Day 599: Let us adore Him - Hebrews 1 vs 3 - 9

3-4 After making purification for sins, he (God's Son) sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,  having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. 5-6 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”? And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.”

7-8 Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.” But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre 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.” Hebrews 1:3-9 (English Standard Version)

The first two verses of Hebrews indicated that this letter was written mainly to Jewish people who had believed that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the long awaited Messiah. But some of them were having second thoughts, so the writer sets out from the start to show them how and why Jesus was far superior to even the mighty angels the Jews revered. How does he do that in vs 5-6?

He pointed them to what was said about the Messiah in the Old Testament. No angel was ever called God's 'begotten Son'. But in Psalm 2:7, King David, speaking as the human King from whom Messiah would descend, said: “The Lord said to me, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you.'” The writer also quotes a promise God made to King David when He said: “When your days are fulfilled . . . I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” (2 Samuel 7:12-14) This relationship between the Son and the Father led to the angels worshiping Him.

What is the big difference between God's Son and the angels in vs 7-8?

Again, he points to the Old Testament. He quotes from Psalm 104:4 to remind them that angels were God's servants. Yes, they are swift as the wind, and their appearance could be like flaming fire, but they are still servants. The Son, however, as Psalm 45:6-7 tells us, is seated upon a throne as a mighty king. The apostle Peter wrote of Christ as “having gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:22) The apostle John spoke of the amazing supremacy and glory of Christ in heaven in the visions he saw of Him, and which he wrote about in the book called Revelation.

Verse 9 is still a quote from Psalm 45. What is a big reason why God's Son, who came into the world as a mortal, was so exalted by God?

He is the only man to ever live a life of perfect obedience. He loved righteousness, and He hated sin and all its deceptions. Yet, despite His perfection, vs 3-4 tell how He gave His life as an offering to make purification for the sins of others. The apostle Paul puts this wonderful truth about Jesus this way: “Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him - and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name - so that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth; and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)

The response to all this that we should make, is that of the Christmas carol which says: 'O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him - Christ the Lord!'