Hebrews 1:5-14

The Son Superior to Angels
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father”[a]?

Or again,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”[b]?

6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”[c]

7 In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
and his servants flames of fire.”[d]

8 But about the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”[e]

10 He also says,
“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.”[f]

13 To which of the angels did God ever say,

“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet”[g]?

14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?



Dig Deeper
My wife recently came home one afternoon with a plate of food that she had put together at a professional meeting that she had at work which ran from early morning through the early afternoon. They had catered a lunch buffet for the people in attendance and had encouraged her and other people there to take a plate home with them. She had eaten to her fill but she thought that she would make a plate and bring it home to me. When she arrived at home I was in the process of making myself some lunch. I can’t remember now what I was making but I do remember that I really had a taste that day for whatever it was and was pretty set on eating that for lunch. She put the plate of food that she had brought in the kitchen and then proceeded to tell me how amazing and wonderful this food from a local Mexican restaurant was. She was describing the flavors and the quality of the food and brought up several other points of why this huge plate of tasty food was superior to the little sad plate of leftovers that I was getting ready to eat. At first I wondered what the point was of going into the details on the virtues of this plate of food and was even thinking to myself “okay, I get the idea.” But there was a specific purpose to why she was going into detail about how great this food was. She didn’t want it to go to waste and really knew that I would enjoy that plate of food much more than the one I was planning on eating. So the whole intent of singing the praises of this food was not just to elucidate the finer points of this food but was to set up the fact that I should eat the food that she had brought and not the other plate of food.

In a similar way, the whole first chapter of Hebrews is a set-up. It’s not a set-up in the bad sense of that phrase as though the author is somehow sucking us into some line of argument only to drop some boom on us that we never saw coming. It is a set-up in the sense that it is building to a point. Fist of all, though, we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that this whole section has opened with the idea that God “has spoken to us by his Son.” Everything else rests and depends on that phrase and is a further explanation of why God would do such a thing. So this section draws out the comparison and contrast between the Son and the angels in order to demonstrate the superiority of the Son in comparison to much-respected messengers and mediators of God like the prophets and angels. But the author is not merely trumpeting the praises of the Son just for the sake of doing so, or so that we will get warm and gooey feelings about the Son. Our author is not only a skilled writer but also a supremely gifted teacher and every part of this lesson has a point. It is a point that he will state directly in the next chapter where he clearly lays out his primary purpose in writing, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Heb. 2:1). This is the thesis statement for the entirety of Hebrews and is the punch-line for the set-up material here in chapter 1.

Behind this all, of course, is the deep concern that our author had for the Christian community to which he was writing. They were facing difficult circumstances at every turn and he wanted to reassure them that their commitment to Christ was a worthwhile choice. It could be easy in the face of persecution to start to question whether they really were God’s people and whether Jesus really was the Messiah, the King. How could Jesus be the true King of the world and still his people be constantly facing the circumstances that they were living through? But Hebrews gives the message that the Messiah was the unique Son of the one true God and was worthy of their devotion even if it meant being martyred for their faith.

To make his point, the author of Hebrews used a technique that was quite common in his day, in which he would put together a barrage of Old Testament quotations that would build together, make a case, and prove his point in such an overwhelming fashion that the reader would have no other option than to agree with the mound of evidence that had been offered up. In this section, our author has presented three pairs of Old Testament passages and then finishes off his cavalcade of evidence with a capper from Psalm 110. All of these add up to show the superiority and preeminence of Christ to the Old Covenant mediators, specifically in this section, the angels.

The first pair of Old Testament quotations, in verse 5, demonstrate that the Son is superior because he has a unique relationship with the Father that no angel could ever claim (it is interesting that a group like the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is a created being, and is in fact, an angel, despite this entire section which makes the clear point that Jesus was not, never has been, and never will be an angel and is far superior to any angel in every way). The first quotation comes from Psalm 2:7 and the second from 2 Samuel 7:14. Both passages were considered to be Messianic prophecies before Jesus even came on the scene, and the early church quickly grabbed them as among their favorite passages to explain who Jesus was and his relationship with the Father. It is important to note that when the Psalmist, speaking of the Messiah, says that “today I have become your Father,” it is not referring to the relationship between the Father and the Son, as he was already the eternal Son at the time of his Incarnation (Heb. 5:8). The point was that at the resurrection, Jesus was declared to be the King of the universe. The Psalm is using the language of a King who would install his son into his rightful royal position, declaring that “today you have become my son”. Jesus had been officially installed as the co-regent with the Father and that fact had been revealed to the world through his resurrection.

The second coupling of Old Testament passages, in verses 6-7, stresses the positive nature of angels (making it less likely that Hebrews was dealing with any sort of angel-worshipping fringe that needed to be countered and put down) but demonstrates their inferior nature, purpose, and position. Psalm 97:7 declares that every creature, including angels and even the idols and false gods must worship God. This passage is stunning in that it applies a call for worship of God by all creatures and applies it to the Son. This is only possible if the author of Hebrews believed the Son to be equal in Godhood to the Father. But the Son is not just superior in nature, he is also superior in his ministry. Rather than being the Son and a co-regent with the Father, so to speak, the angels, according to Psalm 104:4 are mere servants of God.

The final pairing of passages, in verses 8-12, comes from Psalm 45:6-7 and Psalm 102:25-27 which both highlight the authority of the Son, the deity of the Son and the eternal nature of the Son, things that even the angels could not claim. The Son sits on the throne with a scepter ruling over his kingdom, and has been anointed as king and set above his companions, those referred to as his brothers and sisters—Christians, in other words—(Heb. 2:12). He has authority, but is also eternal as the one that will fulfill David’s Messianic Kingdom by having a kingdom that will last forever and ever. He was there “in the beginning” and was the agent of the creation of the realms of heaven and earth. They will pass away and need to be renewed, as they will be in the resurrection of the age to come, but the Son will never wear out and will never change. This is an important aspect of the Son because it shows him to be unchangeable as only God can claim to be. This whole section, of course, stresses the deity of the Son, but nowhere is it more clear than in verse 8’s reference to Psalm 45 in which the Father addresses the Son and says “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.”

The passage is capped off by a finishing flourish from Psalm 110:1, a passage that the author alluded to in verse 3 when he declared that the Son “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. This passage was an important way to end this section because it alludes to one of the primary themes of Hebrews. How can the Son be on the throne and the world still be so messed up? Well God had declared that the Son would be ruling on his throne during a period of time when all of the enemies had not yet been made a footstool. That would come but the rest of the letter will work out the mystery of the Son really being on the throne but there being so much that seems to say that he isn’t. For now though, the emphasis is that the Messiah is ruling and that’s clear distinction from the angels who are but servants to God that minister to his people as verse 14 states.

The point of all of this was to make clear the incredible and superior nature of the Son. Who would choose the inferior when the superior was clearly available. At first glance this might all sound like lofty language that really doesn’t have much relevance to the real world. After all, who cares about scepters and thrones and the nature of the Son when you can’t feed your family due to persecution for your faith and have become an outcast in your own society? But this is the brilliant nature of the teacher that has written Hebrews. This is not simply “deep teaching” that people should know, it is vital information. If all of this is true, and the barrage of Old Testament passages as applied to the Messiah have made clear that the Son is superior then that matters. But the point of Hebrews is much more relevant and powerful than simply saying “hey, the Messiah is superior in every way, so cling to him and take whatever comes your way.” The Son is superior, and the sermon will make that point clear, but it is the nature of that superiority and the nature of Jesus reigning that matters and brings purpose and significant meaning to the suffering that they were facing. We will get to all of that in time, but for now the foundation is being poured and the fact that the Messiah is a vastly different sort of mediator between God and man than had ever been seen is a practical truth that we need to embrace and work out in our own time and context. It does, after all, determine how we respond to our situations in life as the people of the Messiah who reigns.


Devotional Thought
What are the situations that you have faced or are facing that make you question your commitment to Jesus, the Messiah? During times like those, why is knowing and deeply understanding the nature of Jesus and who he is important to staying strong in your faith?