Ministers, maybe Bibles,
open with me to Hebrews.
Since we've last been here in
Hebrews, in my study time,
I've been reminded of fresh and a new how much I don't know.
And the real limitations of
being theologically uneducated
and your friendly neighborhood harbor freight preacher
that I am, because
the content of verses 4 to 14 is not milk.
This is theological,
porterhouse, Angus beef, that
we're fixing to get into here.
There's much disagreement.
Amongst the most theologically educated men in the church,
as to the precise understanding
of, especially, the
contents of verses 4 6 that we're going to study
today, and it's
all very nuanced, very nuanced.
These last two weeks, I have read and listened to
more commentary on just three
verses than any three verses that
I ever have in my whole 25 years plus of ministry.
I got a lot of this swimming around in my head.
Many of the debates and the differing
viewpoints of these verses are, I
mean, to be really straightforward with you.
It's really only for those who are engaged in
rigorous study of high theological
academia, people who know the original
languages of Hebrew and Greek that
can read Greek and Hebrew, just like we read English.
And what we have here, in
our church, is really a rather unique situation,
for several reasons, but one is certainly that
we are all really a small collection of
really more of a working
class social strata, kind
of mindset, and people.
And that's not a slight at us in any way.
It's just a reality.
That's what we are.
Have any of you been to Princeton?
Have any of you been to Southern Seminary and
got a PhD?
No, including me, right?
And that's just the reality of where we are compared
to the people who have a lot of
theological learning in what I
like the new phrase that we have bantered about called reformed world.
Reform world has gotten a lot more varied.
There's a lot of different stripes of reformed world
out there, especially on the
internet, and don't get me started on that.
But I will say this for sure.
It is singularly the grace of God.
that we are where we are in
our understanding of God's word here at Providence, Baptist
Church, which is really and truly
much more meaty than the average evangelical
church in America.
And that's not boasting.
I do not say that to boast.
It's just true.
And that is certainly, let me remind you, that is certainly God's
unmerited favor.
In each of our lives, starting most of all with me.
So, all that having been said,
I'm not going to give you all the nuance
that I've studied here.
Some kind of way with the brain cells that didn't burn up
in the '80s and '90s, I'm able
to keep up with the nuance, but
for me to try to explain
all the nuance to you.
It would be like Charlie's Brown's teacher.
you know, for you.
A lot of it will be.
And it's confusing, and it takes a lot of detailed explanation.
I could easily...
I could have made this a four hour sermon with no problem.
No problem.
So instead of doing that, because we don't want to
wait four hours before we have to eat, right, Christie?
She says, right.
What I've done is I've just done my best.
To break these verses down into the most easily understandable,
biblically orthodox way possible
for us, okay?
Because that's how I have to take it in, just like you.
I'm at no greater level than you are.
We're all in this.
We are all in this together.
I'm just, as I say all the time to you.
I'm just giving to you what I learned during the
week in preparation up to this moment.
And this starts with something, I'm telling you, I'm going to keep repeating
this, something that's absolutely critical for you to remember, and
we learn this in our first introductory sermon, and we learn
this last time, as well.
The Book of Hebrews was originally written to Jewish people.
primarily to Jewish believers.
And if you remember, sprinkled throughout, it
was also, there are parts, parts,
sprinkled throughout, that are specifically addressed
to Jewish unbelievers, some who
had a profession of faith, but didn't show any fruit of
true regeneration, and then others who didn't count
a Messiah as Messiah at all.
Remember, we went over all of that.
Go back and listen, if you have it, you need to, because it's
the only way you can really understand Hebrews.
But in every case, the writer is trying
to convince this little group of Jewish congregants
that the old covenant is better than the new covenant,
if I could just put it simply, and that Jesus
Christ is better than everybody and everything.
Is that condensed enough, right?
That he's the better priest, that
he's the better mediator.
from what you're used to in the Old Covenant, and
also, he's the final priest.
He's the better priest.
He's the final sacrifice, and,
interestingly enough, there hasn't been another Jewish sacrifice
since 78D.
as I always like to point that out.
Now, starting in verse four, the writer
starts to unfold the
everybody that Jesus is superior to.
And you know who that starts with, he's superior to the angels.
Now, we, as human beings, we are superior
and higher than all of the creatures of
the earth, the animals, sometimes
that might be debatable with certain people, but I digress.
But above us, there
is another created group that
is higher than us.
And that is, the angels.
If you skip down to Hebrews 2 and verse
9, look at what it says.
But we do see him, as Jesus,
who was made, for a little while, lower
than the angels, namely Jesus.
So right there, that tells us that angels are higher
than humans, because when Jesus became a man for a
little while, he was made, like us, lower than the angels.
So that tells you right there.
So before we get to verse 4 to 6, I want
to take a quick look, a quick biblical look at angels.
After the fall, the holy angels
have always no longer been
subject to sin.
That's great, right, to exist that way.
They are holy, they are powerful, and they are wise.
They don't have to deal with the infirmities
that we have to deal with while
living out our lives on Earth.
They don't have to deal with arthritis and knee replacements and hip
replacements and all of that.
They are specially created spirit
beings made by God before
men were ever created.
They do not have flesh and bones.
But, interestingly, they do have bodies.
And whatever form, they get
that in a minute, whatever form they have, they
are capable of appearing in human form.
For example, we're all familiar with this text.
Hebrews 13, 2.
Look what it says.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by this, some have entertain angels.
without knowing it.
And that is absolutely fascinating to think about, right?
Somewhere in our lives, we may have had the random one
on one encounter with a person that we never met before,
who could have been an actual angel.
I mean, I could just stop right there and think about that for a long time, right?
They have some kind of form on their own.
For example, at the empty tomb, Matthew,
28, 3.
Look at this, speaking of an angel.
It says, and his appearance was
like lightning.
What does that look like?
I don't know exactly, but keep going,
and his clothing was white as snow,
the guards shook.
They literally, their bodies were trembling for
fear of him, and they became like dead men.
They just overwhelmed them, just looking at
this angel.
And really, I mean, with an
appearance like lightning, I'm
sure we would be shaking in fear, too, if one of
them walked in the door right here.
James Montgomery Boyce said if we saw one, we would be tempted to worship him.
We probably would be.
And the inference that we get out of Colossians 1, I think it's clear.
We won't look at it, but it seems it appears that all of the
angels were created simultaneously.
That's the best inference that we can get.
We don't get a lot of detail about this.
Angels don't procreate.
They are not like married couples up there procreating little baby angels.
John MacArthur said only men and women have little
angels who grow up to be anything but can I get a witness?
The number of angels, this is interesting to think about.
The number of angels has not changed one bit,
since they were originally created.
God's not adding angel.
Don't listen to people who are terribly confused.
God gained another angel in heaven.
No, he didn't.
The angel number is set.
We don't turn into angels.
Okay?
Kindly share that with somebody, a few weeks after the funeral, okay?
Anyway, though
a third of them fell into now,
of course, being demons, fallen
angels, they still exist as
they were created, except now with the demons,
of course, incomprehensibly evil, at
a scale we can't even begin to comprehend.
None of them are subject to death, like we are.
So they don't increase, and
they don't decrease.
Think about this thought.
The same holy angels created,
from the very start, are going
to be those same holy angels who are
going to be with us in eternity forever, who
were involved with us all during our earthly lives.
I think that might make some conversations.
I don't know.
I can't be dogmatic about nothing that happens in
heaven, because I'm not like Jesse Duplanis.
I haven't been there.
Okay?
But I can just kind of guess.
There are actually 108 references to angels
in the Old Testament, and 165
references in the New Testament.
So there's absolutely no doubt that they exist.
And I was very tempted to go through a long bunch
of great examples, how, you know, one angel slew 10,000.
I mean, I mean,
we would be here for it.
The food would get cold.
You know this already.
You know the greatness of angels, okay?
So I just kind of want to give you this brief
general summary, because I got some important stuff to get to, is what I'm saying.
Angels render intelligent worship
to God, and service to God.
That's why they were created.
They are also emotional creatures.
The Bible talks about angels rejoicing
in heaven when sinners are saved.
I bet today, really, was shouting when I got saved.
Can you believe?
Oh, not that one.
They can speak.
We see that all throughout the Gospels in the New Testament and the Old Testament as well, right?
They can speak to human beings.
Angels have incredible speed, read through
Daniel 9.
Sometimes they're pictured with wings.
That is generally how we think of them in contemporary and ancient art.
sometimes with many as six wings.
and they dwell in what
Paul describes as the
three different areas of heaven, and I've
talked about this before, but this I find this so fascinating to think about.
First, there's the heaven with us, the abode of God,
the presence of God, right?
The angels are existing there, and
then space and the whole universe,
they exist there.
And then what's called the first heaven is the
atmosphere in and around the Earth, and we've talked
about that before.
So they can exist, they do exist in
all three areas of what we call the heavens,
if you will.
And so that means there may be some in here right now.
And I'm not making a joke about that.
Isn't that just stunning?
to think about.
There could literally be angels in this room, right this moment.
Um, I found that just wild
to think about.
Now, the number of them is apparently countless trillions.
And I'm talking about after the fall with the holy angels.
Daniel uses this wording.
Thousands upon thousands, and then he uses this phrase, myriads
upon myriads.
And interestingly, the Apostle John uses that word in Revelation.
What that word describes, really, is just countless, countless.
They fill the heavens.
The earth, in the earth, around the atmosphere,
in space, they are right now flying all over the place.
And for sure, whatever the
exact number of them is, they
are exactly enough angels
to get God's work done that he wants them to do in
serving, and in worshiping him.
So there's no lazy, loafing
angels floating around on the cloud, just not doing anything.
They are far more powerful than us, far more.
We have to call on divine power to deal with
them, especially the fallen ones, who are
also far more powerful than us, as
we learned, in Ephesians on both sides.
Fallen and holy, they are highly organized.
They are divided into ranks that
are very complex, and we don't get a lot of detail about
this in scripture, but the ranks, apparently,
have supervisory responsibility overthrones,
powers, dominions, principalities, and authorities.
It's very organized.
There's a lot going on.
And I'm very certain in heaven that
we're going to be absolutely overwhelmed to learn how
all of this worked with these angels on
both sides, while we were here, living out
our lives, and we just can't see them.
It's just going to be overwhelming to us.
There are cherubim, there are seraphim, there are living creatures.
They have names like Michael and Gabriel,
and Lucifer, who fell, and
is now Satan, Michael is the head of the armies, and there's
army in heaven that he's the head of.
Gabriel.
He's known as the mighty One.
And it's so interesting.
They are seen in scripture as
spectators at all the
redemptive events in history.
at the birth of Jesus, at the death of Jesus,
the resurrection of Jesus.
They ministered to Jesus, remember, in his temptation, in the wilderness.
And guess what?
They minister to us.
ministering servants to God's people.
How wild is that?
They watch us.
They watch the church.
They watch preachers.
They probably weep, then
a lot of our preachers, they protect us.
If I had to guess, and this
is just, how did RC say it, it's
the preacher's prerogative every now and then, and then to just
speculate, but you have to be clear when you're speculating, right?
I'm speculating here.
I had to guess.
There were most likely, multiple times,
in my life, before Christ, that
they had to jump into action, to
get me out of some seriously stupid decisions, to
keep me alive, until I came to faith
in Christ in 25 years of ministry.
I literally, you have no idea.
I came close to death a number of times, on my own
stupid decisions.
Shooting dope would be at the heart of that, you know?
I've woken up after nodding out in an abandoned house in
Brookstown with a needle hanging out of my arm, shooting dope.
I mean, I could go on and on, right?
I'm sure that very possible angels
were, uh, send him down there again.
He's about to do it.
He's about to get out of here.
We gotta, we gotta help him.
He's so dumb.
Anyway.
Look, there's a lot more to this subject of angels, but that's
my very brief summary of angelology, okay?
If you got more questions, I'll be glad to talk to you about it at lunch, 'cause we got to get on here.
What that does is lay the biblical foundation of angels,
because I need to do that, first,
in order to take you to next, very
important, what the Jewish view
of angels was, at the time this book was written.
So you just got the biblical view, and
understanding the Jewish view at the time of
angels is going to be very critical for
all of us to understand the purpose of why verses
4 6 is written in the way that it's written, okay?
You with me on that?
By the time Hebrews was written, and you know
this, too, in general, the
Jews had long begin to wander
away from the Old Testament alone context of angels.
And that was because of the Talmud and other
rabbinical teachings.
Remember, they had been adding all these laws and all these different things.
They had been piling on that was apart from the Old Testament.
And they came up with some very interesting and different views
of angels.
So understand, the writer
of Hebrews is not only writing with a
true backdrop of a biblical
view of angels, he's also writing against
a batdrop of this altered
Jewish concept of angels.
So he's doing both at the same time.
Now, they didn't completely believe all
wrong things about angels.
They did believe that angels were very important to the old covenant,
and they had always esteemed angels as the highest
beings next to God.
They believed that God was surrounded by angels,
and that they were the instruments of bringing His word to
men and working out His will in the universe.
They were thought of by the Jews as these ethereal
creatures of blazing light, who did not eat, drink,
or procreate, so far, not really too far off of base, but.
They also believed that these beings that God created were
God's senate, if you will, to use that term.
And they believed that God never did anything without
asking the angels.
Now, right there, you're going straight off, right,
the biblical cliff.
For example, in Genesis 1, where God said,
let us make man in our image, easily
reference to the Trinity, they believe God was
speaking of his angelic senate in that word us, which is wrong.
Some Jews believe that angels objected to the creation
of men, and they were annihilated at that time,
for their objection.
We find that nowhere in scripture.
Others believed that they objected to the giving of the law, and
that angels actually attacked Moses on his
way up Mount Sinai.
That didn't happen.
And they even named angels.
There were what they called presence angels, who
stayed in God's presence at all times.
And there are those, but they came up with names like
Raphael, and Uriel, and Thaniel, and then they added
in Gabriel, and Michael, notice the EL,
the L, at the end of each, L was a name for God,
and they used that as an ending for each of the names.
And then, very interestingly, they believed that 200 angels
controlled the movement of the stars.
We find that nowhere in scripture.
One special angel was the calendar angel who
controlled all the months, days, and years.
So they were just making all this up.
One mighty angel took care of the seas, and others tended
to the frost, the dew, and the rain, and the snow, and the hail,
and the thunder, and the lightning, and if all this were true, I wish
the Fall Angel would hurry up and get it in gear.
Other angels, there
were other Jews believed that there were angels who were
the wardens of hell, and that they were the torturers
of the damned, and there was a guardian angel over
every nation and every child.
And, of course, that flowed its way into Catholicism.
And we may well have multiple guardian angels.
I don't know, like I said, we'll see when we get there.
Is it different angels that deal with us, or as we get assigned angels, I don't know, you know.
We watch a wonderful life at Christmas time, and the
angel comes down, you know, all that.
Anyway, they also,
these Jews believed that there were recording angels who
actually wrote down every single word that man spoke.
Well, what's the point of that when God already knows, every
word you speak before you speak it, but I digress.
So all of that is a very general summary of the Jewish
view of angels at that time that Hebrews
was written, they believed that they were the highest created beings in
the universe, and that they mediated
between God and man, but there's one more important thing
that they believe that we need to understand this
before we look at these verses, the
Jews also knew that the Old Covenant
and the Old Testament was brought
to them from God by angels.
And this, above everything else, it exalted
angels in the minds of these Jews.
And there is some New Testament examples of this.
Let me remind you of this, you may have skimmed over this in
your reading of certain scriptures, like Acts chapter 7,
verse 53, speaking of the Jews, Stephen
says this is an interesting phrase.
You who received the law, he's talking to the Jews,
as ordained by angels, and
yet did not keep it.
So he's getting on to the Jews there.
Then look in Galatians 3.19.
Why the law, then?
It was added because of transgressions having
been ordained through angels
by the agency of a mediator.
Now, here's what MacArthur records in his study Bible.
Speaking of angels, scripture does not delineate
their precise role in the giving of the law,
but clearly states the fact of their presence.
So what those two verses do is tell us,
yeah, they played some role, but we don't know exactly what.
All we know is that they played some role, and that's it.
Well, the Jews knew this from other
verses in Old Testament like Deuteronomy 33, but
what did it cause them to do with that incomplete information?
What it caused them to do was go all the way to worshipping angels.
That's the problem, the big problem here.
which Paul strictly forbids the worship of angels in the Book of Colossians.
And the point to all this Jewish angelology
that I'm giving you is to get you to understand this.
for these Jews, that this book is written to, how
extremely exalted angels
were in their Jewish minds at this time period.
That's what I'm wanting you to see here.
And that means that if this writer of Hebrews
is going to present Jesus being the
mediator of a better covenant, then guess what?
He is going to have to show them that
Jesus is better than angels.
You see what I'm saying?
That's the point.
And that becomes the writer's whole purpose here
in verses 4 to 14.
And in a very brilliant way.
And I mean brilliant.
The writer is going to use seven Old
Testament passages from their Old Testament
to establish this extremely
profound truth of Jesus being
better than the angels.
He has to show Christ to them as
the bearer of a new covenant in his blood,
one sacrifice, one priest, once for all.
That's his mission here.
And that Christ himself is the mediator of
this new covenant, angels played no
role in any of his work.
It's Christ alone.
Now, I have to give you this aside as well.
You need to know that the Old Testament quotations in
the book of Hebrews, they vary slightly from the
Old Testament texts from which they were taken.
You look at that in your Bible, you see that to be true.
Why is that?
Well, the reason for that is, by this time, the Jews used,
and especially these Jews, probably, in this area, a Greek translation
of the Old Testament, called the
septagon, or septu again, people say it different ways.
I found this little thing on Google, where you asked for
the pronunciation, and this little cartoon mouth comes
on, and it said, Sep 2 again.
But then other people say, septic.
You can say it any way you want.
It's the Greek translation of the Old Testament is all it means.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, right?
We know that.
But by the time of Jesus, there were so many
Greek speaking Jews throughout the land, there
were 70 men who got together, and
they translated the Hebrew into Greek.
So that's the septug.
So, just like when Greek is translated
into English, or Hebrew is translated into English,
it's going to vary slightly from
the original Hebrew, but not ever in
the meaning, you understand?
Just like in our English translations, not ever in
the truth, just different
word choices and phrases put a different way
in order to best translate from one language to another.
You understand that, right?
So that's where he's going to be quoting from.
Because, again, the
writer knows that's what they're using, and he's using their
own Old Testament that they're most familiar
with to show them that Christ is
a better mediator from the Old Testament.
It's brilliant.
As you're going to see, this is a powerful argument to
prove to the Jews that Jesus is better than everything.
If they said, I don't accept your New Testament.
No problem, the writer says, I'm
going to prove it from your own Old Testament.
So let's get started, okay?
Let's go back to verse 3 for just a minute that we already started, and
that's the lead up to verse 4,
that we'll start in to Dave, starting in verse
3 and 4, speaking of Jesus, and he,
Jesus, is the radiance of his glory,
and the exact representation of his nature, and
upholds all things by the word of his power.
When he had made purifications of
sin, he sat down
at the right hand of the majesty on high,
having become as much better than
the angels, as he has inherited a
much more excellent name than they.
So from verse 4, Jesus is
better than the angels, first of all, because he has
a better title, or, as it says there,
a much more excellent name than they.
We're going to see that title in a minute.
But notice, after the Sun had
made purification for sins and sat down at
God's right hand, look, having become
as much better than the angels.
Now very important.
Having become does not
mean that the sun was ever inferior to the angels.
You understand?
This phrase points us to
a massive theological truce.
It points us to the exaltation of
the sun as the incarnate, crucified,
risen Messiah, who sat down at the
right hand of the majesty on high when
his work was done.
I love the way R.C.
Sproul puts this.
Listen to this.
Listen slowly.
The eternal sun.
took on a human nature to
rescue us from sin and death,
having for a time, voluntarily
taken a position lower
than the angels, as I showed you earlier, remember?
He is now, in
his resurrection, and ascension,
declared to be the son of God
in power.
That's Romans 14.
To save his people.
Now listen to this.
This is the most important part.
Christ, exaltation, thus,
inaugurates a new phase
of his messianic and redemptive
sonship and gives him a dignity
far above that of the angels.
Hey, that is some meat right there.
OK?
Let me give you the, in other words.
I want you to get this.
In other words, he has always eternally been the Son
of God, right?
The second person of the Trinity.
Above angels, even then.
Of course, because he created them.
Right?
So, of course, he was above them even then.
But now, listen to me.
After his complete redemptive work was done, this
new phase of his messianic
and redemptive sonship, now
that that's done, gives him a dignity
in the infinite stratosphere above the angels.
You feel me?
That's the complete thrust of what's being said here in verse 4.
It's a staggering, stunning, massive theological truth.
Now, next in verse 5, the writer is going to prove
from the Old Testament, what the more
excellent name is from verse 4.
Look at verse 5.
For to which of the angels did he ever say, You
are my son.
Today, I have begotten you.
And again, I will be a father to him, and he
shall be a son to me.
Now first, get this.
You are my son.
Today, I have begotten you.
Guess where?
That comes from, a quote, from Psalm 2 7.
Their own Old Testament.
Now, some of you, if you have MacArthur study Bibles,
especially, you've got these Old Testament verses in caps.
If you look in your Bible, all the Old Testament verses are in cap.
Some of you may not.
Commentator Richard Phillips says this, including
both quotes.
First, you are my son, today I've forgotten you is from Psalm
2 7, then next, I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
That's 2 Samuel 714.
So he's using two Old Testament
scriptures to give you the sun, the title.
This is what Richard Phillips says.
Both of those, quotes from the Old
Testament, are messianic declarations of
the Davidic king that find their fulfillment in Christ.
In other words, these are clear messianic declarations
from the Old Testament, declaring
the more excellent name from verse 4.
What does that name?
Sun.
That's the more excellent name.
And he's using the Old Testament to get the word.
centuries before Jesus ever was incarnated into this world.
In both of these quotes, from the
Old Testament, the writer presents the unique
relationship that the Father has with
the Son.
And by the way, he points out that no angel ever experienced such a relationship.
He starts out by saying in verse 5, For to which of the
angels did he ever say, and he quotes, Their
Old Testament, twice, with the title, son, and the answer is,
no angel ever.
That's the answer.
Angels are called sons of God, just like we're
called sons of God, but nobody else is called
sun, singular, no s on the end.
Now, we've already gone over that title, Son of God, last time.
Do you remember?
It is absolutely nothing like
or to do with Trenton
is the son of Philip, okay?
Please don't think of it in those terms at all
whatsoever.
Remember.
Remember the culture of this day, especially.
The Sun, in those days, was thought of as
being of the very same essence as the Father.
He was the heir to all the father's rights and privileges and
equal in every regard.
So when Jesus is called the Son of God,
It was always immediately understood by
the Jews, categorically as
a title of deity, making him equal
with God, of the same essence as
the Father.
When he said, I am the son of God.
And that is why the Jews considered what he said, as
the highest blasphemy.
And even, look again, we're going to keep looking at this in John 5:18.
Look at the end of the verse.
John 5:18, but he was even calling God
his own father, making himself equal with God.
That's what eventually got him killed, at least from the Jewish perspective.
They understood what it meant.
very clearly.
And lots of people get tripped up with
this phrase, Today, I have begotten
you in Hebrews 1:5,
especially the calls.
They get real tripped up with this.
Scripture also refers to Christ as what?
The only begotten of the Father.
In the Greek, only begotten is the manoganes.
The only way I say that word is because I've
heard James White say it five billion times when talking about this subject.
The monoganes.
It has to do totally and completely with
the utter uniqueness of Christ.
It can literally be rendered one of a kind.
And yet, at the same time, at the same time, stick
with me, it also signifies
that he is of the very same essence as
the Father, begotten only begotten.
This is where we get into that rare Trinitarian
air, that I can only say, We have to be very, very careful
that we don't go too far, and the inner workings of the
Trinity, and I just have a personal opinion that
some of these academic elites go a little too far into
the speculation of how all of that works.
But that's just me old warehouse worker
on Hooper Road over here.
And this is hard, OK?
From the human perspective, because I want you to think about it.
When you just automatically think of the term begotten,
you think of, speaking of the origin
of one's offspring, right?
begotten, the begetting of the sun,
and a natural human realm is talking about that
point in time at which he comes into being
physically, the begetting of a sun.
But, folks, we know, as
Christians, that Jesus is the uncreated
eternally existing Son of God.
So, clearly, you don't even have to
put your thinking cap on straight, to
understand that begotten cannot be understood
that way, physically,
that it's being understood from Hebrews 1, 5 here, quoted from Psalm 2:7.
Now, in the design of God, each offspring
of every creature begets offspring after its kind.
We learn that in Genesis 1, right?
Cows beget cows.
pigs beget pigs, right?
So here's the sense.
The offspring, of course, bears
the exact likeness of the parent.
The fact that a sun is generated by the Father guarantees
that the sun shares the same essence as the Father.
That's easy to understand, right?
So track this with me here.
This is the sense that scripture
means, when it speaks of the Father
begetting Christ.
Christ is not a created being.
So the beginning, begetting, has nothing to
do with his origin, of course.
He's uncreated.
It has everything to do, what the
words are describing is the fact that he is of
the same essence with the Father.
This is describing to us the absolute
oneness of essence between the
eternally existing Father and the eternally existing Son.
You getting that?
Get out of your mind.
Down here in human land, this expression
of begetting, intending to give us the idea of procreation.
It has nothing to do with that.
We're talking about God here.
We're not talking about normal human beings.
Christ, sonship, Christ
being begotten, is all about his deity.
It's all about his deity, his position.
Again, listen, RC.
He says, The Father's
decree declaring the Messiah to be his
son is identified with Christ's exaltation.
Though Jesus is the eternal and divine
Son of God,
And this is the same basic thing he's saying in the other quote.
Let me keep going.
The declaration of redemptive sonship prophesied
in Psalm 27 was conferred on him in
time when he completed his messianic work,
so that he was already the Son,
eternally, yes, but declared
the Son in power in saving, through with his work.
It was conferred upon him, prophesied, in Psalm
2 7, when his complete messianic work was done.
You get me?
This is so good.
So the Spirit of God, through the writer of Hebrews,
is saying, that Jesus is
better than angels, because he has a better name,
Son, the only Son,
the only begotten Son of God.
Angels are servants.
Christ is a son.
Now lastly, for today.
Verse 6.
And when he again brings the first born
into the world, he says, And
let all the angels of God worship him.
So not only has God never called any angels, son,
secondly, Christ is greater because angels
worship him.
And the first thing we have to deal with in verse 6 is
another word that trips up the people in the cults, the
word firstborn.
OK?
Just like the term sun and begotten,
you simply cannot apply the word firstborn
in a strictly human physical understanding
of God, the Son, being the firstborn.
That should be obvious by now, even
within the time of this sermon, but unfortunately,
cults and false religions twist all three of those terms
up in order to deceive people.
about the definition of who Jesus is.
If all things came into being through Christ.
And we've already learned that, right, then you should
be able to figure out that
the term firstborn does not mean that
Jesus is the first created being.
Can I get a witness?
You should be able to figure that out.
First born, applied to Jesus, is
just like these other titles.
It's a title, like sun is a title.
It's a title of rank.
It's a title of inheritance.
It's a title of pre eminence.
Firstborn in the Greek is protototicos.
I learned that from Dr. James White, too.
This word does not refer to time, like the very first one born.
It's a position word, prototicos.
It's not a description.
It's a title.
Like when it says, he is the only begotten son.
It's not talking about the fact that he's begotten in the human
sense, as I just said.
It's talking about the fact that he's the chief of everything.
The sovereign.
Protonicos means he's the chief one.
And in the culture of that day, the firstborn son,
the only begotten son, the first begotten, was usually the
chief heir of everything that the father owned, and
he usually became the chief one of the father's estate.
So Prototticos meant that the one
with all the honor and the dignity who stood as the chief one.
That's what it means.
That's the only human sense connection that these terms have.
to Jesus, any of the three.
When he's described as prototicos, not
in terms of physical timing, but rather in terms of
right and authority, he is the
prototicos, okay?
Protonicas is a right to rule, word.
That's what he has.
Think of Colossians 118.
Look at it.
He is also head of the body, the church,
and he is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, so that he himself will
come to have first place in everything.
Oh, wait a minute, brother Philip, firstborn from the dead.
Had anybody been resurrected before Jesus?
Well, yeah, we just studied him.
How about old Lazarus?
Huh?
We got other examples.
Right?
What's the point right there?
First born from the dead, he's the protonicos from the dead.
What does that mean?
He's the chief one of all who had ever been raised from the dead.
He's the protonicos, the main one raised
from the dead, above all the others that's ever been raised from the dead.
is Jesus.
That's what it means.
Now, we're getting close, I'm promising
you, let's read all of our six again.
And when he again brings the firstborn into
the world, he says,
and let all the angels of God worship
him, so now we also need to deal with that phrase
in verse 6, if you're paying attention carefully, that word when
he says, he again brings the firstborn
into the world.
What does that mean?
He again brings the firstborn.
Well, RC says that means his incarnation.
He says, as the sun condescends to
assume our human nature, angels worship
him, and R.C. cites Luke 2,
verses 13 14, when suddenly
there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts, praising
God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth,
peace among those with whom he is pleased.
And so that's what our seed thinks.
Others, like MacArthur, point a different direction.
They say, when he again brings the
firstborn in the world, the angels are worshiping, refers to the second coming.
When he again, focusing again, connecting
that to the second, coming.
So there are great commentators on both sides of
this little nuance.
But guess what?
My little pea brain figured out with this difference.
The point is the same in the both.
So I don't have a problem.
In fact, Jesus was worshipped
before, during, and after his earthly ministry by the angels.
and we'll be in and after his second coming by the angels.
So I'm going to let the smart guys debate the language nuance
here with the word again.
The point is, the writer is using the Old Testament to
prove his point, quoting, right here, another
Old Testament, verse 6,
and let all the angels of God worship him, that's Psalm 977.
Written centuries before Jesus came into the world.
Remember, worship is due
to God alone.
So that means, therefore, the sun is
not a fellow creature.
He's God.
He is the object of angelic worship.
That single command, let all the angels of
God worship him, both demotes, angels,
to servants, and confesses very clearly the deity
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, Y'all ready to wrap this up?
Let's wrap it up with a summary statement.
Remember, Jewish Christians,
primary audience here.
Don't forget this.
They are under severe pressure.
At the time this letter was written to retreat to
the Old Covenant, which would have resulted
in this bizarre mixture of Old Testament Judaism and
New Testament Christianity, in which, as we have learned
today, angels had a prominent role in
the Old Covenant, in giving the law.
And so the writer is showing them that,
hey, don't look to lesser
mediators like angels.
If the highest created beings worship
the sun, then leave
Christ to anything
associated with angels, is
to abandon the one who is the heir of all things,
and who is upholding all things by the word of his power.
Just leave the angels, dude.
Go to Christ alone.
Guys.
And this same logic applies to us.
The risen, ruling, reigning, son
of God, is all sufficient, Christian.
There is absolutely nothing that we
need that is not found in him.
So think of this whole text, just these
verses, right here.
Verses 4 6, the exaltation of Jesus,
the unique sonship of Jesus, his firstborn
inheritance, his right to angelic
worship, all of that together in just three verses
established that he belongs to an
entirely different category from the angels.
because he is the one and only Monoganes, Potatacos,
the one and only begotten son of the living God,
and how blessed are we to
understand that now, to understand what
Son of God means, to understand what begotten
and only begotten means.
That is the blessing of the grace of God in our life that
we get through the writer of Hebrews, and the
power of the Holy Spirit, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
to understand in an even deeper way who
the person of Jesus is.
And so for today, now we go, and
we get this great opportunity, again, to
actually be obedient
to a direct command, from
this Protauticos, this Jesus,
this Son of God, gave us a direct command,
to do this, what we're fixing to do, in
remembrance of him, in the church for all time,
until he comes again.
And so as we always do, let's turn 1st
to 1 Corinthians 11.
Starting in verse 27.
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup
of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be
guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
The man must examine himself, and
in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks
judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
For this reason, many among you are weak and sick,
and a number, sleep.
And