The Begotten Son

The Supremacy of Christ in Hebrews 1

And now Dr. White will instruct us out of the Word of God. Turn with me once again to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews chapter 1, we continue our series of studies in this tremendous book of Hebrews.

Let us once again ask the Lord to bless our time together. Father, now as we open your Word, we ask that you would be with us, you would give us understanding hearts and minds to understand your truth and to remember what we learn.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen. I could see it coming, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Yesterday morning I was riding, as most of you know I do. I was doing a 33 .5 mile ride and I was racing someone, namely myself.

It's really neat to live in these days where I have a little gadget on my bike. It's a GPS unit. And when I get done with the ride, I can go back and look at a map of the whole thing. I can even put it into Google Earth and zoom over it.

It's amazing what you can do these days. I can't see myself on it, but that's a different thing. It's coming, I'm sure, which is sort of scary. But I can also put rides into it so that I can race myself.

So I can take a ride I did before and I can put it in and it will put me and then me. And so I can race me. And I can guarantee you it's a really good training thing to do. But I was racing me and I was ahead, by the way.

And I came to this one spot in the ride where I keep forgetting that on Saturdays there's a lot more people on the trail than there are, say, at 5 a .m. on a Tuesday morning. And I was going onto Thunderbird Road.

And if you've been there, if you know where this trail is, there's a spot where there's guardrails. They're big, thick metal guardrails on both sides, not very wide. Generally, I don't run into folks there, but somebody was having a birthday party in the park.

And going through, I had a little trouble, but not too much. Coming back, I could see what was coming. There's a fellow and he's carrying, I don't know what this thing was, but he's carrying a big old box with wrapping paper on it.

And he's going right where I need to go. Well, I started yelling back underneath the bridge, coming through, please stay to the right, doing everything I could to try to avoid a problem. But he just didn't want to listen to me.

And so I'm climbing this hill up behind him and he's not giving way. He just keeps on going. I'm going right or back, right or back. And right as I get to him, he decides to turn and take up the whole thing to see who's coming.

And I was a nice guy. Instead of running into him, I rode right into one of those big old guardrails. Thankfully, I got my feet out of the clips fast enough not to flip over the thing, but it was sort of an embarrassing situation.

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

There was nothing I could do about it. Well, how am I going to connect that story to Hebrews chapter 1? You're wondering. Well, let me tell you something. I am, as most of you know, I do a lot of debating and apologetics.

And I know some of the toughest biblical questions out there. I mean, they get thrown at me. But someday I think I'm going to write a book, The Toughest Questions. Two of the hardest questions that I know of in all the Bible that I haven't even figured out yet.

It's going to take a lot of work to get through them. Two of them are in this book. They're in Hebrews. And yet I keep plotting on. And I know that no matter how slowly I go, eventually I'm going to get to them.

I see it coming, but there's no way to stop it. I'm going to get to them eventually. And of course, I want to get to them. Because when you work through the toughest questions, that's when you get the greatest rewards.

And this is a tough book. I want you to look at your Bible. And I want you to just page through a little bit. And hopefully your Bible, maybe in some way, sets out Old Testament quotations. Maybe it does it in italics or bold.

I know in the New American Standard it does it in capital print. But look through this book and see how many citations of the Old Testament text there is in Hebrews. You are soaked in the Old Testament text when you read this book.

And when the New Testament cites the Old Testament, issues come up. Troubling questions come up. And today, as we work through verses 5 and 6, Lord willing, at least in this morning time, we start really running into this use of the Old Testament by the New.

And some of the toughest questions have to do with that very issue. And as we start looking today at the use of the Old Testament in the New here in Hebrews 1, we're going to have to start laying some foundations.

We have to start laying some foundations that will help us as we work through the rest of this book. Because I have become convinced, the more I have read and studied this book, that it is without a doubt one of the most ignored of the New Testament books.

When I hear Christians talking about their favorite books, very rarely do I hear someone say Hebrews. And I don't hear a lot of preaching of them from certain portions of Hebrews. And to try to walk all the way through it, it's a big task.

No two ways about it. But if we can lay a foundation now, it will help us as we work through these things. And I want to assure you that given that the subject of Hebrews is who Christ is, the supremacy of Christ, the work of Christ, the cross of Christ, the mercy seat, grace, all these things are so much a part of the message of this book that it is worth the work that it will take.

And I assure you, it's going to take us some work. This is not easy preaching. It's going to be hard on me. And for you as the listener, it would be very easy to tune out, to not follow the references, to not go to them.

But I would like to encourage you, the reward is worth the effort. The reward is worth the effort. I was watching something. I've found a channel that I had never seen before. And just briefly, they were talking about how you become a Navy SEAL.

And they were showing the process by which you become a Navy SEAL. And there's a certain week you go through that you sleep about two hours in this entire week. They drag you out in the seashore where the water is 58 degrees, and you have to sit there locked arm in arm with the rest of your class in the surf, trying to keep your breathing going, and they're just shaking like...

It is only the toughest can possibly survive this. But one man said something. I heard him say it, and I thought, ah, that's a wise man. He's standing there, and he's shaking. And it's during one of the brief breaks that they had.

And he's going, a few days of pain, a lifetime of pride. And he kept going. And there were people quitting right and left. But you see, he wasn't focused on what he was going through right now. A few days of pain, a lifetime of accomplishment and pride.

Good attitude when it comes to the fact that there are times that there's a section of the Word of God that requires us to go through a little pain, a little bit of work, a little bit of thought. It might be a little bit uncomfortable.

But the reward is truly worth it. So let's dig into it and take a look at it. Hebrews chapter 1, we have been working through it. We'll read the beginning of verse 1. God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages, or the world.

And He is the radiance of His glory, the exact representation of His being or His nature, and upholding all things by the word of His power. For when He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a better or more excellent name than they.

For to which of the angels, verse 5, for to which of the angels has He ever said, You are my Son, this day I have begotten you. And again, I will be to you as a father, and you shall be to me as a son.

And again, when He brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, He says, Let all the angels of God worship Him. Now, we've already laid the foundation before. If you weren't with us then, I apologize for that, but we can't go back and recover everything.

Just a brief reminder that the writer is beginning his exhortation of the Hebrew Christians to remain strong against all the pressure that is being put upon them to go back to the old ways, go back to Judaism, make sacrifice in the temple, deny that Jesus is the final sacrifice, deny the supremacy of Christ.

And so, he's beginning by a demonstration here of who Jesus is. And the first four verses, he's already sort of laid this out for us, as presented Jesus in very, very high words. It's a very exact representation of the nature of God.

Now, he begins the demonstration here, beginning at verse 5 through the end of this chapter, demonstrating that Jesus is superior to the angels. Now, we need to keep in mind the worldview of the people to whom he's speaking.

If you're superior to the angels, it's not that you're just sort of a super angel or an archangel or something like that. The only thing that is above an angel is God himself. So, if Jesus is superior to the angels, the greatest of God's creations, then Jesus is, in fact, truly deity.

And so, he begins the rhetorical question, verse 5. To which of the angels has he ever said, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Now, most of us have reference editions of the Bible. And in that small little print in the center column, side column, however your Bible has it, you will have references that will tell you where these various texts are taken from.

And you can see that this is a citation of Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Let's go ahead, and I think it's important that we look at these texts, because I know that even in my preparation for this morning, I have learned things because I took a little more time to look carefully at the Old Testament texts that are being cited.

And when we go back to the 2nd Psalm, we are immediately struck by something. Hopefully, we are aware of the fact that the 2nd Psalm is a very strongly messianic psalm. It is a psalm that is cited a number of times in the New Testament.

That refers to, for example, look at verse 12. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him.

Who is this Son that is being talked about here? And in verse 7, we have the text that is cited in Hebrews. I will surely tell the decree of Yahweh, Jehovah. He said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you.

You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Now, immediately, we have many questions that come into our minds. How do we understand prophecies in the Old Testament that clearly had a fulfillment in their day, and yet not a complete fulfillment?

So many of the messianic psalms, Psalm 110, Psalm 2, Psalm 22, had a meaning when they were written. It's not like this psalm is written, and then people start looking at it, and they go, I have no idea what's going on here, because this isn't going to be fulfilled for many, many centuries, and so it's just some type of language that makes no sense to me at all.

These were the hymns of the people of God. They had meaning to them when they were first written. But we know without a doubt that during the intertestamental period, that period between Malachi and the coming of Christ, that about 400 year period, that the Jews themselves recognized that no one in the Old Testament had completely fulfilled even the prophecies that were there.

They recognized that even though maybe David fulfilled a part of this prophecy, or Solomon fulfilled a part of this prophecy, that there was so much more to these prophecies that had not yet been fulfilled.

And so there was a recognition, there was a looking forward to the One who would come who would fulfill these things. It was recognized that these had partial fulfillment, but that there was going to be a greater fulfillment in the One to come.

That's why there was such a strong messianic hope at that particular point in time. And so when we look at Psalm 2, we can see fulfillment at that time. We can see how in some ways these would speak of the Jewish kings and the role that Israel had, but they would speak in such grand terms that they were pointing to a greater fulfillment in One who is yet to come.

And so the writer asks in a rhetorical way, to what angel has God ever said, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Clearly, the One who is being addressed in the second Psalm has a special relationship and a special nature.

This has never been said to one of the angels. And so if this is said to one and no angels ever heard this, then clearly the One about whom it is being spoken is not angelic in His nature. He is not an angel.

But what does it mean, today I have begotten you? This in and of itself could take up two or three sermons if we really wanted to dig into it. There has been a lot of controversy over the history, not just of Hebrews chapter 1, but the entire interpretation of the New Testament regarding this idea of Jesus being begotten and especially the phrase, today I have begotten you.

There have been some who have said, well, you look at its use in Acts or something like that and it refers to the resurrection. It refers to the resurrection and so the fulfillment is that when Jesus is resurrected, then this is when His Sonship is proclaimed to the whole world.

It vindicates His claim to have been the Son of God. He claimed to be the Son of God and now the vindication of it is He has been raised from the dead and therefore He is the Son of God. Others say, no, no, no, this has to do with the incarnation.

It's difficult to come up with a simple answer to the multiple uses of this particular text. There are some that seem to attach it to the resurrection. But I think both here and in verse 6, we have to ask the question.

You have today I have begotten you and then in verse 6 when He brings the firstborn into the world, it would seem that there is a parallel between the two and there would be some who would say, well, especially that verse 6 when He brings the firstborn into the world and you'll notice I'm not saying when He again, I'll address that translational issue in a moment.

But when He brings the firstborn into the world, it sounds like the incarnation. That sounds like when Christ first comes into the world. But you'll notice, I think there's a better way to go because when it says the world in verse 6, it is speaking of, it's not the normal terminology for the world.

It literally is the inhabited world. It's not cosmos, which we would think of as the normal term for world here, the different term that is being used here. And I think that both in verses 5 and 6, what we have here is Christ in His enthronement, His exaltation after the resurrection.

That is when His voluntary humiliation has been completed and He has indeed been vindicated in the resurrection. And now He has taken the position of the one who indeed, as the preceding verses in verses 3 and 4 talked about, who's bearing all things.

He has made atonement for sin. He has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And in that position of exaltation, is seen to be superior to the angels, is seen to be the one who has been vindicated in His claims to be the Son of God.

And so if that is the case, then this idea of today I have begotten you is not talking about what has taken place in the eternity past. The relationship of Father and Son never had any beginning. There was never a time when the Father was not the Father.

There was never a time when the Son was not the Son. This confuses many people. This confuses many who have been given false teaching throughout their lives because they take human relationships and they say, well, look, if Jesus is the Son of God, there had to have been a time when He was not, when He came into existence.

Because every son is begotten by his father and then he begins that relationship of Father and Son. So they're taking the creaturely terms and they're trying to project everything that means back upon the divine.

That's always a very scary thing to do. Any type of terminology that God uses to describe His unique nature to us that draws from our experience, you have to be very careful not to project back upon God the limitations of these human terms and human relationships.

Any analogy of the Trinity, for example, will break down at some point because God is unique. And therefore to use any language that is not unique, you have to be very careful to allow it only to speak to a certain extent and not go beyond that and read into God things that are non-unique because they come from the creaturely realm.

And so when we talk about the relationship of the Father and the Son, it is not that there was a time when the Father was alone and then there's a thing called begettal and now the Son comes into existence.

These terms when used of the Father and the Son are eternal in their nature. They have no beginning or end. They are simply recognizing the relationship that exists between the Father and the Son. If God did not use these types of terms, we could never distinguish between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

We would not be able to tell who's who in essence. And so as John Calvin rightly put it long, long ago, in Scripture, God lisps to us. He deigns, he condescends to use language that we can understand, but it is just like when we talk to the little baby.

You know, over in the nursery now, you've got the little babies. And when you talk to those little babies, we use this strange language. I don't know where we learn it. We never went to class to learn it.

But some people, even their faces get contorted. And there's this, And you start talking this strange way, you hope no one's watching. But even if they are, they'll understand. And some people don't like the idea that God is speaking to us in this condescending way.

He's condescending to use our language, so we might understand. But that is exactly what is going on. And if you have a problem with that, then maybe your views of God, or your views of man, are a little bit out of kilter.

Maybe you have too low a view of God and way too high a view of man. God does condescend to speak to us in terms we can understand. And so, it is not that in the exaltation of Christ, He becomes the Son of God.

But that it is in the exaltation of Christ that that is proclaimed in its fullness in a way that had never been proclaimed before. For by rising from the dead, through the resurrection, you have the full vindication of all the claims of Christ.

And so we have in verse 5, a rhetorical argument. These are words that can only have to do with one who is personally related to God Himself in a way that no creature ever could be. These words could never be said to an angel.

And yet they are said to the Son. You are my Son. Today I have begotten you. Then we have the phrase, and again, giving us a second reference. This is 2 Samuel 7 .14. Let's go ahead and take a look at 2 Samuel 7 .14.

2 Samuel 7 .14 takes us back once again into the story of David, who truly is the primary Messianic figure, both in the Psalter and elsewhere. 2 Samuel 7 .14. Let's go back to verse 13. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and strokes the sons of men. But my lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.

Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David. And so David has made a request, and God through Nathan has responded, and has promised that the Lord will indeed, verse 11, the Lord also declares to you, the Lord will make a house for you.

When your days are complete, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. Isn't it fascinating how the Lord does this?

Yes, there is a partial fulfillment in this in Solomon. There is the fact he does build the temple. But by using this more general language, and then this discussion of this eternal kingdom, there is again, and this was again seen by the Jews during the intertestamental period, a greater fulfillment that is yet to come.

And so this one, there is a partial fulfillment in Solomon, in the building of the temple, but there is much more yet to come. And so the writer of the Hebrews is again saying, to what angel could these words ever be said?

No angel has ever been described in these ways. And if you look at the two quotations together, what do they have in common? The idea of father-son relationship. You are my son. Today I have begotten you.

I shall be to you as a father. You shall be to me as a son. Father-son. Who is this one? He is spoken to us by His Son. Verse 1. So the point being made is, there is this One who will be the Son of God in a particular and peculiar way.

Yes, men were called the sons of God in the Old Testament. But there is going to be One who is going to fulfill that language in a way that no created being, no angel, the greatest and highest of God's creations, could ever fulfill.

The Meaning of “Firstborn” and the Worship of Christ

Then verse 6. Here is where we are going to have to do a little work. And I don't know about... I know it is hard to communicate this to you, but I got all excited when I was studying this. Now there are two ways to translate the beginning of verse 6.

We need to handle that first. A lot of translations say, when He again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world. And so you could translate it in such a way that it is referring to a second time.

When He again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world. That is one way of translating it. That is grammatically possible. I know that is what the New American Standard says. But the ESV goes the different direction.

And it says, and again when He brings the firstborn into the world. So it is paralleling. Notice in the middle of verse 5 you had, and again, being the beginning of a citation of an Old Testament text.

So you can understand this to be, He again brings the firstborn into the inhabited world. Or, and again, when He brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, He says. Now, I go for the second option.

I think that it is best to render it, and again, this is just another citation, but then there is an introductory phrase. When He brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, He says, and then we have the quotation.

And so, I don't think we have to be going, alright, well which is this? Is this the first coming, second coming? Is the first coming, the previous one, and now this is the second coming, and so on and so forth.

I think that is missing the point. There are people who would argue with that. For example, B .F. Westcott argued very strongly, it needs to be when He again brings the firstborn into the world. But I don't think that is the strongest way of rendering it.

So I think the ESV has the best rendering there. And again, when He brings the firstborn into the world. What does firstborn mean? Now, what I am going to tell you right now, is important for understanding this text, but it is also very important, if you happen to be anywhere on a Saturday morning, ask Brother Miller, and the Jehovah's Witnesses show up.

Because I think Brother Miller will tell you, one of the first things the Jehovah's Witnesses said to him, when he began talking to them, was they started talking about firstborn, I believe in Colossians 1 .15.

What does firstborn mean? The Greek term prototokos. It does not mean first created. And in fact, by the time it is used in the New Testament, it becomes such a well-known term, that the emphasis on birth, it almost completely disappeared.

The emphasis of firstborn is always on preeminence, power, and authority. In the Old Testament, Israel is described as God's firstborn. Well, what does that mean? Israel clearly was not the first nation that Yahweh had created, but it was the nation that had preeminence in His purposes.

God was doing what He was doing through the nation of Israel. So firstborn does not mean first created. It means the one who has preeminence over. So in Colossians 1 .15, when it speaks of God's firstborn, it then goes on to say that that firstborn is the one through whom all things have been made.

The one who is, in essence, the creator of all things. It is a title of exaltation. And why does it fit here? Well, what have we just seen about the preceding two Old Testament texts recited? Sonship.

Relationship. And so here you have the emphasis upon the preeminence of this relationship, and the writer is talking about when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him.

Now, the term worship here is a term that can be used as something other than purely religious worship. It can be used, for example, in those contexts where you had a Roman centurion and just a plain old Roman soldier isn't just going to come walking up to the Roman centurion and go, hey bud, how goes it?

When a Roman soldier sees a centurion or even a higher officer, what's he going to do? When he comes before him, he's going to salute, or he's going to bow the knee, he's going to put his head down. There's ways of showing reverence to that person with a greater position.

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

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

Don't do that. Proscuneo worship only God. And so in a religious context, there is no room for this. Men try to proscuneo worship the apostles. And they tore their clothes. No, we're just men. Don't do that.

Only worship God. Now clearly, this is a religious context, and so we're talking about religious worship. But where did that come from? Where does the citation come from? Well, again, you might have a reference over on the side that will direct you to Psalm 97.

So let's take a look at Psalm 97. And it's possible. Psalm 97 says, Well, possible that the writer to the Hebrews is looking at that term God. Sometimes Elohim is used in the plural to refer to angels or angelic beings or powers.

It's possible. But I think there is a better explanation. This is where if you start, if the blood sugar level is dropping, you've been sitting for a little bit too long, if we were in a conference on Not in the Lord's Day, this is about when I'd have everybody stand up and shake a neighbor's hand, sit back down to get the blood flowing again.

This is where you need to tune in. Because I find this absolutely fascinating, and I hope you do too. We have to remember something. What Bible is the writer to the Hebrews using? Now, that may sound strange to a few of you.

Because you're going, but he's in the Bible, so how could he be using a Bible? But remember, the New Testament writers are writing to people who already have a Bible. We call it the Old Testament. The Jews call it the Tanakh, the Torah and the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim.

Law, prophets, writings. But what version did they have? Well, they must have had the King James. Not quite. It's old, but it's not that old. No, they didn't have the King James. There was no English language at the time.

What did they have? It's called the Greek Septuagint. Now, some people say Septuagint. My Greek professor said Septuagint. And when you've heard it that many times that way for many years, it just sticks.

And so I call it the Septuagint. It means the 70. It was a Jewish translation done before the time of Christ. About 200 years beforehand. It wasn't done all at once. The five books of Moses were done very, very well.

Some of the prophets were done very, very well. Psalter is okay. There are some sections that weren't done very well at all. So it was done by different people at different times. Maybe down in Alexandria, Egypt.

It's hard to know. But by the time of Christ, there was a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. One thing we know without question. The writer to the Hebrews is quoting the Septuagint.

And there is going to be no way to work through the book of Hebrews, however long that takes, without running across one simple reality. There are times when the Greek Septuagint is different than the Hebrew Old Testament.

There are differences. And this is one of them. What do I mean? Well, there is a much more probable place where this is coming from. It's coming from Deuteronomy 32, 43. Go ahead and look at Deuteronomy 32, 43.

And while you're turning there, let me point out that I will read Deuteronomy 32, 43, but I will read it from the Greek Septuagint. And the chance is 99 .99 that the English translation you're going to be reading will be following the Hebrew Masoretic text.

So compare what I have with what you have. I will now read for you Deuteronomy 32, 43 from the Greek Septuagint. And it reads, The end of the song of Moses from the Greek Septuagint. The second line is, Let the sons of God worship him.

This seems to be where the writer to the Hebrews is getting the citation of Hebrews 1, 6 from the Greek Septuagint, which his audience would share with him. And he's interpreting sons of God as the angels, because they are frequently identified as the angels.

And that makes sense because the third line in the Septuagint says, Let all the angels of God ascribe strength to him. There is something in Hebrew called Hebrew Parallelism, where you'll say something twice, and when you say it the second time, you are re-describing it.

It is a way of expanding one's description of something. It's called Hebrew Parallelism. It's right there found in Deuteronomy 32, 43 in the Greek Septuagint. Now it's interesting. Very interesting to me that until the middle of the last century, what you had was the Greek Septuagint reads one way, and the Hebrew reads a different way.

But how many of you know what happened in the middle of the last century, when a shepherd boy threw a rock, and it went down a hole and clanked against something? I'm talking about, of course, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran Scrolls.

And the fourth cave, the Qumran Scrolls, a Hebrew version of the book of Deuteronomy was discovered. It was all Hebrew primarily. Well, Aramaic and Hebrew. And in that scroll, guess what? Deuteronomy 32, 43 reads just like the Greek Septuagint.

So it was known in the Hebrew language, in the Hebrew version of the time before Christ, the same reading we have in the Greek Septuagint. But there's one more thing. And this is, sorry, some of you are looking at me, why are you excited about things like this?

Well, I think maybe even Brother Miller will understand why I'm excited about things like this. Who is being described in Deuteronomy 32, 43? Who is to be worshipped? To whom is strength to be ascribed?

Yahweh. Jehovah God. Why do I say the two different words? Well, Jehovah is the traditional term we use, but it's not what the Jews said. The Jews by the time of Christ didn't even say the divine name, but they did earlier.