Hebrews 1:5-14

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 to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son’? ⁶ But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him.’ ⁷ And of the angels He says: ‘Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.’ ⁸ But to the Son He says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. ⁹ You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.’

¹⁰ And: ‘You, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. ¹¹ They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; ¹² Like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.’ ¹³ But to which of the angels has He ever said: ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’? ¹⁴ Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” (All scripture is NKJV unless otherwise noted).

We are taking a comprehensive look at the book of Hebrews. I hope that you are looking forward to the journey. Last week we looked at the finished work on the Cross. Jesus was and is the only complete sacrifice for our sins, and there are no other sacrifices needed. The work has been completed, and so, unlike all of the High Priests before Him, He is able to sit down. It is finished.

Today, we will dispel any teaching that classes Jesus as merely an Angel. In the Old Testament, He is often seen as the Angel of the Lord; we see that in Judges 6:11-23, where He appears to Gideon. We see Him in Genesis 22:11-15, where He appears to Abraham, and in Judges 13: 3-22, He appears to Samson’s parents. We can offer more, but it is clear in each case that the people understood they had seen God. Samson’s dad feared he would die because he had seen God. Here in these verses in Hebrews 1, we will see that God the Father clearly shows us that Jesus is God. The goal of Hebrews is similar to the goal in the Mount of Transfiguration; this was to set apart Jesus.

“And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!'” (Mark 9:7).

God was reinforcing that Jesus was His Beloved Son, the 2nd Person of the Godhead who was in His glorious state surrounded by Moses and Elijah. The apostles had not seen Jesus in His glory until that day. They saw the Light that surrounded Him and engulfed Him in His perfection. They were in awe, dumbfounded, and it left an impression on them. Hebrews expands on that wonder; it forces us to come to the right conclusions about who Jesus is: God in the flesh.

1. Jesus my Son, verse 5

We have to remember that Jesus is a Jew, and the primary focus of the communication was with the Jews. The Gospels and now this book, Hebrews, is primarily for the Jews. Now the Gospel is for all men, but Jesus came to ‘His own’ referring to the Jewish people. In John 5:17-18, Jesus has an encounter, one of many, where the people tried to kill Him, and in these verses, we find out why they wanted to kill Him.

“But Jesus answered them, ‘To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.’ Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (Berean Study Bible).

Jesus claimed to be God’s Son, and by so doing, the Jews understood that He was making Himself equal to God. There are many people who will tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God; that is false. The Jews, in fact, understood exactly what He was saying, and it was an executable offense. Since we know that Jesus never sinned, then His claim was, in fact, truthful. God the Father calls Jesus ‘My Son’; the begotten part we know refers to the virgin birth. Jesus was there from the very creation.

“In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).

He is God, He created everything, and He is the Son of God, equal to God in all parts, in power, in knowledge, and in presence. He submitted Himself to the Cross because He loves mankind and desires to have fellowship with him. Jesus is God’s Son, making Him equal with God. He is not an angel.

2. Jesus is to be Worshipped, verse 6

True angels of God do not allow men to worship them. In Colossians 2:18, the worship of angels is forbidden in the New Testament church. “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.”

The very first commandment tells us not to have any other gods. God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the only God. But God commands that we worship and that angels worship Jesus, His beloved and begotten Son. Thus, Jesus is God as well; God cannot command you to break a commandment. In Revelation 22:6-9, we find John as he is coming to the end of the book, and he is in the presence of an angel about to worship him. The angel is adamant that this does NOT happen.

“Then he said to me, ‘These words are faithful and true.’ And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. ‘Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’ Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.'”

The angel stopped John from worshipping him; he told him to worship God only. Why? Angels are simply servants to God and servants to help us. They serve those that keep the words of this book, referring to the Revelation. Angels are not to be worshipped, and those that accept man’s worship are not God’s angels. Jesus is to be worshipped by both men and angels. He is not an angel; He is God.

3. Jesus will Rule the Universe, verses 8-9

This is not a job for angels. To be the Ruler of the Universe, one must be Omni-Present and All-Power as well as All-Knowing; angels do not fit this description. Now, we know that there will be an earthly Kingdom of Jesus founded and situated in Israel on the seat of King David. This is known as the Millennial Kingdom; we find this in many places in the Bible. In Revelation 20:1-6, we see that we will get to reign with Jesus for 1,000 years.

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

But then, after the final Judgment happens, we get a New Heaven and Earth, and that is the one that lasts forever. See Revelation 21:9-14 and beyond.

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

This eternal city will be forever and forever. In it and from it, Jesus will rule the Universe as the Supreme King. God the Father has decreed this. It will happen. God once again reinforces that Jesus is God, the Creator in Hebrews 1:10; He is the one who laid the foundation of Heaven and earth. He adds that they are perishing, BUT JESUS remains. He is eternal; He is outside of Creation. In verse 12, we are told that Jesus is the same and that His years will not fail. Jesus has no end; the creation is growing old and decaying, but Jesus is not. And then in verse 14, one day, God will make all of Jesus’ enemies His footstool. He is suppressing and subduing all of them. Jesus is not an angel; Jesus is God.

You cannot be saved unless you accept that Jesus is God. Nothing less will do, and no other belief is acceptable for salvation.

In the words of the Ethiopian Eunuch, Acts 8:37: “Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.'”

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

 

Hebrews 1:1-4

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ² has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; ³ who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴ having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (NKJV).

The book of Hebrews is a rich and potent book. It is full of doctrine and imagery that helps us to solidify our faith in Jesus our Lord. The author’s identity remains in question, and there is some debate as to who is writing this book. My observation, based on its language structure and the final greetings in chapter 13, is that Paul was the most likely author. If not Paul, then certainly one of his near companions whose association with Paul may have influenced the grammatical structure of one’s writing.

Nonetheless, the One who actually wrote the book of Hebrews is God, as we know. He oversees the writing of the scripture using some 40 writers over about 1,500 years to author a coherent and well laid out narrative that is fraught with science, historical facts, supernatural characters and offers us an insight into the world that we cannot see. Much like Daniel in the Old Testament, a book that is dedicated to the Gentile history in the future, the book of Hebrews ties all of the Jewish histories into the present moment and shows the culmination of God’s oversight from Abraham to Jesus.

The book of Hebrews is thirteen chapters, and it is a very detailed book about events that happened in the Old Testament. We will explore them as best we can and draw all we can out of the texts. I encourage you to read the book, maybe multiple times to get the gist of the context and an overview of the content. This is a book rich in doctrine, not for the faint of heart and not for the novice. I pray that you will enjoy this journey, but more so, that you and I will be challenged to trust God more, be anchored in our faith more, and become more aware of God’s grace, the power of His salvation, and the honest realization that God used and uses sinful men; He always has and always will.

When we get to chapter 11, called the Hall of Faith, we will meet some characters that many would not allow in our churches today, but these men and women changed the world. Let me give you an example. David is called a ‘man after God’s own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14), then again in Acts 13:22, yet David had eight wives; they are listed in 2 Chronicles 15:13. We have a hard time at times dealing with this, and we tend to avoid these kinds of discussions because they are uncomfortable and they do not fit our narratives of Christianity. Yet God used and is still using David to this day to move His kingdom ahead. We are not condoning sin, never, but it is a reality of the Christian walk, even in godly men and women.

• God, verse 1

The book just jumps right in. There is no salutation, no introduction of any kind, and not even the name of the author. It begins with God and what He did in the past and is doing now. The assumption here is that the author does not need to prove to the reader that there is a God. This book is for people of the faith, people who are saved and have moved or are moving from the ‘milk’ of the Bible to some meat. This is the solid food, the deep doctrinal stuff that is going to make us think and make us come to a greater appreciation of what Jesus has done.

If you are still looking to find out if God is real, then the book of Hebrews is not for you. It will cause more confusion and create more questions than provide answers. But if you are looking for a spiritual journey, stick with me and we will get you through this. Maybe you want to get into the meat of the Bible and were a bit timid; that we can work with. We will take small bites, chew them as best we can, and digest these truths so as to make us all stronger in the faith for the Lord and His Kingdom.

• God Spoke, verses 1-2

To understand the book of Hebrews, we will need to explore the Bible in great detail. The Old Testament is primarily about the Jews. It is about the plan of God to redeem man using a Savior who is born in the bloodline of Abraham. The journey through the Old Testament details a supernatural war that is played out before us – a war that began in Genesis 3 with the temptation and subsequent fall of man; a war that has been waging for 6,000 years or so between Light and Darkness; a war that has encompassed all of humanity; a war that required that God become a man and die to redeem His creation; a war that required the Creator to allow the creation to kill Him; a war that is as alive and explosive today as it was in the days of Job.

The Old Testament lays out for us a plan, created and sustained by God, that encompassed 1,500 years of God watching over the lineage of His Son – taking them from modern-day Iraq, a place called Ur of Chaldeans, and into the modern-day land of Israel. His oversight preserved the Levitical line and the tribe of Judah as well as a remnant that will emerge to be marked by God in the very last days (see Revelation 7). God showed us this plan using writers like Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy), Joshua, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Micah, Daniel, and many others. Many of these men never met; they wrote in different geographical locations, and yet the continuity of the account is astonishing. One can go from book to book and find a consistent and coherent theme, and that theme is Jesus.

In John 5:39-40, Jesus makes this statement; He is addressing the religious leaders there in Jerusalem, and they talk about the Old Testament. In it, they think that keeping the Law of Moses will bring them eternal life. Sadly, many peoples and religions still think that to this day. But Jesus makes an astonishing statement,

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (NKJV).

The entire story of the Old Testament is about Jesus. The Law is about Jesus, the prophets tell us about Jesus, the Psalms are about Jesus, the Proverbs, and on and on we can go. Jesus is the central theme, the central character, the Hero, and the main focus of the Old Testament. When we understand this, things that were confusing now become clear, and we can begin to digest and apply the spiritual truths that we are confronted with.

In the Old Testament, God speaks about Jesus. There are pictures and what are called Christophanies where Jesus shows up and talks to people. We will see one of these later in Hebrews when we meet a man called Melchizedek. But Jesus shows up in the book of the Judges to Gideon, He shows up to Samson’s mother and father, He shows up to talk to Daniel, and on and on we can go. Jesus is the central theme of the Bible. He is the Creator in John 1; He is the Savior, the Redeemer, the Sustainer; He will be the King of the Jews; He will rule the world; and He will right the political and ethical wrongs of the world when He returns. Take a look at Isaiah 9: 6-7:

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name 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, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (NKJV).

This is a Jesus prophecy; the book of Isaiah is filled with them. Then there is the famous Isaiah 53, the very chapter the Ethiopian Eunuch was reading from in Acts 8. And from that text, Philip taught him about Jesus; and that man, according to Acts 8:37, came to understand that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.

“Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.'”

• God’s Right Hand, verse 3

Jesus sat down once the events recorded in the Gospel were over. This is significant, and it is important for us to explore the furniture of the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple to understand the importance of this. Look at Hebrews 9:1-5, and we will see the seven (7) furniture pieces in the Tabernacle and later the Temple.

“Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary; and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things, we cannot now speak in detail” (NKJV).

You will notice that there were no chairs in the Temple or the Tabernacle. Why? Because the work of the Priests and High Priests was never finished. The sacrificing went on day in and day out for about 1,000 years until Jesus came and died on the cross. The priests were not allowed to sit in the Temple at all. They stood to perform their service, and once a year, the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was and offered a blood sacrifice for the sins of the nation of Israel.

These sacrifices began each day with the morning sacrifice at about 9 am and then finished with the evening sacrifice at about 3 pm. If you take a look at the Gospels, you will see that Jesus was on the cross at about 9 am (the morning sacrifice), and He died at about 3 pm (the evening sacrifice). He was the first and the last. Mark 15:25-37 lays this out for us.

“Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS. With Him they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the other on His left. So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!’ Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.’ Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him.

“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.’ And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last” (NKJV).

Notice that the 3rd hour was 9 am (morning sacrifice), and the 9th hour was at 3 pm (evening sacrifice). Jesus was and is our complete sacrifice, so now He can sit down since the work is finished. Jesus paid the total and final price for all of our sins. The veil has been torn; and He, our High Priest in Heaven, has offered His own blood as the FULL PAYMENT for our sins, yours and mine. This is the confidence we need to have in regard to our salvation. Jesus paid the price once and for all. When we are saved, we are saved forever. Jesus died ONCE, for all, forever.

We will explore this even further as we travel through the book of Hebrews. I pray that you will enjoy the journey as we grow in our knowledge, appreciation, and admiration of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca