No Greater Word
Hebrews 1:5-14 ·February 23, 2025· Joel Passmore
Part of: Hebrews, Toward an Enduring Faith
Pastor Joel Passmore continues a sermon series on the Book of Hebrews and talks to us about why Jesus is not an angel.
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We just started last week a new sermon series on the book of Hebrews. So if you weren't here last week, it's okay. You just missed one sermon. So we just started in the book of Hebrews, and the sermon series is called Toward an Enduring Faith. Now, better. I know, better than last week. Had a little graphic design snappy last week. Okay, so Toward an Enduring Faith. Hebrews is a sermon. So these are sermons on sermons. Yes, I understand how meta that is.
It's a single sermon written to Jewish Christians. That's why it was called the Letter to the Hebrews by the early church. These Jewish Christians were suffering. They were experiencing a crisis of faith. And the book, the sermon, tells us why we should stand on Jesus and then how to do it. It's basically it. A good summary verse of the whole book is Hebrews 10.23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Today we're talking about whose word do you trust? What authority do you look to? Did you know that doctors used to wear black? That was the customary garb of doctors a long time ago. It was convention for a long time. It conveyed seriousness and formality about a serious matter. Also probably because at that time, if the doctor was going to see you, death might not be very far away.
But starting around 1900, in medicine there was a new focus on antiseptics and sterilization. How about that? And the white lab coat was basically borrowed from lab researchers as a new uniform by doctors to indicate cleanliness, purity, everything sterilized, everything safe. And it caught on. The white lab coat caught on. It became a symbol for doctors and it became something that had a built-in connotation of authority and trust. Study after study has shown that people prefer their doctors to wear white lab coats when they see them.
Study after study has shown this, that they trust the person more when they're wearing them. In fact, the association of a white lab coat with authority and medicine is so strong, the Federal Trade Commission has what's called the white coat rule. Advertisements for medical products cannot use actors dressed in white coats. Because the reason is this, is that it would mislead consumers into believing that the product works simply because the actor is wearing the white lab coat.
It would unduly influence people. So the FTC says you can't use a white lab coat on an actor in a medical ad. The white lab coat makes people think subconsciously that they're listening to a doctor on TV, not just an actor in a pharmaceutical ad. Big difference, right? Actor in a pharmaceutical ad, doctor. So they can't use them. In today's passage in Hebrews, the preacher of this book is talking to people who grew up trusting the authority of white coats.
Not doctors, but angels. Now they've put their trust in Jesus. Now they have become Christians. They have confessed their faith in Christ. But in their present difficulty, in their suffering, in their struggles, they are looking back to the authorities they used to trust. Maybe we ought to go back there and trust those people. They had the white coats.
Last week, the passage ended by Jesus saying that, or by the preacher saying that Jesus was superior to angels. And today we're going to learn why. Why is he superior to angels? And what does that mean for us? So let's open. Turn with me to Hebrews 1. Let's sit under the word of God together. Let's be taught by God together. Let's be changed together as the word goes forth. Come with me. This is God's holy word, inspired and without error. Starting in verse 5 and going through the end of the chapter.
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 flame a flame of fire. But of the sun, 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. And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning. And the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe, you will roll them up. Like a garment, they will be changed. But you are the same. And your years will have no end.
And to which of the angels has he ever said, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Pray with me. Lord God, again, we come to you and we say thank you and praise you for speaking to us, for revealing yourself, for revealing your character, your ways, and what's more, to reveal how it is that we can be reconciled and to reveal the very reconciliation, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we worship today.
Lord, I pray that you would help all of us to kneel in our hearts under your word, that we would listen to you speak and we would put you in your proper place, the place that you already are, Lord, but I pray that in our hearts we would seat you there and come under you, our loving, powerful Father and our Savior and the Spirit, Lord, the triune God, we worship you today. We pray this in your name.
No greater word. No greater word. Jesus stands above all other authorities and sources of truth. Now, the first question a lot of people have and I had when you come to this passage is I'm going to use my Jerry Seinfeld impression. What is the deal with angels?
Why is he talking about angels so much? Why is he going on and on about angels? Now here's some context. This is important. Angels were often the mediators of God's revelation. In the Old Testament, angels oftentimes were who God used to tell people what he needed to tell them, to reveal something to them. Many times, God spoke through them to Lot, to Hagar, Jacob, Gideon, Elijah, and Daniel. All of those people had angelic appearances where God spoke to them through an angel.
And it's not just that. According to Stephen in Acts 7 and Paul in Galatians 3, angels were involved in giving the law to Moses and to the Israelites. The law came in part through angels. So for Jews, angels were very familiar authority figures. They were messengers of revelation. They were sources of truth.
They were the authorities in the white lab coats. You listen to them. This sermon is written to Jewish Christians. It's the letter to the Hebrews. And these believers had left behind so much to follow Jesus. But in the Roman Empire, life was not easy. Hostility was on the rise. Hostility towards Christians exclusively. Some of the people that the preacher writes this sermon to had lost their freedom. Some had lost their property. And he warns them that soon they might lose their lives.
there was a temptation to go back to their former beliefs. They wonder if life might be easier if they just make some compromises. Maybe we could say that Jesus is just an angel. Even maybe the greatest of angels. We'd be welcomed back into the synagogues. We wouldn't be targeted by the Roman government. Besides, those angels, they were powerful beings. They gave us God's word. They gave us God's law.
And if Jesus is so great, why is our life so hard anyway? I don't remember it being like this when we believed what we used to believe. Can we really trust him?
Now, that's what they might have been thinking. And maybe you're at times in your life when you might be thinking that as well. To stand on Jesus not just as a word of truth, but the word of truth. Not just a word of truth, but the word of truth. That word that surpasses all others. That is a radical position to take.
Because you and I, we might not be tempted to trust angels. But there are plenty of other authority figures that invite us to trust them. That we look to. When you see a weird spot on your skin or have some strange symptoms, who gives you the most reassurance? Be honest. It's a person in a white coat. Or at least WebMD. Right? If you can't get to a doctor. But it's not just doctors.
Everyone here knows, and perhaps those under 20 know specifically, and in a heightened way, social media is full of experts and gurus and guides. People who offer insight to your problems. Whether you want to understand the world or understand yourself, these people seem to know what they're talking about. Don't they? They are so appealing. These people that we listen to, they might be helpful sometimes, but friends, I just want to ask this, where is Jesus in all of this?
Where is Jesus in all this for you? Is he poking his head up in the back trying to get a word in edgewise with all of these people shouting truth and insight to you? This is how you live your life. This is what's true. Is he shouting above the den? Or have you pushed them all aside and brought him up to the very front so that his voice is the loudest?
Do we listen to him? Do we look to him ultimately for understanding and for assurance? Does his word carry the day? The preacher of this sermon is calling us in this passage to see the total supremacy of Jesus Christ over all other authorities that might try to get in your ear. Maybe it's not angels, but I know there's someone.
There's no greater word than Jesus, and here's why. I've got three things for you in this passage. Here's the first one. He alone is God's son. He alone is God's son. Hebrews, it's got some passages that take a little bit of work to understand, and verses five and six are among them. Today I have begotten you, the preacher says. It sounds as if the father literally sired the son, like as in literal offspring. That's what Mormons believe about Jesus, by the way.
And then you have, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son, and it says God brings the firstborn into the world. Now that kind of sounds like maybe the son is the first created being of God. That God started by creating the son, and then he created everything else, and that's why he's preeminent.
That's what Jehovah's Witnesses believe about Jesus. Now, are those right interpretations of these passages? The answer is no, and here's why. First, we have to start with Jesus himself. What did he claim about himself? He unequivocally claimed that he was equal with the father and fully God. When he said, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am, he wasn't claiming that he just preceded Abraham in birth. He was claiming to be God.
He was using God's covenant name, I am, and applying it to himself. That's why they tried to kill him right then and there. He would not be called a blasphemer if he was just saying that he was older than Abraham. No one would have tried to stone him. They knew what he was saying.
John 5.18 says this, this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. So there it is right there. According to Jesus, whoever has seen me has seen the father. Those are some big claims. So if these verses in Hebrews don't mean that the father created the son or sired the son, what do they mean? Well, the key is found in the scriptures that the preacher quotes here.
He starts with quoting Psalm 2. You are my son, today I have forgotten you. This psalm, Psalm 2, it's a royal psalm. It's a psalm about a king and about the king's son. The birthday of a king, his second birthday, is the day that he takes the throne. That's when he gets the title. That's when he is proclaimed and recognized as the son and the heir, when he takes the throne. That's his birthday. Next, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.
That's from 2 Samuel 7. That's God's covenant with David. The promise of a perpetual king from David's lineage. It was spoken by God to David, Solomon, but now the preacher of Hebrews saying it also had another reference, a second reference to the final eternal king that came from David's line and was also the son of God. This is about coronation. It's about exaltation and enthronement of the son. It's not about the origin of the son, these verses in Hebrews, because he has no origin.
He always was. They're about his exaltation, his enthronement. And it's becoming clear to me as I study Hebrews that Hebrews is all about the exalted Christ. We don't talk much about the exaltation of Christ. We talk about his death and his resurrection, and rightly so. That's where redemption happened. But his exaltation is also important. He's sitting on the throne. That's why God says, today I have begotten you, because he has taken his seat at the right hand of God the Father.
And he has become in some sense the son of God. He always was the son of God. He's the eternal son of God, but that sonship takes on another dimension when he sits down on that throne. Firstborn is a title of honor and rank. It's not about creation. It's not about birth. It's about order and rank. He has always been the son of God, but he experiences a new dimension of his sonship when he sat down at the right hand of the Father. That's when he was brought into the world.
The Greek word here for world refers to all the inhabited world. That's what differentiates it from when he was born. The incarnation, he appeared only in one place. Now he is presented to all the inhabited world as the exalted enthroned son of God. And that's why God says let all the angels worship him.
So now we can see the first point that the preacher is making. Let all the angels worship him. The angels worship the son, so why would you go back to listening to angels?
Why? Why would you go back to that authority and leave the son who is equal to God, full of glory and worthy of all worship? Now imagine yourself in need of financial advice and you know a guy that you used to go to high school with who knew some stuff about money management. He did some day trading, he's read some books, he's even written a couple of articles on a financial website. So he's your guy. You call him, he advises you about what to do with your money, how to spend, where to invest, how to manage it better and it's going okay, good, not great and then one day you're out in town someplace and you get into a conversation with a stranger, an older guy.
You mention something about finances and trying to manage your money and he says, hey I know something about that, I could help you. Here's my card, call me sometime. And you look at the card and it says Dave Ramsey and you look up at him and you say, no thanks, I got a guy already.
Pretty foolish, right? Dave Ramsey knows what he's talking about. He's proven himself in this area, more so than your friend from high school. You had the best authority right there at your fingertips giving you his phone number saying call me, I can help. And you discard it for someone far less knowledgeable, far less competent just because they're familiar. That's what the Hebrews are thinking of doing. And that's what we do when we trust other authorities more than the Son of God.
We're calling up our friend from high school who's read a couple of books about finances and asking him for financial advice and turning down the offer from Dave Ramsey. It's foolish. Jesus is a better mediator of God's truth because he is God's truth. He knows the future because he plans the future. He is the one to trust. He alone is the Son of God. Now here's the second thing. The second thing that this preacher brings out for us here. He never changes.
He never changes. In verses 7 through 12 the preacher makes his next point. He starts by quoting Psalm 104. He makes the angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. Now here's the point. The only point that he's making when he brings us up is this. The angels are created beings. God can and does transform them into whatever suits his purpose including winds and flame. They're part of the created order but the Son is above the created order. Of the Son he says you Lord laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands.
He is the creator. He sits above it and the creation itself is temporary. They will perish. They will all wear out. He has control over it. You will roll them up like a garment they will be changed. For the Son changing and replacing this heavens and this earth are as easy as us changing clothes. If you've ever been to a theater or a musical or a concert it's amazing to see how quickly costume changes can happen. From one scene to the next the same actor or actress comes out dressed totally differently.
The Son says you think that's impressive? Just wait. But there's something that never changes and that's him. You are the same. You are the same. The preacher quotes from scripture. The angels become wind and flame at his command. The heavens and the earth are changed like a robe but the Son never changes. And that is good news because if the Son never changes then that means his word doesn't change. You can trust it. It won't ever get outdated or obsolete.
It won't ever be replaced by some deeper insight. Listen you can Google old textbooks from generations ago. Go do it sometime. It's pretty fun to read old textbooks. Things that students were taught that are now outdated. They're filled with facts that have been refuted. Knowledge that has been eclipsed. Theories that have been disproven. Did you know that for centuries scientists, eminent scientists believed that all space was filled with a substance called ether?
Well of course you didn't know that because it's been disproven. It's been cast aside. It's yesterday's news. It's false. Nobody believes that anymore. And any day, any of the bedrock scientific truths that you hold on to could be proven false. It could happen.
But Jesus' word will always be true. You can build your life on it. It's more stable than any scientific fact. You can build your life on his word and you should build your life on his word. Though everything in your life and the whole world shifts and moves, he will never change. And he is eternal. Your years have no end. No one's going to come after him. Every American president, it seems, issues more executive orders than the last one. Go look at the stats.
Every president, the number of executive orders is just increasing and increasing. Right? And each incoming president overturns many of the executive orders from the previous administration. When this king speaks, it will never be struck down because there's no one coming after him. No one's going to overturn anything that he said, anything that he does. No higher authority will ever assume the throne. He's got it. He's got a lock on it.
He says that all who repent and put their faith in him will enter the kingdom of God and that will never change. He says that this kingdom is coming now and that he will return to bring it in fullness and that will never change. He says that he will be with us until the end of this age and that will never change. His word will stand forever. Don't you want something that's reliable? Don't you yearn for stability?
Put your faith, all of it, in the Son of God. Make him the highest authority for everything that he says about every bit of your life. The big parts and the small things from relationships to money to faith to the future to the past. Put it all under his authority, friends, and you will have a stable foundation that never changes.
Now here's the last thing. He alone is God's Son. He never changes and finally he is in total control. Most artistic depictions of angels are stupid and misleading. They really are. They're usually either chubby babies or delicate nymphs. They look weak. They look like they would break a sweat just fluffing your pillow. It's ridiculous.
God's Word paints a different picture of angels. Angels are mighty and terrifying. Sometimes they have the form of a human. Other times they have bizarre forms that our minds just can't wrap themselves around. Many eyes, wings, wheels within wheels. When an angel appears, it is always alarming to the person who sees them. The angel has to begin by saying, do not fear. Listen, we don't turn into angels. I hope you know that. Human beings will never turn into angels.
Angels will never turn into human beings. They're two different things that God has created. When you die and you're in the Lord, you're not going to get wings and fly up to heaven. You're going to remain human. Angels are non-human supernatural beings and they are created by God with a particular purpose. verse 14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? If you're in Christ today, that's you.
It's talking about you. Angels serve and protect the people of God. That is their role. There's a guy named John G. Patone, who was a Scottish missionary who served with his wife and his family on the island of Anahua in the South Pacific off the eastern coast of Australia.
The people around that area on that island and the surrounding islands were cannibals. He served in the 1900s, or actually the late 1800s. When he and his wife were in their cabin one night, it got dark and they heard fierce and violent cries all around them surrounding their cabin. They thought the end was near. They kneeled down and they prayed. They prayed and they prayed and they prayed. The morning came. There was no one around them. They went out and they looked.
There was no one. They had survived. They had made it. They continued their ministry and their mission. And in about a year, the chieftain of the local tribe became a Christian. And after him, person after person in that tribe, before the whole tribe, all of the inhabitants of that island and the surrounding islands were all believers in Jesus. And one day, John was in a conversation with the chieftain. And he asked about that night, why didn't you attack us?
Why didn't you come? And the chieftain said, well, who were those men with you? And John said, there was no one but my wife and men in shining garments with drawn swords circling around your house so we knew we could not attack you.
Now listen, I have read a half a dozen or more stories like that from around the world, from different points in history, and all of them share this, multitudes of glowing warriors with swords protecting Christians. It's always the same image.
Now that is amazing, isn't it? According to the Bible, angels protect and they rescue, they rejoice when sinners repent, they watch our lives with interest. Here's the point though, angels are powerful, they're merely servants. Isn't it better to talk to the one that sends out those servants? Who is more powerful? Those men in white with shining swords or the one that sent them to that cabin? The one that He's the one to give your attention to. Isn't He the stronger one?
Isn't He the one with more authority? Isn't He the one who can really help you? The answer is Don't concern yourself with with the ones that are sent. Concern yourself with the one that sends them. He is the one in control. Those angels are just doing what they're told. They take orders from the Son of God. That's who we need to give our attention to, our allegiance to. Sometimes when I'm on the phone with customer service or I'm in a business talking to an employee, it gets to the point where six words that mean business.
Six words that make my daughters cringe. Just like they made me cringe when I heard my dad say them when I was a kid. Let me speak to your manager. Now why do we say those words sometimes? Because whoever we're talking to is not the highest authority. We've reached the limit of their authority what they can do. We say those words to escalate things because it has to go up further to get resolved. Listen friends you cannot go up any further than the son of God.
He's in control and whatever is happening in your life he will resolve it. Now it may not happen in your timing but it will happen in his it will happen in his whatever sufferings you're facing whatever trials you're enduring whatever doubts you have whatever concerns you have look to the son the one in total control and he will resolve it the father told him son sit at my right hand until I make enemies all of your enemies a footstool under your feet he never said that to any of the angels only the son has that kind of authority he intercedes for you nothing will snatch you out of his hand and when he returns all his enemies will be overcome and the last enemy to be destroyed is death the last enemy to be destroyed is death people of God stand on Christ there's no greater word about your future about your presence about your salvation