The Letter to the Hebrews - Jon C. Laansma

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Hebrews is relying on the wording of the LXX. The preacher is not exploiting an idiosyncratic translation or stressing the specifically non-corporeal nature of angels but rather indicates non-controversially the created and thus limited nature of the angels as servants by way of contrast with the Son’s eternity as king and creator. In Hebrews’ context the upshot will center on the universally authoritative and unchanging word that God has spoken in the Son in contrast with the provisional and not-yet-perfect word spoken through angels (2:1–4); the law serves (witnesses to) the Son. As such they are ministering spirits in subjection to the Son and are sent to serve the seed of Abraham, who will inherit salvation with the Son (1:14; 2:5–9).

      1:8 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. Ps 45:6–7. The Son is addressed as God outright (cf. John 1:1; 20:28; 1 John 5:20; possibly Rom 9:5; 2 Thess 1:12; Titus 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1), but there is consistently identity with distinction. From the perspective of Hebrews, that this address is in the form of a citation from Scripture makes it all the stronger since it is God’s own witness. Hebrews never calls him King but it is entailed (e.g., 7:1–2; cf. 1:3, 8–9, 13; 12:27). He is the priest-king-prophet.

      1:10 You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning. Ps 102:25–27; cf. Heb 1:2. In the original context the Lord is YHWH so this application is as potent as 1:8.

      1:13 Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Ps 110:1 is one of the most utilized OT passages in the NT (at least 22x) and was alluded to in 1:3. Cf. Matt 22:41–46. Hebrews will contemplate it from almost every angle: The very act of speaking, the address of Father to Son, the act of sitting, where he sits, the promise of complete subjugation and the delay until it is accomplished.

      1:14 ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. Cf. 13:2. The angels are the Son’s entourage whose only role is to serve in his train and at God’s command. Since his is a saving-doxological movement on behalf of his brothers and sisters the angels have no other role and never have. This is their proper honor. This has implications, too, for the word delivered through them (2:2). The inheritance of the Son (1:2) is here shared with his brothers and sisters, which accounts for their status relative to the angels (2:5–16; cf. Gal 3:16, 29). Therefore, all that was said of the Son and his rule constitutes the kingdom being granted believers as their inheritance (12:27).

      Comments on Theological Themes

      Clearly the early Christian interpreters of the OT operated in ways that make moderns uncomfortable, raising questions of whether we must or can “do what they did” in our exegesis. We recall, then, the observation that it was their core theological commitments and practices—what we called material principles—that were the real key to their readings, and these of course are authoritative for us. They are really just the key commitments and practices of the gospel itself. There is a relationship between material and formal principles, the latter being what we moderns usually think of first when we think of rules of exegesis. For instance, the gospel discourages readings that do not respect the literary and historical aspects of God’s revelation. But the gospel’s material principles finally allow room for a limited range of formal principles, which explains the relative stability of the church’s reading down through the many centuries in spite of the variations in formal approaches. What is required is neither a simple replication of what Jesus and the apostles did nor a simple replacement of their exegetical methods with our modern ones. What is required, rather, is the faithful translation of what they did into our cultural setting for the sake of effective proclamation and mission.

      There are deeper riches contained in these divine testimonies to the Son and his salvation to which we should at least gesture. It is not hard to imagine how these things would have encouraged an audience struggling with hardship and losing hope: Ps 2 portrays the futility of the nations’ rage against God and his Anointed One. His King is installed, his own Son, whose inheritance is the nations and the ends of the earth his possession; he rules them with an iron rod. Second Samuel 7:14 (1 Chr 17:13) promises God’s people a secure place and freedom from the menace of enemies, that is, a resting place; God will provide David a house and a Son, who will build God’s temple and whose kingdom will endure. Jesus is that Son, in whom God’s promise is fulfilled. Deut 32 and related passages celebrate the vindication of God and his atonement. Ps 104 depicts God coming in his glory to save and provide, attended in his glory by ministering angels who do his bidding. The angels are a sign of his glory, but the Son is the radiance itself. Ps 45 praises God the enthroned Son, for righteousness will be the scepter of his kingdom; he loves righteousness and hates wickedness. His identity as high priest will be the dominant one in what follows, but according to Ps 110 he is the Priest as the King seated at the right hand of God, an identity that is ever relevant to the whole of Hebrews. The Son reigns. Psalm 102 is a psalm for the afflicted one who is reminded that God the Son is Creator, the one who will bring all things to their conclusion but who himself is unchanging—whose saving word and work is therefore permanent. The Son’s glory is not an abstract glory but the glory of his saving movement (2:9). In this, the angels have no independent existence, will, or role but embody and signify the will of God done perfectly in heaven (Matt 6:10) and moving to earth that it might also be done there, the will that is entirely that of his love.

      Teaching Hebrews 1:5–14

      1. Scripture, translation, interpretation, canon. All of the things just listed are at stake in the way that Hebrews opens its argument by a series of citations from the OT Scriptures. What Scripture is, where and how its meaning is to be found, the possibility and necessity of its translation-in-mission (translation is not a problem to be solved but a possibility and command to be obeyed), and its scope are finally all clarified with the revelation of the one who is the radiance of God’s glory.

      2. Christology. These verses elaborate what is said of the Son in 1:1–4 by deepening and broadening them through God’s own witness in the Scriptures. We are sons and daughters by grace, but he is Son by nature. He is the heir of all things, and we inherit salvation because he condescended to share our blood and flesh and bring God’s creative word to its intended goal. Son he was, and Son he became. Savior he was, and savior he was revealed to be in his resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God—as he is praised through these Scriptures. The truth that he is the one in and as whom God speaks has many facets but it includes this, that in uttering the OT Scriptures it was the Son whom God intended as their subject matter and in these last days he makes this explicit. These Scriptures are not merely applied to the Son as if at a stretch but rather he is their most basic and original meaning. The entire sermon to come is founded on this truth.

      3. Salvation. The truth that the Son is God for us (as also humanity for God) is more assumed than emphasized in 1:1–13 but it is very much the theme and it breaks through in v. 14 in preparation for the warning of 2:1–4 and the further exposition of 2:5–18. So much is this true that when we arrive at 2:5 the preacher will observe that it is the world to come about which he has been speaking all along. As noted above there is much to harvest from these citations about this “great salvation” (2:3).

      4. Angels. Heb 1:5—2:16 might be the premier biblical text on angels, where they are not merely present and active but brought into contemplation. Yet when this occurs we find that their entire meaning as creatures centers on the Son and his salvation. If attention is given them, if it is to honor them, it must follow their gaze to the Son on the divine throne and then follow the Son to the world and his fellow children. Their status over humanity was a sign of the disordering of creation (2:5–9), so that although their role in the giving of Moses’s law was a sign of its greatness (2:2) it was also a sign of its temporary and provisional role as a witness to the Son (3:5; 5:5; 10:1). He descended below the angels (placed himself under the law) to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:6–11), tasting death for everyone (Heb 2:9). He was then crowned with glory and honor with all things, angels included, under his feet. In this way, the promise for humanity latent in Ps 8 was fulfilled.

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