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Touched by More Than an Angel
May 23, 2010
Hebrews 1
by Pastor Stan
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THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST: A SERMON SERIES IN HEBREWS
“Touched by More Than an Angel” (HEBREWS 1:4-14 / P. 846)
MAY 23, 2010

INTRODUCTION
-- Lead-in song: “Lord, Most High”

-- We’re just getting started in our series I’m calling “The Supremacy of Christ.” It’s a series in which we will be going through the NT book of Hebrews. No other book in the Bible declares the supremacy of Christ more clearly and forcefully than Hebrews.
So let’s turn in our Bibles to the first chapter of Hebrews (p. 846).

    As we saw last week, Hebrews was originally addressed to Jewish believers, many of whom had remained quite immature in their understanding of their faith and some of whom were beginning to turn from Christ back to Judaism.. The writer of Hebrews exhorts them to keep on following Christ because He is the supreme Lord of all and the only one through whom we find forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life.

-- In the opening verses that we looked at last week Hebrews tells us that God has been in the process of revealing Himself to us through the writings of the prophets, what we call the OT, and now God has brought that process to a climax and conclusion through Christ. In Christ we have the highest most complete revelation of God that we will receive in this life.
    Then in the rest of the first chapter the author demonstrates that Christ is superior not only to the OT prophets but also to the angels.
    First century Jews held angels in high esteem for many reasons. For one thing, unlike men, angels were allowed in the direct presence of God; furthermore, angels were looked at as the intermediaries that God used to deliver the Law to Moses.  Even Paul himself suggests this:
        Galatians 3:19b The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.

-- Unfortunately, it appears that many Jewish Christians were getting carried away in their esteem for angels and were putting them on par with Christ and in some cases even above Him.
    In verses 4-14 the author uses the writings of the prophets (what we call the OT) to demonstrate Christ’s evident superiority to angels.

-- Before we look at these verses, let me make two introductory observations:
    (1) About Angels
        -- Angels are spiritual beings who were created by God. They worship, praise and serve God. Some angels joined with Satan (who was also an angel) and rebelled against God and were cast out of heaven and are currently active agents of evil on earth; these fallen angels are also referred to as demons in the Bible.


        (2) About the OT Quotes
            -- In vv. 4-14 the author quotes 7 OT passages. I want to point out 2 things about these quotes:
                a. First, most of the passages quoted here originally referred to King David. But since the OT prophets taught that the Messiah would be descended from David, these passages were intended to apply to both David and the Messiah.

                b. Secondly, for those of you with a more scholarly bent, if you look up the actual OT passage and compare it to the way it appears here in this chapter you’ll find that some read a bit differently. The reason is that the passages quoted here are not taken directly from the Hebrew text of the OT but from a Greek translation of the OT known as the Septuagint.
            
-- All right, let’s look at the 5 reasons Christ has unrivaled superiority, even to such awesome spiritual beings as angels.

I. BECAUSE HE IS “THE SON” (VV. 4-5)
    -- Angels may be sons of God, but Christ is “the Son of God.”
        Cf., vv. 4-5

    A. VERSE 5A
        --  v. 5a is a quote from Psalm 2:7. Psalm 2 is an enthronement psalm that was read when David and his descendants were enthroned as King. The great


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