APPOINTED TO BE THE SON

He also said, ‘In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish but you remain; they will wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.’

To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Heb. 1: 10-14)

God spoke, yes! He spoke through the prophets and through His Son, but there is also no doubt that He spoke to the Son. Why was it so important that He speak to His Son? What did He say? The writer used seven quotes from the Psalms to authenticate His Son and to set Him apart as superior to the angelic beings.

1. He is superior to angels in His status as a son. He shares the nature and essence of the Father. He is an exact replica of the Father, revealing the Father to the human race in human form. He is also the Father’s heir – the right of a son to receive everything that belongs to the father. As God’s Son, it is His role to ‘continue the house’ through His own life and through those who would believe in Him (verse 5a).

2. He is connected to the Father by the intimate father/son relationship. As a son, Jesus is submitted and obedient to the Father. As His Father, God is the one who has strength and authority and supports and upholds His Son and delegates His authority to the Son (verse 5b).

3. As God’s Son, He is the object of the angels’ obeisance. They bow to Him as superior to them in both essence and function. At His birth they announced His arrival on earth, and called all mankind to worship Him. (Verse 6)

4. Angels have an inferior role and position in God’s unseen realm. They are spirit beings who serve God around the throne and across the universe (verse 7).

5. By contrast, the Son rules on the throne of God’s kingdom with justice and righteousness which are the hallmarks of His reign. God’s nature, among many other attributes, is joy, The Son manifested that joy in His human nature by being the most joyful person who ever lived. He was ‘anointed with the oil of joy,’ the Jewish way of expressing the exuberance of His joyful nature (verse 8, 9)

6. The Son is eternal. Unlike the universe which He created and which is running down like a clock and will soon be spent and discarded, He is ‘olam – to the horizon’ which never ends. The universe is temporal – it will come to an end, but not the Son (verse 10-12).

7. Jesus is at the Father’s right hand – symbolic of the seat of power and authority. To no angel did the Father ever give the mandate to rule, as He did to the Son. Angels have no greater role than to serve (verses 13, 14).

As the Son of Man, Jesus came to serve, but He came to serve as the Son. In His service He enhanced and furthered the work of the Father. As a twelve-year-old He declared that He was to be about the Father and, at the end of His earthly life, He affirmed that He had completed what He had come to do (John. 17: 4).

In spite of the evidence of Scripture, there are those who deny and reject the truth that Jesus is the Son of God. It is this fact upon which the whole of Christianity rests. If Jesus is not the Son of God, everything He said and did falls flat. The entire superstructure of our faith stands or falls on this. Is He indeed, the Son of God?

There can be no greater authority than God the Father Himself. It is He who spoke the words of affirmation and authority, both in the testimony of Scripture and from His own mouth at the moment of Jesus’ baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration. What did He say?

As soon as Jesus was baptised, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ (Matt. 3:16, 17)

After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. . . While he (Peter) was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!’ (Matt. 17: 1, 2, 5)

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.