Hebrews 2:1-18

Hebrews 1:5 to Hebrews 2:18. The Son is Superior to the Angels. For this theme the way has been prepared in the closing words of Hebrews 1:14. The section may possibly be directed against angel-worship, which in some churches, as we know from Colossians, was encroaching on the faith in Christ. More probably the writer's aim is simply to enforce the supremacy of Christ as compared with even the highest of created beings. In Hebrews 1:5 he collects a number of Scripture texts which illustrate the relative worth of Christ and the angels. These texts are interpreted by the allegorical method i.e. they are taken not in their historical meaning, but as symbolic utterances which have to be spiritually discerned. Two quotations (Hebrews 1:5), the former taken from Psalms 2:7, the latter from 2 Samuel 7:14, which declare Christ to be the Son are followed by another, apparently taken from the LXX version of the Song of Moses (cf. Psalms 97:7), in which the angels are commanded to worship Him. This command (Hebrews 1:6) is referred to some moment in eternity when God first revealed His Son to the assembled hosts of heaven. In the quotations given in Hebrews 1:7, taken from Psalms 104:4; Psalms 45:6 f., Psalms 102:25; Psalms 110:1, a special aspect of the contrast with the angels is emphasized viz. that the angels are subject to change, while the Son remains the same for ever. This idea is obtained by supposing Psalms 104:4 to mean at will Thou changest the forms of the angels, making them now winds, now flames. Against this text, which tells how the angels assume the shapes of variable elements, are set others which describe the Son as always supreme and steadfast. The final quotation (Hebrews 1:13) has been used already in Hebrews 1:3, and is taken from the passage (Psalms 110:1) which determines the whole thought of the epistle. Christ as the Son is throned at God's right hand, while the angels, as their name implies, are only servants, inferior in some sense to God's earthly saints, to whose welfare they minister.