Hebrews Chapter 1
1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
God speaks to us. But how few care to listen when God speaks, and act upon what He says!
If some famous actor or politician or athlete speaks many pay attention, and react. But few have time to actually read in the Bible what God spoke to man and take His words seriously.
Our minds might acknowledge that God speaks, but the amount of time we spend studying what God has said would actually lead a watcher to think that God – the wisest and greatest person of all time – has been very silent!
God speaks to us through the prophets. If you and I can’t tell what God said through Moses or through Daniel or through Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Nahum or any of the other prophets then we don’t really believe that God has spoken through the prophets, do we?
God spoke to us in many portions (that is, through not just one prophet but through many) and in many ways. In the same way, God also speaks to us through many ways. For this reason, we need to be alert to what is happening around us, for God could be using any one or more of those situations to tell us something. A faucet leak, a lost phone, a car breakdown, the failing of a trusted friend – all these can be God speaking to us, if we have ears to hear.
God has now spoken to us through His Son, Jesus.
The Son is very special: the universe was created through the Son, and the Son is appointed heir of all things (that is, the universe belongs to Him).
In this chapter, the writer is telling us that God spoke to us through is Son, and what He said must be taken so much more seriously because the Son is so much higher than the prophets and the angels through whom God had spoken through earlier.
Jesus once told the Pharisees a parable of how God sent His servants to speak to them and they killed His servants, and then God sent His Son and they killed His Son too, and thereby brought upon themselves the wrath of God by which their entire nation would be destroyed.
3 And He 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 purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.
Jesus is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature. Therefore, if you want to understand God you need to carefully study the life of Jesus. If you don’t you will get a very wrong idea of God.
Jesus upholds all things by the word of His power. The universe is able to function only because it is upheld by the word of the power of God. All the universe constants remain constant because of this. All the laws of nature remain laws and don’t deviate even a bit because of this. If God did not uphold the universe it would cease to exist.
While Jesus was man He wasn’t upholding the universe. I think that responsibility got transferred to the Holy Spirit. After Jesus was raised and became fully God once again He took that responsibility back and the Holy Spirit was able dwell in man and fill man. That is possibly why Jesus told His disciples that they would not be able to receive the Holy Spirit until He goes back to the Father.
Heb 1:3-4 refers to Jesus after the resurrection (because it says, "When He had made purification of sins.") Therefore it raises an important question. If Jesus was always fully God (as many teach), how could He have become (the keyword here is ‘become’) better than the angels? There would never have been a time when He wasn’t better than the angels? And how could He have inherited a more excellent name than the angels? If He was never less than fully God then He would have always had a better name than the angels, wouldn’t He?
What was the name that Jesus inherited after He was raised? It was the name of being ‘fully God’ – a name that is indeed more excellent than what any of the angels have. Angels don’t sit at the right hand of the Father, but the Son does.
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"? 6 And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP 7 And of the angels He says, "WHO MAKES HIS ANGELS WINDS, AND HIS MINISTERS A FLAME OF FIRE." 8 But of the Son He says, "YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER, AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM.
Here the writer is showing that Jesus is superior to the angels in the Father’s sight. The Father calls Jesus (and not the angels) His Son. The Father commands the angels to worship His Son when He was born as a man. The Father treats the angels as servants but gives the Son an eternal throne. With these examples, the writer makes it very clear that Jesus is far superior compared to the angels.
The writer’s point is that the Old Testament was communicated to us via angels whereas the New Covenant was communicated to us via the Son. That is why, his readers should be willing to abandon the Old Covenant for the New Covenant.
9 "YOU HAVE LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED LAWLESSNESS; THEREFORE * GOD, YOUR GOD, HAS ANOINTED YOU WITH THE OIL OF GLADNESS ABOVE YOUR COMPANIONS."
Jesus loved what is right, and hated what is wrong.
We must have the same attitude.
To the extent that we have such an attitude we will be able to rejoice about our situation in the end. Jesus had such an attitude more than any human being and therefore God gave Him the highest honor. There is no partiality with God. If you want God to honor you this is the way to get it.
10 And, "YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; 11 THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT, 12 AND LIKE A MANTLE YOU WILL ROLL THEM UP; LIKE A GARMENT THEY WILL ALSO BE CHANGED. BUT YOU ARE THE SAME, AND YOUR YEARS WILL NOT COME TO AN END."
Unlike the angels, Jesus was the Creator of the universe, establishing His deity.
Unlike the universe, Jesus does not age, and will exist forever. This also points out that Jesus is external to the universe, and not a part of it.
This verse, and its original quote in the Old Testament, tells us that the universe becomes old. This is confirmed by the second law of thermodynamics in physics, which tells us that the entropy of the universe increases, and the universe, if allowed to continue, will ultimately end up in a state where the temperature all over will be the same and no work will be possible. All this was written long before the second law of thermodynamics was discovered (around 1824 AD).
Heaven and earth will be rolled up and changed one day. The book of Revelation tells us that this will happen after the millennium and there will be a new heaven and new earth.
13 But to which of the angels has He ever said, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET"?
God treats Jesus very differently from how He treats His angels. Jesus gets to sit at the right hand of the Father but none of the angels are allowed to do that. Jesus is far above all angels. The writer makes this point to show how important it is for us to consider what God has spoken to us through Jesus.
Jesus has enemies – Satan and his hosts. We must make sure that we never side with the enemies of Jesus in anything, or give them an opportunity to blaspheme. We read in 2 Sam 12:14 how David’s deed gave the enemies of the Lord occasion to blaspheme, and David’s life went downhill after that. We should not make the same mistake.
14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
Angels exist to serve believers.
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