Hebrews
The King and His Servants
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons
Lesson: 2-33
Genre: Lecture
Track: 02
Dictation Name: RR198A2
Location/Venue:
Year:
Let us Worship God. Thus saith the Lord, you shall seek me and find me when ye shall seek for me with all your heart. Jesus said blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Let us pray.
Almighty God our heavenly father, we give thanks unto thee that our times are in Thy hands, that we live, move and have our being in thee, that there is nothing too great or too small for thee. We thank thee that thou art mindful of us, that our every need, our every hope is known unto thee. And so we come to cast our every care upon Thee, knowing thy care for us is greater than our care for ourselves, and far far wiser. Speak to us through Thy Word, and by Thy Spirit enable us to do that which we know is right and good, that all our days we may serve thee with thanksgiving and with joy. In Christ’s name, amen.
Our Scripture is Hebrews 1:4-14. Our subject, the King and His Servants. Hebrews 1:4-14, The King and His Servants.
“ 4Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
6And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
7And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
8But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
9Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
10And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
11They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
12And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
13But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
14Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”
As we saw last time as we began the study of Hebrews, it has been called the least known book of the New Testament. There is a reason for that, it is also the most challenging book of the New Testament. It demands action of Christian, it declares our goal is to establish a kingdom whose builder and maker is God, that we are to be his instruments, his tools. This book does not permit anyone to say: “Well, the goal of Gods work through Christ is my Salvation.” No, that’s the starting point. The goal is that you as the redeemed are to make of this world, His kingdom. Now we have in these verses a clear critique of angel worship, and yet it has been said that the Jews never worshiped angels. This is true, but angels were very common in the Apocryphal writings, and apparently in popular thinking.
Paganism gave evidence of no small attention to a variety of spirits and powers comparable to angels. Jewish Gnosticism was ripe also with such things. The formal worship of Angels may have been lacking, but the importance of such powers in popular writing was very, very real. Now, this is important for us, because in these latter years of the 20th century, we have a considerable interest in angels, and a few books on angels have appeared, I noticed a number of them at a book store in Sacramento about a week ago. A humanistic era is ready to believe in Angels because they can give help.
Help when needed, without requiring worship, without requiring anything of us. Angels are thus creatures who can give man some of the benefits of God without commanding worship. Or obedience to God, or any kind of service. They are therefore more popular than God and the Lord Jesus Christ, with fallen men.
Some years ago, I knew very briefly a pastor who had an amazing knowledge of the history of thinking about angels, and he could tell you the names of any number of angels that apart from the Bible supposedly had played a part in the Middle Ages and subsequently in the lives of people. At the same time strangely enough, his knowledge of the Bible and of doctrine was very weak. In time his adulteries came to light, making clear to me, why he preferred angels to God. Why he preferred curious bits of lore to the Bible and Gods Law. Well, the purpose of Hebrews is to eliminate any trivial interests that interfere with the sole mediator-ship and supremacy of God the Son.
The Bible makes clear throughout that the Son is pre-eminent, that he is very God of very God, He is far greater than the Angels and the Prophets, and he is the Creator of both. We are told that the superiority of Jesus is because first, he is God the Son, second He is the heir of all things, and third, He is the creator of the World. Why go to angels when you can go to him? Well, the reason is sin. Angels can do something for you, and as for you Jesus, what have you done for me lately? That is the attitude of people.
One English scholar, Frank Bertram Clogg summarized the theme and the message in these words and I quote: “The theme is the finality of the revelation in Jesus the Son of God. God has never left himself without witness, but in the last days he has revealed himself in one who is the Son. The Son is superior to Angels, and not in spite of but because of His incarnation and death, He is greater than Moses, a servant in the house. Since it was the purpose of His coming to bring many sons to glory, it was fitting that He should be in all things like unto His brethren.”
In verse 5 we have a statement from Psalm 2:7. “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee.” In Luke 3:22 we have a similar statement from heaven on our Lords baptism. This refers to Christ’s enthronement. Not to an adoptionist view of his person. Because in verse 6 Jesus is called God’s first begotten, and all angels are called to worship him; and this echoes Psalm 97:7. No angel has been appointed heir of all things, but God the Son in his incarnation comes as that heir to redeem his inheritance.
The angels as God’s servants, very powerful ones, they are compared in verse 7 to wind and fire. And we know the force of wind and fire. But they have no independent power. Their reason for being is to do Gods will. And they therefore do no tissue a law, nor do they bring judgement to any man on their own. When they exercise force, comparable to wind and fire, it is because God has so ordained it, not they. On the other hand, the Son is king over all creation, over heaven and earth. His throne is an eternal one, and his scepter is unto righteousness or unto justice, or unto straightness. All three translate the same word. So that all his works result, as verse 8 makes clear, in absolute justice.
God the Son, in his incarnation manifested his love of justice and his hatred on iniquity, and the word in the Greek is Anomian, it means anti lawism. Au, the negative, and Nomos, law. Now this we are told by 1 John 3:4, is the definition of our sin against God. Lawlessness, anti lawism. And we are told that Jesus hated lawlessness, iniquity, the hostility to God and his law.
How terrible it is that people who call themselves Christ’s people make it a virtue to be anti-law. Anti-righteousness. God celebrates Christ’s love of justice, we are told, and his hatred of lawlessness. By anointing him with the oil of gladness above all others. His is the greatest victory and the greatest reward; and if we follow Christ in our hatred of lawlessness, anti lawism, he will anoint us also with the oil of gladness.
In verses 10-12, Psalm 102:26-28 is cited, and these words tell us that while creation grows old and perishes, God remains the king forever, and these words are applied here to God the Son. Moreover we are told, God the Father has never said to any angel, “Sit on my right hand while I make thine enemies thy footstool.” This citation is from Psalm 110:1. Echoed here in verse 13. Because Jesus, God incarnate, underwent the judgement upon us for our sakes, God the Father subdues all his enemies under his feet. Their destruction and their submission will be total. Angels cannot be given worship. They are ministering spirits, sent to serve Gods elect; we are his elect, the heirs of salvation according to verse 14.
So, to give special attention, let alone worship to angels is to detract from the worship, honor and glory due to God. No angel has died for our sins, nor ever acted independently on our behalf. To give angels the glory and honor due to God the Son is to denigrate the king and to thank a servant.
Calvin, in his commentary on Hebrews called attention to the fact that and I quote: It was a common notion among the Jews that the law was given by angels. They attentively considered the honorable things spoken of them everywhere in scripture, and as the world is strangely inclined to superstition, they obscured the glory of God by extolling angels too much.”
This has become almost a fad today. When I first saw these books appearing in bookstores on angels, I bought the cheapest one in order to sample their thinking, I went all through it, and there was not one single reference to God. And yet here were people talking about what angels had done for them and how beautiful an experience they had with this or that angel. But never God. They wanted things done for them. The angels had become their servants, and what an elitist thing when you can get up and witness or write about the fact that angels have served you.
It’s becoming quite popular among non-Christians and pseudo-Christians to talk endlessly about angels, or to write about it. The royal scepter of authority, of legislative power and of judgement, is given to God the Son in His incarnation, and he has the power of session, of sitting on the throne of judgement on the right hand of God. The entire focus of this text is on Gods kingdom, and the Son on the throne of that kingdom. The goal is not the salvation of Gods people, but on the kingdom of God which is far more than heaven.
When in chapter four, the great Sabbath rest is discussed, it is compared to the conquest of Canaan, to the fulfillment of a pilgrimage to the great city of God. So the goal of Hebrews is, having been saved, we cannot sit back and just become enthusiastic about what God has done for us. No, the issue is: What are you doing to serve the King? What are you doing to further his righteousness or justice? What are you doing to fulfill the mandate, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness or justice? Are you mindful of the great proclamation, the kingdoms of this world shall be, must become, the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.
So, Abraham we are told looked for a city with eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It is a new creation of Gods perfect justice. If Gods authority granted to the son is the scepter of justice, we cannot belong to that kingdom and realm if we despise his justice.
You know, it was perhaps a 130 years ago that one of the greatest experts on Hebrews, and secondarily of the Greek Texts of the bible, wrote on the meaning of the word righteousness in both testaments. And he lamented the fact that the word Justice has gone one way and righteousness another, because we don’t have to come up to the present if we drop the word justice. We can talk about righteousness as though it were a holy glow. When what it is is the Law of God applied. The Law of God expresses the justice of God.
The goal is the new creation of Gods perfect justice. Our Lord was crucified as the king of the Jews, as a potential threat to Caesar. This at once made the Christians a suspect group. Now we have however, carefully worded our faith so that we do not see the thrust of the book of Hebrews.
Jesus Christ reigns, we are told by Hebrews, from an eternal throne with the scepter of justice. And we as his people are to be the justice people, the righteousness people. We must bring all things into captivity to Christ, who is the King.
Very shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, Christians became a severely persecuted group, incidentally far more than the book of Acts tells us. Before the fall and after the fall the Bible doesn’t stress the persecution. It stresses the duty. That’s why I think John Knox was so great a man. I have a semi rare book on Torments of Protestant Slaves in French Galley’s. From time to time I have reminded of that book because I think it’s worth remembering. Only one man served a term, and many of them died before they served it out, on a French Galley in the French Navy. Only one man survived it and never said a word of complaint or asked for pity about what he experienced. If you were a galley slave you were chained to your slave in a naval galley ship. You were fed there, you lived there, you urinated and defecated where you were. That’s why a galley ship could be smelled six miles out to sea. And the crews were made up of the most hardened men they could find.
John Knox not only served for 18 months like that, but made life very difficult for those who were of the crew, especially the Chaplin whom he drove off the ship. Never a complaint. Because Knox’s whole life was fixed on one thing: Conquering Scotland for Christ.
And his son in law John Welsch was like him, and Knox’s wife would wake up at night to find he was not in the bed, and he was in another room, with a shawl wrapped around him, kneeling on the cold floor and praying: “Lord God give me Scotland or I die!” Their concern was not with themselves. And that’s why we don’t get the horror stories when we read Acts or Paul. He tells you all he has suffered, just in passing.
For Jesus Christ to reign with a scepter of justice meant clearly that apart from him and his law, there is no justice. Clearly if Jesus Christ possess the scepter of justice, none seeking apart from him can even remotely provide justice. He defines it. It cannot be defined apart from him. Justice or righteousness is the expression of his being, not the expression of fallen man or of man made civil government. For Rome, another law meant another ruler, therefore the persecution of Christians. Christians were counseled to obey their rulers by Paul, not because Roman claims were acceptable, but because regeneration, not revolution was the starting point of Christ’s kingdom.
Clearly therefore the presupposition of the whole of Hebrews is a radical one. And the men who wrote it, the apostolic company, knew the meaning of their statement. (Laffin’s?) comment I think is especially relevant, because (Laffin) says and I quote: “Before it became the state religion the profession of Christianity was treasonable under Roman Law. Because the Christian refused to acknowledge state law and the emperor’s dignity, as high priest of the state religion. And this of course entailed refusal to participate in those public ceremonies, such as sacrificing to the Emperors genius, which Roman citizens were obliged to perform. Thus Christians were liable to fall into the crime of (Perdulio?), whether or not they were Roman citizens, and to be treated as public enemies.”
Now, we are seeing that again. Christians being treated as public enemies, even by ostensible Christians who are compromisers to the core of their being. And because the cartoonist Hart, actually in his Easter comic strip spoke of Christ as our redeemer, the Los Angeles Times pulled it, and only a public outcry led them finally to print it later, but on the religion page, not with the comic strips. Is it going to be treason again to be a Christian? Well, Hebrews was arming the believers. And at that time they were mostly Jews, so it is called the epistle to the Hebrews. How to stand against this, how to recognize that this was not a faith to be held in a corner, or to be reserved for your inner life only, but that it constitutes marching orders to take back the world in the name of the king. It is difficult to understand the New Testament, apart from this fact. We are to affirm not Caesars law, but Gods Law. Let us pray.
Our Father Thou hast given us marching orders. Now by thy grace wake up thy people the world over, that they may march to your tune, and not to the worlds. Grant this in Christ’s name, amen. Are there any questions now with regard to our lesson? Yes.
[Audience Member] I know this was directed tot eh Hebrews, however when you talked about the popular thinking about Spirits as compared to angels, wasn’t that also a kind of distinction between pagan Gods and Angels also?
[Rushdoony] It was addressed to the Hebrews because there was an immediate problem in some church. But it was addressed to Christians in every age down to the present, and one reason why I chose this to follow after John was simply this: It is especially relevant to our time. I think even more so than when it was first written, because we have forgotten he relevancy of the gospel in terms of the society of our time and the application of Gods justice. Any other questions or comments?
Yes.
[Audience Member] There have been revelation, the revelation John has written to the Spirits, or pardon me to the Angels of the churches, and I’m wondering how that relates, or why the Holy Spirit would address the angel of the churches?
[Rushdoony] Yes, the Koine Greek word Angels means literally messengers. It is sometimes applied to the angelic beings, but in revelation it is applied to the pastors. The messengers of God, carrying the word of God to the churches. So that is its meaning. Well, our time is almost up, I spoke too long so we have less than a minute and I’ve got to conclude. Let us conclude with prayer now.
Our Father we give thanks unto thee for this thy word; Thy word speaks to our every need, give us hearing hearts that we may hear and obey and serve. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.