The Divine Son (Part 2)

Introduction

The Place of Angels

Servants of Wind and Fire (vs 7)

If winds and fire are his messengers, his messengers are like winds and fire. That is, as God drives winds and fire to be his messengers, so his messengers are ordered about like winds and fire.

God’s messengers are created, just as winds and fire are created. However the verse is translated, this is the point.

Angels are created being that exist as servants to carry out God’s will and deliver God’s message. As servants, they are not sons and do not inherit God’s Kingdom.

Ministering Spirits (vs 14)

Here, I am going to jump down to verse 14 for a moment. While we will do this verse more justice in a later message, this verse does conclude the contrast that the author makes between the Son and angels.

In contrast to the Kingship of the Son and his place as the heir of all things from God, the angels again are given the position of servants.

Again, this contrast between a Son and a Servant is brought to our attention. While servants are glorious in thier work to serve the greater pruposes of God’s glory, sons hold a place as the heir of all things, since all things belong to God.

A similar contrast will be made in chapter 3 between Moses and Jesus. Heb 3:5-6

Hebrews 3:5–6 ESV

Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

In this text, it points out that Moses was leading God’s people in the place of a servant. Even though he was a child of God as a believer, just as the angels are sons of God in a certain way, as the leader of God’s people and the man through whom God revealed the OT Law to Israel, he was speaking from the place of a servant, not a son. Moses was not going to inherit all things. His place in the house of God was that of a servant placed in charge of certain responsabilities in God’s house, but not the heir of that house. Israel didn’t belong to Moses, even though he was in charge of Israel for a while.

Likewise, Angels were never going to inherit all things as heirs in God’s family. 2:5 makes this clear.

What is it that these heavenly servants are called to do? What is their job? They are spirits that serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. In other words, not only are they not heirs of all things, but they are specifically sent to serve those who are heirs, specifically heirs of God’s salvation. God tends to reverse what is low and what is exalted, so it is no wonder that God should make the more glorious and spiritual beings to serve us who are much lower in terms of our glory and power.

The Place of the Son

And as we will see when we get to chapter 2, this also means that Jesus lowering himself to be, for a little while, lower than the angels led to his exaltation above the Angels and over all things. For now, however, let us see how the Son is compared to what we’ve just heard said about the Angels. Last week, we saw that God’s angels must worship the Son according to a consistent reading of the OT. Now, the divinity of the Son is put forward with even more clarity.

Christ on the Divine Throne

As we saw earlier, the quotation of Psalm 104:4 in verse 7, the angels are compared to other created forces which God’s uses to be his messengers and servants, winds and flames of fire. Now in verse 8, the Son is described with a great contrast; rather than being a creature acting as a servant and messenger, the Son is the eternal King sitting on the Throne of God.

This is a quotation from Psalm 45. In this Psalm, the bride of a Davidic king is addressed in a love song which romances and praises her husband, the King, in his rightful rule and godly character. He is praised as handsome, having graceful speech, and blessed by God. He has a sword and is encouraged to ride out to battle for the cause of truth, meekness, and righteousness.

Verse 6 of this Psalm is where things get surprising. The bridegrood, the king, is all of a sudden addressed as God. This is a little surprising, although not unheard of. It is possible to refer to someone who represents God as God, which is likely what was happening in the original context of this Psalm. In Exodus 7:1, God tells Moses that he shall be God to Pharoah, with his brother Aaron as his prophet. What he means is that, as Aaron will be the mouthpiece of Moses, Moses will speak on behalf of God. The messengers of God can be addressed as God because they act as the medium through whom God acts and speaks. In the same way, this King is referred to as God. However, this is still a bit surprising, and seems to border on idolatry except that in verse 7 we see that he stands under God, who has anoionted him with the oil of gladness. We’ll get to that in a moment.

The author of Hebrews uses this reference of the Davidic King as God to make his point. In contrast to the created nature of the angels, the Son is referred to as God. Since this is how the author of Hebrews contrasts it, it is clear he does not see the reference to the Son as God to merely mean he is a god, like the heavenly creatures are sometimes said to be. Instead, as opposed to the angels being compared to created forces like wind and fire, the Son is called God and praised for sitting on an eternal throne. Clearly, for the author of Hebrews, the King is more than simply a representitive of God: he is God himself, as we will see when we get to the next quotation.

But first, lets look at the rest of this reference to Psalm 45. The eternal throne of the king is one that is founded on justice and righteousness, which legitimizes his throne as indeed founded by God. He loves righteousness and hates wickedness, proving that he is the kind of king with whom God would be pleased. As a result, God has anointed this king. The prophetic nature of this Psalm is clear in that this doesn’t really describe any king that Israel ever had. Instead, on the occasion of the king’s wedding, the future perfection of his throne is celebrated and looked forward to.

What he is anointed with is joy. This is an interesting note; why does God anoint this God-king with the oil of gladness, and who are his companions? The companions here may be fellow Israelites, fellow kings, or fellow rulers in general. The author of Hebrews may even see these companions as the heavenly host, with the son beinge exalted above other spiritual beings.

The oil of gladness shows us what kind of King God is establishing him to be. He brings in an age of peace and joy. Indeed, the Son is the most joyful and happy person to have ever been, though he suffered so much on the cross. He has been highly exalted, given all things, and before him all will bow. He is a joyful King, and to be in him and with him is to be under that horn of joy as well.

It should be noted that, while the author does refer to the king as God, he also says that the King has a God, God, your God, has anointed you. This is a perfect example of the great care Christians have historically taken in describing the Trinity. While the Son is fully God, he is separate from the Father in his personhood, just as the king is referred to as having the same nature, namely that of God, but not being the same person, namely that of the Father.

Christ the Eternal

Verses 10-12 then go on to quote from Psalm 102:25-27. This text is, in the original context, specifically to God. However, the way it speaks about God’s lordship over creation already lines up with what the author has said about Christ’s role as co-creator with the Father. At this point, the author is unashamed to refer to Christ as God, but with the previous reference to Psalm 45 we’ve already seen a distinction between divine persons. Here we see in the mind of the author of Hebrews is the DNA of what would become the doctrine of the Trinity.

Psalm 102 is a lament, a sad song of crying out to the LORD for help in a day of trouble. The Psalmist uses an eternal perspective of the creator God as a source of comfort: God is the creator who laid the foundation of the world in the beginning, and will be there still when the universe is brought to an end.

So by this time, the author of Hebrews has clearly lifted the Son up to the very throne and position of God the creator. However, the author of Hebrews isn’t done lifting up Christ. His grand finale in showing us who the Son is is of course his final OT quotation in his chapter.

Psalm 110

The author repeats his question back in verse 5, to which of the Angels has God ever said this? Has God ever said something like this to any of the heavenly beings or messengers?

The quotation is God speaking to the Son, the Christ. David, the Psalmist here, begins the Psalm by convaying a conversation between YHWH and his lord. This is the passage that Jesus famously stumped the Pharisees with when he asked, who could David possibly be talking about? Why would David refer to his son as lord?

Not only this, but what God says to the Messiah is facinating: sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. King David is sitting down, like a child overhearing the grownups talking. Except one of them is God and the other is his distant descendant. God is promising David’s descendant a seat at his right hand and unqualified subjection of the Son’s enemies.

Now, has God ever made such a promise to any heavenly being, or any being whatsoever? The answer is clear: no.

So what does that mean? It means the Son is greater than David, greater than any human king, greater than any heavenly messenger, greater than any heavenly being. The point has been made quite clearly: the Son is in a much higher place than any other being in the universe, implying his status as equal with God the Father and explicitly hitting the main point home: that there is no one through whom we are more sure to hear the speech of God than from the Son of God.

Conclusion

Though there is great mystery in the Trinity, the clear teaching of this and other Scriptures is that the Son of God is one with the Father in nature, though different in person. This is not merely some scholarly definition, it is the foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ.

It means that God has spoken to us.

It means that God dwells with us.

It means that humanity has been rescued by a King over all things.

It means that believers, united to Christ by faith, share in his inheritance.

It means that Jesus Christ is the object of our worship.

It means we have no reason to go anywhere else to know God and have life: we have it all in the Son of God.