Christ Superiority Over Angels (Part A)

There's more to Jesus Christ than the Jesus who walked the earth.

Aren't we glad that is so? So the only uncreated one, straight from the Father, not made, but made visible. You see the distinction? Christ is God made visible. Philip, have I been with you so long you've not known that he who has seen me has seen the Father?

Put those words in the mouth of anybody else you've got blasphemy. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more about Cross-Reference Radio. Specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now let's join Pastor Rick in Hebrews chapter 1 as he begins a new study called Christ's Superiority over Angels. Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews chapter 1.

We'll take verses 5 through the end which is verse 14. For to which of the angels did he ever say, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Again I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. But when he again brings the firstborn into the world he says, Let all the angels of God worship him. And of the angels he says, who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But to the son he says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth.

The heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish but you remain. They will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak. You will fold them up and they will be changed.

But you are the same and your years will not fail. But to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? This section of Scripture has to do with Christ being superior over the angels. But we have a critical introduction before we begin to open the text.

The role of the pastor is not only to teach the word from the pulpit, but is to share and point out whatever God has shared and point out in the context of what he is going to be discussing. And this morning we are discussing the superiority of Christ. It is a critical doctrine. It is an essential doctrine. Still, the focus of our text is on Christ, his deity from the Scripture. Now when we say his deity, it means that he is God.

He is God the Son. And hopefully I can point out why we get tripped up with that sometimes or may have some doubts or shadows of doubts or why others may get tripped up by it. But it is very important, as I mentioned, an essential doctrine. Now an essential doctrine is something we will divide over. Non-essentials, you know, what color do you paint the church? Does it get a steeple or not?

Those are non-essentials. But an essential doctrine is something that we will not budge on. It's clearly taught in Scripture.

It's embraced. And those who disagree depart from the faith. That's how we as Christians see it. So, to reject Christ, his deity, or to add another to the deity. So yeah, Christ is God the Son, but also some other created being is also God.

You say, well who does that? Well those who pray to Mary do that, for example. Those who pray to Simon Peter, for example.

These things are forbidden in Scripture. To reject the deity of Christ is to not be a Christian. That is critical doctrine. To put any created being on the level of Jesus demands that we reject that, and if given the chance in grace, we correct it. It is, again, irreconcilable. An irreconcilable difference of opinion about what the Bible says. And we must depart from any church that departs from this truth or excuses it in others.

Christ, he comes to us with shouts of grace, which is more significant because of who he is. I could come to you with shouts of grace, but I can't take away your guilt. He can. He can say, I know you sinned. I know you've fallen short. I know you've failed, but I love you with the power that you will enjoy for all eternity. I can't do that.

You cannot do that, but he does do it. Especially those of you who love the Lord and are laden with guilt. He will never leave you nor forsake you.

He always has grace. Were I sitting in a church and heard the preacher reject the deity of Christ, I would not be doggone. I'd be long gone.

Instantly, I would get up and leave and knock the dust off my feet. And why Christians do not do that? I can only suggest maybe they're not Christians. That's why this passage of scripture is going to pile drive this truth home. Pile driving. You know, you want to put a structure up, but the ground is too soft to support the structure.

And if you just build it, it will start sinking. So you drive piles down. You drive these holes or pipes, you could say.

Holes and then fill the pipes with concrete or however you want to do it. But you put stilts on it until they go down deep enough to hit bedrock or some soil that is strong enough to support the structure. And if you've ever heard a pile driver work, especially in Manhattan, for example, where the bedrock is hundreds of feet down, and they drive those piles all day long, it gets in your head. You hear it as you go home on the subway. You hear that pile driver banging away. That's what this passage of scripture, this section of scripture is going to do with the truth of Jesus Christ.

You're going to drive it, drive it, drive it. And if you don't get it, you've had it when it comes to judgment. If you leave this world rejecting his deity. Now I've got to back this up with scripture as does the writer of Hebrews backs up everything he says with scripture.

Ephesians 5, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Maybe I have a family member who I love and care about, but they do not accept that Christ is God the Son. And there is no human being or angel or created being near equal to him any more than they are equal with the Father. Well, then I can still live with them, of course, and love them, but I cannot fellowship in the faith with them. I can pray for them, but I am not going to pray with them because who am I praying with them to? We're not praying to the same God. I can't join hands and pray with a Hindu or a Mormon or any other false faith as I see it. But with a Christian brother who accepts the essential doctrine or Christian sister, of course, I can pray with them. Sometimes I think Christians don't get that.

They're all starry-eyed that, you know, we should all get along. There's really no sin in the world or something. No, there's big sin in the world, and we're at war with that sin. And we cannot pretend that it calls for anything less than truth. Christianity is not the pursuit of truth. It's the realization of truth going forward. It's not the quest for truth. We've got it. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

We have him. John, in writing his second letter, he had this problem with a group called the Gnostics. They were going around trying to undo the believer's faith and who Jesus is and declares that himself to be. And this is what John said.

This is how I want you to treat those boys. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ, that's what we're talking about. That's what John is talking about. He says, does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. He puts him on equal platform with God Almighty, the Father, because he is the Son. He says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house nor greet him.

Now, I have to pause there. The Jehovah Witnesses show up and they want to debate and argue and win you over. Do you let him into your house? Yes, if you're going to deal with them, if you're going to straighten them out, but you do not let them in, if you're going to be buddy with them and cozy.

You don't have my own report shivering, which we could go in the house so I could share Christ. That's not the point John is making. John, in those days talking about the churches that met in houses, you don't bring these people into the flock so they can destroy the sheep like ravenous wolves. You point them out, you identify them and you keep your distance. He then says in 2 John, verse 11, for he who greets him shares in his evil.

Now, what does he mean by this? Deuteronomy 23, 6, the Jews were entering into the land of Canaan, able to keep their distance from those who worshiped idols. He says, you shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever. There's a curse upon them, there's a curse on them.

You bring them the light, we can do that. We can love them, but when it comes to spiritual matters, we are distinct. We have to be very clear about that. Revelation 18, 4, and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, lest you receive her plague. So, God's very serious about separation, being distinct. And so, we who believe cannot lose sight of that and now we look at the fifth verse. Understanding, I've given this introduction because this is where the writer is going. He's going to insist to his audience that there's no one like Christ.

And he starts with the angels. He will occupy the remainder of this chapter and much of the next chapter because the Jews had a problem. They really thought that the angels were near to, you know, almost one step to God.

They held them in such high esteem. He has to deal with this and it's his foundation to everything else he's going to say throughout this Hebrew document. And so, he starts off, for to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son? The answer, real quick, none, none, not one, according to the scripture. The scripture alone is our authority on what we believe, spiritual things.

Not for if you want to go buy clothes and you want to buy a brown belt or a black belt. You don't need the scripture to help you there. But how we shall live and what we shall believe about the unseen and seen universe, how we shall behave, what God expects from us, we come to the scripture.

That is our sole source of authority. And the angels, they do not have this status as son. This single verse, as throughout the rest of this chapter, demolishes the Mormon teaching that Jesus is somehow an angel, a created being, his superiority to all is what this Hebrew letter is insisting upon, as has the Gospels, as has Paul's writings and Peter's and all of those in the New Testament. He establishes this truth with no less than seven Old Testament quotations of scripture.

It's the word he's going to. Again, something that many who claim Christ are afraid of. They're afraid of the scripture evidently. They do not want to come under its authority.

They just want to receive its benefits. Well, he's going to talk about the relationship of God to the son, which the angels do not have, the superiority over angels, of course, and the sharing of the throne of God. None of the angels get that.

No human being gets this. He says, you are my son. Now, the Jews understood that Jesus said that he was God when he walked the earth. They were so sure that he claimed to be equal with God the father that they were going to kill him for it. John's Gospel, chapter 5, verse 18, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father, making himself equal with God. How is it that the Jehovah Witnesses can't see that? They'll come to you and they'll say, well, he never said he was God. The Jews said he did and they were so sure they were going to kill him, as I mentioned.

That is stark. That's clear. He did claim this. There are no degrees in deity. There's not God first class, God second class, God third class. The Godhead, they're equal. Three distinct persons, not three distinct gods. They're not three different gods.

Three personalities all belonging to one. So here he quotes Psalm 2, which is the Psalm that says, Messiah will deal with his enemies, but this portion, he says, Yahweh has said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. So the writer of Hebrews writing to the Jews who were confused about their faith, he's trying to straighten them out on this, I'm sure many got upset. He says, to which of the angels has Yahweh ever said this?

Only to a son. He's not done with it. Today I've begotten you, he continues in verse 5. This is in his role as incarnate Messiah. And if you miss that, then you start getting shadows and confused about why does the Bible seem to refer to Jesus as less than equal with God in some sections, and then other sections has him right equal with God.

And we discussed this last session. One reason, the main reason is, the Bible is presenting the Messiah, who we know to be Jesus, in his role as Messiah, in his humanity. But it never loses sight also of his eternal deity. He was God the Son long before he came through a virgin and became the Jesus who walked in Nazareth. There's a bunch more to him. There's more to Jesus Christ than the Jesus who walked the earth.

And aren't we glad that is so? And so the only uncreated one, straight from the Father, not made, but made visible. You see the distinction. Christ is God made visible. Philip, if I've been with you so long, you've not known that he who has seen me has seen the Father? Put those words in the mouth of anybody else, you've got blasphemy. Mary couldn't say that. None of the angels could ever say that.

Paul could not say that. Only, only this begotten Son. And as God, Jesus himself, well let me put it this way, as man, in the role of Messiah, he worshiped and adhered to his Father in heaven. But as God, he is worshiped. We understand that when he became human, he laid aside his sovereignty, or else he would never have allowed them to crucify him. But he never laid aside his deity. He was always God. And so as a man, he worshiped the Father, publicly and privately, and he grew out in this humanity, his role as Messiah, into his sense of deity right before our eyes. And so in the latter days, toward the crucifixion, we have him making it clearer and clearer to us through the scripture. And so God does not want us, as the writer of Hebrews, did not want his audience to trust the instincts, our instincts, or our feelings, or our intellect, our ability to study and deduce and to reason.

That's not enough. There's got to be something above those things. Something has to bring those things in order. That is the scripture. And if you say, well, that's not so, then you follow the pattern of all the cults, all the false religions of the world.

They just insist upon what they believe. Well, someone told me. I'm no spiritual feature to back it up, to support it. Peter said, we've got prophecy. We can support it. Again, you just look over at Israel, and you see this prophecy fulfilled right in front of your eyes.

No one else has these things, and that's not the only one we have. And so we believe because God has declared these things in his word. Paul, when he was preaching, looking to make converts to Jesus Christ, he says, as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I begotten you. And so there it is being used elsewhere the same way, to point to Christ, to get the folks to understand that God came in human form, his humanity, his role as Messiah, but he is God Almighty, the Son. He says again at the bottom of verse 5, and again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. This exclusive relationship is already, he's quoting 2 Samuel 14, I will be his father, and he shall be to me a son.

As I mentioned, the writer is not saying to this audience, I'm going to just reason with you with proofs that are too big to refute. He is doing that, but what he is saying is, and they come from Scripture, and that is our authority. You either yield to the authority of Scripture, or you fall under the judgment, in your heart. Nowadays, you know, we're going to stumble, we don't agree with the things we do wrong, that's what also determines that we are Christians, we hate the wrong that we do, because we love the Christ who saved us.

The world can have other motives for hating their wrongs, it's not the same thing. We are again to maintain this degree of distinction, that's where the word Christian comes from, we're like Christ, we're separated. The Jews were hated before us for being distinct, they're hated to this day for being distinct in their worship, in their adherence to their understanding of the Scripture. In verse 6, but when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. We're clearly told that he is to be worshiped. Worship is not to be extended to any created being. How do you reconcile this with the first commandment? Thou shall have no other gods before me. Clearly he is a god, not a god, as I mentioned there's not three different gods, but clearly he is God the Son, or otherwise he could not be worshiped. The firstborn here, and see this again is where we often get to, well why is he firstborn if he's God? God is eternal. It's not firstborn in the order of coming into this world, but it's prominence, it's rank, it's title. He is above all, there's none higher. In his humanity there's none higher. In his deity you don't even have to say it. We already understand it. It's not an order of time. It is not a start, it is a distinction.

That is what he is saying. He is before the angels and everybody else. Christ was not the first to be born on earth, evidently. Adam was not the first to be born on earth. He was created out of the clay, and Eve came from his side, and then there were children after them.

Cain and Abel and many others. And so he is superior, he is sovereign. John, John's Gospel chapter 7, Jesus is praying to the Father. And now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself.

Who can say that? What human being, what angel can say, glorify me with God? But Christ said it. He says, with the glory I had with you before the world was. You see, there's more to him than when he first came.

We have to be fiercely clear on these things. I love this kind of scripture. We talk about we want to meet Christ, introduce somebody. Well, who is he? Who do men say that I am? He asked his disciples.

Some say this, some say that. Peter said, you are the Christ, and the Christ is the Son of God. And wait till we start opening up all the Yahweh sections of the Old Testament applied to Yahweh to Jesus.

How do you do that unless he is worthy? He says here in verse 6, He says, God the Father, let all the angels of God worship him. And the wise men worshiped him. The lepers, when they were cleansed, worshiped him. The disciples worshiped him.

Even in the book of Revelation, we see them in heaven, the 24 elders bowing down and worshipping the Lamb Jesus Christ. This quote, let all the angels of God worship him, in the Old Testament it is assigned to Yahweh or Jehovah. Yahweh is likely closer to the proper pronunciation than Jehovah.

But it's now part of our understanding, and so many articles have written that way. It's not wrong to say Jehovah, but anyway, here it is applied in the New Testament to Jesus Christ. How do you do that? How can you take an Old Testament verse that is talking about Yahweh and apply it to you?

You can't. You say, Pastor, you're driving this home. Well, I opened up with the pile driver.

I warned you. Because this should not be a Christian on earth that does not understand this. That's what an essential doctrine is.

There's no margin here. It is an all or nothing. And the consequences are severe if you reject.

That's why it's essential. It has everything to do with the damning of a soul. If you want to say, I think Jesus wore black sandals and not brown sandals, that won't damn your soul. Make you look a little doofy, but that won't damn you. But if you say, yeah, he was God the Son, you can also pray to someone else. Now you are running into serious problems. It doesn't matter if I say these things, if I don't bring them out.

We'll get to them as we move forward. He says, let all the angels worship him. Deuteronomy 32, 43. Now the writer, as we opened up, we said, the writer quotes exclusively from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

And that is where these quotes are coming from. That means if you take your English Bible, which does not quote the Greek translated Hebrew, but quotes the Hebrew from Hebrew to English, you're going to see some differences. There's leeway in the verses, in the translation of words. For instance, one translator may use the word messenger. Another may use the literal word angel. Angel means messenger.

The context lets us know if he's from the spiritual realm or the physical realm most of the time. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross Reference Radio.