In these two articles Kegan A. Chandler expounds on Hebrews Chapter 1:1-5 and 1:8.
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And he is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.” (Hebrews 1:1-5 NASB)
In this beautiful introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer informs us that in ages past, God spoke to man through many different prophets (and they killed all of them!) but now, after those ages had passed,
God finally gave the world a final prophet: His own Son! After having rejected all of the previous prophets, God said: “Surely they will listen to my own Son!” But of course, Jerusalem killed him too! [cp. Matt 21.37-38, Mark 12.7-8, Luke 20.13-15] In the letter's opening statement, we are meant to understand that Jesus is the ultimate prophet concluding a long line of prophets sent from God. No other prophet has been a better oracle for God’s word, no other prophet has had such intimate knowledge of God, and no other prophet has been such a perfect leader and example to us. Which is why in verse 3 the writer says
“and the Son is the exact representation of God’s nature”. There has never been a better man to show us the way to God.
The most vital aspect to understanding verse 1-2a is the ‘temporal’ nature of the statements. The fact they communicate a time period in which
the Son was not speaking says a great deal about the error of the popular doctrines that the Son was eternally begotten, and has been existing and working since before time began. Hebrews 1-2a soundly refutes idea that the Son has existed eternally, or that he pre-existed in another form before he was the MAN messiah Jesus (1 Tim 2:5) born in the first century.
Verse 1 begins with “Long ago” or “in ages past". ... “BUT in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”.
Apparently, God has been speaking in many portions and many ways in the past, but it is only now
(post Jesus arrival) that God has spoken to us through His Son. So before Jesus was born, God was not speaking through a Son. This totally dismantles the popular theories that in the Old Testament when we see “the angel of the LORD” that it is Jesus. Other teachings suggest that the priest Melchizedek encountered by Abraham in Genesis is a "pre-incarnate Son". Jehovah's Witnesses as well as countless Protestant groups teach that in the Old Testament we can see the
“pre-incarnate Christ” walking and talking and delivering messages from God to men, but Hebrews 1-2 says otherwise. Clearly God did not speak through Jesus until a certain time which the Hebrews’ writer calls “these last days”, which have taken place after God had spoken to all the fathers in the past.
It is only in "these last days" that he has spoken through Jesus. This is because Jesus didn’t literally exist yet. Jesus certainly did not “pre-exist”, (whatever ‘pre-existence’ means, I cannot comprehend. I try and imagine, for a moment,
how one can exist before they exist? The Bible testifies that Jesus was a real man exactly like his brothers in every way. Real Humans do not pre-exist... unless you’re a Mormon! Humans are brought into existence in the wombs of their mothers. )
Jesus did not literally exist until he was born (just like his brothers), but
he was indeed foreknown in the mind/plan of God. The divine plan for Jesus is what all of creation came into being for. This is what the famous introduction to the Gospel of John is concerned with—
Jesus is what the word (Greek: logos-- word, saying, plan, message) eventually became. This is what Hebrews 1:2 is concerned with when it says that God made the world "through Jesus". Many will try to use this verse to try to prove that Jesus created the world or actively had a hand in the Creation events in
Genesis, but that is clearly not what the text says. It doesn’t say that “Jesus created the world”, instead it says “God created the
world [literally from the Greek,
"ages"] through Jesus”.
God was the author of the physical world, and certainly God was alone in creation (Is 44:24). Jesus himself had no hand in creation, rather it was
the plan for Jesus that was the core motivator for creation.
Jesus also never says that he is the Creator, but always says the Creator is someone else—God (Matt 19:4, Mark 10:6). Jesus of course never claims to have had any part in the act of the Genesis creation, and consistently attributes the authorship elsewhere. If the Son were actually the Creator of Genesis, then Hebrews 1:2 is lying when it says that God didn’t speak through a Son until these last days. When the universe sat in darkness, who was it that called Creation into being by the words of his mouth?
"By faith we understand that the worlds [literally from the Greek,
"ages"] were framed by the word of God..." (Hebrews 11:3 NKJV)
"By the word of YHWH were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." (Psalm 33:6 AKJV)
Hebrews shows us that it was not the Son who spoke the world into existence in ages past.
“Let there be light!" was surely spoken by none other than God, not by Jesus or through the person of Jesus or anything of the sort.
Verses 1 and 2 say that “GOD” spoke through the prophets and then through the Son… this makes “God” the motivator and the prophets and the Son
His mouthpieces who are subordinate to Him. Of course, this doesn’t fit with the Trinitarian idea that the Father and Jesus are CO-EQUAL parts of an eternal being and that no one is greater than the other. The words being spoken belong to God, which is what Jesus says: “I say nothing on my own but say only what the Father has taught me” (John 8:28)— Jesus is a mouthpiece for someone else who is calling the shots, just like all the other prophets, though he is the greatest prophet ever—the one written about by Moses, in fact.
As for the middle part of verse Heb. 1:2—(this is life-changing to me) “in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world”….
The clear testimony that God has appointed Jesus to be the “heir” perfectly displays that the Father and the Son are NOT equal. If someone is an “heir” to something, that means that at one point in time, he did not possess it. Everyone knows what it means to be an ‘inheritor’… it means that you receive something as a gift that you didn’t have before from someone to whom it originally belonged.
Remember, God says this about Himself: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool—try and show me the house that you could build for me!” (ISA 66:1)… there is no doubt that all of creation belongs to God—He IS the Creator, after all ... and that is the point: God cannot be an ‘inheritor’ of anything. The fact that the Bible repeatedly calls Jesus an “heir” (and us “co-heirs”, praise God!) is very incompatible with Trinitarian teaching which demands Christ to be co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. If Jesus is God from all eternity, then the world has always belong to Him. However, Hebrews 1:2 is clearly teaching us that all things belong to God and He is giving all things to His heir, Jesus.
We must ask ourselves: What is the point of Hebrews chapter 1? Is the writer of Hebrews trying to tell us that
Jesus is God Almighty? He (and all of the other biblical authors) have had thousands of chances to come out and tell us plainly if that’s what they mean. But instead, this writer hits several clear points that in no way communicate Christ’s
“godhood”, but rather communicate Christ’s “subordination”, his central place in God’s plan, his “inheritance”, and many other ideas that are foundationally incompatible with Trinitarian teaching.
Next we have verses 3 and 4, which really settle the whole matter concerning who the author of Hebrews believes Jesus to be. It says that “Christ sat down at the right hand”………
How many times have we heard
“Jesus sits on the throne” in teaching and in worship songs? But the Bible says
he is sitting beside God in heaven; he is awaiting the time when
he will sit down on the throne of the earth, not the throne of Heaven. (See Psalm 110:1)
And finally, the
coup de grace: “he became as much superior to the angels”. Jesus became superior to the angels,
because he wasn’t superior to them before his ascension into Heaven/glorification. Remember, Trinitarian teaching says there was no time when Jesus was not 100% YHWH. But if we say that
Jesus is God Almighty then we are placing God “for a little while lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:9). I do not believe that God would appreciate us believing that He was beneath the angels,
His own creation and servants. Jesus had to ACHIEVE superiority to the angels. Here is the point: If the writer of Hebrews believed that
Jesus was God, then there would be no reason to state that Jesus is greater than the angels as such should go without saying.
To make the point further, he says that Jesus is
the exact representation of God’s nature. ... Can anything be a representation of itself? If the writer of Hebrews really believed
Jesus is God and if the people he was talking to believed the same thing, why write a letter like this?
So we must ask ourselves again: what is the writer’s point? Is he writing to tell us that
Jesus is God, that
Jesus is the Creator? Or is the writer telling us that the man Jesus has been given all power and authority? It is surely as Peter said:
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: GOD has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah!” (Acts 2:36)
Praise be to the God of Jesus, the God who heard the prayers of His Son and rescued him from death (Heb 5;7), who crowned him with glory and invited him to sit beside him in power—
giving him authority over every angel and every man and every living thing; tree, fish, flower, and blade of grass—truly all of Creation has come into being for this man!
Our Brother Jesus—Our King—the firstborn inheritor of the world (Rom 4:13), who has ascended through obedience and submission to the Creator who is blessed forever!
“But of the Son He says, "YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER, AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM” – Hebrews 1:8 (NASB)
Hebrews 1:8 is one of the most popular verses used by Trinitarians and Oneness-believers to demonstrate that
Jesus of Nazareth is God. However, a closer examination of the first and second chapters of Hebrews will shed light on the fact that in the biblical context, one may indeed be called
"God" and not actually be the God of Israel. We must read verse 8 in light of the information provided for us by the author in the surrounding context, as well as what we know about God's nature revealed in the Old Testament, and
the Hebraic concept of Agency.
We must demand that the verse be examined in context. We cannot lift this verse out of its context, discarding the rest of the Epistle to the Hebrews and standing it up on its own as an end-all doctrinal statement, which is a surefire way to acquire faulty exegesis. Many Trinitarians and others have claimed that Hebrews 1:8 is clear proof that
Jesus is YHWH. However, the truth is that in no way does the writer of Hebrews argue that
Jesus is YHWH. If so, he makes a very poor argument that can be easily dismantled by their own writings in the first two chapters. The writer of Hebrews, whoever they were, was an obviously well-studied early Christian. They have grasped both the totality of the revelation of Jesus Christ in the post-ascension era, as well as the essential concepts of Agency found many times in the Old Testament scriptures.
The writer succinctly argues, not that
Jesus is YHWH, but
that Jesus is a supremely exalted man who has been given YHWH’s authority and has become superior even to the holy angels.
Let us examine the information that the writer gives us about Jesus that surrounds verse 8:
Before we get to verse 8 we read that Jesus:
1) was not speaking to the fathers in ages past (1:1-2)
2) had to become superior to angels since he previously wasn’t (1:4)
3) gained an inheritance of something he didn’t have a right to previously (1:4)
4) will be a Son to God (interestingly, not God himself) (1:5)
5) is a representation of God (interestingly, not God himself) (1:3)
And right after we get to verse 8 we read that Jesus:
1) has a God (1:9)
2) has been anointed above his fellows (1:9) (God has no fellows)
3) was made for a while lower than the angels (2:9)
4) is NOW crowned with glory and honor because he died (2:9) (since he wasn’t crowned beforehand)
5) is the pioneer of mankind’s salvation (the first to receive salvation) (2:10)
6) calls mankind his BROTHERS (2:11)
7) says that he will put his trust in God (2:13)
8) is made like his brothers in every single way (2:17)
9) was tempted (2:18) (God cannot be tempted)
10) is now counted worthy of more glory than Moses (3:3)
(if he’s YHWH, shouldn’t this go without saying?)
Certainly the writer is not describing the unchanging, Almighty YHWH, Eternal Lord of the Universe. We must understand then, being from a different time and culture than the writer, that there must another meaning to “the Son” being called
“GOD/god” in Heb 1:8.
There are several OT passages that once applied only to YHWH, that now in the New Testament age, are applied to
His representative, Jesus. We know that the writer of Hebrews uses this method because of what we find at the end of Chapter 1 and the beginning of Chapter 2. Remember, the original text contains no chapter breaks; knowing this will often assist the Bible student in connecting ideas across later chapter-and-verse interpolations.
Verse 10 starts quoting Psalm 102:25:
“He also says, In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands; They will perish, but you remain; and they all will become old like a garment, and like a mantle you will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.”
In the same way that the writer took Psalm 45 and applied it to Jesus, he is taking Psalm 102 and applying it not only to Jesus, but also to the new creation of the new heavens and new earth. In the OT period, Psalm 45 applied to GOD laying the foundation of the Genesis creation. The writer is now applying it to Jesus who will “make all things new”
when he comes to establish the Kingdom Age. ‘In the beginning’ of the New Age, Jesus will ‘roll up the old earth and change it like a garment’. How do we know that the writer is meaning this? Because he says so just [a few] verses later:
“For He did not subject to angels the world to come, about which we are speaking.” (Heb 2:5)
So we can see that the writer is using words/phrases/verses that previously referred to YHWH and to the acts of YHWH and is applying them
to his representative on earth,
Jesus Christ.
In Hebrews 1:8, Jesus is being called
‘elohim’ (Gr ‘theos’) or
“god/GOD”.
Remember, many people in the Bible are called
“GOD” in a representational sense:
Moses = “Then YHWH said to Moses, “See I have made you GOD to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet” (Exodus 7:1)
Rulers of Israel = “I said, ‘You are GOD”, you are all sons of the Most High” (Psalm 82:6)
...
Jesus, however, is no more YHWH than Moses is.
We must understand that
“GOD/God/god” is a title. It is a descriptive. Strong's, in addition to explaining the biblical usage of
'theos' as pertaining to YHWH, also provides these usages:
#G2316: "a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities, whatever can in any respect be likened unto God or resemble him in any way,
God's representative or viceregent, magistrates and judges"
...
Of course, Jesus is never called YHWH in the entire Bible. Instead, Jesus is one with divine authority, a chief dignitary, a holy prince, a powerful ruler. Jesus is just
like the angels in that he is
an appointed representative of God with divine authority… but the writer of Hebrew's point is
that Jesus is now HIGHER than all the other ‘gods’! In the same chapter in which the writer calls Jesus “god”, he also says that Jesus “has become as much superior to the angels”, “Let all God’s angels worship him”… and continues to make these comparisons to the angels: “To which of the angels did God ever say: ‘You are my Son, today I have become your Father?’ and “To which of the angels did God ever say ‘Sit at my right hand’?”
Clearly the point is
that Jesus has become the supreme representative of God… even greater than the angels, or even Moses.
The point is certainly not that Jesus is YHWH.
The writer of Hebrews has penned chapters 1-2 in order for us to know that:
Jesus > angels not Jesus = YHWH
Praise be to YHWH, who has rewarded the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5) with exaltation above all other authorities!
Jesus truly is the ultimate representative of God.
