Part 1: As the Son, He Eclipses the Angels (Hebrews 1)

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the person of Christ from Hebrews 1.

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I wish we had more sessions since there are so many wonderful passages in Hebrews that it would be really a great delight to study with you, but we shall do what we can with these six. In the first two, we are simply going to focus on the theme.… Jesus is better than the angels, but we’ll divide into two parts: Jesus is better than the angels in chapter 1 because he eclipses them and in chapter 2 because he bypasses them. We’ll look at those two chapters tonight. Let me begin by reading Hebrews chapter 1.

“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’? Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’? And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ In speaking of the angels he says, ‘He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire.’

But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. 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.’

He also says, ‘In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. 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.’ To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’? Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

This is the Word of the Lord.

When I was an undergraduate almost 40 years ago at McGill University in Montreal studying chemistry and mathematics, for three of my four years, I lived in a men’s dorm called Molson Hall. You can guess who put up the money. These dorms were at the top of a mountain. There were three side by side: we were the one in the middle, Molson Hall, and then McConnell Hall, and a little farther up the mountain, Gardner Hall.

These three had the same design, the same number of bedrooms, and so forth, and inevitably, there was some kind of competition among them. Who would send the most students in for the blood drive, for example? Who would decorate best at Christmas? And all that sort of thing. For whatever reason, Molson, in the years that I was there, had an awful lot of esprit. So we came out on top on most things.

One particular Christmas (I was in second or third year) somehow we got behind the eight ball, and we blew it. They were all nicely decorated, and we were still plain and boring. Then some of us, the names shall not be mentioned, trotted down the hill in the dead of night to the front of the Montreal Neurological Institute, which is one of the best neurological institutes in the world.

They had trucked in a tree to be used outside the institute about seven stories high. It was all wrapped up, the branches all tied up, and some enterprising members of our august institution hoisted it on our shoulders … on their shoulders … and brought it up the mountain and managed to get the bottom end stuck right into the common area.

When it got in far enough, they managed to bend the top end so that it went right up the stairwell, the whole seven floors. And then the ropes were cut. Then we draped a huge banner across the front of the whole building with the words, “Molson is better.” It was only coincidental at that time Molson brewery was, in fact, going around saying, “Molson is better.”

Now a few days later, Gardner Hall, a little farther up the mountain, put out a big banner saying, “Gardner is best.” And yet the general consensus around the university, I think it fair to say, not just speaking as a Molson man, was that although they might have won at the purely linguistic level they were completely without style and ear. We won. Hands down. For sometimes the simple comparative is far, far, far more effective. You see, no matter what the standard of comparison is, Molson is better.… Molson is better.… Molson is better.

Hebrews is saying the same thing, well, almost the same thing, except it’s saying, “Jesus is better.” That’s what the whole theme of Hebrews is: Jesus is better. Jesus is better than the angels. Jesus is better than Moses. Jesus is better than Joshua. Jesus’ rest is better than any antecedent rest. Jesus’ sacrifice is better. Jesus’ temple is better. Jesus’ covenant is better. Jesus is better.

You take a look at the word, kreittōn, better, and it shows up more times in Hebrews than in the rest of the New Testament together. At no point does it say, “Jesus is best.” It doesn’t have to. It has much better euphony in its ear than those poor blokes up at Gardner Hall who merely won at the purely linguistic level. Jesus is better, and no matter what standard of comparison you look at, Jesus is better.

The opening lines already make that sort of contrast. “In the past … but in these last days …” “In the past God spoke to our forefathers … but in these last days he has spoken to us …” “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways …” in direct dictation as to Jeremiah, in visions of the night as to Eliphaz, in discrete laws, in laments, in oracles, in typological utterances, in genealogies, in prose, in a fable like that of Jotham.

“… at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us [en huios] …” I don’t like the NIV’s “by his Son.” I don’t see how you can improve on it very much, but the trouble is that “by his Son” might make you think that the Son is merely parallel to the prophets. He had spoken through the prophets; now he has spoken by his Son, and yet the expression means something more than that.

It means he has spoken unto us (you couldn’t render it this way, but we’ll go ahead anyway), “in Son.” That is, it’s as if Jesus’ last word, his final word, his ultimate word, is, simply … Jesus. Jesus is better. In the past he has spoken to us by words at many times and in many ways, through the prophets. Now he has spoken to us in the Word incarnate, “in Son.”

It’s not just a question of whether or not the article is there. It’s all the descriptions of the Son that are piled rapidly one on top of the other to make the point. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, not just his words, not just his teaching. The actual reflection of God himself is now not in sentences whether in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek; it’s in the Word incarnate.

Do you want to see something of the glory of God? Ah, now you do not look at the trailing edge of the afterglow of God’s glory as Moses peeps out. Now you look at the Son. For he, himself, is the radiance of God’s glory. He is the exact representation of his being, as a stamp stamps out coins, all looking exactly the same. So the exact representation of God, looking just like God, such that he can say, “Do you not know me? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

He is the one who comes as the representation of his being, the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Not only is he supreme in his maintenance of all things for, to use the language of 1 Corinthians 15, he is God’s mediatorial king this side of the resurrection, but the means by which he attained this particular status, this particular function, is bound up with his death and resurrection.

He provided purification for sins, and when he had finished, he sat down, the job complete, at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. “So he became as much superior to the angels …” That is, the implication is that there was a time when he was inferior to the angels. “So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited …” That is, in the very essence of his being, he already was superior, already made him superior.

In other words, he had the name of being superior to the angels, and now, he became inferior to the angels, and now, because of his death and resurrection, he became superior to the angels again. All of these things, you see, are unpacking themes that are going to be disclosed at great length in the book. Jesus is better. Now there are huge implications from this introduction.

First of all, there are implications about the importance of listening and reading well. The warnings come back to us again and again. Notice chapter 2, verses 1–4: “We must pay more careful attention, therefore.… For if the message spoken by angels …” That is, through the prophets to the fathers. “… was binding …” We’ll look at that passage in due course. “… and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment …” Remember all those curses in Deuteronomy? “… how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?”

You see it is an a fortiori argument, a “how much more” argument. The revelation is greater, so the sanctions are greater. The same sort of argument is made, of course, elsewhere, as in chapter 10, verses 32–35. Moreover, this book is important for helping us put our Bibles together. I hope that will become clear as we press on. It is also helpful, I think, as we try to think through what is meant by canon.

Have you ever had a Mormon come to your door and begin their spiel in the sort of standard way? “How did God reveal himself to the Fathers in times past?” You’re supposed to say, “Well, through prophets.” “How do you think God would disclose himself if he chose to do so again today?” You’re supposed to say, “Well, through prophets, I guess.” Then they say, “Yes, and that’s just what he’s done. His name is Joseph Smith.” That’s the spiel. But you’re supposed to trip them up.

You’re supposed to say, “Well, in times past he spoke to the Fathers in various ways through the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken unto us en huios” Because, you see, the New Testament does not envisage itself as merely the counterpart to the Old Testament. Rather, what has moved on from the Old Testament is the Son revelation, and the New Testament documents are those things which clarify, elucidate, talk about, wrap up the Son revelation, but the high point in revelation is not the New Testament. The high point in revelation is Jesus.

The New Testament is God’s wrap up of that, which is why in the early church one of the rules for canonicity, was looking for apostles and apostolic men. That is, they had to be part of that initial generation that were the witnesses and the ones who passed on the initial tradition from Jesus and who saw him and touched and handled or heard it from those who did, because it was not a question of ongoing prophets who had the same kind of Isaianic stature. The culminating revelation was the Son revelation. Jesus is better.

Verse 4 is transitional, of course. After establishing Jesus’ superiority, “So he became as much superior to the angels …” They are suddenly introduced. “… as the name he has [already] inherited is superior to theirs.” That brings up his argument about angels. Now the significance of this for contemporary thought, we’ll worry about at the end of the hour. Let me skip that and come immediately to the exegeses at hand.

I might not do it this way if I were in your churches, but on the other hand, since I’m dealing here primarily with pastors and seniors saints who can already think three steps ahead of wherever I am in the text anyway, let me get into the heart of the issue right here. For to my mind, not only is this argument intrinsically important, it has some extraordinarily important things to say about how New Testament writers read the Old Testament. So this will have a bearing on everything we do for the rest of the book.

What I propose to do is run through verses 5–14 very fast just to show you what the flow of the argument is in a kind of first pass and then to stop and look at two or three of the Old Testament texts very slowly. We don’t have time to deal with all of them. I wish we did, but two or three of them in great detail, and then we’ll make another pass to see where the argument is going once that background is better grasped. Then we’ll stop to think how these things apply to us today. So, the first pass, then.

As you read verses 5–14, you quickly discover that the author moves from discussing the Son (verses 5–6) to discussing angels (verse 7) to the Son (verses 8–13) to angels (verse 14). In other words, he is running back and forth between the Son and angels. What he is doing in every case is saying, “Certain things are said in Holy Scripture about the Son that are not said of angels; whereas by contrast, this is what is said of angels.” Then he goes back to the Son and does it again. Son … angels … Son … angels.

“For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son …’? Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’? And again.… ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ ” In other words, the whole focus is on the superiority of the Son. By contrast, verse 7, “In speaking of the angels he says, ‘He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire.’ ”

By contrast, back to Son, “But about the Son …” God addresses the Son. “… he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.’ ” Then with similar quotations in verses 10, 11, 12, and 13, quoting Psalm 110, “To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?” By contrast, “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

At a certain level, therefore, the argument is pretty clear; it’s not at all difficult to follow. It’s when you start looking up those texts in their Old Testament context that you begin to say, “What on earth is going through our author’s head?” If you’ve never asked that, then you’ve not looked these passages up in their Old Testament context. If you have looked them up in the Old Testament context and not asked the question, you’ve been asleep.

Begin with 1:5–6. Here there are two quotations. The first is from Psalm 2:7. “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” The second is from 2 Samuel 7:14. Now let’s make this a little bit more difficult before we make it easier. The first passage, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” is quoted three times in the New Testament. In addition to this passage, where the argument is being advanced that Jesus is superior to the angels, it is found in Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 5.

This is in a context that is introducing priesthood. Hebrews 5:4: “No one takes this honor [of the high priesthood] upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ ” So here, Psalm 2:7 is being used to prove that Jesus did not take the priesthood on himself but that God called him. Right?

The third place is in Acts, chapter 13, in the sermon preached by Paul to Jews and proselytes in Pisidian Antioch. Here we discover in verses 32–33 that the same psalm is used to justify the doctrine of the resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus. Verse 32: “We tell you the good news [the gospel, euaggelizō: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm [he knows the reference even]: ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ ”

Thus, Psalm 2:7 is taken to justify Jesus’ superiority over angels, the fact he did not take on priestly status by himself, and his resurrection from the dead. On the face of it, Psalm 2:7 discusses none of the three. What is going on? What we shall do now is look at the second of the two quotations. “I will be his Father and he will be my Son,” from 2 Samuel 7. Then we’ll work back to Psalm 2.

This passage, of course, is well known. This is the passage where David has royal initiatives but God squelches them. David wants to build a house for God. This is after he has moved the capital to Jerusalem and the ark has been brought to Jerusalem and now he has built his own palace (chapter 7) and he has rest. There is that rest theme. We’ll come back to that one before we’re done. He has rest from all his enemies round about. So he proposes to Nathan that a temple should be built.

After all, God in Deuteronomy had foreseen a time when there would be one central sanctuary. David might even had thought that he was actually fulfilling and obeying Scripture in all of this. Nathan thinks the thing is such an open and shut case that he does not even consult with the Lord. He says, “Go right ahead. Whatever is on your mind and heart, just do it.” Then God says, “That’s not the way it’s going to be, Nathan,” So Nathan goes back and tells David, “This is what the Lord says …”

Now there are a number of reasons why David is not permitted to build a house. They are not all listed here, but there are several that are listed here. The first of these reasons is that God hasn’t thought it up himself and disclosed it. It’s not that God has presented it. For you see, at every point in redemptive history, God, and God alone, takes the initiative. At every point.

You do not find Abraham in the Ur of the Chaldeans looking around at the sin of his day and saying, “You know, God, I’ve got an idea. I hear all those stories about the flood, and we’re heading in the same direction. And we’ve just had Babel. Good grief! How much more destruction are we going to face? Why don’t we start a new race? Hmm? I don’t mind heading it up. You send me anywhere you like. I’ll obey you, and in due course, you know, from that line you can produce any kind of Savior you’d like.” Is that the way it happens?

At every great turning point in redemptive history, it’s not human beings that take the initiative. Do you see? That’s part of an even larger pattern in Scripture that insists that God is the God of aseity, to use the old Puritan term. He is a se, from himself; that is, he doesn’t need us. He just doesn’t need us.

That’s what Paul says when he is preaching to pagans in Athens, isn’t it? God doesn’t need us. The pagan deities are all finite, and they have their psychological needs, so pagan religion is invariably some kind of tit-for-tat swap arrangement. We stroke god’s needs and he gives us blessings.

But the God of the Bible doesn’t need us. He takes the initiative to rescue us. He does respond to us, but that’s different from saying that he has psychological needs that we meet. Therefore, God makes it very clear, “To which of the shepherds of Israel have I commanded this utterance, ‘Why have you not built me a house?’ ”

In fact, it’s going to be the other way around. “It’s not so much that you build me a house; I’m going to build you a house.” Only, of course, there is a pun there. It’s household, a dynasty. “Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.”

Moreover, “David, you’re not quite at the place of rest that you thought. I’m going to bless you so that, in fact, you will eventually have rest from your enemies …” There’s that rest theme again in verse 11a. “… but in fact you’re still going to be a man of war.”

Now the Lord lays things out: “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be his father, and he will be my son.” Is this a reference to Jesus? Not a chance. Read the next line. You’re going to have real trouble with your Christology if you think he’s talking about Jesus yet. “When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.”

Now you see what David is really worried about. He has just witnessed what has happened to Saul. Saul was supposed to head a whole dynasty. Can you even call it a dynasty when it doesn’t get to generation two? So David might be very privileged by God, but supposing a wheel comes off? What happens then?

God says, “I will make a house for you. Therefore, your son, from your own body, when he sins, I won’t destroy him as I destroyed Saul.” That’s the point. “But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul …” “No, you will have a dynasty. I will chasten him merely with the floggings of men.” But there are two other points in this prophesy that must be explored.

First, verse 16: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” Now that’s going beyond Solomon. There are only two ways in which that can be fulfilled. One is by having that kingly office replenished from David’s children and children’s children and children’s children’s children, on and on and on, world without end, or eventually, a greater David. Whereas this passage doesn’t stipulate, it’s not very long after this before you start getting passages that do.

This is tenth century. By the time you get to Isaiah, eighth century, then you have a passage like Isaiah, chapter 9. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.”

By the time you get to Ezekiel in the sixth century you’re getting similar Davidic promises of majestic sweep correlated with Yahweh himself in a passage like Ezekiel 34, so that gradually the vision of who this great David’s greater son will be is ratcheted up and ratcheted up in expectation in the later Prophets.

The second thing to notice is this actual wording in verse 14. “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.” Sonship language in Scripture is really quite different from the way we use sonship now. How many of you men here are doing vocationally what your fathers did? Go ahead, stick up your hands. Look around, folks. Seven or eight? Interesting, isn’t it? Whereas in a preindustrial agrarian handcraft society 95 percent to 98 percent of all sons would do what their fathers did and of all daughters would do what their mothers did. Your father is a baker; you become a baker. That’s the way it is.

So you not only learn to read and write at home, or a little later on at the local synagogue (they didn’t have synagogues at this stage), but you learned your craft, you learned your trade, you learned what you did for all of life from your parents. You learned the lessons of life out on the field while you’re taking down the hay. If your father’s name is Stradivarius, you build violins. You are identified by what you do, by the whole family occupation of what you do.

That functional use, then, of sonship becomes very strong. Jesus can use it both in a positive sense and in a negative sense. Positively, he can say, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” He doesn’t mean that’s how you become a Christian. He says, rather, that God is the supreme peacemaker, and insofar as we make peace, we’re acting like God, and functionally, that is explained by saying that God is our Father.

Or in the same chapter, Matthew, chapter 5, because God sends sun and rain upon the just and upon the unjust, therefore, if we love our enemies, we’re acting like God. That way we’ll be sons of our Father in heaven. It doesn’t say how we become Christians. That’s not the point. The point is that conduct, functionality, shows paternity.

That’s the way it works, but it can work similarly in the realm of the demonic. In John 8, “You are of your father the Devil, and the lust of your father you will do,” Jesus says to certain Jews, not because he is thinking in some crass sense that the Devil has slept with their mother and they are some sort of half-breed human demon.

This is not some program on TV called Alien. This, rather, is a merely functional level. You act like your parent. That’s why those who were called sons of Belial, sons of worthlessness.… What it’s really saying is you’re clearly such a worthless person that the only explanation is that your father is worthlessness personified.

Thus, as early as Exodus 4, God says, “ ‘Israel is my son,’ and I say, ‘Let my son go that he may worship me.’ ” In other words, Israel was supposed to reflect something of the character of God so that when people saw Israel they would know a little bit better what God was like. Now, of course, no human son can ever reflect all that God is like. There is only one human being of whom that could be said. That is worked out in great detail with respect to the sonship of Jesus in John, chapter 5. For he is prepared to say, “Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

Now that’s not true of me. It’s not true of you, unless you’ve built a universe recently, for a start. In that sense, there are all kinds of things that differentiate you from God, but Jesus says, “Whatever the Father has done, the Son has also done.” Does the Father have right of life and death and raise the dead? So also does the Son. So Israel was not to reflect God in every respect. The texts say, “Be holy, for I am holy.” They never say, “Be omniscient, for I am omniscient.” They say, “Be holy, for I am holy.” They do not say, “Be omnipotent, for I am omnipotent.”

Because there are some incommunicable attributes of God. That is, some attributes of God that cannot be shared by any being that is non-God. But insofar as we can reflect the character of God, we ought to if we are his sons. So God says, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ ”

Now that was the frame of understanding in which sonship language began to appear in the Old Testament in enthronement psalms. Also in the ancient Near East at the time, the local gods of the tribes, when a human being came to the throne, would speak of that human being now being the son of the god, because in some titular sense the god was really supposed to be in charge, and this king was the one, as the son of the god, who was mediating something of the god’s authority.

That’s still part of the same ancient Near Eastern world, but God uses it in Scripture in a more profound sense. When someone comes to the throne, “Today I have begotten you. Today I have become your Father,” for the king is God’s representative to execute justice, to reveal God’s goodness, to pursue faithfulness in the covenant. He is to be God’s voice of authority amongst the people. That’s what the king is supposed to do.

So now turn to Psalm 2, which is, in fact, an enthronement psalm. “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord [Yahweh] and against his Anointed One [his Messiah].” (Or, his mashiyach, because the term messiah was used for prophets, priests, kings, and a few others in the Old Testament.)

“ ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’ ” And now God speaks. “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.’ ” You see, this is an enthronement psalm.

And now the king speaks. “ ‘I will proclaim the decree of the Lord …” That is, the decree in the enthronement. “He said to me, ‘You are my Son …” You see, that’s what he says when he is addressed as king on the enthronement day. “… today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” Now that’s stretching it a bit if it’s purely a narrow Davidic king, but it’s the only line that is.

“ ‘You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’ Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son …” That is, the King. “… lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

There is one of several major enthronement psalms which, if you allow for somewhat hyperbolic language here and there, you can make perfect sense of within the framework of a Davidic king coming to power in the ancient Near East. It’s an enthronement psalm.

Yet at the same time there is a whole patterning of things in Scripture that insist that what takes place to David is a forecasting of what will take place to David’s greater son. Just as the sacrificial system points forward, just as the tabernacle points forward, just as the high priest points forward, so the Davidic king points forward.

What we need is a son par excellence, an enthronement that outstrips this enthronement to a Davidic king who is the Son and reflects God perfectly. That part is well understood by all serious readers of the New Testament. We’ll come to the justification in Hebrews for that sort of reading of the Old Testament in later talks, because there is some justification given.

That’s the background and the context. Now come back to Hebrews. You still have to ask yourself, “Why can this one verse from Psalm 2:7 be used to justify the resurrection, Jesus’ appointment as priest, and his superiority over the angels? How can you infer all those things from Psalm 2:7, even after you’ve understood something of that Old Testament Davidic background?” Don’t you?

There are two further steps that will help. First, at the risk of oversimplification, most New Testament Christology, most New Testament teaching on Christ, falls into one of two patterns. One pattern looks like this: It starts here, dips down, and then comes back up.

For example, Philippians, chapter 2. Though he was in the very form of God, he made himself a nobody. He emptied himself, took on human flesh, came as a slave, died even to the death of the cross. Wherefore, God has highly exalted him, given him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.

Likewise, in John’s gospel. He had glory with the Father before the world began. Then the Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. Now he wants to return to the glory he had with the Father before the world began. That’s one christological pattern.

The other pattern simply doesn’t look at this half. It doesn’t deny it; it just doesn’t look at it. It starts with Jesus at the bottom. It starts with Jesus in the days of his flesh doing good deeds, proclaiming the kingdom of God, and then, Jesus dies in obedience to the Father’s will and is resurrected, and thus, vindicated, and ascends to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and because of that climatic turning-point moment, everything falls out of his mission. Everything flows from that point.

That is very common in the New Testament. Now the reason why that’s so important is this: When you were at seminary, even if you went to a pretty conservative seminary, when you studied New Testament Christology, probably what you studied was the meaning of Messiah, the meaning of Son of God, the meaning of Son of Man, the meaning of King of Israel.

You began to look at Christology from the perspective of different christological titles. Or maybe you looked at particular passages that focused on one of his functions, his high priestly ministry, his prophetic ministry, or the like, but all looked at piecemeal. I don’t think that’s the way the New Testament writers did it at all. I think this bitty stuff they wouldn’t have understood at all. They would have wondered what kind of planet we’re on.

Rather, precisely because they understand that since Jesus died and paid the price of our sin and rose again and in consequence was exalted to the right hand of God so that all of God’s mediatorial authority is through him, all of his sovereignty is mediated through him, he is the mediatorial King, he must reign until the very end.

He upholds all things through his powerful word, and all of his christological functions come to their climax out of this victory. He is the Great High Priest. His sacrifice is sufficient. He is the coming King. He is the returning King. He is himself because of the death that he died, the one who bleeds his own blood before the Father. All of this comes out of this great event.

Then the appointment of Jesus as King. “Today I have become your Father. Today you are my Son.” Today is tied up with Jesus’ resurrection, with his appointment to all of his offices, including his priestly office, and establishes his profound superiority over all other beings because he alone is at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Do you see?

In their mind the whole thing is tied up. The one text ties into all of those kinds of things. This is going a step beyond mere proof-texting. This is the text that shows how climatic is Jesus being appointed as King in the wake of his victory on the cross. In that light, this text really does amply prove Jesus’ profound superiority over the angels.

Let’s take one more. Psalm 45. We’re told this is a wedding song. Keep your finger there in Psalm 45, and now look at Hebrews 1:8–9, about the Son. God says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.” That is, the Father addresses the Son as, “O God”

Now go back to Psalm 45. Verse 1 is a kind of prologue. That is, the courtier is talking about what he is going to do. “My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king.” Those sorts of prologues you get in several psalms: Psalm 39:1–3; Psalm 47:1–4; and elsewhere. This one, we’re told, is a wedding song.

In verses 2–5, the king’s majesty and stature are extolled. “You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace, since God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one …” and so forth.

Then in verses 6–9, it’s the king’s person and state that are addressed, but it is not the king who is addressing God here. “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever.” It’s still the courtier who is addressing the king. Otherwise you can’t make sense of the two verses together. The courtier addresses the king and says, “Your throne, O God …” To the king.

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions …” That’s how we know it’s still the courtier saying it. You see, if this were the king, addressing himself to God, he could not say, “… therefore God, your God …”

This is still the courtier addressing the king, and he is saying, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom … therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions …” You think, “What’s a courtier doing, in the Old Testament, addressing the king and calling him, ‘God.’ ” Does it make you a little nervous? We’ll come to that.

Now, all the way down to verse 9, you see, “Daughters of kings are among your honored women …” That is, the courtiers are themselves princesses. “… at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir.” So we’re coming to the wedding. What happens next, then, in verses 10–12, is the psalmist addresses the bride and stresses her allegiance. “Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father’s house. That’s the kind of women’s side of Genesis 2. There the man is supposed to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

Now this bride is supposed to forget her parents’ house and cleave to her husband. Same sort of theme. “The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. The Daughter of Tyre …” Proverbial for wealth. “… will come with a gift, men of wealth will seek your favor.” Then the bridal train is described in verses 13–15, the virgin companions who follow her, and they enter the palace of the king (verse 15).

Then, in verses 16–17, you know in Hebrew by the pronouns, the psalmist goes back to addressing the king, and he says to the king, “Your sons will take the place of your fathers …” You see, out of the marriage comes children. That’s the whole point, so that the royal dynasty is maintained. The sons take the place of your fathers. “… you will make them princes throughout the land. I will perpetuate your memory through all generations …”

You see, this is not talking yet about the Messiah; it’s talking about a king who dies and whose sons come along and perpetuate the memory of the father. That’s what it’s talking about. So you ask yourself, “What on earth is going on, then, in verses 6–7? Why is it that the courtier dares to address this Davidic king and say, “O Elohim” (“O God”)? But even there, we should be careful.

You will remember, you who have done your Hebrew, that elohim can be a way simply of referring to judges, partly because judges in the Old Testament were supposed to judge with the justice of God. They were supposed to judge with the perfect justice of God. In that sense, this king partakes of something of the very character of God.

It’s stretching the language to our ears who are constantly looking at the level of ontology rather than the level of function, but that’s what the text says. But if the psalmist says this, and God is the author of Scripture, then God says this. In that sense, God himself is addressing the king. If this, as a Davidic text that looks forward to great David’s son has God speaking it, then you do have the Father addressing the Son as God.

That’s exactly the argument, but in a way that vastly outstrips David himself and finds its fulfillment precisely in great David’s greater son, of whom it is said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one. Before Abraham was, I am.” Thus you have a kind of typology in the Davidic psalm that points forward to God himself nevertheless explicitly addressing the Son as God. Nowhere does God do anything similar to that with respect to angels.

Now I wish I had the time to go through these other Old Testament texts, but I don’t. Psalm 110, down in verse 13, is extraordinarily important. It is the Old Testament chapter quoted most frequently in the New Testament, quoted more often than Isaiah 53, but because it’s quoted a little farther on in the book and we will look at it closely then we’ll just give a miss now.

However, if you go back and reread these verses, verses 4–14, instead of concluding that the psalmist here is guilty of horrible proof-texting, ripping things out of context, you begin to perceive that when he makes deep comparisons between the Son and angels, far from his reading of the text being shallow it is profoundly insightful. He grasps exactly how these great typologies work as they point forward. A little later on in the book, he will give you the justification for these typologies as they point forward. This is not a cheap proof-texting.

When I first went to Cambridge, my Doktorvater was a chap called Barnabas Lindars. His first book was called New Testament Apologetic, and his thesis was when you read through how the New Testament uses the Old Testament you quickly become disillusioned because you discover that the New Testament writers merely rip texts out of their context, use them as proof texts, and slap them into their argument. They’re not in any sense Christians because they read their Old Testament well. Rather, they adopt their Christian views because they’ve heard of Jesus and then they scour the Old Testament for appropriate texts that are ripped out of their context.

That’s his understanding of New Testament apologetic. I was not entirely convinced. Partly, I suspect, because of that I’ve devoted a fair bit of the last 30 years to working at how the New Testament does quote the Old, for it does so in many different ways, but all of them rich, thoughtful, thought through, understanding the typologies that hold things together.

The rationale for this kind of reading of the Old Testament, as I say, we’ll come to tomorrow and the next day, but understand well that once you’ve accepted that there is a Davidic typology, a Davidic modeling of things, all the rest of this argument follows. Thus, Psalm 69 is quoted repeatedly, for example, in the passion narratives because in Psalm 69, David himself is betrayed and betrayed and betrayed by his own familiar friends, as ultimately great David’s greater son would be.

Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s going to be quoted in the next chapter, as we’ll see, because great David’s greater son ultimately cried that sort of cry exactly and then was vindicated at the end, as David is vindicated in Psalm 22. Now let me come, then, to one or two practical conclusions. I know that this has been a bit technical for an after-supper sermon.

With this background perking in your mind, however, think what happens as you start skimming through the gospel accounts. Jesus begins his public ministry. He is baptized, and a voice speaks from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Then at the transfiguration, “This is my Son, hear him.”

If we feel that we are not terribly troubled in our churches by vast numbers of people who actually think Jesus might be inferior to the angels, so we wonder how exactly to apply this, then I suggest you spend a little more time watching television. All of these wonderful angel programs that are on now? At the lay level, that is much closer to pop contemporary spirituality than traditional Christianity. Don’t kid yourself.

Moreover, if you work in one of our cities, and you start evangelizing Muslims, one of the things that you discover very quickly is that Muslims are mightily impressed by angels. Mightily. I have a friend in Indonesia who started a seminary a number of years ago. One of the graduation requirements in that seminary is that you plant a church. I’m thinking of adopting the policy at Trinity, except it might reduce our numbers somewhat. In any case, over the years, that seminary in Indonesia has planted something like 1,500 churches now.

He has had as much experience as any man I know on God’s green earth preaching to Muslims, and he loves to begin by expounding Matthew 1 and 2. Do you know why? Because there are dream visions and angels five times in Matthew 1 and 2. We come to the Christmas account, you know, another vision for Joseph, and we think, “How would you explain this one?” and we’re slightly embarrassed by the whole thing.

Oh, we’re not embarrassed. We believe it. It’s in the Bible. But how do you get across this to secular Joe Smith, you know, in downtown Philadelphia, today? “It’s bad enough to get them to believe in the incarnation, but angels popping out all over the place? It’s a bit much.” Except that in the Muslim world, it’s precisely what adds authenticity to things. Isn’t it wonderful that God in his great wisdom has given us parts of the Bible that meet the different needs and demands and fears and hopes and sensitivities of people all over the world?

And in this age of spiritual aridity, there’s a whole new rage of Westerners, too, who are becoming interested in this vague thing called spirituality where angels are certainly getting top billing again. Maybe for all the wrong reasons, but somewhere along the line, somebody has got to say, “And you know what? Jesus is better than angels.” The name he inherited is better than theirs. He is the actual revelation of the Father, and after his deep humiliation, after his death and burial, when he could have called on legions of angels to help him, he didn’t.

He is exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He upholds all things by his powerful Word, and according to Holy Scripture, the legions of the highest order of angels cover their faces before his glory and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.” Jesus is better than angels. Let us pray.

Help us, we pray, as we work through this book together, not only to understand how the New Testament uses the Old, a desperately important subject if we are to have a unified Bible in our own minds and hearts, but help us beyond such technical and sometimes frankly difficult issues, to see the great truth: Jesus is better and, therefore, be drawn all the more in worship and obedience and adoration, both now and forever. For Jesus’ sake, amen.