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Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to Hebrews 1:5-14. There is a massive corrective that this author gives his audience in this chapter concerning angels. But it’s a different corrective than what he might give in our day. When I look out on the landscape of Christian theology today, people don’t make the mistake of thinking that angels are greater than Jesus. People make the mistake of thinking that angels are these cute, little, chubby, cherubic baby monsters. And some of this dates back to the renaissance.
An example of this is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” from the sixteenth century. Some of this, as I’ve tried to piece it together comes from a synchronizing of the Judea-Christian understanding of angels with Cupid, the Roman god of love. And Cupid is often depicted as this chubby little baby monster who goes around shooting arrows at people to make them fall in love. And we often depict these angels in hallmark cards or in little figurines you can put in your pocket or place on your coffee table.
And the story of angels gets even weirder in our day. We have these movies about angels, where angels fall in love with human beings. When I was in high school, this movie came out called “Angels in the Outfield,” where these angels actually worked to help the California Angels, a baseball team, win games. Now why angels would be busy with baseball instead of more important stuff, I don’t know. The movie never talks about that.
And here’s what’s ironic about all this. I’ll give you two points of irony. The first is that oftentimes when angels appear in the Bible, the typical response of the human beings in their presence isn’t to say, “Oh, how cute?” but instead to fear for their lives. Because when angels show up in the Bible, usually people die or the whole trajectory of their lives is changed forever.
The other point of irony is that as we read Hebrews, the original recipients of this book had a wrong view of angels too. But it was the exact opposite of how we view angels in our day. They had a healthy, reverence for angelic beings. And that makes sense because this group of people, whoever they were, were steeped in the OT. And they saw the angels of the OT as fearsome, awe-inspiring creatures.
So they had a healthy, reverence for angelic beings. But they thought too much of angels, not too little of them. They may, in some cases, even have venerated angels. And, this is the bigger problem, not only did they think too much of angels, but they thought too little of Christ. And that is what gets this author of Hebrews fired up. He’s going to dive deep into the OT and extract these rich passages that speak of the Son of God Messiah. And he’s going to marshal incontrovertible proof that angels are inferior to the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Tommy Nelson calls this passage of Scripture a “blow your hair back passage.” You just sit back and let the author blow you away with these truths about Jesus from the OT. It is awesome to behold.
So here we go. Let’s get into it. I’ll give you five points today from Hebrews 1:5-14. Here are “Five ways the Son is superior to the angels.” Here’s the first.
1) The Son is begotten of the Father (Heb 1:5; cf. Ps 2:7; 2 Sam 7:14)
Now before we get to this “begotten” statement, let’s talk about “the Son.” And let’s pick up at the end of last week’s passage. The author of Hebrews writes in 1:4,
4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
This is an obvious reference to “the Son” from verse 4. The “name he has inherited” is none other than “the Son of God.” The angels are sometimes called “sons of God.” Human beings are sometimes called the children of God. But only Jesus is “the Son.” And there is a massive chasm of difference between “sons of God” and “The Son of God.” That name of excellence and superiority is reserved for Jesus.
And this was emphasized in Jesus’s life and ministry. At Jesus’s birth he is called “the Son of the Most High” (Lk 1:32). At Jesus’s baptism, God the Father says, “This is my beloved Son” (Matt 3:17). At Jesus’s transfiguration, God says, “This is my beloved son” (Matt 17:5).
And we can add to this that term “begotten.” Only Jesus is the only begotten son, meaning he is of the same essence, he’s of the same stuff, as God the Father. Nowhere in Scripture is that said of angels or human beings, that they are “begotten.” That’s a special designation given to God’s Son in both the Old and the New Testaments. Jesus is described in John 1:14 and John 3:16 (see also John 1:18; 3:18; 1 John 4:9) as God’s only begotten son. And the messianic son of David is described as God’s only begotten son in Psalm 2.
And that’s what the author of Hebrews picks up on here in verse 5.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?
Answer: none of the angels.
Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?
Quickly, let me just point out something artistic for you. I told you last week that this writer combines both great artistry and great theology. And that’s true here as well as last week’s passage. Look quickly at verse 13, and you can see there that he closes this passage, the same way that he opens it in verse 5.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
And verse 13 says,
13 And to which of the angels has he ever said,
This is what we call an inclusio. It’s a term that describes a literary sandwich. The first part of the passage matches the last part of the passage, like two pieces of bread on the top and bottom of a sandwich. This is one of the ways that the author uses artistry to persuade you with his theology.
And speaking of theology, he’s going to use seven passages from the OT to argue his point that the Son is superior to the angels. The first two passages are found in verse 5.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?
This is a reference to Psalm 2, one of the great messianic psalms in the Psalter. And this is what’s called a “royal psalm” or an “enthronement psalm” where the author, David, talks about the power and authority that God has vested in the Davidic Monarchy. And the “You” in this passage is Yahweh. Yahweh has a Son, and it’s not an angel. It’s not even Solomon the Son of David, although I’m sure that David hoped that Solomon would have been that Divine Son that was promised him, the serpent-crusher that God had promised all the way back in the book of Genesis (3:15). But Solomon didn’t cut it as the Divine Son. He wasn’t the Messiah. That came a thousand years later when a virgin conceived and bore a son in Bethlehem.
The author of Hebrews combines Psalm 2 with 2 Samuel 7:14 which is understandable, because both of those passages unpack what we call the Davidic Covenant.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?
In 2 Samuel 7:14, David wanted to build a temple for Yahweh. But Yahweh disallowed it. Yahweh actually turns it around on David. He says, “You want to build me a house of cedar? Nonsense! I’m going to build a house for you. I’m going to make you a great nation and raise up a son from your lineage who will rule the universe. And “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men’” (7:14). That reference to iniquity is a veiled reference to the atonement of Christ.
And it’s possible that David sat down right after that encounter with the Lord and wrote Psalm 2. Obviously sometime after that David wrote that psalm, but I don’t think he truly understood it. I don’t think the Israelites truly understood it. I don’t think anybody truly understood it until Jesus came into this world and said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God didn’t send an angel to redeem the world. God sent himself. Or more precisely, God the Father sent God the Son to redeem the world.
Now let’s talk briefly about this word “begotten,” because this is important. The Greek word used here is γεννάω, which means “to beget” or “to become the father of.” The words “genesis” and “genealogy” are derived from this word γεννάω. And in Matthew 1, we have γεννάω used again and again in Jesus’s genealogy. “Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob, etc. etc.”
The LXX of Psalm 2 uses the same word γεννάω to describe the new kingly son. And the concept there is metaphorical, not literal, because it was an enthronement psalm. When David enthroned Solomon, he would say a variation of this: “You are my son, and today I have begotten you.” But that doesn’t mean that he literally fathered Solomon in that moment or that God literally fathered or adopted the king. An ancient Israelite knew that this was royal language indicating a transfer of power to a new king.
Well something similar happens with Messiah Jesus. This language of begotten-ness is used to describe a transfer of power and a new kingship. This word “begotten” is not a reference to Christ’s beginning at his birth. Jesus existed in eternity past, and I would even add that Jesus’s sonship is an eternal sonship. But the transfer of power, this great enthronement took place after Jesus’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. And now Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father enthroned on high. No angel is given that authority. No angel is spoken of as God’s “begotten son.” It’s an honorific title that’s exclusive to Jesus.
Go ahead and write this down as #2. Here’s another way that the Son is superior to angels.
2) The Son is worshipped as the firstborn (Heb 1:6; cf. Deut 32:43)
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”
Notice the “again” language here. It’s as if the author is saying, “And another thing…” What he’s trying to do with this barrage of OT passages is demythologize their view of angels and elevate their view of Jesus. Which by the end of this passage, you get the impression they would be like, “Okay, okay. We get it! Jesus is way more awesome than the angels.” And the reason he needed to do this is not entirely clear. Paul says in Colossians 2:18, “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels…” So there must have been an issue in the first century world with the worship of angels.
There is also evidence to suggest that in the Qumran community of Israel in the pre-Christ era, there was an unhealthy obsession with angels. In fact, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are these writings that elevate angels to a place of almost deity. Many people are aware that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Israel, there were ancient Scriptures found there. And people were amazed at how well-preserved the books of the OT were. They matched our medieval manuscripts of Hebrew texts quite closely. But the community of Jews that preserved those Scriptures in the desert of Qumran also wrote and preserved some other documents that weren’t Scripture. But they treated them as Scripture. And some of those documents had an unhealthy and unorthodox view of angels, some of it involving the archangel Michael from the OT.
And it’s quite possible that this view of angels wasn’t limited to the Qumran sect of Judaism. It’s possible that this understanding of angels was widespread. And that makes sense for the community that the author of Hebrews was writing to. Obviously, they didn’t understand angels rightly, and they didn’t understand Christ Jesus rightly. Or maybe, they were being influenced by outside forces, Judaizers and the like, who wanted them to jettison Christianity and come back to the traditions of Judaism.
Another possibility here is that the recipients of this letter were being pressured by the Jewish community to downgrade their view of Jesus to an angel. R. Kent Hughes writes, “If they would simply agree that Jesus was an angel, perhaps even the greatest of angels, but not God, they would be accepted into the synagogue and escape the awful pressure. Such a prospect was tantalizing because it did not require an outright denial of Christ, but only a different affirmation of him and his greatness as an angel. And the prospect was also face-saving because it did not deny that they had had a real experience with an exalted being.
And what the author of Hebrews does is very shrewd and discerning. He takes their own ammunition, loads his gun, and blows their arguments away. He turns their attention to the OT Scriptures, and he says, “These OT Scriptures… your OT Scriptures… the Scriptures of these individuals that are wanting you to forsake the Son… these are the Scriptures that speak of how much more superior the Son is to the angels.”
Case in point, Deuteronomy 32:43. In that passage, the angels of God worship the Son, the firstborn of all creation. “You think angels are pretty cool? Well the angels worship the Son!”
Now again, we’ve got to explain this statement. The reference to Jesus as “firstborn” doesn’t mean that he was born into our world like we were, just first. It’s a reference to his status as inheritor of all that God the Father has. A firstborn son inherited the father’s estate in the ancient world. And also the firstborn son was typically anointed as the king. And according to this author, the angels worship the Son. Jesus, the inheritor of all that belongs to God the Father, is worthy of worship, not the angels.
In fact, we have dramatic evidence of this in the Bible. There are times when people try to worship angels in the Bible, and the angels are appalled by it. That happens twice in Revelation when John was overawed by the appearance of an angel. And to be fair, angels are impressive. But when John bows down, the angel strenuously objects and says “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you… Worship God.” (Rev 19:10; 22:9).
It’s interesting to me that this doesn’t happen in Joshua when Joshua bows down and worships the Commander of the LORD’s army (Josh 5:13-15). That Commander doesn’t object to Joshua’s worship. And I think that’s because we have in that narrative a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God. This is what theologians call a Christophany. Why else would that individual receive the worship of Joshua?
Listen to me on this. We don’t bow down and worship any human figure. We don’t bow down and kiss the rings of any pope. We don’t bow down and worship any rock star or movie star or any other mortal human being. We don’t even bow down and worship angelic creatures, who are sent by God and quite honestly can be pretty impressive when they show up in this world.
But we don’t worship them. We mustn’t worship them. We join them in worshipping Christ. The angels would tell us “Worship God alone.”
Go ahead and write this down as #3.
3) The Son is anointed as the King (Heb 1:7-9; cf. Ps 45:6-7; 104:4)
Look at verse 7 with me.
7 Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”
That’s a reference from Psalm 104:4. The word “winds” here could be translated “spirits.” The Greek word πνεῦμα is used for both “winds” and “spirits.” But I think the translation “winds” is right here. The idea is that the angels are out there doing God’s bidding. They are ministers. They are messengers. They are created beings that take orders from God. And they often appear amidst flames of fire. In fact, the word “seraphim” means “burning ones.” It’s derived from the Hebrew שָׂרַף which means “burning.” So those strange creatures that Isaiah saw in the throne room of God must have been infuego in some way.
And by the way, the word “angel” simply means “messenger” (the Greek ἄγγελος and the Hebrew מַלְאָךְ). Angels are messengers not redeemers. They are “errand boys” for the God of the Universe, albeit very scary and intimidating errand boys. Sometimes when God’s sends angels, he sends them with a word of execution. Remember the angel of death (“the Destroyer”) in Egypt (Ex 12:1-51)? Remember when the angel of the LORD struck down 185,000 Assyrians in one night (2 Kings 19:35)? Remember the angel of death in David’s day (2 Sam 24:10-17)? Remember the angel who almost struck down Balaam and his donkey. That talking donkey saved Balaam’s life! The angel told Balaam, “I would have killed you and spared the donkey, but this donkey saved your life” (Num 22:21-39). So the angels are terror-inducing creatures, but they are still God’s “errand boys” that do his bidding.
But, in contrast to that. Look at verse 8.
8 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. 9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”
That word for “anointed” there is the Greek χρίω, which is a cognate of the noun Χριστός. This is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ or our English “Messiah.” And in Psalm 45, the passage quoted here, David uses the verb מָשַׁח. The etymology of that word means to smear or to anoint with oil. And that’s what they did with the kings of the OT. They smeared them with oil. Samuel did that with David and so on and so forth. All of the kings of Israel and Judah were “little-m messiahs”, as they awaited for the “capital-M Messiah,” the promised son of David who would rule forever.
And that connection between kingship and messiahship is made clear in Psalm 45. And it’s made clear in Psalm 2. And the author of Hebrews makes that clear here in Hebrews 1. The enthroned one, he says, is the anointed one. The Messiah is King. And the angels were never kings. They never had thrones. They surround thrones, but they don’t ascend them. Jesus, on the other hand, the Son of God is the King and ascends his throne.
“We don’t like kings, Pastor Tony. We’re Americans. We dressed up like Indians in 1773, and we threw King George’s tea into the Atlantic Ocean. Take that, King George!” Well the reason that we don’t like kings in America is because we’ve never really had a good one. But our hearts have always longed for one. We tell stories about good kings. I would even say it this way, the human heart longs to be ruled by a righteous and good king. And that day is coming. Because our Messiah is a King. And messiahship intimates kingship.
I heard a story this last week about a Scandinavian king named Cnut (c. 990-1035). He was a good and wise king. And he was a Christian. And he was afraid that his people loved him so much that they were starting to look to him as God. So he had this little procession, and he took all of his people down to the ocean. And he told the wind and the waves to hush. And they didn’t stop. And he turned to his people, and he said, “There is but One who rules the wind and the waves, and it is not me.” And we, like Cnut, await that King and his return.
Go ahead and write this down as #4.
4) The Son is uncreated and immutable (Heb 1:10-12; cf. Ps 102:25-27)
Immutable means unchanging. Jesus is unchanging in his nature. And I’m going to carefully nuance that statement. So stay with me here because this is important.
You know, I’ve heard it said that “If you try to define the Trinity you’ll lose your mind, but if you deny it you’ll lose your soul.” I feel like something similar is at work here in verses 10-12. I’m going to try to define the unchanging nature of the Son, while also describing his incarnation. And I’m going to try to do that without losing my mind. So here we go.
Verse 10 says this:
10 And,
Now that’s an important word there. That’s the only non-quotation word in verses 9-12. Which goes to show that all the author is doing is just letting the OT argue his case. And fluidly he goes from Psalm 45 in verse 9 to Psalm 102 in verses 10-12. And this is what it says.
10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”
Now the “You, Lord” there is a reference to Yahweh in the OT. The Psalmist was praising Yahweh and comparing him to mankind. And there’s no comparison. But the author of Hebrews takes that great statement about Yahweh, and he equates it with the Son. The Son is Yahweh. So just to be clear, Yahweh has a Son, and that Son is Yahweh. Y’all with me?
Jesus said “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Jesus is Yahweh, the Great I AM of the OT. But Jesus is also the Eternal Son of I AM. How does that work, Pastor Tony? It works, because of this reality that we call the Trinity. One eternal God in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. “Try to define it you’ll lose your mind. Try to deny it, you’ll lose your soul.”
And speaking of Jesus as Yahweh, the passage goes on to say, “You, Lord [Yahweh-Jesus] laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands.” We saw that already last week, right? Do I need to tell you again about how massive our world is and how Jesus created it all?
And yet verse 11 says that this massive universe with all the planets and all the stars and all the galaxies, they will all perish. It will wear out like a garment. That’s sad!
You know that famous bumper sticker, “The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.” I sure hope that’s not true, because the earth is going the way of the dodo bird. In fact, scientists have discovered that the earth is slowly moving away from the sun as the sun burns up and loses gravitational pull. And eventually the sun itself will burn out. And all this stuff that we’ve accumulated and all the stuff we’ve done as human beings will disappear and be forgotten forever. And you will die, and the earth will disappear, and nobody will ever remember you. Nobody! Have a good afternoon!
Look, if that bumper sticker is right, “The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth,” then we are in a bad way. But aren’t you glad that’s not the case? We don’t belong to the earth; we belong to Jesus. And some day, the Lord Jesus is going to roll this world up like a scroll. He will roll it up and send it to Goodwill like your wife did your favorite pair of jeans. Look again at verse 11.
11 they [the heavens and the earth] will perish, but you [the Son] remain; they [the heavens and the earth] will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you [Yahweh, the Son] will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”
Now this is where careful nuance is necessary when it comes to the Son. Because the Lord Jesus did change. He was always God the Son. He existed in eternity past as God the Son. Theologians refer to this as the eternality of God’s sonship. But Jesus didn’t exist eternally as the God-Man. There was a moment in time that he took on flesh and lived among us. So, he changed. But his essence never changed. Let me say it this way, there was a time that Jesus was not man, but there was never a time that Jesus was not God.
Even the way that Jesus is described in Philippians 2 is important to nuance. Jesus voluntarily set aside some aspect of his divine nature (2:7-8). This is what we call his “self-emptying” or his kenosis. But Jesus never, ever ceased to be God. He is immutably God. The Son is uncreated and immutable.
And by the way, angels are both created beings and mutable. We know that by observing the fallen angels. God created Satan. He is not God’s equal. He is not Jesus’s brother, as the Mormons believe. Jesus created Satan, and Satan chose to rebel, and he convinced a third of the angels to rebel with him.
But of the Son, Hebrews says,
12 like a robe you [Yahweh, the Son] will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”
Listen, when you get dressed for bed this evening, just think about this. When you put on your jammies, or when you are waiting for your kids to put on their jammies so you can put them in bed, you tell them, “Jesus is going to change this world someday like a garment. All the stars, suns, and galaxies, he will roll up and throw away like old clothes in a laundry basket. And then he will create a new world. That’s the Jesus that we love and serve!”
And finally, here’s the coup de grâce for “the angels are just like Jesus” argument. Sometimes you got to take a mangy old dog with rabies outside and put it down. That’s what the author of Hebrews does with the bad theology of his audience.
Write this down as #5. Here’s the last argument for why the Son is greater that angels.
5) The Son is seated at the right hand of the Father (Heb 1:13-14; cf. Ps 110:1)
Verse 13 says this. Remember this is the bottom part of that inclusio.
13 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?
That’s a great rhetorical question right there. Did God ever say that to an angel? No, of course not! Angels are never sitting in the Bible. And even if they did sit, they would never sit at the right hand of God the Father. The right hand in the ancient world was the place of authority. The right hand was the place of prominence and prestige. Only the Son has access to the right hand of God the Father. And just to clarify this situation, Peter says in 1 Peter 3:22, “[Jesus Christ] has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
And by the way, the passage that is quoted here is Psalm 110. And that psalm is quoted in the NT more than any other psalm from the OT. Just like Psalm 2, it is an amazing prophetic piece of poetry that points forward to Messiah Jesus. Jesus quoted this passage to the Pharisees. “The LORD [Yahweh] says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). And Jesus said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt 22:43-45).
That’s a good question. That is what we call a real humdinger of a question, right there. And what’s amazing about it is that Jesus doesn’t answer the question. Because in the very next verse it says, “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions” (22:46). So conceivably, Jesus just left the answer to that question hanging in the wind. He just left them hanging and didn’t answer his question for them. I don’t know why Jesus didn’t spell it out for them. Maybe he didn’t want to because they were hard-hearted Pharisees. Maybe Jesus didn’t want to connect the dots for them until after he had been crucified and resurrected. I don’t know why. He just kind of left them to ponder this question, which turns out to be just about the most important question in the world and something you yourself better have an answer for.
Here’s the question you better have a good answer to, Christian. How can the son of David, the Messiah, also be David’s master? Well here’s the answer. King David’s son, Jesus, is King David’s King. The “Son of David” that’s prophesied in Psalm 110 is more than just a Son of David. He’s also, according to the NT, the Son of God! If the Pharisees were paying attention, maybe they could have seen this.
And the point that the author of Hebrews is making is that no angel comes anywhere close to being told to sit at the right hand of God the Father. That’s ludicrous. Because look at verse 14.
14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
They are just ministering spirits. They are just here to serve us, even. Whatever that means. I don’t think that means that each of us has a guardian angel. That’s kind of silly. But they do serve us in some way.
Actually I’m not so sure this isn’t a veiled reference to the spiritual warfare that is going on all around us all the time. And God has sent out his ministering spirits to serve us and beat back the attacks of the enemies. And there might also be a reference here to the last days when Jesus will command his angels to destroy his enemies forever. And they will prepare the way for us “to inherit salvation.”
Let me close with this. Look, I praise God for angels. Angels are amazing creatures. They really are. They are fellow servants of God with us. They continually praise and worship the God they serve. We could stand to learn a thing or two from them.
Also they are innumerable. The book of Revelation speaks of angels numbering “thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand” (5:11). They, in some instances, communicate God’s messages to men. They minister to us in some way. They rescued people in the Bible as well as killed people.
The Bible says that they rejoice at the conversion of sinners (Luke 15:10). They watch the lives of believers with interest. And there’s even evidence that they carry believers away at death to a state of blessedness (Luke 16:22). And we also know that angels will be the agents of God’s judgment at his second coming (Matt 13:29-42; 24:31; 1 Thess 4:16-17; Rev 19:17-20:3, 10). Angels are amazing creatures. We need a better understanding of them in the church.
But comparing the angels to Christ is like comparing an ant to the Milky Way galaxy. And worshipping angels is like praising the Sistine Chapel for bringing itself into existence irrespective of its creator Michelangelo. And I wonder sometimes what the angels think about us humans. 1 Peter 1:12 says that angels long to look into God’s plan of salvation for humans. Well, I, as a human, long to look into what angels think of us humans with our weird movies about angels, and our chubby, cherubic baby monster figurines. I’m sure they just shake their heads.
And I’m sure they shook their heads at the people in the first century world who would dare elevate angels above Christ Jesus, their Creator. Why? Because—the angels know this—Jesus Christ is so much better than they are. He is so much better than we are. He is superior to them and us in every way. He is the Son of God, the Savior, the Creator, the Redeemer. Worship him. Serve him. Love him. Follow him. Obey him like the angels do.
Taught by Tony Caffey
Senior Pastor of Verse By Verse Fellowship