Hebrews - Part 2

Okay, so a reminder, when we're looking at Hebrews, this is one of the books that I found. It's super helpful, almost required that you look up the references that the author's making. So when the author's quoting the Old Testament, we are going to go to the Old Testament, We're going to read those passages in their context, and then we're going to try to understand how the Old Testament actually comments on the New, and try to understand how the New Testament is commenting on the Old.

So what we're going to see is that there's things going on in the Old Testament that we'll say we're a little cloaked, and the New Testament author kind of opens those up for us and tells us, hey, basically this was about Jesus. This was always a reference to the sun. The second thing is when we look sometimes at the Old Testament, we see that context, and we realize that when that's applied in the New, that there's a little bit of help understanding what the author is saying.

The second thing to remember with Hebrews is it was written primarily to Jews who were practicing the old covenant ceremonial laws. These were Jews who had become Christians. but there was there was a period of time in the first century where people didn't quite understand that that jesus had brought a new covenant that he had replaced the old it had become obsolete we're going to see that later the the word obsolete is actually used at least in the esv i I think. And and that people people who were faithful, they were not able to understand until the book of Hebrews helped them out that that this is not just a continuation of the way the Jews had always done religion.

That the way the Jews had done religion was a picture of what God was going to do later for his people and also for all people, Gentiles, too. and that once Jesus had fulfilled the ceremonial, you know, what the ceremonial laws had pointed to, there would be not only no need for them, which is one way to put it, but in fact it would become wrong to continue them as an act of worship. So now we worship through Christ. So even though the Bible, we'll just give an example, Even though the Bible prescribed for people to bring a lamb to a priest and for the priest to go into a temple and to do a whole bunch of things, even though the Bible said to do that, that would be wrong now that Jesus had come and fulfilled it.

And to some people, it would be like, well, you know, there's nothing wrong with just still doing it, you know, is what some people might say. and because like we said last week jesus christ is sufficient to continue to do worship any other way but through him becomes sinful so i will just start in verse one but we already looked at the first four four verses and what we're what we're looking at again with we have the good headings in the ESV. I don't have, I've got this Bible on my computer, but it doesn't have the same headings. So I'm going to look down at my phone once in a while too, because I've got the cross references in there.

But remember the ESV says the supremacy of God's son, which is a really good way to begin this, really good way to summarize this section. again long ago at many times in many ways god spoke to our fathers by the prophets but in the these last days which that's a whole sermon in itself he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world he is the radiance of the glory of god and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he 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. Now, verse five, 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. 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 forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. So a couple quick notes from the first few verses. In Hebrews 1-2, he says, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. So I'm not going to get all into the eschatologies here, right now at least but you know the last days is where we live when Jesus Christ ascended into heaven so I guess I am getting into it the the last days was inaugurated at that time though and so for people who say that the last days is sometime in the future you have oh I was trying to minimize couldn minimize sorry trying to go back to my Bible app When people say that that in the future there some passages in the Bible that you really have to deal with if you going to say the last days is not what going on right now We are in the last days. the last days being defined not as the time that's super close to the end as we count closeness, but as the time between when Jesus ascended into heaven and when we ourselves will be glorified on his return.

And then the second part of this, if you're trying to read it carefully, to me, this was something that would be hard to understand. And in verse four, it says, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. And when I first read having become or being made better than the angels. it's a hard one because we just discussed that Christ is God and right above there that he's the radiance of the glory of God the exact imprint of his nature he upholds the universe now it says he's become as much superior to angels and so this you have to deal with the fact that God is not created jesus is god so jesus is not created but jesus became a man and you know even in that sentence became a man he he is a created uh person in that sense or created uh as a he has a created nature um because he became a man and so you have to be careful how you say it and i probably just said it wrong twice trying to correct myself, but Jesus truly is a man.

And that's important for what we're trying to prove in the book of Hebrews, which is that we have a great high priest who was able to go into the Holy of Holies and actually make atonement for sins. And it was only a human who was going to be able to make atonement for other humans. So the blood of bulls and goats wasn't going to save anyone. That's going to be later in Hebrews, we'll read that. so when we say he's having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs that's that's a reference to the fact that he made himself low and he would have been seen as a mere man whereas angels are these great creatures i mean if an angel appeared to any one of us right now we we quit the hebrews study and go do whatever the angel told us like We'd probably just be that frightened.

I guess we'd hope it was a good angel if we were going to be that obedient. But my point is that if a dude shows up at my house, it's just not impressive. But angels are different, and they're exciting to us. And that's one of the things that made it hard for people to understand is that God sent a man, just a mere man, someone who was unimpressive he wasn't much to look at is what isaiah told us we wouldn't have have thought of him as uh comely or good looking he didn't he wasn't kingly he was born of a low estate and uh he was a carpenter it's not like he was anyone impressive from a human perspective by the way i didn't mention this we had a couple new guys this is not necessarily a monologue like I'm trying to bring you guys through the scriptures and I'm going to try to keep it a reasonable length where people can sit.

But if you're like, man, I just got to say something like just just go ahead. That's OK. And if you want to wait, I'm going to pause once in a while for comments and things like that. So I don't want to become a free for all, but I also don't want people to be like, OK, it's just this one guy talking to himself. but so just remember that Jesus became low in order to be exalted you know and Philippians 2 were reminded that Jesus Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And then you have this name. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. And he tells us what the name is. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. So it's no longer okay to bow to anything at all. It never was.

You bow to Jesus, to God only. one of the proofs that Jesus is God in scripture is that when men bow to angels or other men in scripture, they're corrected and told, no, don't bow to me. And then when people bowed to Jesus and worshiped him, he never corrected anyone. He accepted their worship because it was proper. So now he's more excellent than these angels, his name is, and then the author wants to prove it.

So lest anyone sit there and think, well, I still think angels are awesome. He says in verse five, for which of the angels did God say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And so if you turn to Psalm 2, that is where that is spoken. And if you're impressed, you will recall that I got that wrong last week, and I had to look at the footnote in the Bible to help me And so we benefit from centuries of men and probably women too who have found these references and made notes of them So you know praise the Lord for that kind of thing But in Psalm 2, we have an interesting scenario going on here because it starts out with, why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against his anointed. So I'm going to say Yahweh instead of the Lord. I can explain that sometime if anyone wants. And these evil people, the nations and Gentiles, they say, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. So they hate God's law.

They see God's law as restrictive. So for example, everybody here was born with a penis. That means that pretty much without any doubt in anyone's mind, that means you're a man, you're a male. To many of the heathens right now, and it's starting to become, I wouldn't say it's anywhere near a majority, but it's starting to become a more influential thought, that's a bond that people have to break, that someone has assigned their gender from, frankly, before the foundation of the world.

That's a cord that's trapping them. And so this is, you know, where people are right now. But this was happening before we had transgenderism and those things. All the time we disobey God's law, we are saying, I want to be free of whatever we think these chains are that the law is putting on us. But so in Psalm 2, 4, God sits in the heavens, he laughs and he holds them in derision.

So God, you know, the doctrine people don't always like to talk about, but God hates them, basically. Praise the Lord that he also saves many of those who are his enemies. But it says he'll speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury. And so he's going to do this to the people who are raging against him. He says, as for me, I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill and so now God's saying to us that he has a king on Zion and at the time this was written people would have thought okay so it's King David or you know it's King of Jerusalem or something like that and these other kings would have been jealous and or they would have been offended and angry.

But then God says, I will tell of the decree. Yahweh said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. So now we see that he's talking about the second person of the Trinity. You are my son.

Today, I have begotten you. This is what God has said to his son. And so Jesus says, I will tell of the decree. Yahweh said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you. And so Jesus Christ is proclaimed in Psalm 2 to be God's son, to be equal with God.

And when we talk about him being God's son and being begotten, that doesn't mean he was created. In fact, the creed says begotten, not made, one in being with the father. So there's something mysterious about the Trinity where we can say that it's true that Jesus is God, but he's also not the father. But we also can say we don't understand this and we never will comprehend it completely.

And so we see that Psalm 2 is a psalm not about the king of Israel that's on earth necessarily at the time. Psalm 2, Hebrews references and teaches us, oh, this is about the son of God. And he says, you shall, he says, ask of me, I'll make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession. Everything's God's. it's all gods, the Gentile nations, the Jewish nation.

He says, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. So remember, this is written to kings and rulers of the earth. In verse 10, we see they referenced again, this is a reminder to the greatest men on earth, the most powerful men there are, the men who by all human ability to look at them are extremely talented.

Many people rise to leadership because of their gifting, because of their natural ability. A lot of them, it's simply because they work really hard. I mean, there's some people that become rulers by birth, but they still have to kind of manage things well, or they're going to lose that quickly. And so by human perspective, some of the best rulers, some of the most powerful men in the world, it's because of something they did, and they can be seen as very praiseworthy for that reason.

And God wants them to know, look, I'll dash you in pieces like I could a pot. You know, your kingdom is nothing. There has been thousands, I heard this recently. There's been thousands of kings and rulers since the beginning of time, and you could probably name a dozen of them, unless you're a history buff, because for the most part, nobody cares, but everybody can name the name of Jesus.

Even those that hate him, they know who he is, because he the king overall and so we told to kiss the son and lest he be angry and you perish but if you take refuge in him you blessed So back to Hebrews 1 I didn want to necessarily exegete Psalm 1 or Psalm 2 But in Hebrews 1, 5, we're told that God said this to Jesus. And when in Hebrews 1, it references Psalm 2. It's letting us know, hey, this psalm about Jesus is showing us how much greater he is than the angels.

And so don't get all wrapped up in angels. Verse 6, again, when he brings the first, or sorry, verse 5, or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. So this is the other one that I thought I'd get through today. I didn't think I'd get very far. 2 Samuel 7 is where we see this verse referenced in verse 14. And so let's go to verse 5 of 2 Samuel 7, and let's look at the context of this one.

And so what we're seeing again is Jesus is better than anything. but in particular, Jesus is above the angels and he is better than the old covenant that these Jews were clinging to. So in verse five, God says, go and tell my servant David, thus says Yahweh, would you build me a house to dwell in? OK, so God wants a house where he can reside on earth.

He says, I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. But I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. Okay, so lest we think that God physically lives in a tent. You know, he is immaterial. He's visible. This is how he met with humanity.

He says, in all places where I have moved with the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar? He basically says, I'm not a complainer. He says, now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David. Through telling Nathan, say this to David.

Thus says Yahweh of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. I raised you from being a little shepherd boy to the king of Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth.

So David is one of those rulers who was a ruler a long time ago. And we remember his name because God preserves David's name, right? And he says, and I will appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly. from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel.

He says, and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, Yahweh declares to you that Yahweh will make you a house. He says, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. so now God promises to David and I think there's more to this because when he says I think this refers to heaven as well but he says to David his son's going to come after him out of his body and God's going to establish him a kingdom and so this is clearly people are going to think this is talking about Solomon Solomon came from David's body and Solomon had a kingdom but in 7 13 and 14 says he shall build a house for my name and i will establish the throne of his kingdom forever and that's where it gets a little interesting because solomon died and people came after solomon and pretty much destroyed the kingdom and so it's kind of hard to look at solomon as the fulfillment of this prophecy now there was peace at the time of Solomon there was a house built at the time of Solomon the temple right we call it Solomon's temple right so there was fulfillment of these things that were said at the time but these were you know I'll just say pictures of what God was going to eventually do in Christ and so So God brings along Solomon, does a whole bunch of stuff that pictures what Christ would eventually do for his people.

So it's Christ who was going to give people rest from all their enemies. It's Christ who will appoint a place for his people and he'll plant them so they may dwell in their own place. That's not this place. It's heaven to be disturbed no more. It's Christ who's going to make us a violent man who will afflict us no more as formerly. And then he says in 14, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

This is the verse Hebrews is referencing. But Hebrews was clearly talking about Jesus. Hebrews is saying, for to which angel did God say this? In comparison of angels and Jesus, Hebrews isn't talking about Solomon. Hebrews isn't saying, oh, by the way, Solomon's greater than angels. And so we have to understand that when we read the book of Hebrews.

And I'm going to try to explain this because some of you come from backgrounds where and you may not even know this word. You were taught something called Biblicism, meaning that you were taught, hey, whatever it says, it says, and I just believe it. You don't reinterpret it. And the book of Hebrews, though, is telling us that 2 Samuel 7.14 is about Jesus.

When I read 2 Samuel 7.14, it's easy to think it's just about Solomon. we have to give priority to the Holy Spirit's ability to interpret his own Old Testament when he writes something in the New Testament we have to believe that the author of Hebrews inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what he wrote actually understood what the Old Testament meant more than we do and so we trust when the book of Hebrews says this is about Jesus that it's about Jesus. And then he says, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. That's the verse.

And so now we know that the king who is set on the holy hill in Zion, the king whose throne is established forever, who's going to be descended from David according to the flesh, the king who God will bring peace through, that king is Jesus Christ. And then we get a problem area in the end of 714 when he says, when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. And so then we start to think, well, wait a second, who's going to commit iniquity?

Not Jesus. And so what I think we see here is we see some of the double fulfillment with the fact that, well, Solomon will be disciplined because God, remember Solomon was the type that came that pictured Jesus coming. So this scripture was seen as Solomon at first, and then Solomon comes and Solomon fulfilled a lot of it. A lot of what was written about Jesus here happened to Solomon and with Solomon.

It gave people a taste of the Messiah to come, but then Solomon failed. Solomon totally failed to be the Messiah that people may have hoped was promised here. But then Jesus, but Solomon certainly committed iniquity and was disciplined for it. But when Jesus comes, he cannot commit iniquity. I believe Jesus is incapable of sin. So that's a different argument people have.

But Jesus Christ had iniquity imputed to him. So although Jesus himself didn't commit iniquity, he fulfills this scripture by taking on the sins of his people and being treated as if he had committed sin. So although Jesus himself doesn't commit iniquity, God disciplined him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. By his stripes, we are healed.

And so what we see here is this actually kind of mind-blowing way God can fulfill his scripture. And he can say things in a way that no man could ever come up with. This is another argument for the divine authorship of scriptures. This is biblical. This is like too over our heads to figure out. Nobody would come up with this kind of thing.

So Jesus Christ was disciplined with the rod of men, with the stripes of men. So he was suffered at the hands of men. The king who came from Zion who was going to bring peace who God was going to call his son would be torn apart by mere men. And then 715, my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Psalm, whom I put away from before you.

And he says to David, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, and I will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever. There is an understanding that we are part of the kingdom of Christ, and he's descended from David, and so this is, Jesus is the fulfillment of this scripture, And Hebrews tells us that.

And so lest Jews at the time are so focused on that scripture having somehow been fulfilled by Solomon, because Solomon pictured it. He certainly was a type of Christ. What the Hebrews author is showing people is that, look, this Jesus that came, he always was the fulfillment. He was always what these scriptures are pointing to. It's not like God said, well, I'm going to try to make a king out of David's son.

And then David, you know, thankfully, you know, cheats on, you know, cheats on his wives and takes another man's wife and has a son that God can maybe try to work with. It's not how it was. God always had this plan that Solomon was going to come. He was going to look like Jesus in the sense that he would typify or be a type of what Jesus was coming to do.

But he would fail just like every single man that ever came failed. And in fact, any angel that would come would fail as well. There was no angel that was going to be able to come to do away with the works of the devil. It's just that simple. Only Jesus was going to be able to do that. And only Jesus would be able to be the sacrifice for sins that we would need.

So we'll see in verse six, when Jesus is brought into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. And of the angels, I think this is Psalm 91. He makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. we're told in 6 and 7, and we can look at those verses next time more, but that the angels actually are servants. That even though angels are in some way kind of greater than men, because we're sort of made from the dust, and I don't even know what they're made from, and they certainly have some kind of supernatural power different from us, and many of them have been with God.

We haven't been there yet. Angels are not better than Jesus. And in fact, they're not really better than men in any significant sense as God sent them to minister to us. And so he's going to develop an argument much further, but he's building up to remember he's going to build up to jesus is better than everything he's better than the old covenant he's better than moses and the law but he's starting with he's better than the angels and here's some proof of it and i also think god's giving us what i'll call interpretive keys for the old testament that we may start to read the old testament not just the passages quoted by Hebrews but we may start to see throughout the Old Testament promises of God men who come and appear to be ready to fulfill a promise, but men who fail to fulfill it completely. completely, and then we realized that these were always promises of what Jesus would fulfill, but God sent picture after picture after picture of who Jesus would be, and the idea was this.

When Jesus came, faithful men were supposed to see him. It's just that simple. People who understood the Old Testament and were faithful, when Jesus arrived, they were supposed say, wait, this is the one. Like, he's healing people. He's, you know, he's preaching the good news, setting the captives free. I mean, like, that was like John the Baptist's whole deal, right?

He's like, look, don't follow me, follow this guy, you know? He's better than I am. So, that was the idea that people who trusted what the Old Testament said would figure out, oh, this is the Messiah that was promised. We can stop looking to all these other men. This is the one. And so one of the lessons for us is like, are you ready to recognize him?

If Jesus returned, are you going to be with him? Because he's returning and he's going to look a certain way and he's going to do certain things. And are you going to watch the things that Jesus comes back and does, and are you going to say, well, no, that's not my Jesus. My Jesus is going to come back, and he's going to, you know, first he's going to give everyone a bunny, and he's going to tell everybody good job, you know, whatever, right?

And I know that's not the crowd I have here, but just something to think about, like, do you have the correct picture of what the Messiah will look like when he returns to establish what he's going to establish? And, you know, just to be kind of maybe crude. There's going to be a bloodbath, right? And, you know, are you ready to say this is whose side I'm on?

And that's what we're supposed to be able to recognize. And when you're reading the scripture and when you're dealing with people in the world, you know, and you're trying to exercise discernment, do you know what things are supposed to look like? You know, when somebody comes up to you and says, hey, I've got this, I'm just going to pick on something that's a particular annoyance to me.

When somebody comes to you with a little Enneagram, it's got the nine numbers, and they say, hey, take this quiz, and it'll tell you all about yourself, and then you can use it in your Christian life. Do you see clearly enough to see that that's not where Jesus is? That he's not even like hiding in there at all? That's what we need to be able to see is where does Jesus actually provide things to us?

Where is he? What do things look like? When you go to church and the church has, you know, a nice worship band with a couple of, you know, skinny girls in tight pants in the front singing worship songs, do you sit there and think, oh, this is what Jesus thinks worship looks like? You know, that's the thing we're trying to figure out here is not just when he returns, you know, when he returns, it'll happen so fast.

Hopefully, if we're all still here, you know, we won't even know the difference. We'll just be with them. But as you're walking around this world, you have to be able to discern, you know, what does Jesus think of these things? And we have so much more revelation than these first century Jews had that are easy to pick on. You know, we look at them and say, why are you still going to the temple?

You had Jesus. Well we have the book of Hebrews and the destruction of the temple to kind of help us see that So what are the things that maybe we blind to that God sufficient word has warned us about sufficiently and we just haven't put in the effort to interpret it properly and apply it properly. So I'll just kind of leave you guys with that sort of exhortation, maybe slash rebuke, and I will stop and we'll open up for anybody that had any comments and what I said or what they read this week or questions.

Amen. And, and biblicism may be more than what I said, or if you, if you want to understand biblicism, James Renahan has done a couple of podcasts where he talked about it on the Institute of IRBS, Institute for Reformed Baptist Studies podcast. And I think he's done a sermon or two. And so it's kind of like the, it's sort of like the way a dispensationalist reads the Bible, just very kind of literally.

And you don't pull anything out of it. If it's, you know, our confession, the 16 and 9 London Baptist Confession of Faith says, We believe that the scripture has necessary inferences. So you read it and there's things you can infer necessarily from the text. Biblicism, I think, would deny that. So that's one of the things. And Biblicism would deny that Psalm 45 is about Jesus Christ because it's not explicitly stated and there's someone else that it could be about. whereas in a couple verses in Hebrews we're going to see that Psalm 45 also is written about Jesus Christ.

And. Yeah, good comment. One thing to think about is that based on what Jeremy said, maybe think of this. Remember that, you know, God. God built the house, you know, Solomon had the house right for him to dwell in. So God would meet with man in these ways, but.

Jesus Christ has now made it so that your flesh is where God dwells. God dwells in you. And so whereas, I mean, God couldn't be near the people in the Old Testament. Remember this. These people couldn't touch the mountain that God was talking to Moses on. If anyone came into the Holy of Holies, they'd die if they weren't the right one guy a year to go in or whatever.

You know what I mean? and so there was a very very special way that that individual men could maybe come to God and and other men could go through that mediator to get there and and if if you didn't live in Jerusalem you didn't have God right you didn't if you didn't live where the temple was you didn't have God that that was the Samaritan woman's whole thing like well you know we just kind of do it our way and you guys have it over there. And now God's in you. The mediator has gone to God for you, and he has made you a dwelling place for God with men.

And that's significant. That's a fulfillment of this. But it's also amazing access to God. And we probably don't use it as much as Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us, and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net. You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us.

I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures