Hebrews 1:5-14 Jesus Superior to the Angels

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

Good morning, Recast. Thanks for tuning in to our online service today. We hope and believe that we're going to be gathering together again next week. But for those of you that are newer or maybe you're tuning in for the first time, my name is Pastor Spencer and I am the Associate Pastor here at Recast.

You know, Pastor Don has been planning to be gone for this Sunday for probably the last six weeks. So don't worry, he's not out sick, he doesn't have COVID or anything like that. This has been in the works for quite some time and so we planned on me bringing the word to you this morning and so I'm privileged to be able to do that.

Hebrews and the Call to Leave the Old Covenant Behind

If you remember, back in May, I preached the first four verses of the book of Hebrews and I mentioned that I was going to kind of start working my way through that book as I had opportunity to preach and so today we are going to continue in the book of Hebrews and we're going to look at verses 5 to 14 in chapter 1.

So if you have a Bible at your house there, why don't you go ahead and grab it and start to turn there to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 5 while I give you a little bit of background information to get started in our text this morning.

You might remember from May that the book of Hebrews was written to the Jews and probably some Jews who were living in Palestine and they were believers. They had accepted Christ and yet they were not making real sufficient progress in their.

Spiritual growth.

The book describes them as immature. They were wavering in their faith and because of that, there's an emphasis throughout the book of Hebrews about the superiority of Jesus and in particular, the book focuses on how the new covenant that was ratified by the death of Jesus has replaced the old covenant and in doing so has done away with the need for the Levitical system, particularly the priests and the sacrifices.

Now many commentators believe that this Jewish audience was at risk of turning away from Christianity and turning back to Judaism. It's believed that these Jews who had accepted Christ were holding on to elements of Judaism such as the need for priests and the need for continual sacrifices and so the author of the book of Hebrews writes to show that Jesus is supreme and sufficient, that he is the high priest who intercedes for us, that he is the once and for all sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world and so there is no need for them to hold on to elements of this old covenant.

Now with that purpose in mind, we come to this section that opens the book of Hebrews and if you remember from a couple of months ago, which you probably don't because it's been a while, but chapter 4 or verse 4 rather concludes the opening section by arguing that Jesus is superior to the angels.

Now the angels were the most supreme messengers of the Old Testament and that's because the Jews believe that the law was spoken to Moses through them and so the idea that the author is trying to communicate here in the opening verses is that the message, the message that Christ brings, that is the message of the gospel and the new covenant is better than the message that the angels brought, the message of the old covenant and the law and one of the ways he demonstrates that is by showing that Jesus is superior to the angels here.

In verses 5 to 14.

So if you aren't there yet, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 1 and we're going to begin by reading in verse 4 just to get a little broader context. So Hebrews chapter 1 verse 4, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, today you are my son. Today I have begotten you. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship.

Him.

Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the son, he says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And you Lord laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same and your years have no end. And to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who inherit.

Salvation?

Let's pray as we get started. Lord, we are thankful, thankful for a text that reminds us who Jesus is. Lord, so often we approach our Christian lives as a to do list. We try to figure out what it is you want us to do and we try our best to accomplish it under the power of the spirit.

But Lord, I'm thankful for texts like this that remind us what Christianity is all about. It's all about Christ. And so this morning as we open your word and read about the glories of Jesus, I pray that your spirit will just give joy to our hearts and help to recalibrate us towards serving you and living for your glory.

We are thankful for Christ, we're thankful for his sacrifice on our behalf and I pray that we as people never lose sight of the beauty of the opportunity that we have to come to you despite our fallenness and despite our brokenness.

And Lord, we praise you for that. We pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Belief, Behavior, and Drifting from the Faith

All right, as we get started here, I want to give you guys a little bit of information kind of about my walk with Jesus because I think it will be helpful to illustrate to you what the author is trying to do with this section of scripture that we're looking at.

This morning.

You know, I did not grow up in your typical Christian home. I do have some memories of my mom taking my brother and my sister and I to a Presbyterian church kind of sporadically throughout the years as we grow up.

And I was always kind of frustrated because we would go to church and my dad, who basically just went on Christmas and Easter, would go fishing. And I kind of wish that I was along to go fishing too. But when I was in eighth grade, I went through what most kids in the Presbyterian church did, and that was confirmation.

Now in this confirmation class, you basically had one-on-one discipleship with an adult and they kind of walked you through most of the major tenets of the Christian faith. And at the end of that year, I would say that I had assented to the fact that Jesus had died on the cross, that he had rose from the dead in order to pay for the penalty of my sins, and that if I believed in him and that worked, that I would have eternal life.

But for me, that was largely nothing but an academic exercise. It didn't have any effect whatsoever on how I chose to live my life. Now if you fast forward a couple of years, I went off to college at Lake Superior State University in the Upper Peninsula.

And during my time there, I got involved with a campus ministry. In that campus ministry, I heard the gospel, the good news of Jesus, preached for the first time in its entirety. And after months of the Holy Spirit working on me, I made a decision to follow Christ.

And be baptized.

In the few years following that, though, my spiritual life followed a pretty consistent.

Pattern.

I would have long stretches of time where I was in the Word and I was in community and I was leading small groups and I was serving consistently and I was growing in the faith. But then I'd have these stretches of time where my life didn't look any different than it had before I accepted and decided to follow Christ.

And as I reflect on that, that time when I initially got saved, I realized that I spent a lot of time with two different groups of people, Christian friends and non-Christian.

Friends.

And when I was around the Christian friends, I often made good, godly choices. The fruit of the Spirit was apparent in my life, I was growing in holiness. But when I would hang out with my non-Christian friends, particularly during summer breaks, I made some really bad, sinful choices that weren't honoring to God.

And I would slip back into these patterns of my old life and neglect the gospel message. And that same type of pattern was apparent in the lives of the Jews that the book of Hebrews is addressing. You see, they had been saved out of Judaism, but they were holding on to elements of their old life.

They were participating in the Levitical system of the old covenant and relying on access to God through priests and they were offering sacrifices for atonement. And because they had refused to totally reject their old way of life and fully commit to growing in Christ, they were in danger of drifting away from the faith.

Now, that was a very real threat for them 2 ,000 years ago and it's a very real threat.

For you and I today.

We will be in danger of drifting away from the truth if we totally don't reject our old way of life. Now, most of us do have remnants of our old way of life that figure prominently into our lives still.

For the Jewish Christians and Hebrews, it was sacrifices and rituals. For you, it may be excessive drinking. It may be destructive friendships. It may be self-sufficiency or entertainment that you hold on to that celebrates sinfulness.

And if you don't leave behind that old way of life and turn completely to Christ and His message, then you will be at risk of drifting away from the faith as well. In our text this morning, we're going to see that having a correct understanding about Jesus is the only hope for them.

Having the correct understanding about Jesus is the first step towards obedience. It's the first safeguard against drifting away from the faith and neglecting the great salvation that we have been given.

It's easy enough if you look at this passage to see that the author is trying to change the way his audience thinks about Christ and how they think about angels. But as we look at this, you might ask yourself, why does he feel the need to demonstrate that Jesus is superior to angels?

I think the answer to that comes back to the very purpose of the book. In the introduction there, I mentioned that he was trying to convince the Jews to leave behind the Old Covenant and cling to Christ and the New Covenant.

And so he does that by demonstrating to them that the message and the messenger of the New Covenant are better than the message and the messengers of the Old Covenant. And those messengers of the Old Covenant were angels.

You see, he wants to change their behavior and he does that by first trying to change their beliefs. This is a common thread that we see throughout Scripture. The book of Proverbs says that the wise man thinks about what he does.

He thinks about what he does. I believe you can summarize this idea by saying that every behavior is based on belief. And the reason the Jews had not distanced themselves from the old life was because they did not understand the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus.

They did not understand why his message would be better than the message brought by the.

Angels.

And so in order to ultimately change their behavior, the author begins by trying to convince them to change their beliefs. If he can convince them that the messenger of the New Covenant is better than the messenger of the Old Covenant, then they are more likely to leave the Old Covenant behavior behind.

The Son’s Better Title and the Worship Due to Him

So in this text, he gives us five reasons why Jesus is superior to angels. The first reason Jesus is superior to the angels is because of his title. We see this in verse 5. Let's read that again. For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you?

Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. You'll notice in this verse here that the author is arguing for the supremacy of Jesus by quoting the Old Testament. And he's going to do this repeatedly, ultimately seven times throughout this section.

And the first two quotations that he uses are right here in verse 5. The first of those quotations is taken from Psalm chapter 2 verse 7. And by using this quotation, the author is ascribing the title of son to Jesus.

You may remember this is the same psalm that was quoted by the heavenly voice that greeted Jesus at his baptism. This is my son. And this is a contrast to the angels who were simply messengers. God has never said to the angels, you are my son.

You might remember that there's a few times in the Old Testament that angels are collectively called sons of God, but a single angel is never called son of God. This is a title that was given to Jesus at his birth, incarnation, and ultimately and most importantly, at his ascension and enthronement.

But why is that even significant? Why is the title son of God significant? I think we see the significance more with the second quotation, and this quotation comes from 2 Samuel chapter 7. In its original context, 2 Samuel chapter 7 is referring to the messianic king that would come through the Davidic line, and it gives this king the title son of God.

And so when the author of Hebrews here ascribes the title son of God to Christ, he is demonstrating that Christ is the promised messianic king. He is the fulfillment of the Davidic promises. He is the long-awaited Messiah.

He is the Davidic king, and so obviously the promised Messiah, the promised Davidic king is greater than the angels. He has a better title. In verse 6, we see the second reason why Jesus is superior to angels, and that is because he is worshipped.

Let's read verse 6 again. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. Of the angels, he says, he makes the angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.

The opening statement here in verse 6 can be kind of confusing because he uses a word that we don't use a whole lot, and that word is firstborn. Many, many people and cults have misunderstood this verse over the years, and they take it to mean that Christ was the first thing that God created.

But that's not what the author is trying to say here. Christ was not a created being. We just talked about how he's God. He's the son of God. He has existed before the foundation of the world. Later on, we'll see that he is the creator.

He's not the creation. But if it doesn't mean that Christ was the first created being, what does he mean when he says when he brings the firstborn into the world? Well, to be firstborn means that you are first in rank, power and honor.

It's a more common description in the Old Testament. God uses the description of David in Psalm 89 verse 27. He says, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. And in Exodus chapter 4 verse 22, God calls Israel my firstborn son in the sense that Israel is his covenant people called out among the nations to be first in rank and importance to him.

And so when the author uses the word here to refer to Christ, he has that same idea.

In mind.

He means that Christ is supreme over all creation and every creature and even the angels are called to worship him. One thing I want to clarify here about verse 6 is the timing of this event. I believe that the event spoken about here where the angels worshiped Christ upon his entrance into the world isn't speaking about his birth and his entrance into the world as we know it.

But rather, I think it is speaking about his ascension and his enthronement at the right hand of God, the father. If you remember, verses 3 and 4 made it clear to us that Jesus received this title. He received the title son of God when he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

So when this verse talks about his entrance into the world, I think it's talking about his entrance into the heavenly world. And this idea matches other information that we see in the New Testament as well.

You might remember Philippians chapter 2, which says,. Therefore God has highly exalted him, that's the idea of enthronement, and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, that's worship, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

You see, that verse too emphasizes these same two pieces, Jesus' enthronement and the fact that everyone will bow before him and worship him, even the angels will bow before him and.

Worship him.

Do you see the implications of such a truth? Everything, even the angels were made to glorify and worship Christ. Whether you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior or not, your chief end will be.

To glorify him.

And unfortunately, American Christianity has bought into the notion that God is here to.

Serve us.

So many sermons and books have become about the creature rather than the creator. And if you are the center of your version of Christianity, if you are choosing to hold on to pieces of your old life, you aren't believing the right gospel.

It's about you, it's not about Christ.

Michael Horton, a theologian, describes this tendency in his book, Christless Christianity, the alternative gospel of the American church. He says, there is a tendency to make God a supporting character in our own life movie rather than to be rewritten as new characters in God's drama of redemption.

If you were to tell someone the story of your life, what role does God have? Is he some minor supporting character that's only involved in every third or fourth act that's easily forgotten when he steps off the stage?

Or is your story one where he is the main character and you are the supporting cast? Does your life look different because Christ is in it? Or does it look largely the same as the world with the exception of a little Sunday morning.

Church attendance?

God calls the angels and he also calls us to worship Christ, the Son of God. We exist for Christ, to make much of him and to make him known. And the great reminder here is that he is the one worthy of worship.

And he is greater than those who are called to worship. With the next quotation here, we see another reason why Jesus is superior to angels. And that is because of his nature. We're going to see this in verses 7 to 9.

The Son’s Divine Nature Compared with the Angels

So, in verse 7 here, the author talks about the nature of angels and he does so using a quote from Psalm 104, verse 4. And he talks about the nature of angels before he contrasts it with the nature of Christ.

And in verse 7 here, it's a short verse, but there are six things I think that we can learn about angels from this short verse. The first line says, he makes his angels winds. So the first thing I want you to notice about angels here is that angels have been created.

Angels have been created, that they are not eternal beings. And we get that from the phrase here, makes. He makes his angels winds. And winds is just a description kind of of their character. So he makes his angels.

The second thing I want you to notice is that the pronoun used here is his. His is a possessive pronoun. That means that it's a pronoun that indicates ownership. So the angels are owned by he. He owns the angels.

Well, who's he?

The reference, of course, is Christ.

The angels operate at the direction of God and Christ. The third thing I want you to notice about angels is that they're described as winds. And when I first read this, I was kind of confused. So I want to kind of paint you a picture that I hope is helpful.

Let's think about wind for a second. Last fall, I drove to eastern Wyoming. And in doing so, I drove the whole width of South Dakota. And if you've ever driven across South Dakota, you know that especially the first two thirds or three quarters of it, there's nothing to look at.

I mean, it's just flat grassland as far as the eye can see. There's hardly any trees.

There's hardly any towns.

I got about, I think, halfway across the state and I needed to stop for gas. So I pull into some little podunk town in the middle of nowhere. And as I go to get out of my car, I grab the handle and the door won't open.

And I'm thinking to myself, what?

What's going on here?

Did the door latch break?

What's happening?

So I grab it again and I push it with a little more force. And I realize that it's not opening because there's such a tremendous wind blowing against it. So I grab two hands.

I force it open.

I climb out of the car.

And the wind literally, as soon as I let go of the door, the wind literally slammed it shut. And I didn't even have any idea when I pulled off the expressway that it was windy. But that's the effect of wind, right?

It's invisible.

Going across South Dakota without any trees, I couldn't hardly tell that it was windy at all, let alone that powerful.

And it is powerful, right?

But we've all seen tremendous damage that a wind storm can do. And the other thing about wind is that it moves rapidly, right? When it starts to blow in those tremendous forces, it moves quickly. It blows from one place to the next extremely fast.

And so when the author here describes his angels as winds, what he is saying is that God has created them as invisible beings that are powerful and that move quickly to accomplish his will. And we see this idea elaborated on in the second line where the angels are described as his ministers, or some translations use the word his servants.

And they're described after that as a flame of fire. When you read about fire in the Bible, it's usually in relationship to divine judgment. And so I think the point here is that angels are God's executioners of divine judgment.

They're executioners of divine judgment. We see this in several texts throughout the Bible. Psalm 78, verse 49 says,. He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.

Matthew chapter 13, verses 41 to 42 say,. The son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So just in these couple lines, we see six characteristics about angels. They were created by Christ.

They were created for Christ.

They are invisible, powerful spirit beings that move quickly to serve God's will. And they are executioners of divine judgment. I think if you were to put all that in a nutshell and sum it up, you could simply say that they are servants of God.

Now, I want to take a quick hiatus here from our text and talk a little bit more about the nature of angels.

Angels are talked a lot about in Scripture.

We see them from Genesis to Revelation, but it's not very often that we take a holistic look at what the Bible teaches about angels. And because people have such scattered knowledge about angels, there's a lot of confusion in the evangelical spectrum about who angels are and what they do.

And so I want to take a couple minutes right now and expand on this idea of the nature of angels. And then later on, we're going to expand on what we see them doing in the Bible. First off, let me just note that the Bible says that angels were created by God.

We saw that in our text here. And they were created of a higher rank than humans. In their creation, they were given great power and strength, and they were blessed with a more complete understanding of God.

Bible teaches that there are thousands of the angels. We don't know exactly, but thousands and thousands of them. It teaches us that they are spirit beings without fleshly bodies, and they do not die, they do not marry, and they do not reproduce.

And so from the time of their creation, they have been fixed in number. Because they are spirit beings, they are invisible to us, right? Humans cannot see them unless the angel is revealed by God to us.

Interestingly though, while they are invisible, they do have the ability to appear in human form. And they're said to have certain human-like characteristics, such as intelligence, joy, wrath, free will, and morality.

So that's just a little broader picture of the nature of angels in the Bible. But to bring us back on track here, remember that angels here are being represented as servants of God. And then when we get to verses 8 and 9, their nature as servants is contrasted with the nature of the Son.

You might recall here that the major thrust in verses 8 and 9 seems to be that the nature of the Son is divine. Notice, twice in verses 8 and 9, it gives Him the title of God. It says, Your throne, O God.

And then later on it says, Therefore God, Your God. Christ is God. And there's no other nature that can compare to the divine nature, right? Think about that. There's a lot of contrast here. Even with the angels, who are spirit beings, who do dwell in heaven, who are of a higher rank than humans.

A lot of contrast. The angels were created, right? But Christ is the Creator. The angels are servants, but Christ is the King. The angels execute judgment, but Christ is the Judge. The angels surround the throne, but Christ is the Anointed One on the throne.

There's no comparison between the two. Christ is clearly supreme. But the author doesn't end here. He goes on in verses 10 to 12 to give us even more reasons why Jesus is superior to the angels. The next one is because He is eternal.

Because He's eternal, He is superior to the angels.

Verse 10.

All right.

Once again, right here at the beginning of this quotation, Jesus is recognized as God through the use of the title Lord. And then the verse goes on to recognize Him as the Creator. It makes a distinction between the creation and the Creator.

And the contrast here is specifically between things permanent and things temporal. The earth is temporary and it will perish, but Christ will remain. Creation is described like a road that gets worn out and changed out for something new.

Take, for example, I've got a shirt here. I'm going to hold it up so hopefully you can see it. This was kind of my go-to work shirt. I wore this for all kinds of honeydew projects. Roofing, framing, drywall, electrical work, plumbing, new floors.

I could just outdoor projects.

I could just go on and on and on.

But recently, I got it pretty dirty. Not only did I get it dirty, but I used it to seal coat my driveway. And now it's pretty stiff. It's got some stains on it that I can't get out. And I think that it's time to hang it up and retire it.

Now, what do you do when you retire it, right? You get a new shirt. You get one that's crisp and doesn't have any stains, doesn't have any holes, doesn't have any marks. And you replace it. And that's the idea here, right?

Creation has a shelf life. There will be a day when Jesus will discard the heavens and the earth and replace them with the new heaven and new earth. 2 Peter 3, verse 10 says,. The elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its work will be burned up.

Revelation 6 .14 says,. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it was rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Creation is temporary, but Christ is eternal. Men are going to come and go.

Worlds come and go. Stars come and go. Everything we can see, and even some things we cannot see, are subject to decay. But Christ never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And you can rely on Him.

He is eternal and He is consistent. We come next to the final reason why Jesus is superior to the angels here in verses 13 and 14. And that is that He is superior because He reigns. He's superior because He reigns.

Verse 13,.

And to which of the angels has He ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Once again, there is a contrast here between the rank and the status of Christ and that of the angels. Jesus is the one who sits on the throne. He is the one with supreme worship and supreme authority.

He is the one who will conquer His enemies. That phrase, I will make your enemies a footstool for your feet, it's kind of strange. But essentially it means that we're looking for a day when Christ will have complete dominion.

This idea is reflected in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

It says,.

Then the end will come when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. That's a supreme amount of power.

The angels don't have that kind of power. They don't have that kind of authority.

They're important.

But verse tells us they are simply ministering spirits. They are servants. They aren't the king. They are sent from the throne room by the one who sits on the throne to work for the good of the church.

They serve those who will inherit salvation. That is you and I. This section is here where I want to take a few more minutes and expand upon what angels do in the Bible. We see here that they minister to believers, but what else do they do?

In order to answer that question, I think we've got to recognize that there are two groups of angels. There are elect angels and there are fallen angels. Jude 6 tells us that the angels fell because they did not keep their positions of authority, but they abandoned their proper dwelling.

And there are some texts that seem to indicate about a third of the angels fell. When we see the fallen angels spoken of in Scripture, they're usually referred to as demons, unclean spirits, deceiving spirits, or evil spirits.

And they primarily seek to deceive, lead people into impurity, promote false doctrine, inflict physical damages to people, and just generally oppose spiritual growth and spiritual formation. On the other hand, the elect angels serve God and they serve the church.

They are seen worshiping God and Christ. They take part in answering believers' prayers. They protect believers. They observe believers. They communicate God's truth. They encourage believers. They escort believers into the presence of God upon death.

And one day, they will have a role in the second coming of Christ. So angels do a lot, don't they? But they still can't be compared with Christ the King. Because the King is far superior than those who serve Him.

And that is what the author of Hebrews wants us to know. Jesus is better than the angels. He is a better messenger than the angels. He brings a better message than the angels. He brings a better covenant than the angels.

And because everything about Him is better, we need to abandon anything from our old lives that we cling to that might cause us to drift away from the great salvation that He has delivered to us. We need to leave behind those things that we clung to in our old lives and instead cling to Christ and His message.

He is supreme and He is sufficient to meet all of your spiritual needs. You see, the Jews didn't need to add these spiritual rituals to their lives because Christ is sufficient. He is the eternal Son of God, worthy of worship, who rules and reigns over everything and everyone.

And yet some of us still undervalue Him. We think He's not big enough to solve our problems. We think He's not big enough to care about our problems. We keep Him out of portions of our lives. We hold on to certain habits of the old life.

We'll use Him to fix some things for us, but we fail to submit completely to His worship. I don't know what you think about Jesus today, but I can tell you this from this text. He is superior over everything, even the angels who were created of a higher rank than you and I.

And we need to change our beliefs about Him if we want to change our behavior. If you can accept that Christ is the Son of God, then you can humble yourself and turn to Him for wisdom and knowledge. If you can recognize that Christ is eternal, then you can trust Him for your future.