CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 1:5. Angels.—Properly, any living being carrying out the Divine will is an angel, a messenger, a servant. But the word “angel” is precisely kept for such messengers as belonged to other than the earthly sphere. The angelophanies of the Old Testament were foreshadowings of the revelation in the “Man Christ Jesus.” Said He.—The interrogation is intended to be a strong negation. Begotten Thee.—Constituted Thee; but the term is designed to indicate the different relation in which Christ stands to God and the angels stand to Him. To angels He is Creator; to Christ He is Father. Three references of the term have been assigned:
(1) the eternal generation of the Son;
(2) His incarnation;
(3) His full manifestation, as the obedient Son, in His resurrection. “The idea of the eternal generation of the Son is the pure offspring of the metaphysics of the Greek Fathers, rather than of New Testament teaching” (Barker).
Hebrews 1:6. Again.—Read as R.V. “when He again bringeth.” First-begotten.—R.V. “firstborn.” Another expression for Son, but adding to Son the right of primogeniture. Son and Heir. Only Son and only Heir. See Revelation 1:5; Colossians 1:15; Colossians 1:18; Romans 8:29; Hebrews 12:22-23. The quotation may be from Psalms 97:7, or Deuteronomy 32:43. The latter is the more probable source, as the LXX. Version reads, “Rejoice, ye heavens, along with Him, and let the angels of God worship Him.”
Hebrews 1:7. The difficulty of this verse lies in its setting inanimate things after animate. Delitzsch renders, “Who maketh His messengers out of winds.” The writer’s point appears to be this: As even material objects may be the messengers or angels of God, so to be an angel in the higher sense is to be no more than a minister of the Divine will. But the Son is one with the Divine will, and in doing that will does His own. Dr. Moulton explains in another way: “The meaning appears to be that God, employing His messengers for His varied purposes, sends them forth in what manner He may please, clothing them with the appearance of the resistless wind or the devouring fire.”
Hebrews 1:8. Sceptre of righteousness.—Lit. “rod of straightness.”
Hebrews 1:10. The 102nd Psalm is not so clearly Messianic; but if the consciousness of the original writer was aware of nothing more definite than a description of the eternity of Jehovah, it is yet competent to an inspired New Testament writer to tell us that this language is applicable to our Lord.
Hebrews 1:14. The word for ministering, λειτουργικά, is not classical, but it is used in the LXX., and it implies “sacred service.” Heirs of salvation.—Because salvation is conceived as both a present state and a final fruition: “Made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). The Jewish conceptions of angels need not be made into a Christian angelology.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 1:5-14
The Service of a Servant and the Service of a Son.—The essential dignity of Christ is seen in a contrast between a servant and a son. Angels are taken for the first contrast because they are the highest form of servants that man can conceive, because their work was in the world before that of Moses, and because they were directly associated as ministers with the earlier dispensation. Angels have a very prominent place in the Old Testament Scriptures. They are the servants of the Divine house, agents who do the Divine Master’s bidding, “ministering spirits.” The contrast of angels, the servants, with Christ as the Son is a fair one, because Christ is Himself one of God’s angels, a ministering spirit. He said of Himself: “I am among you as He that serveth”; “I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” But the contrast between the Angel-Christ and other angels is very striking and impressive. “To which of the angels has God said at any time, Thou art My son; this day have I begotten thee?” Of the angels this kind of thing is said, “Who maketh winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.” Of the Son this unique kind of thing is said, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom.”
I. Ministry to others is common to a servant and to a son.—The Scripture is full, from Genesis to Revelation, of the ministering of the angels to the sons of God. They kept the way of the Tree of Life, lest our erring first parents should stamp immortality upon their sin. They visited the patriarch Abraham, to give him knowledge of the Divine thought concerning Sodom. They went up and down that ladder of help between earth and heaven which Jacob saw in his night-visions. One mysterious angel wrestled with the anxious patriarch on Jabbok-side, through the long night unto the breaking of the day. He who came down to Sinai to give His fiery law was attended by thousands of angels. Grieved at the sin of His people, Jehovah almost withdrew His promise to go with them, and offered Moses to provide an angel-guide instead. An angel-form cheered Joshua with assurances as he entered on the invasion of Canaan. To Manoah the angel brought the tidings of the coming hero who should be born in his house. Angel-help was so fully realised by the psalmist that he could assure his heart in this—“He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways: they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” An angel with a drawn sword stood over Jerusalem when David’s presumption must be punished. An angel kept three Hebrew youths safe from harm in the very midst of the fire, and the prayerful man unharmed among the lions. Angels brought the promise of a forerunner, and of a Messiah; and with their joy-songs angels heralded Messiah’s birth. Angels waited on Jesus in His time of temptation. Angels watched the place where they laid Him dead. Angels spoke the promise of His coming again. Angels led apostles out of their prison-house. Angels brought revelations in lonely Patmos. And angels are to be with Jesus when He cometh in His glory. Everywhere we may find illustrations of the many-sided truth, that God uses agents to carry out His purposes of wisdom and grace. Sometimes He uses men; sometimes the various forces of nature; sometimes He calls for the service on our behalf of these creatures of His who belong to other spheres than ours, and yet can come into our spheres, exert influence on us, and even become apprehensible to our senses. There seem to be in some of these angel-manifestations of the Old Testament foreshadowings and suggestions of the glorious incarnation of the Son of God. It is not unreasonable that we should reverently recognise the Angel-Jehovah in Abraham’s visitor, and in Jacob’s night-wrestler. But the work of ministering is not the work of angels alone. It is the noble side of all relationships, human and Divine. It gives the distinction between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God. The spirit of the world is “getting”; the Spirit of God is “serving.” Seeking the good of himself is man’s temptation to sin. Seeking the good of others is the sure indication of man’s recovery to virtue. Only as he becomes an angel, a “ministering spirit,” does man enter into full kinship with God, with God in Christ. Angels are our helpers; but it is also true that angels are our teachers, our examples. We learn from them what is the noble life, what our life would become if, from us, the self-seeking of our sinfulness were wholly taken away. “Ministering “—that is the Divine idea, for the Divine Being Himself, and for all the creatures that are made in the Divine image. We can rise no higher than that, for that is the sublime height of God Himself. God works. That is true, but His work is a ministry of blessing for His creatures. He is always about our path and our lying down—the infinite Angel, ever doing us good. Call nature-forces by some grand name of law, which takes the living will and beating heart out of them, and you make our human life poor and low indeed. Let the winds be God’s angels, and the storms God’s angels, and the spring-breathings God’s angels, and the gentle rain God’s angels. Winter snow, and spring sunshine, and summer rain, and autumn heat are God Himself ministering—they are His own angel-service to His creatures. When God takes upon Him our human nature, shadows Himself in human form, then we see an angel, a ministering spirit—the Angel of the Covenant. The angel-mark is most plain on all the human life of Jesus. He “went about doing good.” Service was the characteristic of His most blessed life. His lesson on ministering was given in the upper room, when He went round and washed the disciples’ feet. We may call that the great angel-lesson. For the work of Christ’s Church will go into these few words, “ministering unto the necessities of saints.”
II. The ministry of a servant is doing another’s will.—It is the characteristic of a servant that he does not share in his master’s counsels; he “knoweth not what his lord doeth.” He does not understand the plan into which his work fits. Enough for him to receive definite commands without questioning, and to fulfil them without hesitation. The Lord Jesus Christ, recognising this as the characteristic of servants, lifted His relations to His personal disciples into a higher plane. He said to them, “I have called you friends; for whatsoever I have heard of the Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15). But confidential servants are still servants who take their commands from another. Even if they are permitted to consult with their master, the decision rests wholly with him, and his will is done, not theirs. Even angels cannot be thought of as doing their own will. There are vague allusions to some who “lost their first estate” because they resolved to follow their own wills. Servants are not inventive: they make no plans; they only carry out plans. Their essential attitude is figured in the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision: “Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly”; or, twain he held poised ready in a moment to fly, when a command came from the throne (Isaiah 6:2).
III. The ministry of a son is doing his own will.—Not as distinct from, or opposed to, his father’s will, but as being his father’s will. Ideally, in relation to the exercise of authority, the son’s will is the same as the father’s; and our Lord continually asserted the absolute identity of His will with the Father’s. The servant puts his own will aside in order to do the master’s will. The Son does His own will in doing his Father’s. This indicates an essential distinction between angels and Christ. Some help may be gained from an illustration of the sentiments entertained on a great landed estate. All the officials and servants, even up to the steward, have simply to do the nobleman’s will. But the son and heir is treated with the same respect as the father, and is recognised as having the same unique authority. Applying this distinction between servant and son to the mission of redemption, we see that angels and prophets executed certain parts of the mission that were entrusted to them, but were not in the secret of the connections of the parts, or of the Divine purpose; but Christ, the Divine Son, carried out a mission which was His own design, because His Father’s—the expression of His own love, because of His Father’s love; and it was wrought by His own authority, which was His Father’s. Thus in so many ways the writer of this epistle presses on attention the superiority of the Christian dispensation, in that it was administered by One who occupied so unique a position, who belonged to so different a range of beings.
The highest conception of life, then, is ministering service. However exalted in rank and station a man may be, and whatever his degree of authority may be, his true dignity lies in being, as Christ was, an angel-helper, ever “waiting on his ministering.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 1:5. Figurative Use of the Term “Begotten.”—God’s appointment to an office, or, more exactly, His removing of all obstacles and putting a man actually into the office He has appointed for him, is called “begetting him.” Thus David was Divinely begotten when he was set by God as king upon the holy hill of Zion. “I have this day established thee as My chosen king, and thus constituted thee My son.” When this figurative use of the term is clearly apprehended, we are relieved from anxiously endeavouring to understand, what never can be understood, the mysterious eternal relations of the Divine Father and the Divine Son. Our Lord was “begotten” when the fulness of times had come, when preparations were completed, when obstacles were removed, and He could be put into His office, and could begin His work as Messianic Saviour. “Begotten” rather suggests “giving birth to” than “conceiving.”
David’s Son and Lord.—Wonder not to find one and the same to be the Prince and Priest, God and man, the rod and root, the root and the offspring of David his son, and yet his Lord; for these things belong to one Person, who is both God and man; some of them as He is God, and some of them as He is man, and some as God-man.—Jerome.
The Worship of the Angels.—Often the idea of worship in Scripture is not “offering religious homage to,” but “solemnly recognising the dignity of.” It is often what may be understood by “worthship,” or recognising and acknowledging the worth or superiority of a person. That appears to be the idea of the word “worship” in this verse. It is not necessary to the writer’s argument to show that angels offer the Divine Son religious homage; it is to the point to show that they recognise His unique person, His transcendent worth, His special rights, and His extraordinary commission. There may be ranks and orders of angels, as servants, but they never for one moment think of classing Christ even with any in their highest ranks. They worship Him as one altogether beyond the angel, the servant, range.
Fatherhood apprehended through Sonship.—“I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son.” As Son, “the express image of [the Father’s] person.” When Christ came into the world, He said plainly to His disciples, who were supposed to understand Him, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” We may then say that it is the work of every man to find the Father in Christ. No man has truly seen the Son who has not found the Father in Him. And if we may think of God as our Father, we shall surely have the truest and most trustful view of Him. If God is pleased to reveal Himself to any of His creatures, He must do so through the nature of those creatures. If God determined to show Himself to man, He must not come to him as a cherub or as an angel, but as a man. So we are told, “Verily He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.” But there are varieties of aspects under which man may be viewed, according to the relationships in which he stands; and besides coming as a man, God must show Himself in some particular form of man. Men are kings, or prophets, or judges, or husbands, or fathers, or sons, or brothers; and God must make choice of the one among the many forms of relationship—forms of manhood—which shall most perfectly represent Him. We need not assume that God has restricted Himself to just one aspect. He is indeed represented as Shepherd, Husband, Friend, Prophet, Priest, and King; but we can have only one feeling—that if God should be pleased in a special manner to choose the form and term of Father, He would come nearest to us, and give us the very tenderest and holiest suggestions concerning Himself. Many try to persuade themselves that they are bound to think of God chiefly as a King. Certain exigencies of Christian doctrine absolutely demand the conception of a Moral Governor. But surely it should not be difficult for us to recognise that the term Father involves all the righteousness, authority, and government included in kingship, and is altogether a higher and profounder conception. None of us can say that we feel our hearts at all stirred by the mention of a king. A king is a person to be feared, obeyed, and served, but not necessarily a person to be loved. But there never has been age or land in which the dearest thoughts, and tenderest memories, and most reverent feelings of men’s hearts, have not gathered round the idea of father and of mother: for men everywhere parents have presented the ideals of all that was pure, and true, and reverent, and good. It must be that we shall come near to God, if He be indeed the “Everlasting Father.” It is sometimes said that the term “Father” will not do for God, because it makes Him out to be all kindness and indulgence, and shrouds all His awful attributes with a veil of love, making Him indeed to be all love. But if it does, what could be more deeply true? Do we not read, “God is love”? When men realise what an uncompromising, searching, holy thing love is, they will never be afraid to say of Him, “God is love.” But this representation of the Fatherhood of God is most imperfect and unworthy. We never for a moment think of passing by justice and authority in order to exalt love, when we call God “our Father.” Would it be fair to say of any good earthly father, “He is all love, all indulgence; there is no justice, no reverence, no government in him”? The better father he is, the more authority he exercises, the more holy fear he demands. What is God to you when you think of Him as King? Do you not feel as if He were shifted right back, out of sight, out of reach—seated on a glorious throne, and you outside the gates, the great shut gates? Thoughts of majesty, glory, august power, and exact judgment, oppress you. You feel that, as a King, tremendous considerations, wide as the infinite creation, sway His decisions, amidst which you may easily become a forgotten trifle. But what is God to you in those moments when you can realise that He is a Father indeed? Is there any failing of reverence for Him? Is your sense of justice, righteousness, law, authority, weakened when you think of Him as Father? You may try to make God great by describing His Kingship; we will sit at the feet of Christ the Son, and learn from Him how rightly to know the true God and eternal life. And Christ shows us a weeping prodigal, pressing his face into a father’s bosom; heart is beating to heart—the one in all the anguish of penitence, the other in all the anguish of pitying, fatherly love. Now the father’s arms are round the restored boy; and who shall say that all highest law is not vindicated, when that father wipes away the tears, and calls for music and dancing, the best robe and the fatted calf? How deep to our hearts it goes if we may call God our Father! Who ever saw weeping rebels lying on kings’ bosoms? It must be that we are deeper, far deeper, into the very heart of truth about God, if He will let us think of Him as our “Father in heaven.” And is this truth of the Divine Fatherhood one which must be put under limitations and restrictions? Must it be anxiously guarded from possible misconceptions, and shielded round as belonging to men only under certain conditions? It is enough to reply, Christ never fenced it off. Christ never limited its application; then why should we? Christ never seemed afraid of preaching it freely everywhere. He evidently expected to bless men, to awaken a new spirit in men, the true spirit, the child-spirit, by telling them of their Father in heaven. If we follow Christ, we too will show men the Father-God everywhere in Christ’s life and teaching; the Father-God especially in death, sacrifice, and atonement. Believe then in the Father. Learn of Christ the Son so to believe. Then the Spirit of the Son will grow strong in you; and from Jesus, your brother, you will learn well how to be a son of the heavenly Father.
Hebrews 1:6. Christ’s Incarnation.—The doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is as important as any in the whole Bible, and it stands not on one or two doubtful passages of Scripture, but on the plainest and almost numberless declarations of the inspired writers. In the passage before us the apostle is showing the infinite superiority of Jesus above the highest orders of created beings; and he adduces a whole series, as it were, of testimonies in proof of this point. The one which we have now read is taken from the 97th Psalm, and confessedly relates to Jesus.
I. Christ is a proper object of Divine worship.—
1. The command contained in the text is itself decisive upon the point. God is a jealous God, and claims Divine worship as His inalienable prerogative; yet He at the same time requires it to be given to His Son. Therefore the Son is worthy of that high honour.
2. The practice of the Christian Church confirms it beyond a doubt. Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and addressed himself to Jesus. St. Paul under buffetings of Satan applied to Jesus for relief, and was answered; for from that time he “gloried in his infirmities.” The whole Church of God worships Christ.
3. To worship Christ is the highest act of obedience to the Father. Every knee shall bow to Jesus. All must “honour the Son, as they honour the Father.”
II. His incarnation affords a special call to all, both in heaven and earth, to worship Him.—
1. His incarnation affords the brightest discovery of the Divine perfections. The angels had seen God’s wisdom, power, and goodness in the creation and government of the world. But the Incarnation revealed His condescension and grace. The angels sang “Glory to God in the highest,” and so should we.
2. It opens a way for our reconciliation with God. When Christ was manifested in the flesh, His mediatorial work commenced; and that course of sufferings and obedience, which is the meritorious ground of our acceptance, was begun.
3. It reunites men and angels under one Head. Jesus, by becoming man, gathers together again both men and angels under Himself as their common Head. In heaven saints and angels join in one general chorus, ascribing “salvation to God and to the Lamb.” To enforce the injunction we would say:
(1) Welcome Him. Be not indifferent. Sing hosannas. Captious Pharisees may condemn; but if we keep silence, the very stones will cry out against us.
(2) Submit to Him. Jesus has set up His kingdom. “Kiss the Son.” Present your offerings before Him, in token of your allegiance and unreserved subjection to His will.
(3) Depend upon Him. Let His vicarious sufferings and obedience be the stay and support of your souls.
(4) Glory in Him. Since He is the boast of all in heaven, let Him be the boast of all on earth. Let the frame of your hearts be joyous. Exulting and triumphant, worshipping Him here, you shall be brought to worship Him for evermore in heaven above.—Charles Simeon, M.A.
Hebrews 1:7. Material Angels.—The Hebrew words for “angels” and “spirits” (Psalms 104:4) have double meanings; the former denoting also messengers, the latter “winds.” The psalmist thought of those subtle but powerful agents, wind and fire, as created by God, and employed to execute His will. And in perfect accordance with the spirit of the psalmist, the verse is applied here to angels, whose inferiority to our Lord Jesus Christ is indicated by the fact that they are ranked as messengers with these subordinate physical agencies. Sir Harry Vane has this quaint remark, “As man in his bodily state was made dust of the ground, so the angels were made a flame of fire in their natural constitution.” “The force of the passage lies in the vividness with which it presents the thought of the Most High served by angels who ‘at His bidding speed,’ untiring as the wind, subtle as the fire.”
Angels.
I. The nature of angels.—Spirits.
II. The Lord of angels.—“Who maketh,” etc. What must His own spirituality be who maketh spirit?
III. The ministry of angels.—
1. Their office. “Ministers.”
2. Their activity or zeal. “A flaming fire.”
3. Their dependence. Made ministers.—G. Rogers.
The Psalmist’s Figures.—“Who maketh His angels ‘into’ winds, His ministers ‘into’ flaming fire” (Psalms 104:4). It is a poet who writes. His spirit, at the moment that we listen to him, is in one of its loftiest moods. His language is by no means intended to be strictly scientific or tamely prosaic. It glances, representatively, at the phenomena of storms, and especially of thunder-storms, which have always excited among men a profoundly ethical interest. The rapidity of movement in the perturbed elements, the fury of the gale rising into the hurricane or the tornado, the lurid grandeur of the flashes as they fitfully illumine the over-arching darkness, strike into an attitude of solemn and religious awe every unsophisticated spirit. The psalmist spoke as a true hierophant of nature, and of human nature, when he assumed that in these storms there is the presence and agency of God. And not His solitary presence and agency alone. He is surrounded with His spiritual attendants. And when He has designs of retributive providence to fulfil, He sends them forth on His errands, investing them for the occasion with what phenomena may be befitting—the phenomena of the hurricane, the thunder, or the gleaming bolts of fire. That is, “He makes His angels tempests, His ministers a flame of fire.” When we gaze on the storm-drift, and feel awed by the flashes that leap out from the darkness, lo, God’s ministers are there! His servants are working there!—J. Morison, D.D.
Hebrews 1:8. The Son’s Kingdom is Spiritual.—To convince men of this was the apparently unsuccessful endeavour of our Lord’s public teaching, but more especially of His esoteric teaching of His disciples. The keynote of His kingdom was “righteousness.” The force of His kingdom was moral goodness; and the triumphs of His kingdom were triumphs over moral evil. His dealings with physical and material evils were strictly illustrative of His true work. His kingship and kingdom are indicated in His answer to Pilate: “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice” (John 18:37). Righteousness belongs to character. To work righteousness is to work in man’s moral and spiritual nature. The kingdom of a son is a kingdom of obediences, submissions, and services, and these are things of character—spiritual things.
(1) The Son’s kingdom is a kingdom of spiritual beings.
(2) The Son’s rule is a spiritual rule.
(3) The Son’s aim is a spiritual aim.
(4) The Son’s acceptance with the Father is based on His spiritual work of “bringing sons unto glory.” But the redemptive, regenerative, restorative, and sanctifying work which the Son does in souls will be sure to reach out its influence so as to embrace the body and the earthly relations. The spiritual proves to be the all-inclusive. “The kingdom of God is within you.” Then it is you, wherever you may be found, and in whatever relations you stand.
Hebrews 1:10. The Quotation from Psalms 102.—If the writer had deemed it necessary to account for the use that he makes of the passage, he might have unfolded his idea in some such manner as the following: “And in truth, since it is the Son, who, as we have seen, is the manifestive effulgence of the Father’s glory, and the manifestive impress of the Father’s hidden substance; and since, consequently, it is the Son, who, in manifestation of the Father, acted in the creation of the universe, and still acts in the maintenance of all things by the word of His power,—the grand words of the 102nd Psalm are truly and admirably descriptive of His super-angelic glory.” We need to divest our minds of the stiff artificialities of logic which we are too apt to bring with us when we come to the unsophisticated representations of Scripture.—J. Morison, D.D.
Hebrews 1:10-11. The Agency of the Divine Son in Nature.—The writer sees a distinct reference to the Second Person of the Divine Trinity in the allusion of the psalmist. But this must involve a Christian reading of the Old Testament Scriptures, as it would be impossible to prove that the Jews ever thought of their expected Messiah as the Second Person of a Divine Trinity. Indeed, so intense was the Jewish jealousy of their nation’s truth—the unity of God—that it is not conceivable that they ever accepted any formulated doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. We may find intimations of the threefoldness of God in the Old Testament, but it is important that we should recognise the doctrine of the Trinity as a Christian creation. It would seem to have been a prevailing thought of the age of the apostles, that the Divine Son was the agent in the creation of the world; for Philo represents his Logos to have been the instrument in creation. And the apostle Paul (Colossians 1:15-16) makes an important point of this relation: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation: for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things have been created through Him, and unto Him: and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” We have to be equally jealous of the two truths, that of the Divine Unity and that of the Divine Trinity. We have to watch carefully lest Tritheism should get into our conceptions, under some subtle guise. Relative to the material world we may think in this way: We may associate God the Father with the design of it; God the Son with the execution of the design; God the Spirit with the quickening of the life in it, which was a part of the design. Or it may be put in this way: God, the one, is the Creator of all things. But when we think of the design of creation, it is God absolute we think of. When we think of earth actually taking shape, it is God acting in the sense-sphere we think of. When we think of that unseen, mysterious thing as associated with material beings, it is the Spirit-God, breathing life, that we think of. The distinctions in God are in our apprehension of Him, whatever else they are.
Hebrews 1:12. His Unfailing Years.—“And thy years shall not fail.” We are asked to adore and to trust this changeless One. But can we? Is He not too unlike ourselves? Must there not be some congeniality of nature, some touch in Him of oneness with us before we can enter into such a fellowship of love and trust? Yes, we do crave a real sympathy; and a real sympathy can only be felt by one who is truly, or who has been truly, in the human conditions. As we are constituted, if we knew God simply as abstract Deity, as infinite Being, with Divine qualities, but without the living, breathing, human presentation of them—if He were God indeed, but not “God manifest in the flesh,” He would not be to us so fully and perfectly, and so much to our hearts’ satisfaction, “the Lord our God.” We need some one unlike ourselves—some one who does not change or pass away; and yet we need some one like ourselves, with all our best affections, our greatest qualities, perfectly realised and enshrined in himself. This we have in Jesus of Nazareth, and alone in Him. Who is it whose “years” shall not fail? He who was born into a human home, who grew up from childhood to manhood like us—He it is whom we are asked to trust. Here is our refuge, and we find a perfect security in it—a security which we need at all times as mortal and as sinful creatures, but of which we feel the need especially when, by common consent, we make a barrier in our thought between the years. Where can a fountain of consolation be found for human weariness, distress, solicitude, sorrow, if not in Him who sounded all depths of mortal misery, travelled through the wide expanse of all human need, died our human death, and rose victor for us in life immortal?—Alex. Raleigh. D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Hebrews 1:11. God ever the same.—On every Mohammedan tombstone the inscription begins with the words, “He remains.” This applies to God, and gives sweet comfort to the bereaved. Friends may die, fortune fly away, but God endures—He remains.
Contrast of the Created and the Uncreated.—The heavens and the earth—those who know them best have them most, for they know best their glory; but they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and when they shall have served their purpose God shall fold them up and lay them by, and as a vesture shall He change them, and they shall be changed, but He is the same for ever and His years shall not fail. Why should they? What are years to God? Time did not make Him. He made time, and can unmake it, and then it will be eternity, not time, and a thousand years will be as one day, and, what is more, one day will be as a thousand years.—C. Kingsley.
Hebrews 1:14. The Ministry of Angels,—“Are they not all ministering spirits,” says St. Paul, “sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?” In this passage we are plainly taught that ministering to the saints is a standing employment of angels throughout the ages of time. Accordingly they are exhibited in Jacob’s vision of a ladder as “ascending and descending” from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven continually in the discharge of this great duty. According to this declaration also we are furnished by the Scriptures with numerous examples of their actual ministry to the children of God. Thus angels delivered Lot from Sodom, Jacob from Esau, Daniel from the lions, his three companions from the fiery furnace, Peter from Herod and the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the nation of the Israelites successively from the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Assyrians. Thus they conducted Lot, Abraham, and the Israelites in seasons of great difficulty and danger to places and circumstances of safety and peace. Thus they conducted Gideon to the destruction of the Midianites, Joseph and Mary to Egypt, Philip to the eunuch, and Cornelius to Peter, to the knowledge of the gospel through him, and to the salvation of himself, his family, and his friends. Thus angels instructed Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah, Daniel, Zechariah the prophet, Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, the apostles, and their fellow-disciples. Thus they comforted Jacob at the approach of Esau, Daniel in his peculiar sorrows and dangers, Zechariah in the sufferings of his nation, Joseph and Mary in their perplexities, Christ in His agony, the apostles and their companions after His resurrection, Paul immediately before his shipwreck, and the Church universally by the testimony and instruction given in the Revelation of St. John.—Dnight.
Two Kinds of Angels.—The Rabbins have a beautiful bit of teaching buried among their rubbish about angels. They say that there are two kinds of angels—the angels of service and the angels of praise, of which two orders the latter is the higher, and that no angel in it praises God twice, but having once lifted up his voice in the psalm of heaven, then perishes and ceases to be. He has perfected his being; he has reached the height of his greatness; he has done what he was made for: let him fade away. The garb of legend is mean enough, but the thought it embodies is that ever true and solemn one without which life is nought: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God.”—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Angels.—Curious and extravagant notions have been entertained about the angels. The Rabbins taught the strangest things. They say that the ministry of angels may be divided into two parts—that of praising God, and that of executing His behests. In regard to the praising there are six hundred and ninety-four thousand myriads who daily praise the name of God. From sunrise to sundown they say, “Holy, holy, holy,” and from sundown to sunrise, “Blessed be the Glory of God from His place.” Every day ministering angels are created, whose apparent destiny is only to raise the praises of God, after which they pass away into the fiery stream whence they originally issued. A new angel is created to execute every behest of God, and then he passes away. It is characteristic of the Oriental, and especially of the Semitic mind, to see in every event, even the most trivial, a direct supernatural interference, wrought by the innumerable unseen ministers—both good and evil—of the Divine will.
The Sight of the Angels.—As it is given us in the night of this world to behold the heavens studded with stars, great, glorious, and beautiful, in like manner has Scripture opened to our view a sight of the blessed angels. They appear as stars around us, but no unconcerned spectators in their silent watches. Michael, “who is as God”; Gabriel, “the strength of God”; Raphael, “the healing of God” (so their names signify). They are ministering spirits sent by Him, shadows of His presence. He has revealed to us their deep concern for our welfare, their active ministrations about us day and night, and especially their peculiar regard for those who are of a meek spirit, and despised of the world. What a dignity does this shed on our daily life!—Isaac Williams, B.D.
Every Man’s Angels.—In a Turkish allegory every man is said to have two angels—one on his right shoulder, and another on his left. When he does anything good, the angel on the right shoulder writes it down, and seals it, because what is done is done for ever. When he does evil, the angel on the left shoulder writes it down. He waits till midnight. If before that time the man bows his head and exclaims, “Gracious Allah! I have sinned; forgive me!” the angel rubs it out; and if not at midnight, he seals it, and the angel upon the right shoulder weeps.
The Angels of the Grass.—The Talmud says, “There is not a thing in the world, not even a tiny blade of grass, over which there is not an angel set.”
Ministering Angels.—
They are evermore around us, though unseen to mortal sight,
In the golden hour of sunshine and in sorrow’s starless night,
Deepening earth’s most sacred pleasures with the peace of sin forgiven,
Whispering to the lonely mourner of the painless joys of heaven.
Seeing all our guilt and weakness, looking down with piteous eyes,
For the foolish things we cling to and the heaven that we despise;
They have been our guardian angels since the weary world began,
And they still are watching o’er us for His sake who died for man.—Anon.
The Angel-helper.—How sentimental ideas of angels cling about us, and may helpfully cling, is illustrated in the story of one Theodorus, a martyr who was put to extreme torments by Julian the Apostate, and dismissed again by him when he saw him unconquerable. Rufinus, in his history, says that he met with this martyr a long time after his trial, and asked him whether the pains he felt were not insufferable. He answered that at first it was somewhat grievous, but after a while there seemed to stand by him a young man in white, who with a soft and comfortable handkerchief wiped off the sweat from his body (which through extreme anguish was little less than blood), and bade him be of good cheer, insomuch as then it was rather a punishment than a pleasure to him to be taken off the rack. When the tormentors had done, the angel was gone.
Ministrant Spirits.—Angels are “all,” without exception, ministrant spirits. Their duties are ever “liturgical,” never lordly or regal. They render the service of lieges to the Lord of the universe, and are busied on the footstool, while Jesus sits on the throne. Even when charged with their highest behests, they but help, in some minor respects, the disciples of our Lord. They are sent forth to minister “for them”—that is, “for their benefit.”—J. Morison, D.D.
Heaven a Place of Universal Ministry.—Dr. George Macdonald makes a quaint character in Thomas Wingfold, Curate, dreamily figure the heavenly state, and, behold, all things seem to go on there even as here on earth. There is buying and selling, but there is no getting gain, because every one has learned the glory of “ministering,” and so each one just serves his brother—each one hoping for nothing again, each one getting everything by getting the service of his brother. Could there be a sublimer, or a more enchanting conception of heaven, the home of God, of whom we may reverently think as the “infinite Angel,” the glorious and eternal Ministrant, who ennobles ministry for all His creatures by His own unceasing service?
Hebrews 1:14. Angel-service.—Service is not an incident in the history of angels; it is their whole history. This category suits the nature of angels so far as we have the means of knowing it. They are associated with the elements and powers of nature—are these under another name. They are changeable in form, appearing now as winds, now as fire. They are perishable, transient, as the pestilence and the storm, as tongues of flame, or the clouds, or the dew. They are one and many in turn: the one splitting up into the many, and the many recombining into one. They are impersonal, or imperfectly personal, lacking will and self-consciousness. Thinking, deliberating, resolving, is not their affair, but execution: “Ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure.” They are incapacitated for rule by the simplicity of their nature. The angel-princes cannot take a wide survey of a nation’s character and desert, like the prophets. They are blind partisans, mere personifications of national spirit. As a matter of course each angel-prince takes his nation’s side in a quarrel. A prince of Persia is on the side of Persia, and the prince of Greece on the side of Greece. A human will is the meeting-place of many forces brought into harmony; an angelic will is a single force moving in a straight line towards a point. Angels are mere manifestations or expressions of the will of God. To impute to them dominion were to infringe on the monarchy of God, it were to reinstate paganism. Angel-worship is nature-worship under another name, not improved by the change of name. No wonder the author of this epistle is so careful to connect angels with the idea of service. It is his protest against the angelolatry which had crept into Israel from Persian sources.—A. B. Bruce, D.D.
Angel-succour.—
How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
And come to succour us who succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant,
And all for love and nothing for reward.
Oh! why should heavenly God for men have such regard?—Spenser.