. Now that is those little words that are above verse 1, that's part of the original

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Psalm. That's not the publisher's foot note. That is part of the Psalm itself.

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Whoever wrote this Psalm wrote that, and so that's inspired text as well. This is a song of love, and this is a song that describes the king of Israel in his beauty and his majesty.

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It describes the wedding of this king, and it describes the bride who is going to be given to this king, who comes to the royal palace to be wed to this king of Israel.

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It is a song of worship that wraps itself around this event of the king being wed to a bride, and it falls into three sections.

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Verses 1 through 9 is a description of this king in his royal beauty, and his majesty, and his power, and his authority.

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Verses 10 through 15 describe advice or counsel that is given to the bride to be of the king, and then verses 16 and 17 is a benediction spoken over this wedding feast.

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Now this should seem a bit odd to us, does it not? Can you imagine cracking open your hymnal, which we don't have because we put the words up on the screen, but can you imagine cracking open your hymnal to a song that is a song of worship about the marriage of the president of the

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United States? Yeah, which marriage? That's what you want to know, right?

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Which marriage are we talking about? Can you imagine such a situation where that is in your hymnal, and yet here in the inspired hymnal or songbook for the nation of Israel is a song dedicated to describing the glory of the wedding of the king of Israel?

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That's kind of odd. Now in our hymnals, in many churches in America, you will find a section where the worship of the church is designed around America.

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The national anthem, America the beautiful, and other quote -unquote hymns that describe America in all of her glory and God's blessing upon that.

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That to me is weird. That to me is out of place and odd. So does it not strike us as odd that you would find in the worship hymnal of the nation of Israel a song about her king and his wedding to a bride?

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It is a bit curious until you kind of come to understand that in the Jewish mind and in the Jewish context, their covenant with,

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God's covenant with the nation revolved around and involved the king and him being seated on a throne, and the messiah that was to come through that line of David who would be established over the nation and then over all of the nations.

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And this was part of the fulfillment of God's plan for that purpose. Not just so that the nation of Israel would be blessed, but that through the nation of Israel, all the nations of the world would be blessed as they are brought into this covenant and brought into this relationship with their messiah, who is the messiah of love and truth and righteousness and justice.

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And so when you look at it from a Jewish set of eyes, it should not surprise us at all that they would have a song dedicated to the king and his marriage to a bride since the king was central to their idea of the covenant and to the promises that God had made with them as a nation.

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So now let's work our way through that psalm. As odd as that might be to our ears, let's work our way through this psalm.

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Again, forget its connection to Hebrews chapter 1. We begin with verse 1, which describes for us the king and all of his majesty and his beauty.

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So the psalm begins with, my heart overflows with a good theme. And what is the theme? His address, verse 1, to the king.

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I address my verses to the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. And here's his description.

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You are fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore God has blessed you forever.

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Gird your sword on your thigh, oh mighty one, in your splendor and your majesty, and in your majesty ride on victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness.

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Let your right hand teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp. The peoples fall under you.

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Your arrows are in the heart of the king's enemies. He's describing the king of the nation of Israel there.

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It's an earthly human king. And in that description he is describing the majesty of the king, the beauty of the king, the victorious warfare of the king that all of the enemies of the king fall before him.

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He conquers them all. They all bow down to this king. So it is his military might, the glory of his name, the glory of his majesty that's being described.

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And then verse six takes a bit of a turn. Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.

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Now that is addressed to this king. That is addressed to the earthly king. Your throne, oh

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God, is forever and ever. A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

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Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows. Let's stop for there for just a second.

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We're going to return back to that because that creates a problem for us. How is it that this earthly king is called

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God? Verse nine, verse eight, all your garments are fragment with myrrh and the aloes and cassia out of ivory palaces.

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Stringed instruments have made you glad. King's daughters are among your noble ladies. At your right hand stands the queen and gold from offer.

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So there's this description of this, of the king sitting on his throne and he is surrounded by these attendants and these servants.

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And what he is describing here is the majesty of the king as he has presented to the people in his royal palace. And now the focus changes from that earthly king to the bride that is to be given to this king.

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Verse 10, listen, oh daughter, give attention and incline your ear. And here's his counsel. Forget your people and your father's house.

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Walk away, right? A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. The two shall become one flesh. You shall walk away from them.

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You are turning from your people and you are being joined or given to another one who is this king. Then the king will desire your beauty because he is your

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Lord. Bow down to him. That's not counsel you would give to, it just occurred to me, it's not counsel you would give to women at a wedding ceremony today, would you?

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He is your Lord, bow down to him. I might drop that at the next wedding that I do. Sheba's happy with that.

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Verse 12, the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift. The rich among the people will seek your favor.

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The king's daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is interwoven with gold. She would be led to the king in embroidered work.

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The virgins, her companions who follow her will be brought to you. That is to this king, it's described in the first part of the song.

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They will be brought to you. Verse 15, they will be led forth with gladness and rejoicing. They will enter into the king's palace.

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So the picture is one where this bride with all of her attendant company, whom she has walked away from her father's house, she comes now to the king's palace to be joined in matrimony to the king.

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Verse 16 and 17 is the benediction that is sort of spoken over this entire service, and it is a benediction whereby the success and the blessing and the prosperity of this couple is to be granted by God.

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Verse 16, in the place of your fathers will be your sons. You shall make them princes in all the earth. That is to say that your sons will rule under you.

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You will have princes who rule over the lands in all the earth. Verse 15, I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations.

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Therefore, the peoples will give you thanks forever and ever. All right, so that is Psalm 45. Again, description of the king, advice to the bride, and then a benediction that is spoken over the wedding ceremony.

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Now look back at verses six and seven. Let's deal with this issue. How is it that this earthly king, as his majesty and glory is being described, how is it that he is referred to as God?

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Because verse six says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. Scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.

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You've loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows.

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So this king is here addressed as God. Now when we take this quotation and we put this forward into the

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New Testament and we impose this upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in other words, we see him as the fulfillment of this.

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That doesn't cause us any problems to make that transition. The problem is here, these words are used to describe an earthly king, a king over the nation of Israel in the time when

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Psalm 45 was written. Maybe it is describing Solomon or Solomon's son or one of Solomon's sons or some descendant of David.

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We don't know who it is written of. We don't know who it is describing, but it is certainly a son of David before he is assumed as he is being married and probably as he is assuming the throne or after he's assumed the throne of the nation.

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So how is it that verse six and verse seven are spoken of an earthly king that is called

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God? There's two ways of understanding it. The first, it's not that difficult. Actually, neither of them are quite difficult, but here are the two.

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To the mind of a Jew, the individual who sat upon David's throne was God's representative. And so it is not uncommon in the

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Old Testament for the people who ruled the nation to be called gods or to be referred to as God, not because they by nature possess deity, but because they, by virtue of their position, their authority, sitting on David's throne were

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God's representative to rule the nation. So it is similar to how the word is used in Exodus chapter seven, verse one, where God says to Moses, see,

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I make you as God to Pharaoh and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. And was God saying to Moses that Moses would become

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God, that he would be deified? No. The Lord was simply saying to Moses, to Pharaoh, you will be my representative.

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You will be as God. You will speak my word. You will do my miracles. You will obey what I have done. I will deliver this nation through you.

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So to Pharaoh, from Pharaoh's vantage point, Moses was as God. He spoke for God. In the same way, the person who sat upon David's throne and ruled the nation was to the

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Jew God's representative. And so Jesus refers to this when he quotes Psalm, I think it's

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Psalm 82. Yes. Psalm 82 in John chapter 10, when they took up stones to stone him. And Jesus said, it says in your law, you are gods.

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And he quotes Psalm 82, where the rulers of the nation are called gods, not that they by nature were

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God, but that they by their position were rulers over the people. And Jesus said, if in the old

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Testament, those rulers were called gods in that sense, how is it that you want to stone me being the son of man and being

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God by nature? How is it you want to stone me for saying I am the son of God? And so it's kind of an old

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Testament thing that the ruler of the nation who sat on David's throne, the ruler over the people would be called gods because they would act as God's representative to the people.

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That is the first explanation for it. The second explanation for it is that in Psalm 45, here's what

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I think is going on. I think it's partly what I just gave you. It's also partly this. The author of Psalm 45 is looking through the immediate context of the person he was describing, that king, he is looking through him to an ultimate fulfillment that would come later on.

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We see this all the time in the Old Testament. God who has revealed his purposes and his plan throughout history interweaves revelation in history and into the storyline, into the narrative of history, so that we see individuals in the

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Old Testament, we see events, we see people, we see statements where we say, you know, that sounds a lot like the individual being spoken of there, but not everything that is described there is true of that individual.

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There seems to be things there that are described that are not true of him, but are true of another and even greater fulfillment.

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And that greater fulfillment is the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what the author of Psalm 45 is doing. He's looking through that king and that marriage ceremony, and he is saying this is going to be fulfilled by somebody greater.

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There is another king who literally is God who would sit on the throne, and his throne would be forever. And so the psalmist is looking through that king to the one promised to David, who was not that immediate king, be it

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Solomon or somebody else, the one promised to David who would come later on and ultimately fulfill this. And that would be the

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Messiah, who was God, who would rule the nations, to whom all the kings of the earth would bow down. He is the one who would be anointed above his companions.

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He is the one that is showered with grace and blessed forever in verse two. See, there are elements of Psalm 45 that sound a lot like the king when it was originally written, and there are elements of Psalm 45 that sound a lot like the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Verse six and seven are those statements. Your throne,

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O God. He's looking beyond that king to one who would come and sit upon that throne, who would be

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God himself. And then when we step into the New Testament and we look at it in Hebrews chapter one, we see, oh yeah, the one who came and fulfilled that word to David was himself

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God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. But what do we do with the fact that the psalm is speaking of Jesus in some ways, but it is describing a marriage when we know that Jesus wasn't married?

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Does that cause us a problem? Because he never was married. He lived and died a single man. But the church is his bride.

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Is it not? Revelation 19 says that there is a wedding feast that is to come that will be the ultimate fulfillment of every wedding ceremony and every wedding celebration that has ever taken place.

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It will be the greatest, the grandest fulfillment of that expectation. So though Christ was not physically married to any bride here on this earth, he is betrothed to his bride, which is the church.

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And from heaven he came and he sought her to be his holy bride. And we are the bride of Christ and we will sit at that marriage supper of the lamb.

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So the king who is described in Psalm 45 finds its ultimate fulfillment in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The wedding that is described in Psalm 45 finds the ultimate fulfillment in the wedding supper of the lamb described in Revelation 19, which is yet future to us.

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Okay. So we have two things going on, an immediate context that's being described in Psalm 45 and a far distant context that's also being described in Psalm 45.

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Now with that in mind, turn back to Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one.

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And we'll look here at verses six and seven as it pertains to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I want you to notice first of all quoted it in verse eight, but of the son, he says, and remember he is contrasting the

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Lord Jesus with the angels. He says in verse six concerning the firstborn, when he brings them back into the world, that the angels of God will worship him.

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And then he says of the angels in verse seven, that their ministers sent to, to minister and to serve their ministers and angels are his winds and verse eight, but of the son, he says, so he's going back and forth between the son and the angels of the angels.

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He says this of the son, he says this of the angels. They are the servants of the son. God says, and how is it that God is saying this in Psalm 45?

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Because that is God's word. He is the author of it in Psalm 45. It is God who says to this king, your throne, oh

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God is forever and ever. So verse, uh, verse eight, but of the son, he says, your throne, oh

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God is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. And I want you to notice the full throated emphatic declaration of the deity of Christ in Hebrews chapter one.

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You see that we have in Hebrews chapter one, the father calling the son,

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God, we have gone the father saying to the Lord, Jesus Christ, the one who will sit on David's throne, your throne, oh

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God, the father calling the son, God, your throne, oh God is forever and ever. It is an eternal throne.

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Now, unless you have an, an adequate and intact Trinitarian understanding of the nature of the

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Godhead, verses like this will make no sense to you whatsoever. How is it that you can have

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God calling somebody else God? Does that make any sense? That doesn't make any sense. Not unless you have a Trinitarian understanding of who

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God is, that God is one being that is possessed fully and always by three separate and distinct persons who are all called

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God, who can have a conversation with one another and who each one individually possesses all that is true of the divine nature.

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The son possesses fully the divine nature. The father possesses fully the divine nature and the Holy spirit possesses fully the divine nature.

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And these three persons can have conversations with one another. They can talk with one another and all three of them are

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God, but there is one God because there is one divine essence that one essence or substance that is divine and it is shared by three separate and distinct persons.

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So if we have a Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead, it is no problem for us at all to say that the father can call the son

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God and the father can call the Holy spirit God as well. And the son can call the father

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God and say to him, he is my God and he is my father because you have the son speaking to the father and calling him

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God. And notice that it is an eternal throne. And as we have a Trinitarian God who sits upon an eternal throne, verse eight, your throne, oh

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God is forever and ever. Now the administration of God's kingdom takes different forms, various forms throughout the course of human history.

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It is not, it is not, he does not rule in the same way or the same physical representation at all times.

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And in the old Testament, the administration of God's kingdom, though he sits upon a throne, he rules over all things. It was visibly manifested in the nation of Israel through divinely appointed

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King, the David and his sons, many of his sons who made a hash, complete hash out of the administration of the kingdom.

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But that was the way in which God's will, God's word and God's kingdom was administered in this world through the nation of Israel.

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Today he rules over the same territory, the same kingdom, but he is manifesting that rule as head of the church.

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And as head of the church, he sovereignly chooses its leadership and direction guides the expansion and the, and the, the outworking of the church and the ministry of the church.

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And there is coming at some point in the time in the future when the manifestation of his eternal throne will be in a, on a physical throne in Jerusalem, over the nation of Israel and over all the nations of the world.

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So I'm a pre -millennialist. And that's what I believe that there is a literal kingdom who is, who's, who's is coming to us.

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That kingdom is coming to us. And the King over that kingdom will rule and reign from the nation of Israel.

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And that is how God's eternal kingdom, his eternal throne will be manifested in this world. And then in the new heavens and the new earth will be entirely different after everything is recreated.

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He will still rule and reign over this eternal kingdom with his people. And he will rule and reign sovereignly in a new heaven and a new earth when we dwell with him in righteousness.

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So what kingdom, what throne, what aspect is being described in verses 6 or verses 7 and 8 here from Psalm 45?

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I think that that is describing the Davidic kingdom. I think particularly he is describing here the outworking of the Davidic kingdom, which is in view.

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And I would say that because all of the references to this theme of King and kingship and the sovereign rule of the

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Lord Jesus Christ have been to that aspect of the kingdom so far. Psalm 2, 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 97 verse 7 all have to do with that future physical reign of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so that is what I think is being described here. He has an eternal throne and he sits and he rules over it and it goes on forever and ever.

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God has never kicked off of his throne. Psalm 145 verse 13, your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

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Daniel 7 verse 14, Daniel writes, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away. And his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

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That kingdom that the Lord Jesus Christ receives when he, as the heir of all things, assumes his position of rulership over all of the nations, that kingdom will go on forever and ever.

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It's an eternal kingdom. It will never end. It will go through a thousand years here on the earth. It will endure the time immediately after the millennium.

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It will go on into the new heavens and the new earth and he will rule and reign forever and there will be no end to his kingdom.

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Daniel 7 verse 27, then the sovereignty, the dominion, the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people, the saints of the highest one.

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His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him, an everlasting kingdom.

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And notice that Daniel in Daniel chapter 7 describes that kingdom as being given to us. Did you catch that?

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The sovereignty, the dominion, the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.

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We get that kingdom. We're the recipients of it, the beneficiaries of it.

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He rules and he reigns his people in this world. It is given to the saints. Abraham will be there.

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David will be there. You and I will be there if you're in Christ. So it is the Davidic kingdom that is in view here.

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And he, because he is righteous and because he loves righteousness and because he is gracious and because the foundation of his throne is righteousness and truth, he will reign in complete righteousness.

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Such a rule by any man is unknown to us entirely. Do you know what it is like to live in a nation or in a world where the person who rules over it always rules in perfect righteousness and makes every decision for the benefit of his people and not because of some political or corrupt motivation?

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Can you imagine such an environment? Can you imagine what the world would be like if only truth were allowed to rule, if only righteousness were done by the highest people in the land?

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That is hard for us to even fathom what that would look like because it is so foreign to everything we have ever experienced.

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And yet that is the description of the kingdom that awaits us. When a righteous man rules, well, it's described by David in 2

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Samuel chapter 23, verses 3 and 4. David in his very last song that he wrote while he was lying on his deathbed,

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David said this, the rock of Israel spoke to me, he who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds when the tender grass springs out of the earth through sunshine after rain.

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David describes what it is like to live in a kingdom or a nation where authority and power are used well and used righteously.

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2 Samuel chapter 23, one who fears God, who rules over men righteously and who rules in the fear of God, here's what it is like.

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It is like the light of the morning when the sun rises, when it is still and it is quiet and it is nice and warm outside and you step outside on the porch or into the yard and the sun is just coming up and it is peaceful and still and quiet and beautiful and all is well.

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It is like the sun that rises up and blesses and benefits all of creation. It is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds.

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It's bright, it's beautiful, it's glorious, it's promising. It is a morning without clouds when the tender grass springs out of the earth through sunshine after rain.

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A beautiful picture of power and authority used well and David says when a man rules in the fear of God and when he rules righteously, this is what it is like.

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We have never known that ever in the history of this world, but we will someday when the

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Lord Jesus Christ rules over it. And so this righteousness that he has is the expression of his throne.

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Psalm 89 verse 14, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before you.

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Notice that righteousness and justice and loving kindness and truth all go together. Psalm 97 verse 2, clouds and thick darkness surround him.

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Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. This throne that the Lord Jesus Christ possesses, this throne that he will rule the nations with and from is a throne that is founded upon righteousness and justice.

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And since that is the case, he is a righteous one. Verse 9, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

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This describes him. He is the one who has loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. That has not been true of any king ever that he has fully loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

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Did David hate lawlessness? Not nearly enough because he took Bathsheba and killed

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Uriah. And even though David is called a man who pursued after God's own heart, even though that is true, he was not a perfectly righteous man.

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And as righteous as he might have wanted to make the nation of Israel in his administration of that nation, he was not perfectly righteous.

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This could not describe any king that Israel has ever had in the history of the nation. It can only describe the king who is to come, that he perfectly loves righteousness and he hates lawlessness.

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Lawlessness is sin. And notice that these two affections, they go together and they are two sides of the same coin.

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If you love righteousness, you will hate lawlessness. You cannot say that I love righteousness if at the same time

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I love sin. So if you live in sin, you walk in sin, you dive into sin, you plot and you plan your sin and you enjoy sin, that is the degree to which you do not love righteousness.

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The one who loves righteousness also has a hatred for sin. And the one who hates sin also has a love for righteousness.

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That is why Paul says to Timothy, flee youthful lust and pursue righteousness. Because these two things, these are two sides of the same coin.

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To move toward one is to move away from the other. And so this king, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, he loves righteousness and he hates lawlessness. And for that reason, therefore, verse nine says, therefore

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God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. Now there's an interesting statement here.

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Therefore God, your God has anointed you. That can be taken two different ways. It can be taken this way, that he is speaking to the king.

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This would be the same whether you're describing it here in Hebrews chapter one or in Psalm 45, that the author is speaking to this king, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and he is saying to him, therefore God, referring to another individual who is your

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God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. It can be taken that way where he is, where God is the subject.

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And so God, your God is speaking of the same person. It can also be taken this way, that he is addressing the king by calling the king

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God. So he is saying to the king, therefore God, your God has anointed you.

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That is that God is the one being addressed and God is the one being described as anointing God. In which case you have in verse nine, another clear statement is to the deity of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Do you catch the difference between those two things? If I say to you, therefore, I got to pick on Lanny because he's the one

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I always pick on. Therefore, Lanny, your God has anointed you. I'm addressing Lanny there.

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That is the way in which this would be speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ, saying to the one who is the king, therefore

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God, you the king who are God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness.

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So here you have the psalmist describing two people who are both called God, the one who sits on the throne and the

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God who has anointed the one who sits on the throne. This God who has anointed the God who sits on the throne is also

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God. Again, that makes no sense whatsoever unless you have a Trinitarian understanding of the nature of the

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Godhead. That you have two separate and distinct persons, one who sits on the throne who is fully God, whose

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God and father anoints him with the oil of gladness. Sometimes it causes people consternation to think that the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who was God, also had a God. He did have a God. His God was the father.

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He is the God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jesus in his humanity had a father in heaven who was

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God, and this Jesus in his humanity who was fully God also had a God who was in heaven.

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That is why we call him the Lord, the God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what Dave preached on last week when he stole all my thunder for this message.

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So just remember that, that that goes both ways. Okay, so the Lord Jesus Christ had a

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God. The son who is God also had a God. Now not more than one God, but a separate and distinct person who was his

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God and who was his father. So the one being addressed in verse nine is being called God, and his

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God has anointed that one who is the king, who is God, with the oil of gladness above the companions.

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And you can see why this is referred to as a messianic psalm, because the word anointed there is the verb form of the word that is translated

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Christ. Christ just means anointed one. And so you have the one who is the Christ who is anointed by God, the father, as he sits upon this throne, the end of verse nine, he is anointed with the oil of gladness above your companions who are the companions in the context of Psalm 45 to jump back there for a second, that the context of Psalm 45, it probably describes his brothers, his brethren, maybe other sons of the same king.

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And he has been as the firstborn or as the anointed king, he has set apart and anointed with the oil of gladness and given a position that is above all of his other brothers and his brethren, or maybe his own companions or his countrymen or his peers in some way.

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In Psalm 45, it probably describes that if it is describing that earthly king, but when it describes the Lord Jesus Christ, it is probably describing either us, his brethren, because chapter two, verse seven says he is made like us in all things.

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He is made like his brethren, taking upon himself flesh and blood. And so he is with us as our brother, but the

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Lord has anointed him as God above us, his companions. So he's separate and distinct from us.

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It could be describing that, or companions could be describing his peers, his equals.

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In other words, he has been anointed and placed in a position that is above all other kings, his companions, his peers, those who normally would be his equals.

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He has given a position above them. And that certainly would fit with the context, would it not?

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Psalm chapter two, verse seven, let the kings of the earth bow down to this one whom the Lord has seated on Zion.

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And given him all of the nations and all of the king should bow down to him and do homage to the son, lest the son become angry and they perish in the way.

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In Psalm two, it is this divine son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is exalted to a position above all the kings of the earth.

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So he is the one to whom all the kings bow down. He has been anointed above his companions.

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And that would be the same in second Samuel chapter seven, which is the other verse that the Hebrews quotes, where this one who is the divine son of Davidic line is given his position and he rules over all of the nations and the kings of the earth bow down to him.

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Psalm 97, it is the angels who worship him. So it could be the angels. It could be his, the fellow kings.

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It could be the leaders of all of the other nations. This is describing one who is

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God, who is anointed by God and given a position of authority where all the kings of the earth bow down and do homage to this one.

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That is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what are we to learn from this? Let me give you a couple things. First thing we should walk away from this with is this.

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This is God's promise. How many of God's promises fail? None. This kingdom will be established.

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This one will rule. He will return. He will sit on David's throne and he will rule in righteousness over all the nations of the earth.

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That is as certain as the sunrise tomorrow and more certain than the sunrise tomorrow, more certain than the sunset today, more certain than anything else.

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It is God's word. None of his promises ever fail. This will most certainly come to pass. It may be hard for us to envision.

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It might be hard for us to imagine, but it will come to pass as, as certain as I'm standing before you this morning. And even more so because it is

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God's word and his promise. There will be a king and he will rule in righteousness. He will establish the throne.

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He will put down his enemies. He will make his enemies a footstool for his feet. He will rule in righteousness.

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He will crush the nations with a rod of iron and rule them in justice. That is what awaits this world. And it is coming.

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I, for one, wish the day would hurry on and happen quickly. Second, this should remind us that this is a promise that awaits us as believers.

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It is, it is a statement, a reminder of the joy that awaits us. It's the joy that awaits us.

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When, when this kingdom is established, it will be for his people. All the evildoers will be purged from the earth.

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All the impenitent will be taken out. This kingdom will be for the blessing, the joy, the delight, the benefit, the prosperity, the happiness of all those who are in Christ Jesus.

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He will rule and reign justly and righteously, and we will be the beneficiaries of that.

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Our king, our brother, our God, the one who has secured for us all of these blessings, has secured all of these blessings on our behalf so that he might lavish us with his grace.

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We are his bride. His people belong to him. His elect will be secure, and we will live and dwell in complete joy and delight and felicity and happiness and prosperity, safety and security forever and ever and ever.

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This kingdom was for us. It's his reign, and we are the beneficiaries of it.

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Don't forget that. And the third thing I would remind you, and this is to prepare our hearts for communion this morning, is that all of these blessings, and our place in that kingdom, and the prosperity of that kingdom, and our hope in that kingdom, and our anticipation of it, all of it has been secured for us by the bridegroom who came here and stepped into human history and rescued his bride.

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We have been purchased. We have been saved. We have been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

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From heaven, he came and sought us. And he chose us, the father chose us, to give us as a love gift to his son that we may dwell with him forever.

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He came from heaven, and he offered his body and his blood as a sacrifice to make atonement for all who will place their faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We have these blessings, and we have this hope, not because of any of our own doing, but entirely because of what

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Christ has done for us, his bride, the church. And we are included in that company sheerly by grace, not because we deserve any of it.

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We don't. It is entirely by grace. It is entirely for his glory. It is entirely of his doing and not our own.

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That sacrifice which he paid has purchased all of these blessings. The kingdom is ours because we have been bought so that we may join him and rule him in that kingdom forevermore.

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That is what we celebrate. Before we partake of the Lord's Supper together, I would just remind you that if you are an unbeliever who is here this morning, you have never repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation, please let the cup and the bread pass from before you. Don't partake of it. You're eating and drinking judgment to yourself, scripture says.

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So I would warn you with that. This is for believers. This is for those who have repented of their sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation and have been born again. We partake of these elements as a reminder of the sacrifice, the price that was paid to redeem us out of lawlessness, out of the kingdom of darkness, and to deliver us into and unto that kingdom of light and righteousness that will be ours forevermore.

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So let us confess our sin together and then I'll ask the ushers to come forward and we'll partake together. Let's bow our heads. Father, we are reminded of how unworthy we are to stand in your presence or to receive any grace from you.

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We were undeserving in every way of every spiritual blessing that you have lavished so graciously upon us.

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We were wretched and undone and deep in our sin, lost with hearts that were hardened and hateful toward you.

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We were rebels in your kingdom, waging war against your righteousness and against your goodness and against that kingdom.

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We were servants and slaves of your enemy, the prince of darkness.

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And yet you sent your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to rescue us from that lost and destitute condition and we thank you for that.

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Confess to you that our iniquity and our sin, we still struggle with the sin that plagues us.

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We pray that you would forgive us for those sins and transgressions and increase in us a love for righteousness.

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May our love for righteousness continue to press out any affection we have for darkness and lawlessness. Give us continually an increasing desire to be holy before you and do that work of sanctification in our hearts that we may walk in holiness.

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Cleanse us and forgive us that we may walk before you in obedience and truth and righteousness. And we pray that as we live our lives here and as we pursue holiness, that any affections we have for lawlessness would continue to decrease and that you would give us a hunger and love for righteousness itself.

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We long for that day when we shall dwell in that kingdom of righteousness with the righteous king who is

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God anointed above his companions. We long for that. We pray that it may come quickly, Lord Jesus, and we ask that you would sanctify us even now as we appropriate this means of grace for the glory of Christ our