Chapter 1

By way of introduction, one of the big questions has to do with the human author of the book of

Hebrews. There are about five different views on who is the human author of Hebrews. The first view is that Luke wrote Hebrews, and this was held by Origen, one of the early church fathers, Calvin, Deilitch, and many others. The reason for this is because the Greek of the book of Hebrews is very polished. In some cases it is almost classical Greek. It is most interesting that the epistle that has the most information by way of Jewish background should also be the purest type of Greek. However there is way too much Jewish background in this epistle for it to be written by a Gentile, and Luke was a Gentile.

The second view is that Clement of Rome wrote Hebrews, and this is held by Eusebius, Erasmus. At one time Origen said that it had Paul’s thoughts but Clement of Rome or Luke wrote it. Again, there is too much Jewish background for Clement of Rome.

The third view of the early church fathers was that Barnabas was the human author, and this is supported by Tertullian, and Godet. Barnabas was a Levite with a good Jewish background. He was also the mediator between Paul and Jewish Christians. But a well-known person like Barnabas would not be obscured in this. However, even today Barnabas is considered by scholars to be the leading contender.

A fourth view, one held by Martin Luther, was that Apollos wrote Hebrews. As a Jew from Alexandria and well-versed in the Old Testament he is obviously a contender. However, no ancient tradition or testimony exists in that direction.

The fifth view, which was held by Clement of Alexandria, the Chester Beatty papyri, Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine and others was that Paul wrote it. It is not like Paul, however, to omit his name and the style of Hebrews is too smooth, too literary a Greek for Paul. Paul only wrote in an elliptical style and a very rough style. Paul would quote the Old Testament also from the Hebrew text and whoever wrote Hebrews did not quote Old Testament passages from the Hebrew text, but quoted from the Greek text — from the Septuagint. Obviously there are Pauline ideas here but this is not the Pauline vocabulary.

The conclusion, then, is that the writer is anonymous. As Origen, one of the early church fathers summarised, “God only knows certainly who wrote Hebrews.” That brings us to the fact that it is not the man but it is the message, and whoever wrote Hebrews was deliberately obscured by God the Holy Spirit. The reasons will be obvious when we study it.

The epistle was written in 67 AD, three years before the fall of Jerusalem and the fifth cycle of discipline’s administration. This was the last warning of the coming of the fifth cycle of discipline to the Jews. The first warning came from the Lord Jesus Christ when he prophesied of it in Luke chapter twenty-one, verses twenty through twenty-four.

The Lord Jesus Christ in the previous context had been warning born again Jews to get out of Jerusalem, to stay away from Jerusalem, during the time of the fulfilment of this prophecy. He said in verse 17, “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake, but there shall not a hair of your head perish” — and then a very interesting verse, “In your patience possess ye your souls” .You possess your soul by the use of the faith-rest technique.

Luke 21:20 — “And when ye shall see,” the aorist active subjunctive of o(raw, indicating that some will see it and some will not. Jesus prophesied in 30 AD and these things would occur in 70 AD The aorist tense refers to the point of time when the Roman armies would invade Judea, which is actually 66 AD The active voice: some believers will see this event. The subjunctive mood: not all believers will see these things, many will die before 70 AD — “Jerusalem compassed,” the present passive participle of kuklow, which means to be surrounded and invested for siege, to be encircled. The present passive voice: they receive encirclement by the armies — “with armies” — the word “with” is u(po, ‘under the authority of armies’, and it is a reference to the Roman army. In fact it refers to the fifth, tenth, and twelfth legions. Three legions were used by Vespasian in surrounding Jerusalem.

In 145 BC the Jews won their independence. They lost it in some measure by 63 BC due to the fact that Pompey invaded the land of Judea and took over for a while. From 63 — 40 BC Herod the Great, however, stood as the ruler of the area. When Herod died in 4 B. C. the country went over to Rome as a Roman province, but it still had a lot of autonomy. This lasted until 66 AD at which time the Romans began to crack down on a revolt and by 70 AD the country lost out completely. It was Nero who was especially interested in trying to destroy and crush the Jews, and before this could happen he died, stabbing himself to death, and as he did he said, “What a pity that such a great artist should die.” He was neither great nor an artist, he was a monster. Vespasian who could not stand Nero had been banished. Nero had been in Greece competing in the Greek music festival. He always won! He played the flute and sang, and Vespasian would put his hands over his ears — he was a general who went along in the staff — and when Nero saw this he said, “That man is ruining my performance, let’s find something for him to do.” He was told the Jewish war was just beginning and Vespasian was sent to command. In that way Vespasian became the next Caesar.

The armies here refer to the Roman army — “then know that the desolation is near.” “Then know” is the aorist active imperative of ginwskw. Ginwskw means you will know by observing it then. This is a constative aorist for this will be observed for a few months before the siege culminates. The word “desolation” is really “devastation”, complete destruction. “Is near” is the perfect active indicative of e)ggizw, which means “has come to pass with the result that it is there.” There is no change in it. The only thing believers can do is get out.

Verse 21 — “Then let them in Judea flee,” present active imperative of fugw which means get out and get out now. Don’t waste any time, don’t look back, don’t think about it, just get away. Robertson said that Christians did flee from Jerusalem to a place called Pella before it was too late — Vol. 2, p259 of Robertson’s Grammar.

“let them flee to the mountains” — this is Edom. Moab and Ammon even as it will be in the Tribulation. These are mountains in southern Palestine — “and let them who are in the midst of it [Jerusalem] depart” — ‘depart’ is a present active participle of e)kxorew and it doesn’t mean to depart out, it means to get out without picking anything up along the way — “and let them not [these are believers] enter therein” — do not enter back into Jerusalem for any reason at any time.

Verse 22 — “These be the days of vengeance” — a reference to the fifth cycle of discipline as portrayed in Leviticus 26:27-46, and in Deuteronomy 28:49-67 — “which have been written” — perfect passive participle of grafw: written in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy. The perfect tense indicates the Old Testament; the passive voice means they were prophesied; the participle indicates the fifth cycle of discipline is a principle — “may be fulfilled” — the aorist passive infinitive of plhrow which in this case means “completed” — the completion of the plan of God. The aorist tense refers to the siege of Jerusalem. The passive voice: the Jews receive the fifth cycle of discipline. The infinitive is God’s purpose to handle the Jews in this way.

Verse 23 — it is no time to have children, to have babies that can’t walk — “For there shall be great distress in the land” — hunger and famine. “In the land” is e)pi which usually means “upon” but there is a use of it where it means “against” — “there shall be great pressure against the land.” Then the pressure is described as being punitive measures from God — “and wrath upon this people [the Jews].”

Verse 24 — “They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations” — 92,000 were led captive; about 2-million killed — “and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled.” The times of the Gentiles will end with the second advent.

This was the warning of our Lord; Hebrews is actually the second warning. We know from Hebrews 6:6 that the temple was still standing and this had not occurred as yet.

The recipients of Hebrews: This is addressed to Jewish believers living in Jerusalem three years before the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline. The Jews have exactly three years to build an edification complex in the soul and get out before the Romans get there.

The purpose of the epistle

1. To warn believers regarding reversionism and to aid them in recovery of an ECS, and to provide doctrine to aid them in the recovery of the ECS. At that time in history it was imperative that they recover the ECS because if you do not recover one in a time of crisis you forfeit your life as well and the administration of the sin unto death is concurrent with the administration of national judgement. So there are certain times in history when you can’t afford to be in reversionism because you get caught in the trap.

2. To deliver believers in Jerusalem from the catastrophe of the fifth cycle of discipline.

3. To clarify the issues of the angelic conflict. The believers in Jerusalem are going to see a great deal of conflict but they are only in a double conflict — a conflict with the Romans, but greater than that is the angelic conflict and the believer’s relationship to this great spiritual warfare. Believers are engaged in a spiritual warfare from the time they are saved. Even in time of peace you are in warfare.

4. To lead believers to maturity through the erection of the ECS. The priesthood of the believer is supplied to every Christian at the point of salvation to hasten his movement toward maturity. You cannot dilly-dally along the way in phase two, you must become a mature believer quickly and rapidly. This involves the function of GAP is specific fields of doctrine taught in this epistle.

5. To reveal the glory of the person of Jesus Christ and stimulate while on earth occupation with Christ, or maximum category one love response.

6. To orient the believer to grace principles of the universal priesthood of the believer. The universal priesthood of the believer is the spring from which rivers and fountains and lakes and oceans of grace orientation stem. God has found a way to work for you during the Church Age. This is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict and God has found a way to work for you by providing for you a system.

7. To distinguish between the Jewish dispensation and the Church Age, and the reality of your priesthood and its function is never possible until you become a dispensationalist, recognising the difference between the Church Age and the Age of Israel.

8. To relate the priesthood of the believer to every facet of phase two.

The outline of chapter one

1. Jesus Christ as the victor of the angelic conflict — verses 1-4.

2. The Old Testament documentation regarding the superiority of Christ to angels — verses 5-13.

3. The result of the superiority of Christ to angels through the priesthood — verse 14.

Verses 1-4, Jesus Christ the victor in the angelic conflict. It took a lot of things to make Christ the victor. First of all it took the authorisation of God the Father.

Verse 1 — “God” — o( qeoj is literally, “The God.” This epistle begins with the highest and greatest subject in the universe — “The God.” There is no way that man can be the victor in the angelic conflict apart from the plan of God, the decree of God, the authorisation of God. We are going to start with Jesus Christ as God, and yet Jesus Christ becomes a man, lower than angels. And yet as a man and as a member of the human race we have the key to the victory. It took a lot of planning to take Jesus Christ, eternal God, coequal with the Father and with the Spirit, and suddenly cause Him to become a member of the human race, the human race being lower than the angelic race. It took a lot of planning for the one who is lower than the angels to become higher than the angels. It is very simply and very easily stated several times in this chapter but there is nothing easy or simple about the plan behind it. And in order to understand the plan you have to understand the planner. it is to our advantage to know how in the great spiritual conflict, how in the angelic conflict. God the Father actually came up with a plan whereby the angels get their comeuppance from a lower creature. Jesus Christ could have slugged Satan and wiped out all of the angels in eternity past before man was created. But you have to remember that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all share this magnificent thing called a sense of humour, and the devil who in all of his pride and in all of his genius came up with what he thought was a sure way of getting out of the lake of fire and getting all of the fallen angels off the hook. All God had to do was snap His fingers and the lake of fire would have existed, and all of the fallen angels would have dropped into the lake of fire immediately. But then that is no contest. The omnipotence of God versus the power of Satan is no contest. Satan hasn’t a chance. And so God in His magnificent sense of humour came up with a brilliant, beautiful idea: Why not create something lower than angels, something inferior to angels, and through that lower and inferior creation whip all the angels; totally defeat them, and have one man who will do it. So we are going to go in this particular paragraph of two and a half verses from Jesus Christ, eternal God, made lower than angels, to Jesus Christ the last Adam, the one who in His humanity completely broke the back of the angels and of Satan in the angelic conflict.

But we have to start with, What is God like? Who and what is God? Why could God come up with this marvellous plan? So first of all let us notice that there are two concepts of God in the scripture: the essence of God and the person of God. In essence God is one. He is sovereignty, absolute righteousness, justice, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability and veracity. Veracity especially will come into the faith-rest picture. Faith-rest has as its object Jesus Christ as the God-Man, and the veracity of Jesus Christ in that certain promises are made, and the thinking of Jesus Christ where the doctrine is. So the promises come from the veracity of Christ, the doctrine comes from the omnipotence of Christ, and the whole person is responsible for providing objects for faith in phase two. In essence God is one, that is, the Father, the Son and the Spirit — all have the same essence. There are three separate and distinct persons who have this identical essence and each one has a part in the plan. The Father is the author of the plan; the Son executes the plan; the Holy Spirit gives power for the plan.

So we begin in the English, though not in the Greek, with the words, “The God.” Actually, “the God” comes at the end of three interesting adverbs. The Greek starts out by saying, Polumeroj kai polutropwj palai o( qeoj. In other words, before we get to the name of God in this verse we have three adverbs. The first one is polumeroj which means “in many parts” .It is actually a reference to the Old Testament which is going to be used for documentation beginning in verse 5. In many parts of the Old Testament Jesus Christ is revealed. In many parts of the Old Testament we have the person who would eventually come in the flesh [incarnation] and would be the basis for breaking Satan’s back in the angelic conflict. Jesus Christ is going to come as the last Adam, but in the Old Testament He was not the last Adam, He did not come in the flesh. He was in Christophanies, he came in different manifestations. he came as an angel; He is the Angel of Jehovah. He came as the man who wrestled with Jacob. He came in many manifestations in many parts of the scripture. He is revealed from Genesis all of the way through to Malachi. Many parts of the scripture talk about Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the subject of the Old Testament even as He is the subject of the New Testament. And while the New Testament uses Greek and therefore ‘Ihsouj Xristoj kurioj, words which are Greek, He is also found by the word Jehovah, by the word El, by the word Elohim, by the word Adonai, and by many other words and designations. So the first adverb does not talk about God as a person, the first adverb talks about the Old Testament. God as a person is nebulous, abstruse, unknown to us, apart from revelation, and the entire first chapter of Hebrews is a very strong proof of the importance of the Old Testament. The Old Testament reveals Jesus Christ in many ways. The Old Testament reveals many wonderful things about Him. The principle of occupation with Christ existed just as much in the Old Testament as it does in the New. They did not have doctrines that we have, the whole realm of the Church Age doctrine was unknown to them, was actually blocked out to them. However, they had enough doctrine, enough information so that the same principle under which we operate — occupation with Christ — was very much available to them. The human race had to exist and continue to exist until the incarnation. The Jewish nation had to exist and there had to come out of the Jewish nation into the human race Jesus Christ as the God-Man, born not only a Jew but born King of the Jews, born not only royalty of the Jews but born as the one lower than the angels, who would break the back of Satan and who would totally defeat all angels in the angelic conflict. Therefore this verse in the Greek does not start with God, it starts with three adverbs, and the first adverb tells us that Jesus Christ is revealed in many parts of the Old Testament. So literally, “In many parts.”

The next phrase “in divers manners” is actually the second adverb, polutropwj which means “in different ways.” Jesus Christ was revealed in different ways — theophanies, anthropomorphisms, types, tabernacles, the offerings, the holy days. All of the ways in which Christ was revealed are brought out by the second adverb. The first adverb, then, says in every part of the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi Jesus Christ was revealed — in many parts of the Old Testament. Then the second adverb says in many way Jesus Christ was revealed. These many ways are going to be in contrast to the New Testament where Jesus Christ is revealed in one way.

Then there is a third adverb, palai, which indicates we are talking about Old Testament times. Palai means “of old.” So we have, “In many parts and in many ways of old, the God.” “The God” is the subject. Why? “The God spake” — aorist active participle of lalew. Lalew means to communicate. The action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb is at the beginning of verse 2 — “hath spoken.” “In many parts [of the Old Testament] and in different ways of old the God having spoken” — ingressive aorist tense, “he began to speak.” That isn’t all we have about Christ. When did God begin to speak about Jesus Christ? In the Old Testament. “Having begun to speak”, the aorist is ingressive, God just began to speak then about Christ. And there is a point: Ever since man has lived on the earth God has spoken about Jesus Christ. There are two things that man learned in the garden: who was his right woman and who and what Jesus Christ was. Jesus Christ was his teacher, and also there was a right woman there. The principle remained the same. From the time of the garden and innocence there never has been a time in any generation, in any age, among any group of people where Jesus Christ has not been known, and there never will be. Jesus Christ is the most important subject to the human race; He is the only celebrity for believers. Jesus Christ was the only celebrity in the garden. Once man fell, Jesus Christ was the only celebrity. The seed of the woman is the only saviour. Jesus Christ demands first place in the human race. Why? One of the reasons set forth by Hebrews: Jesus Christ lower than angels, defeated angels. And since the day that Jesus Christ ascended into the presence of the Father in His resurrection body, from that day right down to this moment, from now on, it is a matter of the enemy is defeated and we are in the mop-up stage, and will be until the second advent. The enemy is already defeated.

There are pockets of believers who do not know this in every generation, and these believers get into reversionism. It is possible to be winning a battle and to be defeated in certain parts of the battlefield. That has happened many times in history. It is possible to be on the winning side and still be losing in your corner of the battlefield. That is why reversionism is so bad.

Principle: Reversionism is incompatible with winning the angelic conflict. The devil counterattacks only where reversionism exists. Reversionism is also incompatible with the priesthood of the believer; it is incompatible with the grace of God; it is incompatible with everything that belongs to you since the day you were saved. The big problem in Jerusalem at the time of the writing of Hebrews was that about 95 per cent of the believers were reversionistic, and it was totally incompatible with the angelic conflict, with the priesthood of the believer.

Jesus Christ has always been revealed. “Having spoken unto the fathers” — “the fathers” is dative plural of advantage, pathr, refers to the national ancestors of the Jews, the Jews of Old Testament times — “by the prophets” — e)n plus the instrumental plural of profhthj — “by means of the prophets.” The writers of the Old Testament were all prophets.

“In many parts [of the Old Testament] and in many different ways of old, the God, having communicated to the fathers by means of the prophets.”

The doctrine of the prophets of the Old Testament

1. There are three categories of Old Testament prophets who wrote. a) Super prophet: Moses. His brother was the high priest — prophet and priest in the same family; b) The office of prophet; c) The gift of prophet. In addition to this there was another category of prophet, those who did not write, like Elijah and Elisha, and they functioned in the process of communicating God’s message to a specific generation.

2. The first section of the Hebrew Old Testament was written by the super prophet, Moses. It is called the Torah and includes the first five books of the Old Testament, and possibly Job as well. There are actually three super prophets in history: Moses, Jeremiah, and Jesus Christ.

3. The second section of the Old testament is called the Nebiim, and that means “the prophets.” The ones who wrote in this section, the human authors, held the prophetic office. They are divided into two groups: the former prophets — Joshua, whoever wrote Judges, Samuel, Kings; the latter prophets — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve (the so-called minor prophets).

4. The third section of the Hebrew canon is called Kethubim, which means “writings.” Those who were the human authors of this section had the gift of prophecy, not the office. There are three sections: first the prophetical books, Psalms, Proverbs and Job; the second section is called the Megilloth which means the five rolls: Song of Solomon, which was always read at the Passover, the book of Ruth, read at Pentecost, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, given during Tabernacles, and Esther, given during the feast of Purim; the third section has three historical books. Daniel was not regarded as a prophecy but rather as a historical book, Ezra and Nehemiah was one book, Chronicles was one book. So we have Daniel, Nehemiah, Chronicles.

Verse 2 — the New Testament revelation. “In these last days” begins with the word e)pi. E)pi can mean different things. E)pi with the genitive, with the ablative, means “upon” or “in,” but e)pi with the accusative means “against” or “toward” or “over upon”, and so on. All prepositions seem to have two or three meanings, depending upon the case of the object of the preposition. We can translate this “In the last of these days” or “Upon the last of these days.” Either way it specifically refers to the New Testament canon, and it should be translated not “in these last days” but “upon the last of these days”, which is a phrase in the Greek for the rest of history. For the rest of history God reveals Himself through the incarnate Christ. The New Testament is the revelation of the incarnate Christ. The Old Testament: Jesus Christ was always revealed as God, and He took upon Himself the form of man, the form of angels, the form of burning bush, a cloud, the Shekinah glory, etc. But when you get down to the New Testament that is after the incarnation. The New Testament was all written after Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father and therefore Jesus Christ is revealed in a different way, in a different language. Now He is the God-Man and this passage will emphasise His humanity because through His humanity He won the victory of the angelic conflict, and humanity is created lower than angels. There is no revelation, by the way, beyond the closing of the canon of scripture. The complete revelation of Jesus Christ takes us right down to the book of Revelation. In fact the book of Revelation is the panoramic history of Christ from the cross to the end of time. The Bible is the only source of revelation with regard to God, and God the Son is the only revealed member of the Godhead. he is revealed in one way in the Old Testament; he is revealed another way in the New Testament. The two are brought together in a very dramatic way, beginning in verse 5 and going through verse 13. This is a very dramatic passage. Why? Because this is the New Testament quoting the Old Testament as documentation for Christ winning the angelic conflict.

Now we come to our main verb — “hath spoken.” This time we have the aorist active indicative of lalew which means to communicate. We had it as an aorist active participle, now in the second verse we have it as an aorist active indicative. “The God, having spoken in the Old Testament”: the aorist active participle for communication. Jesus Christ was revealed in the Old Testament; Jesus Christ was revealed in the New Testament — the aorist active indicative. The indicative indicates this is the main verb and this is the ultimate in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Once Jesus Christ as a man breaks the back of Satan then we are ready for the ultimate in revelation. The ultimate in revelation is the New Testament.

“unto us” — we are the recipients and the beneficiaries of things never known before. Moses longed to see our day but never got there. We are alive in one of the most dramatic moments in all of history. We are alive when Jesus Christ has already won the victory of the angelic conflict, as we shall see in chapter two, and having already won the victory it is now a matter of the details of the Church Age: the completion of the body, the calling out of the bride for Christ. Christ could not have a body and a bride until he became a true member of the human race and won the angelic conflict. He won it at the cross and at the ascension. Now He has a bride, and the reason why we have an interruption of the Jewish Age is simply because the bride is not to be taken from the Jews, the bride is to be taken from Jews and Gentiles. The bride will be unique, and therefore once a person believes in Christ in this age he is not a Jew, he is not a Gentile, he is a member of the body of Christ and will some day be the bride and, as a matter of fact, be the next section of the resurrection.

Now, once again, we have e)n plus the instrumental, only there is a contrast. We had in the last verse e)n plus the instrumental of profhthj, now we have e)n plus the instrumental of u(ioj — “adult son.” Notice the contrast. In the Old Testament lalew, aorist active participle; New Testament, aorist active indicative. Now we have a contrast of prepositional phrases. Both are e)n plus the instrumental but the object of the preposition: Old Testament prophets. Now, notice here, all revelation is confined to u(ioj — “through Son.” Why? Because the Son has now true humanity. He is the God-Man, He is the unique person of the universe. He is different from God; He is humanity. He is different from humanity; He is God. He is unique. And as a man He broke the back of Satan.

There is no pronoun here, there is no definite article here. Notice it says “by means of His Son.” There is no “His”; there is no definite article. The absence of the definite article calls attention to the uniqueness of Christ, and while you can translate it literally “by means of a Son” it really means “by means of Son.” There is nothing that precedes u(ioj. In other words, in the Greek this is the antithesis of English. In the Greek the absence of the definite article is stronger and it is like underlining the word “Son.” It is like putting it in caps and underlining it.

The big contrast then: in the Old Testament God spoke through the prophets; in the New Testament God speaks through the unique Son. In the Old Testament the prophets were many voices; in the New Testament the Son is one voice. In the New Testament God has spoken in one way and in one part: Jesus Christ, the Son. This principle alone makes the human author anonymous. This is the one book where the human author had to be anonymous; it is absolutely vital.

Summary

1. There are separate revelations in different passages of the Old testament regarding Jesus Christ.

2 Each revelation sets forth a truth about Jesus Christ.

3. In the Old Testament each generation of believers needed a fresh voice; a different prophet was raised up.

4. But now all truth is set forth in the God-Man, Jesus Christ — John 1:14,17.

5. The Old Testament dealt in shadow revelation but with the incarnation and the manifestation of Christ the shadows are removed.

6. Christ is the reality that removes all the shadows.

7. While the revelation of the two testaments differs in mechanics and content the source is the same — o( qeoj; and the subject is the same — Jesus Christ.

8. Therefore all revelation focuses on Jesus Christ who is the victor in the angelic conflict.

At this point we begin with Jesus Christ in the divine decrees. He is the subject of the divine decrees.

“whom he hath appointed heir of all things” — “Whom” is the accusative singular of o(j; the antecedent is Jesus Christ. He is both the subject and the object of divine revelation — “he hath appointed,” the aorist active indicative of tiqemi, which means to decree. The subject is God the Father, o( qeoj; the object is Jesus Christ. As the planner God the Father appointed the Son. The aorist tense: this a point in eternity. The aorist means occurrence. There was an occurrence in eternity: the doctrine of divine decrees. This is brought out in Psalm 2:7. The active voice: the Father appointed the Son as a part of the divine plan, as the focal point of the divine plan. Remember that we are in the plan of God but the focal point, the important thing, in the plan of God is Jesus Christ. The indicative mood is the reality of the appointment of Jesus Christ as the victor in the angelic conflict. Jesus Christ was there when the appointment was made; He was there when the decrees were decreed; and He is also the subject and the basis of it.

And He was to be made the “heir of all things” — the accusative singular of klhronomoj. This means “heir and possessor” of all things. The genitive plural of paj means that as the victor of the angelic conflict Christ is going to be the heir of both angels and mankind. Christ inherits everything in the two systems of things. He inherits all regenerate kingdoms. He inherits the Old Testament saints, the Church Age believers, the Tribulational saints, the Millennial believers, and all elect angels. That is what is meant by all things.

Doctrine of heirship

1. As the victor of the angelic conflict and as a part of the divine decrees Jesus Christ is the heir of all things — Hebrews 1:2.

2. Sonship means heirship. Heirship is based on Sonship — John 1:12; Romans 8:16,17; Galatians 3:26.

3. Heirship is based on the death of another. We inherit the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ on the basis of His death — Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4.

4. To inherit from God one must possess the life of God, therefore we do — Titus 3:7; 1 John 5:11,12.

5. Therefore salvation is the qualification for joint inheritance — Colossians 1:12.

6. Heirship is related to the doctrine of divine decrees in the sense of sharing the destiny of Christ — Ephesians 1:11.

7. Heirship is also related to the doctrine of election since the joint heirs share the election of Christ — Hebrews 9:15.

8. The principle of our heritage is related to eternal security — 1 Peter 1:4,5.

9. Our heritage is provided on the basis of grace — Galatians 3:29.

10. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the down payment on our heritage — Ephesians 1:14.

This brings us now to the principle that Jesus Christ is not only the God of all eternity, along with the Father and the Spirit, but He is also the focal point of history. He is the object of everything that is important to us; He is first in our scale of values; but you can’t understand history apart from understanding Jesus Christ and His relationship to the angelic conflict.

We are now down to the last phrase of verse two — “by whom also he designed the worlds.” “By whom” is dia plus the genitive of o(j, and it should be translated “through” “though whom [Jesus Christ]. The person whom God the Father appointed in eternity past was Jesus Christ. The appointment includes lots of things, not only God’s plan, grace provision, the laws of divine establishment, the spiritual principles of preservation, the spiritual dynamics of history, but at the same time there has to be a person around whom all of these things revolve, and Jesus Christ, before history began and before man began, agreed to become a member of the human race and to solve history. So we have, then, “he was appointed in eternity past heir of all things”, but “through him he also designed the ages” — the whole pattern of history. The word “made” here is the aorist active indicative of poiew and it has a rather unusual meaning. It usually means to do or to make or to work, but here is means to design or arrange. The subject is God the Father who designed the ages of the dispensations around the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what comes first. In the doctrine of divine decrees Christ was appointed heir of all things, and once the heir of all things historically is provided then and only then did He design the ages. The ages refers primarily to dispensations and the dispensational view is the historical interpretation of history. The word for ages here, a)iwn, refers to the divine outline of history. The ages were not designed until after the appointment of the heir. The heir is Jesus Christ. He was appointed first in the doctrine of divine decrees, so we actually have an agenda here, an agenda which presents to us the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing on the agenda is the appointment. God the Father makes an appointment and He appoints Christ the heir of all things. That is the key right there. But after He was appointed the heir of all things then, and only then, were the ages designed, the dispensations. The person comes before the dispensations; the person comes before the ages were outlined. God the Father designed the ages to fit Jesus Christ; to prove that Jesus Christ was necessary.

Translation: “In these last days he has communicated to us by means of a unique Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom [Jesus Christ] he [God the Father] designed the dispensations.”

Now we get right down to what is important in history. Jesus Christ is not only the saviour, but He is the solution to man’s problems historically as well as spiritually. So no matter which way you turn you bump into the fact that apart from the Lord Jesus Christ life does not have meaning. And even those who have not accepted Christ as saviour and will never accept Christ as saviour, their life is meaningless apart from Jesus Christ. There is only one key to history and the key is Jesus Christ. And God the Father in the doctrine of divine decrees appointed Jesus Christ as the heir of all things. He is the key, and once you have the key then you design the lock. The lock is the pattern of dispensations in which man is given full vent to his volition and never gets anywhere. As man has freedom he blows it. Why? Because he is not capable of handling freedom. Only Jesus Christ can handle freedom. History proves that when you give man his free will and his full vent, and let him go, he doesn’t do anything but foul up history. Every dispensation is designed in its own way to give man his freedom — up to the last one — and in giving man his freedom, to demonstrate that man has no appreciation of his freedom and that the best thing he can do with his freedom is to believe in Jesus Christ, and once he has made that decision to use his freedom to get Bible doctrine.

Verse 3 — the relative pronoun o(j — “who"— has as its antecedent Jesus Christ; “being” — e)imi — “always being”, there never was a time when He wasn’t; “the brightness” — Jesus Christ is the brightness. This is a compound noun, a)paugasma. A)po is ultimate source; a)gasmoj is from a verb a)ugazw which means to view in the clearest light, to see distinctly. Nothing can be better than to see Christ as He is. A)ugazw is a classical or Attic Greek verb, and when you put a)po with it and put the two together you have what is commonly called “effulgence” .But for some reason “effulgence” just doesn’t click. Except for a few scholarly people with a rather extensive vocabulary effulgence doesn’t mean a thing, and yet that is the best translation. But there are some other ideas that are pretty close: “radiance” is close — “who being the radiance, the shining forth.”

“of the glory” — there is no pronoun here [his]. God not only appointed Christ heir of all things but when he appointed Him heir He gave to Him all the glory. Jesus Christ is the God-Man. In His deity He has glory through essence; in His humanity He was given glory through resurrection, ascension and session. And there is no pronoun. It is not “his” glory but it is “the” glory. It is not a glory that belongs to Him, all glory belongs to Him. Hr is the flashing forth of the glory. The Greek word for glory is doca. Glory is often used for the essence of God — like Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That is the sense in which the glory is involved here. God the Father appointed Jesus Christ the heir of all things, and the divine glory that existed in Jesus Christ and the glory that would be in His humanity blend together. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all have the same glory because they have the same essence. However, when God the Father, who in this case is the spokesman in the divine decrees, appointed the Son — Jesus Christ the heir — He would become man and there is no glory in man. Man blew it, and the old sin nature and spiritual death destroyed glory in man. Man does not have glory. But Jesus Christ came into the world — virgin birth, without a sin nature, without the imputation of Adam’s sin — He lived without any personal sin and the devil through every type of glory at Him, including the rulership of this world. (There is a certain amount of glory in what Satan could offer, but it is absolutely zero compared to the glory that comes through the Father’s plan, the glory that comes through grace) Since the resurrection the Man Christ Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. The deity is omnipresent, just like the Father’s, but the Man Christ Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father and he now has the only glory in all the human race. As this chapter develops we will see that this glory is not just the human race, this glory goes beyond the human race. This glory that Jesus Christ has as a man is greater than the glory of any angel and angels are made out of glory, they are made out of light. The only story, the only message, the only place where this glory is seen today is through the content of the Word of God. It will not be observed visibly until the second advent of Jesus Christ.

God the Father made it very clear that Jesus Christ was appointed the heir of all things. Jesus Christ said while He was on the earth that He understood this doctrine: John 1:18 — “He that seeth me seeth Him that sent me.” In other words, Jesus Christ is the effulgence in another way. With the glory of God and the glory of man, the double glory, He now becomes the manifestation of God and God’s plan. He is the manifestation of God through His human glory, His perfect glory greater than that of angels. He is the manifestation of God also by His divine glory. The plan of God, the wisdom of God, grace of God, are all seen in Jesus Christ, so the key to history is also the very source of all understanding of what glory really is.

“Who being the radiance [or effulgence] of the glory” — the effulgence of glory emphasises the humanity of Christ, and the glory of His humanity, but the next word emphasises the glory of His deity — “the express image”, and the Greek noun is xapakthr. It was used originally for an engraving tool, a die, a stamp or a mark, or an impression made with an engraving tool. That is exactly what Jesus Christ is. He is the engraving tool that makes an impression on sinful people, the only one who can. Therefore, how goes history” Well the devil rules the world, therefore history goes very poorly. But in the devil’s kingdom Jesus Christ as an engraving tool touches the lives of individuals through doctrine and in the devil’s kingdom we have engraved the very glory of Jesus Christ — the ministry of the filling of the Spirit, Bible doctrine in the launching pad. So Jesus Christ makes an impact on history even when the devil rules the world. The devil’s kingdom is a kingdom of darkness and the only light in this darkness is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the thinking of Christ which is doctrine. So “the express image” is literally “the exact image” — “of his person,” u(postasij. “Who being the effulgence [or radiance] of the glory and the exact image of His u(postasij” — u(postasij means “substance” or “essence.” U(po means under; stasij means to stand or standing. So put together it gives us “standing under.” That is where we get hypostatic union: the humanity of Christ stands under the deity of Christ. Jesus Christ is unique. He is the God-Man.

Next we have “upholding”, a present active participle of ferw which means to bear or to carry. In this case it means to sustain. The present tense is linear aktionsart, which means He does it all the time. The active voice means that Christ constantly sustains not just the earth but the entire universe. When Christ was in the cradle He was holding the inverse together; when he was on the cross He held the universe together; while He was in the tomb for three days He held the universe together. He is holding the universe together right now, seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus Christ is actually the one who holds the universe together. And that isn’t all, He is the creator of the universe — James 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:10. But here we see Him as the sustainer of the universe. He sustains the entire universe by the word of His mouth. Now what is more important to an individual, what he thinks or what he says? What he thinks! The principle is: Doctrine is what Christ thinks; the way the universe runs is what He says. It is easy to keep you on this earth — the law of gravity. He just speaks and by His word He holds you on the earth. But to get into your soul with something meaningful in the devil’s world is something else. But what He [Jesus Christ] thinks is more important than what He speaks, and you have what he thinks as well as what He speaks. You live in a universe that is sustained by the word of His mouth, but in your soul you have what He thinks — Bible doctrine, if and when you get it.

“by the word” — the instrumental of r(hma is the word for “word” here, not logoj. Why don’t we have logoj? Logoj really has to do with thinking; r(hma has to do with speaking. R(hma could also be translated “expression” — “sustaining the all things by the verbal expression of his power.” The word for “power” is dunamij, and that is His inherent power. When God the Father made Jesus Christ the heir of all things He did a very interesting thing. He also assigned to Jesus Christ, not only the creation of the universe but the sustaining of it. There is the whole universe around us and one little spot in this universe is the earth. The devil rules that one little tiny spot and Jesus Christ could tell that spot to run into the sun, and that would destroy it, or run into Mars, or into some other galaxy and destroy it. And He could destroy in one second this little tiny planet called earth. And this is the devil’s kingdom, and it is a big kingdom to the devil. It is just a little hunk of nothing as far as the whole universe is concerned. God has a fantastic sense of humour, in fact this little kingdom is so dull to the devil that he spends very little time here. The devil is in heaven probably right now — very likely mentioning some of us to the Lord! But the one who controls the whole universe can also control your soul, and that drives the devil right up the wall. He can’t stand that. Your life has meaning with doctrine. Without doctrine your life doesn’t mean a thing; it is nothing. The one who makes it possible for the devil’s kingdom to spin around in space is Jesus Christ, and He does it with a word. Now you have to see something: Jesus Christ is more important than anything in your life. There is nothing greater than to be occupied with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“when” — this is part of the participle, there is no “when” here. The participle is the aorist middle participle of poiew. This time He does something so we translate this, especially since it is in a middle voice, “having himself accomplished.” The “having” indicates the aorist participle; the “himself” indicates the middle voice; and “accomplished” indicates the meaning of poiew in this particular phrase. The aorist tense is the point of time in which Jesus Christ actually came into history as a man and did something that is absolutely unique. The fact that Jesus Christ was on the cross was not unique. In any particular given period of history during SPQR more people were crucified than any other type of death. So crucifixion was very common. In the Sparticus revolt they crucified people for miles and miles. In every road leading into Rome they had one cross next to another. You couldn’t go an and out of Rome without going by all these corpses rotting on the wood. So the idea of crucifixion being unique is not correct, it is the One who was on the cross who was unique, He was the God-Man. The unique thing was that Jesus Christ did in three hours what man has done for six or seven thousand years of history: we die spiritually the moment we are born spiritually, and from then on we show it. Jesus Christ took everything we ever showed, every sin, and every personal sin was poured out; all the sins of the world were judged. They were poured out on Christ and Christ was judged for our sins. So the unique thing about the cross was those last three hours when He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. That was different. That had never happened before in history and has never happened since — only once in all of human history. Jesus Christ enters human history twice: once at the cross and once at the second advent. At the cross He did something unique; at the second advent He will do something unique. At the cross Jesus Christ became the only saviour, so now it is more than history, it is the matter of eternal salvation, it is a matter of entering the plan of God. Jesus Christ came for one purpose only: for the purpose of providing for man eternal life. By so doing He made it possible to have that kingdom which will begin at the second advent and be perpetuated forever in a new atmosphere, in a new heaven, new earth, and new Jerusalem. He had to do something to do it, so the aorist tense is that unique point of time. The middle voice is reflexive: He did it Himself. The participle is an aorist participle, and the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb is “sat down” .When He did this He sat down. But what did He do?

“having himself accomplished purification” — and the word “purged” is kaqarismoj which means to purge. History is man’s activity in the old sin nature. Man demonstrates that he is dead spiritually by sinning personally. Spiritual death is based upon the existence of the old sin nature; man demonstrates his spiritual death by personally sinning. So what is the biggest problem in history? The sins of the old sin nature and the human good of the old sin nature. These are history’s two greatest problems. The sins were judged at the cross; the human good was rejected at the cross.

“for our sins” — the genitive plural of a(martia has the definite article with it. It refers to the sins of the entire human race under the doctrine of unlimited atonement.

“sat down” — to step down in heaven you have to leave the earth — that is, the human being part has to. “Having himself accomplished purification of the sins he was caused to sit down” — the aorist active indicative of kaqizw.

“on the right hand” — decioj means the right hand side. The right hand side is the side of honour — “of the megalwsunh” — this is a periphrasis, the use of a longer phrase in a place of a shorter expression. A periphrasis here is to demonstrate that there aren’t enough words in the world to express what it means for Jesus Christ in His humanity to be seated on the right hand side of the Father. For Jesus Christ in His humanity to be seated on the right hand side of the Father is so important in history and in the resolving of the angelic conflict that there aren’t enough words to express it. However, when words are to be selected to express, as they will be in this passage, they are significant words since all the words in the world can’t express how great it is for Jesus Christ in His humanity to be seated on the right hand side of the Father. But since there aren’t enough let’s take a few and do it, says the writer, therefore what words will I select? And what words does the writer select? The Old Testament; words from the Word of God. From verse 5, all the way through verse 13, we have nothing but a series of verses from the Old testament — documentation, but when these verses are quoted from the Old Testament they are quoted not from the Massoretic text, not from the Hebrew, but from the Greek of the Septuagint. The periphrasis becomes very important here, it is translated “of the majesty” — genitive singular of megalwsunh, and this is actually the periphrasis. In the concept of the periphrasis it says in effect “all of the words in the world could never adequately describe this, but there are some words that will describe this — the Old Testament.” Once again we see the importance of understanding the Old Testament along with doctrine pertaining to the Church Age. And why did the writer quote them from the Greek rather than the Hebrew text? There are a number of reasons but one is because he is now dealing with a Greek language which is the best and most technical way to express what is contained in the periphrasis. What is contained in the periphrasis is so magnificent that you have a choice of two languages: the Septuagint, the first translation of the Old Testament, or the Hebrew. But the Hebrew is a more ancient language; the Greek of the Septuagint is a more modern language and a language which is the most technical of all. Therefore he quotes from the Septuagint so that no one will miss the power and the dynamics of the Word of God. And this proves the principle of the periphrasis: God’s Word, though originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and in Greek, the power of the Word can come out in the English. And the language with more words or less words, with technical words, is able to communicate something of the phenomenal things we have here. That is the message of the periphrasis.

“on high” — e)n plus the locative plural of u(yhloj. U(yhloj means “on high”, but it means more than that. It means that right down here is this little planet, and billions of light years away is the third heaven, the glamour spot of the universe. The devil has his little kingdom down here and Jesus Christ has the whole universe.

Translation: “Who being the radiance [the flashing forth] of the glory, and the exact image of his essence, also sustaining the all things by the verbal expression of his power, having himself accomplished purification of sins, was caused to sit down on the right hand side of the majesty in the highest places.”

“having himself accomplished purification of sins” — this means that every sin that has ever been committed in the human race has already been purified. This doesn’t mean that sinners stop being sinners. It doesn’t even mean that sinners are saved. It means that when Jesus Christ was on the cross He was actually judged for every sin that you and I will ever commit. The sin problem has so many tentacles and so many areas. The sin problem causes us to come into this world spiritually dead. The sin problem is the need for salvation. The sin problem is related to so many facets and activities of life that are contrary to the plan of God, the will of God and the grace of God. But every personal sin that you will ever commit in your lifetime — thought, word, or deed — was purified on the cross.

There is no reference here to the resurrection, but it goes on to emphasise the high priesthood of Christ — the result. Jesus Christ as a high priest entered into the real holy of holies, the one in heaven, and there He was seated on the right hand side of the majesty in the highest places.

The doctrine of ascension and session

— the doctrine whereby Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is the flashing forth of His human glory. One of the things that is going to run all of the way through this chapter: Christ in His humanity is superior to any member of the human race; Christ in His humanity is superior to angels; and Christ in His humanity is different as the God-Man from the other members of the Godhead. Therefore, Jesus Christ is the unique person in the universe in every sense of the word.

1. The resurrection body of Jesus Christ was capable of space travel, and through the mechanics of this space travel Jesus Christ came to be seated at the right hand of the Father. The humanity of Christ is a resurrection body travelled through all three heavens and arrived at the throne room which is comparable to the holy of holies. The high priest of Israel, once a year on the Day of Atonement, was permitted to enter the holy of holies twice; but not apart from the shedding of blood: once for himself and once for the people. The people literally held their breath to see if he could come out of this sacred place alive, and they would always breath a sigh of relief when he did so. That is a type of the third heaven. But Jesus Christ as our high priest ascended into the presence of the Father in a resurrection body. Jesus Christ as our high priest is unique. He is different from all members of the human race at this time. He is different from us in that He has a resurrection body. As the high priest — he was appointed high priest on the cross — he offered Himself as a sacrifice. No high priest can have any efficacy to his ministry unless he has a bona fide sacrifice, and Jesus Christ offered Himself and by so doing He established Himself as a high priest forever.

In the ministry of the priesthood the sacrifice is offered outside of the tabernacle. It is at the brazen altar that we have the sacrifice. Then the high priest took the blood of the sacrifice past the first veil, past the second veil, into the holy of holies. Jesus Christ became a high priest because he had the perfect sacrifice: Himself. And as a high priest He had to get off the altar and get into the holy of holies which is the third heaven. The only way to get off the altar if you are the sacrifice and get into the holy of holies is by a resurrection body. So it is imperative to understand the importance of resurrection. Without the resurrection body Jesus Christ could not be our high priest and we could not be a kingdom of priests in this Church Age. Therefore before the Church Age could ever begin Jesus Christ had to be established in the holy of holies forever; He had to be seated on the right hand side of God the Father. He had to be accepted by God the Father and by the acceptance in one person we have both sacrifice and high priest all fulfilled in the unique person of Jesus Christ — John 20:17.

2. Jesus Christ being seated — the session of Christ — documented in many scriptures: Psalm 110:1; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:12; 1 Peter 3:22. The session of Christ confirms the acceptability of the humanity of Christ, and no only so, but it confirms the appointment of Jesus Christ as a permanent high priest, setting aside all other priesthoods that have ever been bona fide. Jesus Christ, therefore, by being seated at the right hand of the Father has a confirmation of His ministry which makes our life on this earth meaningful, because in this dispensation we not only have Jesus Christ receiving to Himself a body and then a bride — the believers of the Church Age — but Jesus Christ also has for Himself a priesthood made up of every believer in the Church Age. It is a priesthood that began on the Day of Pentecost and will terminate on earth on the day of the Rapture. Now here is a dignity that we could never earn or deserve or work for. You yourself are a priest. Every believer has been elevated by grace. Who ever earned the right or the privilege of being a priest. The privileges of the priesthood are absolutely fantastic. And by so doing Jesus Christ did two things: He called to the attention of the devil and the great hosts of fallen angels your existence on the earth in the devil’s kingdom under a system of double blessing compared to any blessing that any believer in the past could ever receive. We have a kingdom of priests on the earth today. You and I are those priests. Our life, then, inevitably, regardless of discouragement, regardless of catastrophe or tragedy or heartache or difficulty, or a very hopeless outlook as far as life is concerned, has meaning. God has a purpose for your life; you are a priest, you are a part of the kingdom of priests on earth. And that isn’t all. You will never get out of this priesthood, your priesthood goes on forever. Your are going to have a resurrection body. And you may not function as a priest when you die physically because your soul will be in heaven without the resurrection body But as of the day of the Rapture you are a priest for ever in the kingdom of priests — the order of Melchizedek, the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are never going to appreciate your priesthood until you get Bible doctrine, and the more doctrine you receive the sooner you will appreciate it.

To be alive on this earth at this time is not perhaps one of the best periods in history. But we do not choose the time in which we come into history and therefore we have to have some stabiliser, we have to have a rudder, something to orient us to the time in which we live. I suppose people that in history have always been disappointed with the time in which they lived, especially if they know anything about history. Ignorance of history makes everything simple: everything is fine! But once you learn something about history you have a tendency to become malcontent with the time in which you live, and especially with a little doctrine and a little common sense, or a little discernment. But you are here, and that’s a fact, and you are as a believer also a priest, and that’s a fact. And since you are a priest and since you therefore have two links with Jesus Christ — you are a part of the body; you are a part of the priesthood — then obviously it should become very important for you to learn all you can about your priesthood — from doctrine — so that you can begin to function in connection with it. Once you do, then a bad day isn’t quite as bad.

So the priesthood of the believer is of the utmost importance; you have to realise that you are a priest. Then there is one other step after that, and that is the highest degree: you are an ambassador. The priesthood is permanent and it is solid and it is great. If you believe in Jesus Christ and that He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, d you realise that He is sitting their because He is a high priest? Do you realise that He is a King right now without a kingdom, that His kingdom literally on earth will not occur until the second advent? He is going to wait for that. But do you realise that He has something right now? He has a spiritual kingdom of priests. If you really believe that Jesus Christ exists and if you really believe that he is at the right hand of the Father and then you stop to realise that you are a priest, do you realise that you are hooked up with heaven? It is true.

Do you know that the angels envy you? The angels all have to gather in heaven for convocations. The book of Job tells us about one. Do you know why the angels envy you? Because every time they go to the throne room there is Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. They see that He has two arms and two legs and one head. He has hands and feet and eyes — eyes that flash. He has a human resurrection body, and it is the only one in existence. Every time they meet in the third heaven for a convocation they keep peeking over at Jesus Christ. Why? Because they have seen arms and legs on human beings but this is a resurrection body and they know that all of us are going to have the same thing. We need to stop and realise this.

3. The ascension and session of Christ formed the basis of victory in the angelic conflict — Hebrews 1:5-13.

4. The ascension and session of Christ begin a new sphere of the angelic conflict. While the Tribulation is a horrible time on earth and there is lots of obvious angelic fighting the Church Age is the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. So having this priesthood we need to be reminded of the fact that since every believer is a priest he is also with this priesthood in a very intense conflict — Ephesians 1:20-22; 4:7-10. Therefore the believer in the Church Age is involved in the intensification of the angelic conflict.

5. The ascension and session of Jesus Christ begin operation footstool — Psalm 110:1 which is quoted significantly in this connection three times: Luke 20:42,43; Acts 2:33,34; Hebrews 1:13.

6. The second advent of Christ will conclude operation footstool — Daniel 7;13,14; Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; Revelation 20:1-3.

7. The ascension and session completes the glorification of Christ in hypostatic union. The glorification of Christ in the hypostatic union is very important as far as His high priesthood is concerned. If Jesus Christ is going to be anything forever, if anyone is going to be anything forever, they must have a glory. You can’t get into forever without glory, and Jesus Christ as God is forever and He has glory. God the Father is forever; He has glory. God the Holy Spirit is God; as God He has forever glory. But Jesus Christ, from the moment He took humanity He took humanity not in glory. From the virgin birth to the cross there is no glory. Humiliation is the word connected with the incarnation and the first advent. The first advent is humiliation. Glory began with resurrection; glory was manifest by the session of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ not only has to have a glory because of the resurrection and session but He has to have a glory in His humanity that puts Him way out ahead of any creature of any kind, including the angels. That is why the whole first chapter of Hebrews, beginning at verse 6, is going to document the principle that the humanity of Christ has a fantastic glory that is greater than any glory that the angels have. The angels have a certain type of glory but Jesus Christ is superior to them in His humanity, and His glory is related to the high priesthood. When we get to chapters seven through ten we will see a magnificent searchlight on the glory of the humanity of Christ. It goes without saying that His deity is glory — Colossians 1; Philippians 2.

As long as we are on this earth we are priests, and as priests we do not have a glory of our own. We have no claim to fame. The only glory we have is the glory of Jesus Christ in resurrection body, high priest, seated at the right hand of the Father. That is our glory. The only way we manifest this glory is a big reflector built in the soul, and that big reflector is the edification complex.

8. The ascension and session explain the uniqueness of the Church Age — John 7:37-39.

9. The ascension and session is the key to victory in the angelic conflict.

Verse 4 — “Being made,” aorist middle participle of ginomai which means to become something. So “being made” is incorrect. It should be translated with the aorist participle concept here, “Having become.” Jesus Christ as God always existed. There never was a time when He didn’t exist; there never was a time when He didn’t have the essence of His deity. But now He became something that He was not before, and this can never be said about the Father and this can never be said about the Holy Spirit. The Father has always been the Father, has always had the same essence, and there has never been any change and never will be. The same is true of God the Holy Spirit. But God the Son became something He was not before. He became mankind. That is why they translated this “being made.” However, “being made” does not bring out into the English the concept of the aorist middle participle. The aorist tense is really a culminative aorist in view of what we have had in verse three. In a culminative aorist we have the point of time, not at the beginning, not constative, not during, but at the end. Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father and He has become something He was never before. As a member of the human race He was made lower than angels; now He is higher than angels. The middle voice is reflexive, it indicates that Jesus Christ is unique. The reflexive means that Christ Himself and only Himself is superior to all angels. You and I are not superior to angels, we are inferior both by creation and function. Christ is superior. Why? Christ became a man and we are talking about His humanity. Humanity sits down at the right hand of the Father. Deity doesn’t sit; deity doesn’t have to sit. Deity coexists and is coeternal with the Father, but Jesus Christ is a man. As a man He is higher than angels. But why not other men? First of all, Christ is minus the old sin nature. Secondly, Christ as a human being always avoided something that we have not avoided: human good. Then, of course, minus the old sin nature He was also minus personal sin. But even these things, absolutely unique in the history of the human race, do not make Him better than angels. What makes Him better than angels? The resurrection body. He has a human body that is superior to the body of angels. That isn’t the way creation was designed originally, that is the way it comes through resurrection. So the middle voice is reflexive indicating the uniqueness of Christ, the uniqueness of His resurrection. At this time Jesus Christ is the only member of the human race in a resurrection body. This will be true until the Rapture. No other member of the human race at this time is superior to angels, only the humanity of Christ. There will come a day when we, too, will be superior to angels. That day has not yet occurred.

“Having become so much better” — tosoutw kreittwn. Tosoutw is an instrumental case of vocabulary form tosoutoj which means in its vocabulary form “by so much.” It is in the instrumental case here and that means “by means” of something He became more prominent. And then kreitwn is the comparative of kratuj, which means “more prominent”, “more superior” .Kratuj means inherent power. Jesus Christ inherited power from His very birth. First of all He was born without an old sin nature, and that gave Him power. He was born without the imputation of Adam’s sin, and that gave Him power. He was also born the sin of David, and that gave Him power — the right to rule. But “by so much” — the ascension and session. The instrumental says somewhere in the context there is a subject which is “by so much”, and the subject is ascension. “By so much [by the ascension and session], having become more prominent [more superior] than angels.” “Angels” is an ablative plural here for comparison. The ablative plural says that the writer is deliberately making a comparison between all angels and one man, one unique man, Jesus Christ. And in His humanity He was more of a man than any man that ever lived. Being more of a man He is compared to all angels. One man is a resurrection body at the right hand of the Father is greater than all of the angels put together. That is the meaning of the ablative of comparison. And that is not all, that is the direction of our priesthood. That is the way we are going. We, too, will have a resurrection body. In the meantime we have something to do, and just living and breathing and taking in doctrine is really doing something. The trouble is that we live in that Mickey Mouse age when everyone is impressed by doing things. Everyone wants to be doing things — all show and no go. The trouble with most of us is that we are conditioned to the day in which we live: conditioned to cosmic thinking, to human viewpoint. Many have said at different times, “Well I’m really not doing anything for the Lord.” Of course you are! If your are breathing and taking in doctrine, you are doing something. The trouble is you don’t know you are doing something. Until you get more doctrine you don’t realise how significant it is. By sitting down in a pew and not lifting your little finger, by taking in Bible doctrine as a priest [the first thing that a priest in the Old Testament had to do was spend years in seminary, and memorise the Bible as it then existed] you are doing something. No, you learn and learn, and learn and learn, and you never stop learning. Moses was the man of deeds but he wasn’t the high priest. What did the high priest do? He did nothing. He wore the breast plate. What did he do with it? Nothing. He just stood still for God’s commands. What else did he do? Very little. He carried the bowl of blood and put it on the mercy seat once a year. The beautiful thing about the priesthood is learning how to do nothing — and do it well! That means grace, grace, more grace. So the biggest function of the priesthood is to listen to the teaching of Bible doctrine.

Doctrine works, but doctrine only works on the inside. Doctrine works in the right lobe, and that is what we need — doctrine in the right lobe — and here is where the priest really gets with it on the earth. Here comes doctrine, hits that frame of reference, gets into that memory centre, becomes a part of the technical vocabulary, sets up categories, norms and standards [divine norms and standards], and doctrine on the launching pad. There is nothing greater. People who run around and say, “I’ve got to run around and do great things for God,” have missed the boat. They’ve lost track of the emphasis in Hebrews, because Hebrews says you are a priest. And what does a priest do well? Nothing. And how do you do nothing well? You come and you sit in a pew and you concentrate on the teaching, on the content, of the Word of God. And no greater thing can be said for anyone than that.

“having become more prominent” — Jesus Christ as a man is more prominent than all angels, and it also means “more superior” than angels — all angels, fallen and elect.

The word “as” is instrumental of w(soj and should be translated “by so much as.” By so much as what? Now immediately you think Christ is going to do something. But not right away. He is not going to do something.

“he hath by inheritance obtained” — there is no “obtained” in the verse. This is a perfect active indicative of klhronomew which means to inherit, but in the perfect tense it means He has inherited, and the perfect tense means it is permanent. (Of course, we are going to share His heritage. Remember, we are joint heirs as well as priests) The active voice: Jesus Christ does the inheriting. The indicative mood is the reality of inheritance. Note the impact of klhronomew: you don’t do anything to inherit. Once again you are doing nothing. And Jesus Christ as our high priest has inherited. He did something on the cross and in the plan of the Father there is action — resurrection, ascension and session — but what is He doing as high priest? What is He doing sitting down at the right hand of the Father? He is doing nothing. How do you do nothing? You inherit. You inherit on the basis of two things: relationship and love; both, or one or the other. But whichever way it is you are not doing anything. What did you do to get into the family of God? You believed in Christ, and that is doing nothing. No matter how you slice it you are an heir forever. So this priesthood has a great aspect: doing nothing and doing it well. That requires doctrine; that requires grace orientation.

“a more excellent” — diaforoj, an accusative singular neuter. It is in the neuter gender. Christ is not neuter but the principle. The principle of glory belongs to a person but glory as a principle is neuter here. It should be translated “more superior” because it is the comparative form of diaforoj.

“name” — o)noma. We have a tendency to associate name as being someone’s name, but not in the ancient world. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. In the time in which this was written name did not mean name, it meant reputation — “he has a more superior reputation.” Not only in His person is He now superior to angels but in His reputation. Every time the angels have a convocation in heaven they all gather, and there they are. And who has the greatest reputation? Jesus Christ. And what is Jesus Christ? Well He is God, but reputation doesn’t go with His deity but with His humanity. In His humanity He has a greater reputation than all of those angels.

“than they” — pitiful translation. We have a prepositional phrase here, para plus a)utoj. Para here with the accusative means “by the side.” Then a)utoj is in the accusative plural and refers to all the angels — “by the side of them.” Whenever the angels get together in heaven for a convocation, by the side of them is one in a human body — there is only one human body at angelic convocations — superior.

Translation: “By so much [ascension and session], having become more prominent than angels by so much as he has inherited a more superior reputation by the side of them.”

He is not only better in His person, He is better in His reputation. Here they are with all the glamour of angels and one resurrection body is there.

Summary

1. The ascension and session of Jesus Christ indicates the Father’s approval of His priestly ministry — death on the cross; He offered Himself as a sacrifice.

2. As a result of the first advent and incarnation Jesus Christ as a resurrected human being has become superior to angels at the right hand of the Father.

3. The resurrected humanity of Christ is superior to all angelic creatures, including Satan.

4. The next paragraph in this chapter — verses 5-13 — demonstrates the superiority of Christ from Old Testament documentation. And that isn’t all. God the Holy Spirit did not see fit to quote those passages from the Hebrew text, they are quoted from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is just like a total divorce from the Levitical priesthood.

5. This Old Testament documentation becomes a shock to the Jews and a put-down to the fallen angels.

Verses 5-13 present the Old Testament documentation of the superiority of Jesus Christ to angels.

Verse 5 — we start with an epexegetical particle gar. Some one could write a doctor’s dissertation on the use of gar in the New Testament, it is a phenomenal subject. The epexegetical gar is used to explain further details of the superiority of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. The great thrust of verses two through four is the fact that Jesus Christ is the God-Man, and many of the things which are described are dealing with the hypostatic union with emphasis on His humanity. Therefore it becomes necessary to document these things from the scripture which existed from old times, that is the Old Testament.

“For unto which” — the dative singular of the interrogative pronoun tij. This interrogative pronoun has an accent to indicate the difference from tij without an accent which means “anyone” .This word in the dative of the interrogative pronoun means “to which” or “unto which,” and it introduces a rhetorical question — “of the angels,” and this refers to the super creation, to the angelic creatures — “said he” — aorist active indicative of legw to indicate spoken communication. Then we have an adverb, “at any time” — pote. The rhetorical question has a quotation, the first of seven Old Testament passages used to document from various aspects and from different angles the superiority of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union over angels and, as a matter of fact, the superiority of the humanity of Christ over angels. There is no question with regard to His deity because in His deity He is infinitely superior to all creatures. In fact he is the source, the origin of all creatures. But as man we now have a rhetorical question to introduce seven Old Testament quotations demonstrating the fact that Jesus Christ is infinitely superior in His humanity to all angelic creatures.

The first documentation is from Psalm 2:7 which contains a part of the divine decrees. “Thou art my Son” — the present active indicative of e)imi, indicating eternal status quo. It is present linear aktionsart — u(ioj mou. U(ioj is an adult son, a mature son; mou is the possessive pronoun, genitive of possession. There is an eternal relationship here between the first and second persons of the Trinity, and U(ioj as adult Son refers to Jesus Christ as eternal God, undiminished deity — “Thou art always my Son.” Jesus Christ is always God, there never was a time when He wasn’t God, there never will be a time. But this is a quotation from the divine decrees. You say, well look, Son indicates that He didn’t exist as long as the Father. This is language of accommodation, this is indicating the function of the members of the Godhead in the plan of God, in the divine decrees. In the divine decrees the Father does the planning, and the Son executes the plan as far as the human race is concerned. Therefore this is language of accommodation rather than language of chronological sequence.

“this day” introduces another concept. It is the Greek adverb shmeron and it means “today” or “this day.” “This day” refers specifically to the time when this phase of the plan, always in the mind of God, was put into operation. It refers to the day of the virgin birth or the day of the incarnation. In proving the superiority of Christ over angels inevitably you must start out with His deity. “Thou art my Son” is a quotation from the divine decrees to show that in eternity past God the Father always existed, God the Son always existed, there never was a time when the Father existed before the Son or the Son before the Father, there never was a time when both of them did not exist. Since both of them have always existed it becomes necessary to understand this in terms of that. If you are going to start out proving superiority start out with what Christ always was: Jesus Christ was always God. He was just as much God as God the Father. “Thou art my Son [e)imi]” links the two of them together, right here. Jesus Christ also created angels, he created man, but He now must become a man. There is no question about His superiority in deity but in order to start at the proper place the deity of Christ is brought into focus first. “This day” is an adverb referring to a point of time in history when Jesus Christ became true humanity. Jesus Christ became true humanity in the moment of the virgin birth and this causes Him to be different from the Father — now He is the God-Man, undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. But the source of the hypostatic union is still God the Father.

“this day have I begotten thee” — “have I begotten” is the perfect active indicative of gennaw. Jesus Christ continues forever in the hypostatic union. The perfect tense means that Jesus Christ will be different from the Father throughout all eternity as well as time. Jesus Christ is now the God-Man; He always will be the God-Man, there never will be a time when he will be anything but the God-Man. Therefore He is different from the Father and the Spirit who are God but not humanity. By the way, gennaw in the Hebrew is jaladh in the qal perfect, and the qal perfect in the Hebrew is equivalent here to the perfect active indicative of gennaw. The active voice: God the Father is the author of this grace plan. The indicative mood is the reality of the birth of Jesus Christ, the reality of virgin birth, the reality of the incarnation, the reality of the hypostatic union, the reality of the inculpability of the humanity of Christ at the point of His birth because He was born without a sin nature, without the imputation of Adam’s sin; and, therefore, in His volition He must through His free will refuse to sin in the same way that Adam resisted for a certain period of time.

Psalm 2:7 is the divine decrees related to the hypostatic union — Jesus Christ is the unique person of the universe. He is different from God the Father because He is true humanity. He is different from God the Holy Spirit because He is true humanity. He is different from angels because he is the God-Man; He is different from man because He is God; He is different from man because He is perfect man. The very first documentation we have indicates that Jesus Christ always existed as God, that something is unique. “This day” Jesus Christ became a member of the human race. Furthermore, He became a member of the human race without jarring His deity, without compromising His deity and without destroying His deity. The deity of Jesus Christ was no compromised in the moment that He became a true member of the human race. Had He had a true father, and had He had a normal birth, then there would be a compromise of deity and deity could not be deity. Jesus Christ cannot be God apart from the virgin birth. But He did not have a normal type birth, he had a virgin birth. His birth is unique, there is only one virgin birth in all of human history and there will only be one. In this way Jesus Christ became true humanity without compromising His deity. His deity could not remain deity and be compromised by sin, and therefore when Jesus Christ was born into this world it was a virgin birth, there was no old sin nature. Furthermore, there was no imputation of Adam’s sin. Therefore Jesus Christ is unique from the moment of His birth, and the uniqueness only is amplified. That means that he is unique at birth, that means He will have a unique life, that means that His death will be unique: both His spiritual death, bearing our sins and His physical death, that means His resurrection will be unique — He is the firstfruits of them that sleep — and it means that from there on everything will be unique — the ascension, the session, the whole bit. Therefore, not only is our saviour unique, as he must be, but so is our high priest. And this is the point at which both are introduced. Who is our saviour? In eternity past he was God, always God, there never was a time when He wasn’t God. But He didn’t become man until this word, “this day.” “This day” was planned billions of years ago, a day when the Father and the Holy Spirit recognised that Jesus Christ would take upon Himself something that was absolutely unique and things would never be the same again in heaven. For on the basis of what Jesus Christ did there would be human beings in heaven. And that isn’t all. On the basis of what Jesus Christ did man who was inferior to angels by physical birth would become superior to angels through the new birth. God the Father turned the universe upside down the day that Jesus Christ was born. Nothing would ever be the same again. God the Father knew that when Jesus Christ was born into the world that the time would come — just thirty-three years from that moment — when all of the sins of the world would have to be poured out upon Him and God the Father Himself would have to judge God the Son.

And all by itself is that accusative singular from the pronoun su, referring to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the object of the verb. He is the one who was begotten. Psalm 2:7 is so important that it is actually quoted three times in the New Testament. In Acts 13:33 Jesus Christ is the baby in the manger and at the same time the eternal Son of God. The documentation in that verse is to emphasise the uniqueness of His birth. Here is Hebrews 1:5 the humanity of Christ is superior to all angels. Later on in Hebrews 5:5 the priesthood of Christ is superior to all priesthoods.

“and again” — kai palin. This introduces a new quotation, this time from 2 Samuel 7:14 — “I will be to him,” future active indicative of e)imi. In the first quotation e)imi was in the present active indicative. Why? The rest of this phrase will explain it. “To him” is dative singular of a reflexive pronoun a)utoj — “I will be to him and only to him for a father” — we have the preposition e)ij here plus the accusative of pathr, for “father.” This is again language of accommodation but it also show the direction of the incarnation. God the Father is not really a father; God the Son is not really a son, both of them are eternal God, coequal, coexistent, having identical essence but two distinct personalities. The word “father” indicates one doing the sending; the word “son” indicates one being obedient. “Father” sets up a principle of authority; “son” sets up the principle of obedience, response to authority. Jesus Christ responded to authority before He was glorified in His humanity. In His birth He responded to the authority of God the Father. And this is something that people have forgotten and it is tragic. You cannot have capacity for life until you learn what authority means and how to respond to it. We are not born free. Freedom is capacity for life under the laws of divine establishment, and the best thing we can do is be born under authority. The only way to keep freedom as freedom is to have boundaries for it called authority. Jesus Christ was born under authority — Father-Son; eternal God but He became the Son.

The future tense indicates something — e)imi. In the first quotation it was present active indicative because e)imi there indicates God equal with God. And in eternity past Jesus Christ is equal with God just as much as the first person of the Trinity is God, but in the future tense of e)imi — future active indicative — it means that in the future, future from 2 Samuel 7:14, Jesus Christ would come under the authority of the first person. As God He can’t do it. If Jesus Christ is God, how can He ever get under the authority of the other members of the Trinity? He can’t as God. He is coequal and coeternal. It is impossible for Him to be under authority as long as He is God, but as man He comes under the authority of the Father. And He had to become a man to get under the authority of the Father. The future tense of e)imi is the change, Jesus Christ as the God-Man; the present tense of e)imi: Jesus Christ as God. “I will be (in the future) a father, and you will be a son”, and under that relationship I have the authority and you must be obedient “even obedient unto the death of the cross.” And the night before the cross occurred Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane said, “Father [recognising the authority of the first person of the Trinity] if it be thy will let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thy will be done.” Authority, authority, authority. Do you realise that there would be no salvation were it not for the principle of authority. Which comes first, freedom or authority? Authority comes first, always. First of all, Jesus Christ became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, Philippians 2, so that in Galatians 5:1, “Therefore stand fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set you free.” Authority comes before freedom. You must have authority before you can have freedom. Freedom is born of authority, not vice versa. Jesus Christ could not go to the cross until something had been established — it was in eternity past. The first person of the Trinity is the Father and the second person of the Trinity is the Son, and the Son obeys the Father. Therefore, this is language of accommodation so that you and I can understand a principle: when Jesus Christ became true humanity the first person of the Trinity was calling the shots. “I have come to do the will of the Father”, Jesus said. The will of the Father is the doctrine of divine decrees. Therefore there a great distinction between two tenses in one verse. In Psalm 2:7, what is the tense? Present active indicative, linear aktionsart for eternal existence in the past. Then, in Hebrews 1:5, the future active indicative to show a time occurred when there was a change.

“and he shall be” — a second future active indicative of e)imi; “to me” — dative singular of e)gw referring to the Father. Then we have a prepositional phrase again, e)ij plus the accusative — “for a Son.”

The first two quotations document the superiority of the deity of Christ over angels and the superiority of the hypostatic union of Christ over angels.

Translation: “For to which of the angels did he say at any time, Son of mine are you, I this day have begotten you? And again, I will be to him for a Father, and he himself shall be to me for a Son?”

Verse 6 — “And again” is the third quotation, Psalm 97:7 — de palin. Palin means “again”, it cites a passage; de means continuing the documentation principle. Then we have “when” which looks like an adverb but here is a conjunction — o(tan which means “on the occasion of” .So we have so far, “Again on the occasion when.”

“when he bringeth in” — aorist active subjunctive of e)isagw, a compound verb. E)isagw is a very, very old verb, one of the oldest in the Greek language. It goes back to Homer. In Homer’s time it meant to bring someone into something, like to bring someone into a city, to bring someone into a temple. It is also used to bring someone into a barracks or a house, or an arena. Here it refers to the second advent where Christ is brought back into the world again under operation footstool. It is an aorist tense here. “Aorist” is derived from a Greek word — a)oristoj, a noun that means unlimited, indefinite, without boundaries, limitless. In other words, aorist is a tense that has no limits. It is without limit of time. It isn’t past, it isn’t present, it isn’t future. So when you have something that is not related to our tense system — past, present, and future — we have to have some way of picking it up. So we can say just a point in time without regard to the past or the present or the future. Therefore you get the concept of a point of time divorced from time and perpetuated. This point of time has no relationship to past, present, or future, it is just taken out of time and is perpetuated. The concept of the aorist, then, is that it is an action as attained rather than an action relate to time. It states the fact of an action, the fact of an event. The aorist expresses the occurrence of the action. And what we have here is a gnomic aorist in which the second advent, while future, is regarded as fixed in its certainty, it is axiomatic. A gnomic aorist means the second advent is going to happen, it is a certainty. The active voice: the second advent is a part of the Father’s plan and a part of the Father’s schedule. The subjunctive mood is used to indicate an indefinite temporal clause, which means a future event certain to come but the time of the event is unknown. The subjunctive mood is not the ordinary subjunctive, just as we do not have an ordinary aorist here. Therefore translation: “But on the occasion when he again introduces [second advent].” What have we had in the first two quotations? We had Christ introduced the first time — first advent. Now we are on the second advent.

“the firstborn” — not the “firstbegotten” — prwtotokoj, which means firstborn. Under the doctrine of the firstborn it is based upon the Old Testament. The firstborn had three things: rulership or sovereignty — Christ is the sovereign of all things at the second advent; the priesthood (to be introduced in chapter five) — Christ is the high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek; the double portion — Christ is the heir of all things, including elect angels and regenerate mankind. Hence, the firstborn is to be brought back at the second advent. He isn’t born the second time He comes.

“into the world” — should be to “the civilised world” — e)ij plus o)ikounomh which means “the civilised world” or “the inhabited earth.”

“he said” — present active indicative of legw, and at this point we actually have the quotation. The third quotation has documentation that angels worship Christ. Therefore Christ as the returning King is superior to all angels. Christ was superior the moment He came into the world, but Christ is superior when he returns.

“let all the angels of God worship him.” “Worship” is an aorist active imperative. It is preceded by the phrase panthj a)ggeloi theou” — all angels of God worship.” It is an order: aorist active imperative of proskunew — proj; face to face; kunew: to kiss. To kiss face to face means to worship. Hence this verb connotes homage, worship, adoration. It is derived, by the way, from a Persian custom of showing homage by kissing the feet or the hem of the robe of a king. This is the recognition of the absolute authority of Jesus Christ. He started out totally under authority; at the second advent He is the authority, and not just for mankind but for the whole angelic creation. And at the second advent Jesus Christ will slaughter the enemy at Armageddon, and all the angelic creatures will be commanded to worship Him — angels worshipping a Man who has just slaughtered millions of the enemy!

Translation: “But on the occasion when he [God the Father] again introduces the firstborn [Jesus Christ at the second advent] to the civilised world, he said, All the angels of God worship him.”

That, again, demonstrates the superiority of Jesus Christ. This is a command to angels.

Verse 7 — our fourth documentation. “And of the angels he said.” The problem with this is the word “of.” It is grossly mistranslated. The word “of” is proj, and we have proj plus the accusative which means “face to face with.” So this should be translated, “And face to face with the angels.”

“he saith” — present active indicative of legw — Psalm 104:4, is now quoted. So He is face to face with the angels and He says something to them. He tells them to do things actually.

“Who maketh his angels spirits” — but that is not what we have in the Greek. We have a present active participle of poiew plus the definite article. A more literal translation: “And face to face with the angels He says, The one making his angels spirits.” He doesn’t say “make the angels spirits,” the one who is speaking is the one who has made His angels spirits. Jesus Christ created the angels and when He did he made them spirits — the accusative plural of pneuma. This refers to the essence of the angels. He made the essence of angels. Angels are called spirits in Matthew 8:16; Mark 1:27; 6:7; Acts 5:16; 1 Peter 3:19; Revelation 16:13. Note that most of the references to angels as spirits are made to fallen angels. For example, fallen angels are called “unclean spirits.” But the word “spirit” itself refers to the essence of angels. This is one reason why they are invisible. Jesus Christ is the creator of angels. So “he says”: what he says is not given here, but what he has done — He has made His angels spirits. He is the creator of angels. And that isn’t all.

“his ministers a flame of fire” — He not only made them spirits but He also made them a flame of fire. The word “minister” here is the word leitourgoj which is used for the function of angels. It should therefore be translated “sacred servants.”

“a flame of fire” — puroj is the word which is used and it is the genitive of pur for fire, and then we have floc for flame. In other words, He not only created angels but He also created their job. He is superior to them; He created their being; He created their function. As a flame of fire the elect angels under the command of God administer judgement, punishment. And, of course, he gave them their function and therefore Christ is superior theirs whom He has given job assignments. They are His servants as well as His creatures, therefore the superiority.

Verse 8 — the fifth quotation, Psalm 45:6,7. “But unto the Son.” This is face to face with the Son, proj plus the accusative of u(oij. Notice that while the angels were addressed in the previous quotation what was said was not given, just what was done to them; how they came into existence, their origin. “But face to face with the Son.” There is no “he saith.” We have looked at one side, the Son is the creator of angels. That is what happens when the Son is face to face with them. He tells them what to do. The Father, whose plan it is, says this to the Son: “Thy throne” — o( qronoj su — “The throne of yours,” translated correctly, “Thy throne” or “Your throne.” This refers to the throne of Christ in contrast to the function of servantship of the angels. The angels are sacred servants and the worshippers of Christ. But Jesus Christ has a different function, he is the ruler.

“O God” — o( qeoj, vocative addressed to Jesus Christ by God the Father — “the God”.

“is forever and forever” — e)ij twn a)iwna tou a)iwnoj — “unto the ages of the ages,” forever and ever and ever. There is a contrast here. While the angels are servants administering under Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is the ruler forever and ever. And as a ruler he has a sign of rulership, He has a sceptre.

“the sceptre” — h( r(abdoj — “the rod,” the rod of rulership, the badge of rulership, and correctly translated “sceptre.” A sceptre was a badge of authority for kings. The rod or the sceptre is found in many areas of the ancient world. The shepherd’s staff had the same concept with the sheep. This concept is given in Leviticus 27:32; Micah 7:14. It is possible that the sceptre even originated among pastoral peoples where the shepherd had a staff which was his authority, and the king became the shepherd of the people, and therefore he had a staff.

What kind of a sceptre is this? It is called a sceptre of “e)uquthj” — translated by the word “righteousness,” but that is not correct. E)uquthj does not mean righteousness. “Righteousness” would be dikaioj or dikaiosunh. E)uquthj means “straightness” — “a sceptre of straightness.” Straightness refers to perfect standards of law and establishment. Jesus Christ will reign forever under perfect laws, divine laws, the laws of establishment. So, “the sceptre of establishment is the sceptre of your kingdom.” The sceptre represents the authority and the One who makes them function.

Verses 7 & 8: “And face to face with angels he says, The one making his angels spirits [Christ makes angels spirits; He created them], and his sacred servants a flame of fire [He provides not only life for them but function].”

“But face to face with the Son, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever and ever: and the sceptre of establishment is the sceptre of your kingdom.”

Verse 9 — the fifth quotation is continued. So far we have only had Psalm 45:6; now we have Psalm 45:7, the rest of the quotation. “Thou hast loved” — aorist active indicative of a)gapaw, mental attitude love. This is a constative aorist. Active voice, the subject is Jesus Christ as the King, holding the sceptre of the establishment. The indicative mood is the reality of establishment, and the basis for the function of establishment is “righteousness,” and that means here morality and justice. So we now have dikaiosunh for the principle. Notice that dikaiosunh refers to justice as a characteristic of the ruler; e)uquthj refers to the principle on which He rules — establishment. There can be no wonderful government of any kind unless, “iniquity is hated” .But the word is not iniquity — aorist active indicative of missew, divine attitude toward a)nomia “lawlessness.” Lawlessness stands for antiestablishment; lawlessness means not just violation of laws, not just criminal activity, but lawlessness means rejection of authority. “You have loved the justice of establishment, and you have hated the lawlessness [antiestablishment].”

“therefore” — dia plus the accusative of o(utoj means “because of this” — because of the perfect function of the laws of establishment under Christ, because Christ is both perfect and unique, because Christ is righteous and just, because Christ is superior to angels, he will supersede Satan as the ruler of this world — a Man will supersede and angel in the rulership of this world. The emphasis here is no the humanity of Christ — “because of this, the God [God the Father] hath anointed” — aorist active indicative of xriw means to be appointed, to be commissioned — “thee” — accusative singular of a pronoun referring to Jesus Christ as Man. The incarnate Christ is infinitely superior to angels in His deity; He is also infinitely superior to angels in His humanity. He is anointed King. A man will supersede and angel as the ruler of this world. The ruler of this world at the second advent will be Jesus Christ.

And He is anointed with oil — the accusative singular of e(laion. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. In the ancient world they did not have commissions in written form, they had them with oil. This is a reference to ceremonial oil used for the appointment of a king. This is the kind of oil that Samuel used to anoint David king over Israel.

Notice this is said to be “the oil of gladness.” That is a pitiful translation of a)galliasij which means super happiness, optimum happiness. Then the word “above” is para which means “above and beyond” here — “thy fellows,” metoxoj which means “associates” and it is a reference to angels. Angels associated with Christ in operation footstool. Therefore it should be translated “above and beyond your angelic associates.” In other words, Christ is superior to angels.

Translation: “You have loved the justice of establishment, and you [Christ] have hated lawlessness [of antiestablishment]; because of this the God {the Father, the author of the plan] has anointed you [Christ] with the oil of ultimate happiness above and beyond your [angelic] associates.”

Once again, the fifth documentation demonstrates the superiority of the person of Jesus Christ.

Verses 10-12 — the sixth quotation documenting the victory of Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict. This quotation is from Psalm 102:25-27.

Verse 10 begins with the word “And” — kai, which introduces the sixth quotation. This is what is called a continuative documentary kai. It continues the documentation and it introduces a new one — the sixth quotation to document from the Old Testament scripture the superiority of Jesus Christ over angels. “And, thou, Lord” — the word “thou” is the personal pronoun su in the emphatic position and should be translated “you and only you” ."Lord” is kurioj in the vocative — “you and only you, Lord.” This vocative of kurioj refers to Jesus Christ who is both eternal God and true humanity in one person forever. And between the two words in the Greek we have a prepositional phrase kat arxaj. Kata is the preposition, and with the accusative of a)rxaj, kata often means “with reference to.” And a)rxaj is the accusative plural from a)rxh, the Greek word for beginning. It should be translated “with reference to the beginnings.” It is in the plural. The plural of a)rxh refers to more than one beginning. For example, the creation of the heavens and the earth was one beginning; the creation of angels was another beginning. The restoration of the earth and the creation of mankind was a third beginning. All of these beginnings are recognised by the plural of a)rxh. So literally, “you and only you with reference to the beginnings, O Lord.” That is the Greek word order.

Immediately you should be struck with something. Kurioj is the title of Jesus Christ for deity — kurioj means deity. That is why there was a great conflict with the Roman empire. Rome claimed Caesar was lord and, of course, Christianity said Jesus is Lord. This caused many a martyrdom in the first centuries of church history.

Jesus Christ had something to do with all the beginnings in history. Jesus Christ created the universe, including the earth. That was one beginning. Then, sometime after that he created the angels. A long time after that we have the creation of man.

Now we have a specific reference to one of the things that Jesus Christ did as creator — “hast laid the foundation of the earth.” “Hast laid” is the aorist active indicative of qeneliow which means to lay a foundation or to build a foundation. We could translate this, “you and only you with reference to beginnings, O Lord, the earth you have founded.”

“and the heavens” — plural; “are” — present active indicative of e)imi — “keep on being [existing]”; “the works” — e)rgon; “of your hands” — the genitive plural of xeir. This is what we call and anthropomorphism. Hands belong to the anatomy of mankind, they do not belong to God. God is a Spirit. Here we have ascribing to God some human characteristic in order to make a point. The point is that Christ has more power in His hands than all of the angelic creatures put together. So we have, “are the works of your hands.”

The hands of Christ as an anthropomorphism make a very wonderful study. Here in Hebrews 1:10 and in Psalm 19:1 Jesus Christ created the universe, so the hands of Christ are the hands of the creator. The hands of Jesus Christ were also nailed to the cross — Psalm 22:16; John 20:19-28. These are also the hands of security — Psalm 37:24, “though we stumble he upholds us with His hands”, and the same thing is found in John 10:28.

Verse 11 — we begin again with an emphatic word “They” .This is a)utoi, a nominative plural of a reflexive pronoun. The word refers to the heavens of the previous verse, which is why it is in the plural. Remember that the heavens are the abode of the angels. This is not only a reflexive pronoun but it is intensive at the same time and therefore it should be translated here, “They themselves.”

“shall perish” — future middle indicative of a)pollumi which refers to the future destruction of the heavens at the end of the Millennium. The Millennium is a civilisation of perfect environment. Man has always clamoured for perfect environment, man is always trying to find perfect environment. He is trying to legislate perfect environment, he is trying to bring about perfect environment. Man has never succeeded in doing so and never will because in this civilisation we have an angel, the devil, ruling the world. Consequently, man cannot bring about perfect environment. But once Jesus Christ bumps the devil and supersedes him as the ruler of this world, he will bring about perfect environment. Then a very interesting thing happens. There is always a revolution or rebel somewhere revolting against something. The reason for it is always given as “we need to improve things.” Even against perfect environment there is a revolution. This is indicated here, “they themselves shall perish.” The heavens are destroyed after that revolution is put down. A part of putting down the final revolution — revolution is always antiestablishment, therefore anti-God — the heavens are destroyed. That is what is mentioned here: “they themselves [the heavens] shall be destroyed” — future middle indicative of a)pollumi. This destruction of the heavens after the revolution at the end of the Millennium is described in Matthew 24:35; 2 Peter 3:10-12; Revelation 20:11; 21:1; Hebrews 12:26,27; Isaiah 34:4.

“but thou” — another proleptic pronoun, su de, and it should be translated “and emphatically you” — “remain unchanged,” present active indicative of diamenw. Diamenw doesn’t mean really to remain, it means to remain unchanged.

“they all” — kai pantej [pantej is the plural of paj], refers again to the heavens — “shall wax old,” future passive indicative of palaiow. This means to be superseded here — “they shall be superseded.” The heavens that are now in existence are going to be superseded by some new heavens. The illustration which is given here: “as doth a garment” .Literally, “as a cloak.”

Verse 12 — “And as” — a conjunctive kai followed by an adverb o(sei — “and like.” The word for vesture, peribolaion, means a mantle that you wrap around you.

Verse 12 — “and like a robe you will fold them up, and they shall be changed” — “they” refers to the heavens. Like a garment the heavens are going to be changed at the end of the Millennium — “they shall be changed” is a future passive indicative of a)llassw. The future tense indicates replacing a garment. This refers to the heavens, the abode of angels. Jesus Christ will take the home of the angels, the heavens, and fold them up like a garment. While the heavens change, Jesus Christ superior to angels, does not change, and therefore we have the final phrase — “but,” conjunction of contrast, “you keep on being the same” — present active indicative of e)imi, absolute status quo — o( a)utoj — “the same.” Jesus Christ remains forever in the hypostatic union.

“and thy years” — the system of dating age in the ancient world — “shall not fail” — future active indicative of e)kleipw, which doesn’t mean to fail, it means to fall off or come to an end — “and your years shall not come to an end.”

Translation: “And like a robe you will fold them up, as a garment also they shall be changed: but you [Jesus Christ] keep on being the same, and your years do not come to an end.”

So the heavens are at the mercy of Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ is never at the mercy of the heavens. Nature is at the mercy of Christ but Christ is never at the mercy of nature. When nature is destroyed the fallen angels are judged and cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels — Matthew 25:41. Jesus Christ is untouched by these things, and so, by the way, is everyone in union with Christ.

Verse 13 — the climax of the documentation. “But to which of the angels” — “to which” is the preposition tij plus the accusative. “But face to face with which of the angels” — proj plus the accusative; “has he said” — perfect active indicative of legw; “at any time.” We have an enclitic particle pote.

Now begins the seventh quotation, the climactic quotation from Psalm 110:1 — “Sit down,” present active imperative of kaqhmai. The present tense is dramatic; active voice: addressed to Jesus Christ the God-Man, and addressed specifically to His humanity. So we have the dramatic present to indicate one of the most dramatic moments in history when a human being was commanded to sit down at the right hand of the Father. The active voice: Christ was seated at the place of honour, emphasising His humanity. And, again, humanity at that point becomes superior to angelic creatures. The imperative mood: Christ was commanded to sit until operation footstool is completed.

“on my right hand side,” literally — “until” — e(wj — “I appoint [or constitute]” — aorist active subjunctive of tiqemi. The time of appointment according to the aorist tense is the second advent. The active voice: God the Father produces the action; He does the appointing. The subjunctive mood is not potential here but it is an indefinite temporal clause which is used in the Greek for a future event certain to come but the exact time is unknown.

“your enemies” — the fallen angels plus Satan — “thy footstool” .The Greek says “the footstool of your foot.” The footstool of your foot was a sign of conquest in the ancient world. In the Roman world there were three signs of conquest. First of all, prisoners passing under spears was a sign of defeat. The second was to put your foot on the head of the conquered. The third way was for kings. They would sit on a throne and the prisoners had to crawl up under the foot of the king. That is the one we have here, and this is actually what happens to the demons — the become “the footstool of your foot.” In other words, you rest your foot not on the ground but on a footstool which is someone else’s head.

Translation: “But face to face with which of the angels has he said at any time, Sit down on my right hand side, until I appoint your enemies the footstool of your feet.”

Doctrine of operation footstool

1. Israel under the fifth cycle of discipline no longer represents Jesus Christ on the earth. Since 70 AD the southern kingdom has been under the fifth cycle of discipline. Many of the Jews to whom this was originally addressed were unbelievers, therefore under a double curse. They were under the penalty of sin, which is death, and they were about to get under the fifth cycle of discipline. The only answer to this is the grace of God — Hebrews 2:1,3. All of this adds up to the principle that the Jews were about to go under a terrible disaster, and at that point the southern kingdom no longer represents the Lord Jesus Christ. In place of that, of course, we have the Church.

2. Israel is replaced by the Church, hence the Church now represents Jesus Christ on the earth. Remember that any Jew who believes in Christ is a member of the body of Christ, or the Church, just as any Gentile. In that way cursing is turned to blessing for Israel during the Church Age. Because of this and the session of Jesus Christ the angelic conflict has intensified during the Church Age. In fact, everything has changed. The Church Age is a radical change in the function of believers because of the intensification of the angelic conflict. In the past angels were teachers of prophets, angels gave the law to Moses, angels were teachers in the Old Testament. But angels are now replaced by human teachers — the pastor-teacher. All of this is a part of the intensification of the angelic conflict and all of this started on the basis of the session of Jesus Christ. The various passages which emphasise this include Ephesians 1:22-24; 2:16; 4:4,5; 5:23,24, 30,32; Colossians 1:18,24; 2:19.

3. The body of Christ is being prepared on earth by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit — 1 Corinthians 12:13; Colossians 2:10. At the moment of salvation every believer is entered into union with Christ. Positionally, all believers are now superior to angels.

4. When the body is completed it is removed from the devil’s world by means of the Rapture of the Church — 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. Rapture is a technical word for the resurrection of the Church Age believers only. The completed body, through the Rapture, then becomes the bride of Christ. Once in heaven the bride is prepared for the second advent.

5. The preparation of the bride in heaven: First of all the bride enters ultimate sanctification, which means receiving a resurrection body like that of the Lord Jesus Christ — 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians 3:21; 1 John 3:1,2. Secondly, the bride is not permitted to have anything old. The old sin nature is removed — 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Thirdly, the bride is cleansed from all human good — 1 Corinthians 3:12,15.

6. The bride returns with Christ at the second advent — 1 Thessalonians 3:13; Revelation 19:6-8.

7. Then comes operation footstool which occurs at the second advent. First of all, Satan is imprisoned for a thousand years — Revelation 20:1-3. Secondly, fallen angels are removed by believers of the Church Age — Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 15:24,25.

8. The removal of Satan and fallen angels, plus the rulership of Christ replacing Satan, changes the environment of the earth. Religion is removed — 1 Corinthians 10:20,21. You can’t have perfect environment as long as you have religion on the earth. False doctrine is removed (doctrines of demons) — 1 Timothy 4:1. Spirituality includes ecstatics for the first time — Joel 2:28,29.

Verse 14 — the result of the superiority of Christ over angels. “Are they not all” — “all” refers to angels. As a result of operation footstool the fallen angels are going to be removed. So what happens to the elect angels? We already know what they are going to do. They are already the servants of believers, and that is what they are going to be forever. You have a guardian [servant] angel now, and you may have a whole plantation full of angels as servants in the future. Angels who are now superior to us are going to be servants. The principle is: What Jesus Christ did is so great that the elect angels are now the servants of believers on this earth.

“ministering” — leitourgikoj, which means a subordinate servant. Angels superior to you by creation will take the place of subordination, and be glad to do it. And already they are doing it.

“spirits” — the nominative plural of pneuma, referring to the angels — “sent forth” — the present passive participle of a)postellw which here means being sent into action, as subordinate servants — “to minister,” the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of diakonia. “E)ij” here means “for the purpose of” — “for the purpose of ministry.”

“for them” — dia plus the accusative which is “because of them” — “who shall be” is mellw which means to be about to be.

“heirs of salvation” — the word “heirs” is a present active infinitive of a verb, klhronomew, and it means to inherit “salvation,” swthria, which should be translated “deliverance” — deliverance from the devil’s world.

Translation: “Are not they [the elect angels] all subordinate servants, spirits being sent into action for the purpose of ministry because of them [believers] being about to inherit deliverance.”

Here is the principle of the guardian angel. The guardian angel is a servant to you. Why? Because positionally you are in union with Christ, and Christ is superior to all angels. And since positionally you are in Christ, and since positionally you are superior to all angels, then it follows. If you have a position higher than angels then angels ought to be serving you. Therefore you are served by elect angels at this time, and this is the way it will always be forever and ever.