Hebrews 1

CHAPTER 1THEME: Christ is superior to the prophets; Christ is superior to angelsThe first section in this epistle is doctrinal. The first ten chapters reveal that Christ is better than the Old Testament economy. The second and last section of this epistle is practical, showing that Christ brings better benefits and duties. By the way, this is a pattern that the apostle Paul follows in his other epistles; that is, the doctrinal side and then the practical side. In my opinion, there is an abundance of evidence that Paul did write this Epistle to the Hebrews. Although I cannot be dogmatic about the authorship of Hebrews, I can say very dogmatically that we are dealing with the Word of Godthat which the Spirit of God has given to us. Because the Holy Spirit is unquestionably the author of this epistle, the human writer and the dating are secondary. The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the greatest epistles we have in the Word of God. It is not pious cant when I say that I do not feel worthy or competent to deal with this great epistle. This is the reason I let four outstanding expositors introduce the epistle for me. From four different viewpoints each one came to this one point of emphasizing the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore I claim the promise of the Lord Jesus when He said that when the Spirit of God would come He would take the things of Christ and show them unto us (see Joh_16:12-15.) We need to keep in mind that this epistle is directed to Hebrew believers who stood at the juncture of two great dispensations. The dispensation of law had come to an end. The sacrifices in the temple that had once been so meaningful were now meaningless. What God had before required was now actually sin for a believer to practice, as this epistle will make very clear. The Epistle to the Hebrews is addressed to Hebrew believers, although its teachings are for believers of every race in every age. It is very meaningful to you and to me today. However, we do need to keep in mind that it was written to and for Hebrew believers. For example, to say that Christ is superior to the prophets would be especially meaningful to a Hebrew.

Hebrews 1:1

CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO THE PROPHETSYou will notice that this verse and this book begin with the word God. There are certain premises upon which this book rests. When you study geometry, there are certain axioms with which you must begin, and if you don’t, you won’t begin at all. If two plus two does not equal four, then you are at sea as far as mathematics is concerned. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points; that is a proven fact, and it is accepted. When that fact is established, you can move on and prove something else.

In the Book of Hebrews, as in the Book of Genesis, no attempt is made to prove God’s existence. Both books assume that there is a God. The Bible makes no effort to try to prove the existence of God. There are courses in seminaries today that try to build up some philosophic system by which the existence of God can be proven. I have been through courses like that, and I know what I’m talking about when I say it is a great waste of time. There is something wrong with you if you can’t walk out and look up at the mountains, or go down to the seashore and look at the sea, or look up into the heavens, and recognize that there is a Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Psa_19:1).

My friend, if the created universe is not saying something to you about a Creator, there is something radically wrong with your thinking. As a young fellow said to me about an atheist, “Dr. McGee, he isn’t dealing with a full deck!” It is the fool who has said in his heart that there is no God (see Psa_14:1). The second assumption we find in Heb_1:1 is that God has spoken. Realizing that God is an intelligent Person and that He has given mankind a certain degree of intelligence, if we didn’t already have a revelation from Him, I would suggest that we wait for it. It is only logical that the Creator would get a message through to us. Well, my friend, He has communicated with us. And the revelation that we have is the inspired Word of God. The first verse of Hebrews assumes that the Scriptures we have are divinely inspired. The revelation to which he refers is the revelation of the Old Testament as we have it today. There are those who feel that Paul did not write the Book of Hebrews because it was written in such magnificent Greek. It was written by one who was a master of the Greek language. There is a smoothness and beauty in it that we miss in the English translation. Right at the beginning of this book there is a play upon two words. The word for “sundry times” in the Greek is polumeros, and the word for “divers manners” is polutropos. Notice the beauty of thatpolumeros and polutropos. It is almost poeticit sounds like Homer. But there is more than beauty; it is a tremendous statement. “Sundry times” does not speak of time as we think of it. The emphasis is that God spoke through Moses, but before that He spoke to Abraham. He apparently spoke to Abraham through dreams and by sending the angel of the Lord to him, but when He spoke to Abraham, He did not tell him what He told Moses. God didn’t say anything at all to Abraham about the Law. He did not give him the Ten Commandments, but later God did give the Ten Commandments to Moses. Even later on He told David that a King would be coming in his line who would be a Savior.

And when David was an old man, he said that there was a King coming in his line who would be his Savior. God did not give that information to Moses, and He did not give it to Abraham. In fact, God gave Moses a law that Israel was not to have an earthly king because God would be their king. God, however, knew the human heart, and in time Israel wanted to be like the other nations round about them and have a human king. It was marvelous how God moved in a time like that. He granted their request, although He sent leanness to their souls.

He used that as the method of getting the Messiah, the Savior, into the world. This first verse is telling us that God did not give all of His truth to Abraham, but added to it as He dealt with different men through the years. And in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son. There is a development of the truth in the Bible. “Divers [diverse] manners” means that God used different ways of communicating. He appeared in dreams to Abraham, but He gave Moses the Law. Later on He made certain promises to Joshua. He spoke through dreams, He spoke through the Law, He spoke through the types, He spoke through ritual, He spoke through history, He spoke through poetry, and He spoke through prophecy. He used all these different ways over a long period of time, using about forty-five writers and communicating His Word over a period of about fifteen hundred years. The writer to the Hebrews is saying something quite wonderful to us at this point. Have you ever stopped to think that the multiplicity of writers in and of itself makes the Bible a remarkable book? Shakespeare’s writing was great on the human plane, but Shakespeare was the only author of his works. He didn’t wait for a modern Hollywood writer to write any of his plays. (In fact, the Hollywood writers wreck Shakespeare’s plays!) On the other hand, God used many human writers to write the Bible. He used men with different backgrounds and different abilities. One of them, Simon Peter, did not do so well with the Greek language, but I am not going to criticize him because I had nine years of Greek and I do much worse with it than Simon Peter did. But God used Peter, nevertheless.

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (and I believe it was Paul) was a master of the Greek language. When Paul wrote to the Galatians and to the Corinthians, he got right down where the rubber meets the road. He used the language that they used down on the waterfront, and Paul had been down on the waterfront because He traveled a great deal by boat. But his letter to the Hebrews is a work of art. Oh, this epistle opens on a grand scale: “God!” There is nothing before it to try to prove He exists. If you deny the existence of God, the problem is with you, not with God. So many little men who carry a Ph.D. degree deny that God exists. My thought is, Who are they? Put one of those puny, little minds down by the side of God and it becomes obvious why God did not waste His time proving who He is. If any person is going to come to God, that person must first believe that God is. “Spake in time past unto the fathers.” Who are the fathers mentioned in this verse? They are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Moses, David, Isaiah, etc. These are the fathers, but they are not my fathersand they may not be your fathers either. Obviously this is being written to people who could call Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob their fathers, which is the reason it is called the Epistle to the Hebrews. Nevertheless, He is God of the Gentiles also, and we can be thankful for that! “Spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.” A prophet is one who speaks for God, and in the order of speaking for God he could speak of things that were in the future. God spoke through many men who were prophets, and they were tremendous men with tremendous messages. It took all of them put together to give us the Old Testament, but the best that could be said is that they gave merely a partial revelation. But now we will see that God has spoken finally, completely, adequately, and assuredly in His Son

Hebrews 1:2

Now God has spoken finally through His Sonliterally, “spoke to us in Son.” Or, as Dr. Westcott put it, “God spoke to us in one who has the character that He is a Son.” God has spoken through His Son. If He spoke out of heaven at this moment, He would repeat something which He has already said, because, my friend, we have the last word from God to this world in Jesus Christ. “Hath in these last days spoken unto us.” The word us is very important, referring to the same ones to whom He spoke through the prophets in Old Testament timesHebrew believers. You remember that the Father spoke out of heaven saying, “…This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Mat_17:5). Since the Father has given His final word in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the final word for you and me also. The Son is the One who is before us. “Spoken unto us by his Son.” Therefore Christ is superior to all of the Old Testament writers, because the revelation is filled up in Him. He fulfills all of the Old Testament, and He Himself gives God’s final word to man. As Christ Jesus said when He was here over nineteen hundred years ago, “…he [the Holy Spirit] shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (Joh_16:15), so that the Spirit of God, speaking through John and James and Dr. Luke and Paul and Peter and the other writers of the New Testament, has given us the full revelation from God. Now we are shown the superiority of the Son in seven matchless statements. None of us, I am sure, feel that we can comprehend any one of them completely. “Whom he hath appointed heir of all things.” The Lord Jesus Christ is heir of all things. Now this raises a question. In Joh_1:3 we read, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Creation is His, for He created it, we are told. It belongs to Him already, so how can He be the heir of all things? Well, He came to earth and took upon Himself our humanity. The first man in the human race was given dominion over this creation.

We do not emphasize this enough, because in Genesis tremendous statements are made in just a few words. Once, when we took a group to Israel, we had an Israeli Christian speak to us. When he came to the end of his message, he wanted to give an illustration, and he said, “I want to say this to you in little words.” What he meant was a few words; he intended to make it brief. That is the way Moses wrote the first eleven chapters of Genesiswith “little words.” He made it brief. When God says He gave man dominion over all the earth (see Gen_1:26), He did not make him sort of a first class gardener to set out rose bushes and prune the plum trees. That is not what Adam did.

Adam had dominion. Dominion has to do with rulership. All creation was under him. I believe that when Adam wanted more moisture over on the west forty, he needed only to call for it. When he wanted the heat turned on, he could turn it on. I think he controlled this earth; but when he sinned, he lost that control. When the Lord Jesus came to this earth, He became a man. He performed miracles in every realm. He had control of the human body. He had control of natureHe could still storms, and He could feed five thousand people. He recovered what Adam had lost. The Lord Jesus is going to be heir of all things, and we are told in Scripture that we are heirs of God.

Rom_8:16-17 tells us, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ….” Joint-heirs is an interesting word. It does not mean equal heirs. Let me illustrate that. Some folk have been very interested in our radio program and have given us wonderful support. They will mention us in their will. Sometimes we are mentioned as a joint-heir in the will, and sometimes we are mentioned as an equal heir.

For example, a will might read, “I want so much to go to such and such a cause and so much to go to the Thru the Bible Radio Network.” That makes us an equal heir with someone else. When an inheritance is left to us like this, we are free to do whatever we want to with it. But when we are a joint-heir in a will, it means that somebody else has the control of the inheritance, and they allocate just so much out to each one at the proper time; they manage the estate. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the heir, and we are just the joint-heirs. He will be in control, and He may put you or me in charge of a little something in the universe. In that way we are joint-heirs with Christwe have an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, and it is reserved in heaven for us.

We have this inheritance because of the many wonderful things the Lord has done for us. He recovered what Adam lost, and even more than that, He has made us joint-heirs with Himself. Christ is the One who is going to inherit everything. As far as we know, no prophet in the Old Testament was ever promised anything like that. You see, the writer of this epistle is showing us that Christ is superior to the prophets. “By whom also he made the worlds.” Many people believe this refers to the creative act"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen_1:1). Actually, it does not refer to that at all. The Greek word here for “worlds” is aion. It means “ages"“by whom He made the ages.” This goes beyond His being the Creator. This lends purpose to everything. He is the heir who gives the program for the future. He made the ages, giving purpose for everything. Not only did He create everything, He did it for a purpose. The Bible makes sense. God had a reason for the things He did, and He has a reason today for the things He continues to do. For example, God created man and put him in a garden. He put down one condition for living there: Man was not to eat the fruit from a certain tree. There was nothing wrong with the fruit; it was God’s test to that man to see if he would obey Him. (The problem was not the fruit on the tree; it was the pair on the ground!) Man absolutely and completely failed God’s test at that time. God has a program and purpose in everything. There came other periods when God tested man. The time came when He gave man the Mosaic Law. It, again, was a test of man’s obedience. Today you and I live under grace. We are saved by grace; we could never be saved by the Law. Firstly, it wasn’t given to us in this age, and, secondly, we couldn’t keep it. We cannot measure up to the righteous standard that God has set. It ought to be quite obvious to every person that God cannot save us by works. He cannot save us by perfect works because we cannot produce perfection; neither can He save us by imperfect works because His standard is higher than that. Therefore God had to have another way, and today it is by grace that we are saved. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator of this universe, and there is purpose to it. Abroad today is the idiotic notion that the universe is running at breakneck speed through time and space like a car that has lost the driver. The interesting thing is that when a car loses the driver there is a wreck, but this universe, even according to the scientists, has been running millions of years, and it has been doing pretty well, by the way. The sun comes up at a certain time every morning; it is very precise. The moon stays in a predictable orbit. As one of the men who works on the moon modules says, all they have to do is aim, and the moon will be there when the module gets there.

You can always depend upon the moon. It is not running wild. The moon doesn’t head in another direction when it sees a module coming toward it. The movement of the moon is absolutely predictable. This is not a mad universe in which you and I live. It has purpose, and the Lord Jesus is the One who gives it purpose.

Hebrews 1:3

What tremendous statements we have here! “Who being the brightness of his glory.” Brightness means “the outshining”; it means “the effulgence.” The material sun out in space gives us a good illustration of this. We could never know the glory of the sun by looking at it because we can’t look at it directlyit would blind us if we tried. But from the rays of the sun we get light and we get heat, and probably we get healing from it. That is the way we know about the sun. Now in somewhat the same way we would know very little about God apart from the revelation that God has given in His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is the brightness we see. No one has seen God, but we know about Him now through Jesus Christ. Just as the rays of the sun with their warmth and light tell me about the physical sun, so the Lord Jesus reveals God to us today. “The express image of his person.” That word “express image” is the Greek charakter, the impressed character, like a steel engraving. We get our English word character from this. We say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God because He is God. He is not just the printed material; He is the steel engraving of God because He is the exact copy, the image of God. Paul said in Col_2:9, “…in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” How wonderful He is! “Upholding all things by the word of his power.” That little baby Jesus lying helplessly on the bosom of Mary in Bethlehem could have spoken this universe out of existence. He upholds all things by the word of His power. He not only created all things by His word, but He holds everything together. Have you ever stopped to think about the amount of power that is required to hold it together? Man has learned very little about that power, but he has learned something. For instance, man has discovered the atom, a little bitty fellow. And when man untied the atom (they call it splitting the atom), he sure did release a lot of power. Who put all that power in the atom? Who holds all the little atoms together?

The Lord Jesus Christ. He furnishes the program and the purpose; He is the person of God, and He is the preserver of all things. He not only created the universe by His word, but He holds everything together. If He let go todaywell, since you and I are held on this earth by His glue, His stickum, which we call gravitationwe would go flying out into space. He holds everything together. This universe would come unglued without His constant supervision and power.

He is not like an Atlas holding up the earth passively; He is actively engaged in maintaining all of creation. As far as I can see, that is greater than creating it in the beginning. He keeps the thing running, keeps it functioning. This is one of the tremendous things He is doing today. “When he had by himself purged our sins.” The Lord Jesus Christ provided the cleansing for our sins. This, by the way, is the only purgatory mentioned in the Bible. He went through it for you and me; there is no purgatory for anyone who trusts Christ because He purged our sins. He has paid the penalty for them. How wonderful He is! The purging was accomplished by what He did on Calvary for you and for me. And today we are accepted in the Beloved. The one who comes to Christ receives a full redemption and complete forgiveness of sins. “Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” This actually is the message of Hebrews. The Lord Jesus received a glory and a majesty when He went back to the Father’s throne that He never had before. There is something in heaven today that was not there twenty-five hundred years ago or in eternity past, because in the glory now is the Man with nail-pierced hands and the prints of nails in His feet and a spear wound in His side. Even in His glorified body they are there, and when we see Him, we shall know Him by the prints of the nails in His hands. Twenty-five hundred years ago He was God, but today He is the God-man. “Sat down” does not indicate that He is resting because He is tiredor that He is doing nothing. It means that when He finished our redemption, He sat down because it was complete. This is exactly what the seventh day meant in creationGod rested on the seventh day. Was He tired? No. As John Wesley said, when He created the universe He didn’t half try. He rested because it was complete; there was nothing more that He needed to do. Never, since I have been a pastor, have I been able to close my desk and go home with the satisfaction that everything has been done. There is always something incompleteyou should see my desk right now! My work is never complete, but Christ sat down because His work of redemption was complete. Friend, you cannot lift your little finger today to add to the redemption He wrought for us on the Cross. He has completed our redemption, and we are complete in Christ. In Col_2:9-10 we are told, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” We are made complete in Him, made full in Him, and we are accepted in the Beloved. The present ministry of Christ is another aspect of this. This, I think, was in the mind of the writer who said, “There is a man in the glory, but the church has lost sight of Him.” His present ministry can be expressed like this: He died down here to save us; He lives up there to keep us saved. He has a ministry of intercession, a ministry of shepherding, a ministry of discipling His own. Although He is at God’s right hand now, He is still vitally interested in those who are His own, and He is available to us. My friend, what do you need? Do you need mercy? Do you need help? Do you need wisdom? Whatever you need, why don’t you go to Him for it? If you ask Him to intervene in your behalf, He will work it out according to His will (not yours).

Prayer is not to persuade God to do something that He didn’t intend to do; prayer is to get you and me in line with the program of God. And Christ is at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. We can obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is the present ministry of Christ, and it makes these verses in Hebrews pretty real to you and to me. My friend, Buddha can’t help you; Mohammed can’t help you; no founder of the modern religions can help you. A friend told me of how he was healed by a so-called faith healer who is now dead.

I asked him, “Can she help you now?” He retorted, “No, of course not, she is dead!” “Well,” I said, “Jesus is alive. Our Great High Priest is alive today.” When we were at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem I heard a thrilling story about a group of young people in Moscow who unfurled a banner at Lenin’s tomb on Easter Sunday morning. The banner read, “Lenin is deadJesus is alive.” Then they sang some resurrection songs. I don’t know that anyone was won to the Lord through this, but it certainly was a brave effort on the part of youth, and their message is the message of the Book of Hebrews. “Lenin is deadJesus is alive.” He is the One who can help us. He is the One to whom we can turn. This is the great message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. When He “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” He took with Him a glory that even God did not have, which was the body in which He had wrought out your redemption and mine upon this earth. He gave Himself; He shed His precious blood that you and I might have life.

Hebrews 1:4

CHRIST IS SUPERIOR TO ANGELSChrist is superior to the angels. Angels were prominent in their ministry to Israel in the Old Testament. The Law was given by the agency of angels (Psa_68:17; Act_7:53; Gal_3:19). Cherubim were woven into the veil of the tabernacle, and cherubim were fashioned of gold for the mercy seat. We find that Isaiah had a vision of the seraphim. And in the Book of Revelation we find that after the church is removed, there is an angel ministry of judgment that is going to take place. Now I say this rather carefully: angel ministry is not connected with the church. I know someone is going to say, “Brother McGee, after all, we have a guardian angel.” Where did that idea come from? I don’t think we have guardian angels. Some people say, “Oh, but we need to have a guardian angel.” Let me ask you a question: “Are you a child of God?” If you are, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is the third Person of the Godhead. What could a guardian angel do for you that He couldn’t do for you? Do you want to think that over for a while?

My feeling is that the angel ministry is not connected with the church at all. This subject is becoming exceedingly difficult and dangerous today because there is a manifestation of demonism, and several writers are saying that demons are directing thembut they call them angels. My friend, an angel ministry is not for our day. The idea of an active angel ministry in the church came about because some of the early church members who were marvelous artists liked to paint angels. I doubt whether any of them ever saw an angel, but they painted angels. If you have ever been in the Sistine Chapel in Rome and looked up at the ceiling, you get the feeling that angels are hovering over you. They are as thick as pigeons up there! They are everywhere. They are connected with everybody and everything.

Michelangelo certainly did like to paint angels. Although I am glad that I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, I wouldn’t give five cents to see it again. I know that statement will be a heartbreak for some art lovers, but I don’t care to see it again because it teaches the fact that there are angels connected with our lives today. My friend, we have to do with a living Savior! Let’s just push the angels aside because we don’t have to go to God through angels. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have Christ, our great Intercessor.

Let us get our minds off angels and center them upon the person of Christ. He is superior to angels. “Being made so much better than the angels.” The word angel simply means “messenger,” and it doesn’t mean anything else other than that. Angels worship the Lord Jesus. They are created creatures. Christ is better than the angels, and that statement is made definitely and dogmatically for us in Hebrews. In the Old Testament it is believed by many that the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as “the angel of the Lord.” But in the New Testament He becomes a man, and having assumed human form, He does not appear as the Angel of the Lord any longer. He is the man, Christ Jesus. He is the Son of Man today. That is the emphasis of this Hebrew epistle. Beginning with Heb_1:5 there is a series of quotations from the Old Testament; in fact, there are seven quotations, and six of them are from the Book of Psalms. The Psalms have more to say about Christ than they have to say about any other person. It is a H-I-M bookit was the hymn book of the temple, but it is all about Him; it is praise to Him. You have a more complete picture of Christ in the Psalms than you have in the Gospels. These quotations in Hebrews are very important. The writer of Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament to enforce his point, which is superiority of the Son over the angels.

Hebrews 1:5

“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” is a quotation from Psa_2:7. In Acts 13 we have recorded Paul’s great sermon at Antioch in Pisidia in which he quoted Psa_2:7. Paul said that it had no reference to Bethlehem, but it referred to the Resurrection of Christwhen He was brought back from the dead. Therefore, Christ is the only One who could die for the sins of the world. No angel could save us, my friend. Only Christ could become a man and pay the penalty, which was death. “The wages of sin is death.” He had to shed His blood, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Therefore, He made that redemption for you and for me. Then He was brought back from the dead. Why? Because He is the Son. He was begotten from the dead. “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son” is a quotation from 2 Samuel. This is God’s promise to David when He made His covenant with him: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son …” (2Sa_7:12-14). Now, there are those who say that this one in David’s line was only Solomon. Well, Heb_1:5 makes it very clear that when God gave that promise to David it had reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have heard arguments pro and con on this, but arguments are pointless when we have the clear scriptural confirmation that this refers to Christ. He alone fulfilled it.

Hebrews 1:6

Now let me rearrange this a little: “And again he bringeth in the first begotten into the world. He saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.” This verse is a quotation from Psa_97:7 and Deu_32:43 in the Septuagint version (though not in the Hebrew of the Old Testament). The angels of God are wonderful, but they are inferior to the Son. They are His angels, they are His ministers, and they are His worshipers. They worship Him. He does not worship them.

Hebrews 1:7

This is a quotation from Psa_104:4. The angels belong to the Lord. They are His ministers and worshipers. This is very important to see. The writer of Hebrews, who I believe is Paul, is showing that Christ is superior to the angels, and He is using the Old Testament Scriptures to prove it. Can you see how absolutely important the first two chapters of Hebrews are?

They put down a foundation for the rest of the book which deals with the present ministry of Christ for believers today. Oh, that we might be conscious of the fact that there is a living Christ at God’s right hand at this very moment! He is more real than I am, because when you read these words, there is no telling where I will be. We just don’t know what a day will bring forth. But Christ is going to be right up yonder at God’s right hand for you and for me. He is the real, living Christ today. It is easy to understand that angels were very important to the Hebrews because most of them were well acquainted with the Old Testament. They thought of angels as next to the very throne of God. They had read of the appearance of angels to many of God’s servants and to many of the prophets. Angels were very important beings to them. As I have already mentioned, I do not believe there is an angel ministry to the church in our day. I do not believe that angels appear to men. If you think you have seen an angel, you should check with your doctor or with a psychologist because you saw something besides an angel. This reminds me of the two fellows who met after not having seen each other for a long time. One of them said, “Are you married?” The other one replied, “Yes, I’m married.” His friend then asked, “What kind of a girl did you marry?” “Well,” replied the other fellow, “I married an angel.” The other one said, “You sure are lucky. Mine is still alive!” Well, human beings never become angels. God has made this universe so that there are things visible and invisible. In Col_1:16 we read that Christ created things visible and invisible. For example, you cannot see an atom, but it is material and it becomes energy. God created intelligences that are above man. You and I live in a universe about which the Lord has said, “In my Father’s house are many mone, meaning “abiding places” (see Joh_14:2).

Created intelligences live in these abiding places, and God has created a great deal more in this universe than you and I could ever dream of today. Man did not come from animals. There is a material kingdom. There is the animal kingdom. There are creatures below man and creatures that are above man. We did not come from animals, and we will never become angels. You may remember the song, “I want to be an angel and with the angels sing.” When I was a little boy in Sunday school, the teacher would line up the little brats (I was the only good boy in the class) and have us sing, “I want to be an angel and with the angels sing.” The last thing I wanted to be was an angel! And I still feel that way. I am very happy that the Scripture makes it clear that I am not going to be an angel. The word angel (Gr.: aggelos) means “messenger” and may be applied to a human or divine messenger. There is an order of creatures that is supernatural, and we see that in the Scriptures. I think it would really surprise us if we had any conception of the number of angels in the universe. They are called the “host of heaven,” and that means there are a whole lot of them. Their numbers apparently are not diminished or added to in any way, but we have no idea how many angels there are. They have an important part in God’s plan, but Christ is superior to the angels.

Hebrews 1:8

These verses are a quotation from Psa_45:6-7 which reveals that it is one of the great messianic psalms. Psalms 45 tells us that there is One coming in the line of David who will rule in righteousness. David is so thrilled about this prospect that he says, “…My tongue is the pen of a ready writer” (Psa_45:1). David is saying, “I could tell you about this much better than I could write about it.” This One who is coming, according to the writer to the Hebrews, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who will rule in righteousness. God has not given the right to rule the earth to any angel. “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity” is a tremendous statement. Imagine this old earth being ruled by One who loves righteousness and hates iniquity! “Thy throne, O God.” This is God the Father calling God the Son God! Do you want to deny that Christ is God manifest in the flesh? If you do, then may I say that you are contradicting God Himself. God called the Lord Jesus God. What are you going to call Him? I don’t know about you, but I am also going to call Him God. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is superior to angels because He is going to rule over the universe. He is the Messiah. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who is going to rule over the earth some day.

Hebrews 1:10

These verses are quoted from Psa_102:25-27. This is a tremendous statement telling us that the Lord Jesus is the Creator. These are tremendous contrasts given to us in this section: Angels are the creatures; the Lord is the Creator.

Hebrews 1:13

This verse is a quote from Psa_110:1, a psalm that is quoted more than any other psalm in the New Testament. The Psalms teach the deity of Christ. There is a more complete picture of Christ in the Psalms than in the Gospels.

Hebrews 1:14

Right away somebody is going to say, “Doesn’t it say here that the angels are going to minister to the heirs of salvation?” Let’s read the verse like it is. The angels are going to minister to those “who shall be heirs of salvation.” This verse is looking forward to the time when God turns again to the nation Israel, and to the gentile worldafter the church is removed from earth. Notice that it does not say that the angels are ministering to those who are right now the heirs of salvation. You see, God is moving according to His program, and He has a purpose for everything He does. Christ is the Son; angels are servants. Christ is King; angels are subjects. Christ is the Creator; angels are creatures. Christ at this moment is waiting until His enemies will be made His footstool. The Father never gave such a promise to an angel, but He says that some day His Son shall rule. This tremendous section sets before us the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is higher than the angels.