A Commentary in Simple English on the letter to Jewish Christians

The First Part: Jesus, the Son of God

CHAPTER 1

Verses 1-4 : The Greatness of Jesus: God's last word

We shall not find the name 'Jesus' until we get to 2:9. But we know very well that it is Jesus whom we read about here.

The writer of the letter does not at first set out to prove that Christianity is better than the old Jewish religion was. Christians who were not Jews would agree with the Jews that the Good News was better than idol worship. He sets out first to declare the greatness of Jesus, compared with the best and greatest things that the Jews had known. He says these things:-

1. For almost 2,000 years past, God had spoken to the Jewish people - 'our fathers' - but now He had spoken to the Jews about the reader's own day. It is called 'these last days' (verse.2) because those were the last days of the Jerusalem Temple and the worship which went on there. Soon the Romans would destroy the Temple and its worship would come to an end. But these are 'the last days' for another reason. God has spoken to men in His Son. We cannot expect Him to speak again in some other way.

2. God has spoken through the prophets in the Old Testament times. The Jewish readers would think first of Moses but there had been many other prophets as well as him. Now God has spoken to us through His Son, Jesus. It is a part of God's goodness that He speaks to men.

3. In the past God had spoken in many different ways and each prophet only had part of the truth. The parts which the various prophets had were not all of the same kind. Now He had said all that He had to say at one time, through Jesus. He has spoken to us in His Son. When we think about Jesus, we think about what it means to be the Son of God and to live in this world.

Then the writer goes on to say seven great things about Jesus:-

1. God the Father has given Him the right in law to own all things. Here 'all things' means both angels and men.

2. This was only right, because it was through Jesus that God the Father made all the worlds. This means the worlds of angels and men in particular.

3. If we feel the warmth of the sun and see its light, we know that the sun is there, although it is so far away and we cannot go near it. So we feel the warmth of the love of Jesus, and we have the light of His truth, which shines in our minds. It is Jesus who is the light and warmth which shines out from God. He is the out-shining of the glory of God. God's glory is His real worth, the fact that we ought to give Him all praise. Heat up iron and other metals until they are white hot, and light will shine from them. God is like that white-hot metal. Jesus is like that light which shone from the metal.

4. More: Jesus is exactly like God. The mark made in metal or wood by a tool will be exactly the same shape and size as the tool that makes it.

5. The writer moves on from the likeness between Jesus and God the Father to tell us what Jesus does. First, His word of power keeps all creation together. I believe that what is meant is something like this: 'Sin came into the world, and if God had let sin do its work, there would have been no order or goodness left in creation. But Jesus had given His word to His Father that He would come into the world. He would save lost sinners. His death would not only rescue lost sinners but also the whole creation'. (See Romans 8 :19-21.) So that is the word of power. Although sin had come into the world, God kept it in check ready for His Son to show His love to sinful men when He died on the cross.

6. So there is the second thing which Jesus does. He makes it possible by His death on the cross for God to take away all our sins. He died on the cross and bought for us forgiveness of our sins; but this has to be matched by what He does in us. The Holy Spirit must work in our hearts. We must leave our sins and put our faith in Christ. There is no other way but through Jesus that we can get rid of our sins. He is the 'middle man' or the bridge between God and men.

7. 'The Majesty of heaven' is God Himself. 'The right hand' is the place of honour and power. We do not 'sit down' until all our work is finished! So the last of the seven things said about Jesus is that He has finished His work on earth .He is now in heaven with God in the place of honour and power.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is often spoken of as prophet, priest and king. These three ideas are found in these verses. He is God's Prophet (verse 2), a greater prophet than Moses (verse3). He is the King, seated at the throne of God in glory (verse 3). He is greater than David or the other kings of Israel. He is the Priest who had himself died for our sins: so he is greater than the priests who could only offer helpless animals to God for sin.

Angels are wonderful beings (verse 4) but none of the great things which have been said about Jesus is true of them.

Some of the Jews did not believe in angels (Acts 23 :8), but many did. Some of those who believed in angels had rather strange ideas about them and claimed to see them in dreams. They would also make up strange names for them. So although our writer has to show his readers that Jesus is greater than Moses, he first shows that Jesus is greater than angels.

So in verse 4, the writer tells us that the name 'Son of God' which Jesus has gained by right of birth is far better than the name of the Angels - which is 'messenger of God'. Names in Scripture are full of meaning. When a name is given by God, this is especially true. The measure of how much better than the angels Jesus is, is the measure of how much His name is better than theirs. The Jews believed that the angels had helped God in giving the Law to Moses. The writer has to show that Jesus is greater than angels, because He had given the new Law, The Good News. He was the Son of God, but He had made Himself very low. He had died in a way which was full of shame on the cross. But now Jesus has risen from the dead. He has gone up from this world in the clouds. (Acts 1:9). God the Father has received Him into glory. When He lived and died on earth, He had less honour than angels: but now God has given Him far more honour than the angels have.

Verses 5 - 14: Jesus is greater than the angels

In these verses, the writer uses seven texts taken from the Old Testament to show that Jesus is greater than the angels of God. [1.1] We should look at the places from which these texts are taken because the texts mean much more when we do this. What the writer now says about Jesus also adds strength to what he has already said about Him in verses 1 - 4.

So first we have some words from Psalm 2:7. You will find these words again in 5:5. (See also Mark 1:11; Acts 13:33; and Acts 4 :25,26.) First the writer tells us that words like these were never spoken by God to any angel. Psalm 2 may have been used by the Old Testament kings of Judah. They were all members of the family of David. Jesus is also the Son of David, and David's greater Son. [1.2] By 'today' the writer probably means that God the Father spoke these words to our Lord Jesus Christ when He came back to heaven's glory after suffering and rising from the dead. He always had been God, God the Son. Now He is both God and Man in one person, and it is as both God and also Man that the Father calls Him 'My Son'.

The second text is in the second part of verse 5 and it is rather like the first one. It is taken from 2 Samuel 7: 14 and 1 Chronicles 17:13. There, David wanted to build a Temple for the Ark of God. Nathan the prophet brought God's reply to David. God does not really want a Temple. He promises that members of David's family will reign as kings of Israel. He also promises that David's Son, that is, Solomon will be king and will build the Temple. So God speaks these words first about Solomon, but in the end Solomon failed badly as king. The Jews knew this and they also knew that the Messiah would be 'David's greater son' (Rom1:3).

The third text is in verse 6. This comes from the Greek text of Deuteronomy 32:43. (See also Psalm 97:7.) The point of the first two texts is that Christ is God's own Son. (See verses 2, 3.) The point of this text is that Christ is honoured above the angels (see verse 4) because God tells all the angels to worship Him. Some think that this is to happen at the Second Coming of Jesus; but it seems better to understand it in the same way as verse 5. 'The world' then is not 'the world of men', but 'the world of glory and angels'. It is an honour to the Church that God calls all His angels to worship the Lord Jesus, Who is the great Head of the Church.

The writer takes the next text, in verse 7, from Psalm 104:4. This is the great Psalm about God's work in creation. Storms and fire are God's servants: let us be sure that their Master is our Friend! God uses His angels to make stormy winds and thunder and lightning. More may be meant: the angels are as quick to do God's will as lightning and men cannot stop them, any more than we can stop the wind or thunder. [1.3]. The highest honour of the angels is that they are God's servants: they are quick in obeying God.

Verses 8 -9 contain part of Psalm 45 (verses 6 and 7). This is another 'Royal' psalm, but it was written for a royal wedding. The things the Psalmist says are too great to be true of any human king: and the Jews who received this letter would have been quite happy to accept that the Psalm spoke this about the Messiah. This is true of the other texts from the Old Testament as well.

So verses 8 and 9 say the following things about our Lord Jesus Christ: -

1. He is God.

2. He is a king. He has a royal seat in heaven from which He rules His kingdom, the church.

3. Human kings rise and fall. The kingdom of Christ will have no end, for our King lives for ever. He fought with death and won.

4. His 'sceptre' or rod of office shows that He really does rule His Kingdom, the church. He gives His new law of love; He gives us His Word in the Scriptures. He gives His Holy Spirit to guide us. These are some of His ways of ruling the church.

5. In ruling His Kingdom, our Lord will always do what is right. He will never tell us to do anything that is wrong .But 'righteousness' means more than that. The purpose of Christ's rule is to put right what is wrong among men.

6. In verse 9, we read first that Christ carries on His good rule because He has a love for all that is good and because He hates all that is wrong or bad. Many of the laws that men make are bad. Even when good laws are made, the way that they are put into force may be bad. And they do not always make good laws for good reasons. None of this is true of Christ. His laws are good and He makes them because He loves what is good.

7. The Psalm says here that God the Father is His God because even when our Lord Jesus suffered and died on the cross, it was all a part of God's purpose. Now Jesus is in heaven and God has set up His Kingdom in the church on earth.

8. It is best to take the 'companions' of Jesus here to mean Christian believers. God has given them His Spirit, and when the Spirit came to them He brought joy to them. Now, 'to anoint' is to pour oil on someone's head. In the Old Testament, prophets, priests and kings had this oil poured on them. Look at what Peter said on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem (Acts 2:33). We experience something of the Spirit's power: Jesus enjoys it to the full. Our writer had said in verse 3 that Jesus was seated at the place of power in heaven: the same thought is here.

If we leave behind verse 9, we shall find in verses 10 - 12 another text. The writer takes this from Psalm 102:24 -27. This psalm begins with a prayer from someone who is suffering (verses 1-11). In verse 12, the memory of God who does not change from one age to another brings new hope. God answers the prayer in verses 18-22. By the time we reach verse 25, we hear that the voice of God the Father speaks to the Son in this psalm.

1. God the Father made both heaven and earth through His Son. This was taught in verse 2 of our chapter. The angels then could only watch, wonder and worship (Job 38:7).

2. In verses 11 and 12 of the chapter, the words of Psalm 102 tell us that both heaven and earth will wear out and be changed. (See Psalm 102:25,27 and also Isaiah 51:6.) We must not live our lives for this world, which will die. We must not put our trust in this world, which changes. The thought may be that God will even change the angels, but our Lord Jesus Christ will never change.(13:8). Notice that the promise that He will remain the same for ever is given to our Saviour, Who is a real Man as well as Son of God. Because He lives, we shall live too. (See Chapter 13:8.)

We noticed in verse 3 that it is the word of power of Jesus the Son of God, which keeps the worlds in good order. These verses teach us that when God's work in the world is done, He will put them to one side as being of no further use. Fear nothing! All things in heaven and earth belong to our Saviour and we too are His. Let us love Him more, for we shall love Him for ever. Let us not love earthly things: they will pass away. 'Use the world, but live on Christ' (John Owen p 193).

In verse 13, we have the seventh and last of these texts. The writer takes this one from Psalm 110. Martin Luther called this psalm 'the true, high, main psalm of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ'. The first words of the Psalm are: -

'The Lord says to my Lord'. See Mark 12:36 (or Matthew 22:44 or Luke 20:42) for the way in which Jesus explains this. (See also Acts 2:34)

David writes the Psalm and he calls someone 'My Lord'. This is Jesus who is greater than David is and so David calls Him 'Lord'. So who speaks to Jesus? 'The Lord' here is God the Father. The first two verses of the psalm are plain enough, although some other verses in it are difficult. So the writer to the Hebrews says that it was not to any of the angels but to Jesus that God the Father speaks these words. As at the end of verse 3, Jesus enjoys the place of power in the presence of God. He still has enemies - sin, death and hell! But God promises that His enemies will at last be subject to Him. 'Beneath His feet' is a picture of this. (See 10:13 and also 1 Corinthians 15 :25,26). All the enemies of God and of Christ can gain nothing by their hatred and their war against God. Let us pray to God to bring in the day when all His enemies will be placed beneath the feet of Christ.

In verse 14, the writer moves on. God has placed Christ above the angels. Christ is our Saviour. We are to obtain from God - 'inherit' - like sons, salvation. What is our position with the angels? All of them stand before God and He sends them out to serve us. (In 12 :22 the position will be different!) This prepares us for the next chapter. However, for the moment, let us remember that although we do not know it, often angels serve us so that we may enjoy God's love and care. If sometimes we know that they help us and deliver us from danger, let us give thanks to God that He uses these mighty spirits for our good. We should be very careful how we speak of them. What we guess or imagine is not good enough.