The Identity of Jesus
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 30 June 2024
In Hebrews 1, we read a great testimony of Jesus Christ. And that means a complete understanding of the very nature of the Child that was born in Bethlehem. We are given information that tells us about the earthly parents of Jesus, Joseph and mother Mary, His actual Father being God the Holy Spirit. And we’re introduced to the forerunner of Jesus, John who will announce His arrival.
And we are introduced to the angel Gabriel, and to a host of angels who celebrate the birth of Christ and announced His birth to shepherds out in the field. We have seen the history of the birth of Christ unfold on earth. And Hebrews 1, is what amounts really to be a heavenly commentary. Look at the birth of Christ more deeply in terms of who Jesus Christ is, the identity of Jesus, the Son of God.
And we’ve gone through the first three verses, in which God’s Son is introduced to us, in verse 2, as the One who has been appointed heir of all things; the One through whom God made the universe; the One who is the brightness of God’s glory, who is the exact reproduction of God’s person; the One who upholds all things by the word of His power as the Sustainer of His creation.
Jesus is the One who by Himself purged our sins, and He did that by dying on the cross and rising again. And He sits now on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Now, all of that defined the nature of Christ as God. But there’s one other element to this definition of Christ. It would be very important for us to understand, and it really is the main theme in this chapter.
As wondrous as it is to identify Jesus Christ, the child born in Bethlehem, as the Heir of all things, as the one who made the world, as the brightness of the glory of God, the exact reproduction of His person, as the Sustainer of the universe, as the One who purged our sins and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, there is one other remaining question which would exist in the mind of a Jew.
And the culmination of that sentence is this, “having become so much better than the angels.” If you go any higher than angels, You are God. There are no other created beings than angels and humans, and they would have seen angels as higher than they, because angels dwelt in the presence of God. And so, the Jews saw angels as the loftiest of all of God’s creation.
In fact, to be above angels would be to be equal with God, and that’s precisely the point the writer of Hebrews wants to make. And so, He wants to place Christ in the right location, as it were, in terms of the thinking of people, namely the Jewish people. And so, he says, “This One, who is the Son of God, is better than the angels.” Not just better, but so much better than angels.
Angels are wonderful beings created by God. They were there before the creation. They might have been created just prior to God actually creating the material universe. They must have been soon before the material universe, because they occupy the heavens which God created in Genesis 1. They, according to Job could be defined as the morning stars who sang together at the creation.
Now, holy angels were used by God in many ways. You find throughout Old Testament history that sometimes the angel of the Lord appears. You remember that there was a wrestling with an angel from the Lord indicated in Genesis. The angels of the Lord served the divine purpose of caring for the nation Israel on some occasions. An angel was sent from God to assist the prophet Daniel.
You remember the angels were seen by Isaiah on the occasion that He was given a vision of the glory of God, and the cherubim came out, the angels who apparently guard the holiness of God and said, “Holy, holy, holy.” It’s very likely that in the vision of Ezekiel he was allowed to see some angelic being described there who are very parallel to angelic beings being described in Revelation.
So, angels were viewed as spirits who were righteous and holy and dwelled in the presence of God to serve God. No more important duty ever given to angels, from a Jewish viewpoint, than the responsibility to aid God in disseminating His holy Law, which they came to know as the Mosaic covenant or the Old Testament. Angels were the agents by which God was assisted in dispensing His Law.
You look at the cross, and you see the humanity. But as we look at Hebrews, we want to balance that out and see who it was that was there. It was One who was much better than the angels, though, as Hebrews 2 says, “for a little while He was made lower than the angels.” But in His nature, in His person, His character, His essence, He was so much better than angels because He was God.
Now, this is a very important point to make with Jewish people who have great reverence and respect for angels. And so, the writer patiently gives us five ways in which He shows the superiority of Jesus over the angels. First of all by virtue of His name. Verse 4 says, “He is so much better than the angels because He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”
Verse 5, “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You’? And again, ‘I will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son’?” Answer? None. Because it is a designation of essential nature. To say that Jesus is the Son of God who is the Father is to say that they share the same essence, and they share the same nature, they are identical.
Furthermore, the Jews understood that the son had the right to all that the father possessed. They understood family. Families went back a long way. They could trace their genealogy. You see them unfold in the Bible as the Bible opens immediately into the scriptures in Genesis. Genealogies appear and are passing down inheritances from generation to generation.
Imagine with all the divorce and all the illegitimate children and all the chaos that’s going on trying to pass down anything to a succeeding generation. But in ancient times, that’s how life was lived. People made commitments to marriage within the framework of longstanding families. And generation after generation they shared the same possessions, inheriting what belonged to the fathers.
When Jesus came along and said He was the Son of God, the Jews interpreted that to mean that He shared the same nature with God. They said that Jesus was blaspheming because He was claiming to be God. Therefore they accused Him of the severest kind of blasphemy and a violation of the first commandment which is to have no other God but the true and living God.
But Jesus is the Son of God, and He is thus given the name Son which is a name that expresses His eternal generation from the Father. There never was a time when the Father brought the Son into existence. The Son is as eternal as the Father. There never was a moment in all of eternity when the Son did not exist, but the Father/Son terminology is used to express a shared nature.
They both share the same divine, essential nature, and the right to the same inheritance, that is to possess all that exists in the entire created universe, be it material or immaterial. Secondly, the writer of Hebrews wants it clear that Jesus is superior to angels on the basis of His rank, not just His name. He says that the word “firstborn,” prōtotokos is not a word of chronology; it’s a word of preeminence.
It really could be translated the premier One, the prominent One, the highest-ranking One, the preeminent One. It wouldn’t be necessary to identify the Son of God with a number, because there aren’t any more. The firstborn is not a numeric term; it is not a chronological term that indicates some kind of sequence in birth. It is a term meaning preeminence. And that indicates the rank of Jesus.
In Colossians 1:15, it says this, “He is the image of the invisible God; He is the prōtotokos, the preeminent One over all creation.” So, it’s simply identifying His rank. And to prove that, there are seven quotes from Old Testament passages here. And here it is, verse 6, taken from Psalm 89, “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” He is the premier one over all creation.
There is to be no worship offered to any created being. All worship is to be offered only to God. This, therefore, again establishes that He is God. This “Let all the angels” actually comes from Deuteronomy 32, the point here being the angels are commanded to worship God. That’s their primary function, to worship God. And part of that worship, obviously, is to serve God.
Now, there’s a third identity here to show the superiority of Jesus to angels which equates Him with God. First His name, second His rank, and thirdly His nature. Verse 7, “And about the angels he says: He makes His angels winds, and his servants a fiery flame.” This is a quote out of Psalm 104. But here it says that angels are spirits. They are immaterial spirits. They are created.
God created angels as spirits. They are seen sort of metaphorically as a flame of fire. Notice the contrast in verse 8, “But to the Son, ‘Your throne, God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice.” That’s the distinction in nature. The Son of God sits on a throne that is eternal forever. That’s the first distinct difference in the nature of angels and Christ.
Verse 9, “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; this is why God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy beyond your companions.” That’s a statement drawn from Psalm 45 and Isaiah 61. It is characteristic of the Son who is God that He loves righteous and hates lawlessness, which are two sides of the same holiness. We know that that is not the case with created spirits.
Lucifer, Son of the Morning, anointed cherub, one of the originally created angels, chose to hate righteousness and love lawlessness. And he was able to lead a rebellion including one-third of all the angels who joined him in his mutiny against God. Angels initially had the capacity to sin, and some did and were cast out of heaven. They constitute the demons who serve the purposes of Satan today.
But the eternal God forever loves righteousness and hates lawlessness. And because of a difference in nature and a difference in character, angels could make the choice to love lawlessness and hate righteousness, but the Son could not. There is a great difference in essential nature. And verse 9 concludes, “Therefore God anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
Number four, verse 10 says, “And: In the beginning, Lord, you established the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.” God views the Son as the Creator who was here before there was anything created. John 1:1 says, “Everything that was made was made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” This testimony here comes from Psalm 102.
Verse 11-12 says, “They will perish, but You remain. They will all grow old like clothing: 12 You will roll them up like a cloak, and they will be changed like clothing. But You are the same, and your years will never end.” Angels could change, and some did; He cannot change. The creation will dissolve. The heavens and the earth will be uncreated, but God will never change.
Jesus is God by virtue of His name, by virtue of His rank, by virtue of His nature, by virtue of His eternality, and finally by virtue of His destiny. In verse 13, the writer of Hebrews says, “Now to which of the angels has God ever said, “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.’” To what angel did God ever grant ultimate eternal sovereignty? Answer? None.
The destiny of Christ is to rule all in heaven. Every knee in heaven and earth and under the earth is going to bow to Him. All His enemies are going to come under Him. You see that unfold in the rest of the New Testament, particularly in Revelation, where He finally subjects all His enemies to Himself. Jesus takes His seat as King of kings and Lord of lords. We now want to talk about how angels minister to us.
According to Matthew 18, Jesus uses His angels to care for His own. We don’t see them, but God dispatches His angels for the protection and the care of His people. It’s talking about these angels being ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit the full future inheritance of our salvation, which indicates the glory of heaven where the Son will reign over us.
Furthermore, the apostle Paul said that when we go to heaven and are made like Jesus Christ, we will become joint heirs with Him. And therefore, we will inherit all that He possesses. Not only that, repeatedly in the New Testament, it tells us that we will reign with Him. We will receive crowns, and we will reign with Him. We will sit with Him on the Father’s throne it says in Revelation.
This is the saga of redemption, as God plans a redeemed humanity to be given as a bride to His Son. That redeemed humanity then reflects His glory, becomes a joint heir of all that He possesses, and forever worships and honors the Son, to be served by the angels in eternity. Their destiny is service. His destiny is sovereignty. So, the angels look prominent, but Jesus is so much better then they. Let us pray.