April 14th 2019 – Hebrews 1:4-6

"having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

“You are my Son,
    today I have begotten you”?

Or again,

“I will be to him a father,
    and he shall be to me a son”?

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

“Let all God's angels worship him.”

Hebrews 1:4-6

The burden of the remaining verses of the chapter is to establish the superiority of Christ, and the revelation God gave in Him, over the angels. In these verses the contrast is made that whereas angels are servants, Christ is the Son. The force of this kind of argument may not be immediately apparent to us, but it surely was to the Hebrews to whom the Apostle wrote. We have only to think of the extensive and widespread activity of angels in Old Testament times (e.g. Genesis 28:10-17; Joshua 5:13-15; 2 Kings 6:15-17; Psalm 91:5-12) to realise how much store they set on such angelic ministry and how much they revered them - and how little disposed they would be to brook any suggestion that there could be anything higher or greater than this. 'Was not our Law ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator? What could be greater than this?' But this is precisely what the Christian gospel does claim. There is something higher and greater. The Jews may have the angels, but the Christians have Him Who made them, Him Who has been given a Name that is above every name, be it angel, principality or power, Him of Whom it is said that the angels of God are to worship Him (6).