Clough Hebrews Lesson 6

Jesus Christ sat down in the throne room – Hebrews 1:3-4

We want to begin by reviewing, see how much we’ve learned. Without looking at your notes let’s see some verses on the deity of Christ. It doesn’t do any good to have it just in your notes so someone bring up some verses that specifically state Christ’s deity. [someone answers] Okay, John 1:1. If you can just give the chapter, don’t worry about the verse. [different answers given: Hebrews 1; John 10, what in John 10? [can’t hear] Titus 2, a very important one. Colossians 1, yeah, Colossians is in there in the sense that it’s creation. Psalm 33] Okay, you forgot one, one that specially says He’s God, 1 John 5. What are some other lines of proving Christ’s deity, besides the verses we went over, what are some lines of reasoning? [can’t hear] Okay, there are passages in the New Testament that speak of the Son having God the Father’s attributes. What would be some of these attributes? One that offended the Jews terribly when He exercised it, they picked up rocks in fact. He forgave sin. And be careful when you say that because it’s not… people say well, forgiveness, the priest pronounced it; aha, but the priest pronounced it, saying your sins have been forgiven by Jehovah. And there’s a difference between the priest’s pronouncement and what Christ was doing and the Jews picked it up. He wasn’t just saying Jehovah’s forgiven your sins, He said I forgive you your sins and there’s a whale of a difference between those two statements.

What are some other ways of showing Christ’s deity? He’s specifically called God in passages in the New Testament, He manifests the attributes of God, what’s another argument that we can use. [can’t hear] He was doing things that only God can do and the other one if you recall was the fact that His name was used in Old Testament quotes where the original quote was Jehovah and therefore it shows that Jesus was considered to be Jehovah or these people wouldn’t be quoting the Old Testament and replacing Jehovah’s name with Jesus.

Tonight we continue in Hebrews, we’re on the first four verses of chapter 1 and we ought to go back and look at the grammatical structure because we’re going to lose the forest for the trees in these verses if we don’t have the main subject and the main verb clear. What is the subject, the basic subject of the first four verses. These first four verses are all one sentence. Going back to simple everyday English what’s the subject of the sentence? God. What’s the main verb? Spoke. “God spoke,” “by His” understood, “Son.” Now, verse 3-4 amplify the Son and you’ll notice it does it two ways. In verse 2, “whom,” direct object, it amplifies a certain clause; there’s a clause there that amplifies “Son,” but it goes on, we studied the “whom” clauses. “God spoke by His Son” and then who is, who does, so forth, what is the main verb after “who.” “Who” what in verse 3? “Sat down.” Now don’t lose this, that’s the key behind all the pieces but if you look at the pieces and you lose this you’ve got a pile of beads without any string. So there’s your main sentence, which you ought to do, by the way, on your own, if you remember what subjects and predicates are. Subject and verb in this sentence, “God spoke by His Son who sat down.”

Now this should immediately, if you’ll keep referring to this, no matter what detail we study come back to this; we’ll study a detail, come back to this; we’ll study another detail, come back to this, always come back to this main sentence because it’s this main sentence that will keep you oriented to where the Holy Spirit is putting His emphasis. All right, “God,” and now in the first verse what about God? God what? What are some amplifying things before we come to the main verb “speak?” He has spoken in many places and so on, various means, “by His Son,” and we covered last time the two things mentioned about “whom,” see in verse 2, “whom He has appointed heir of all things,” and “by whom He made the worlds.” So those are two clauses on “whom.” And we dealt with Christ’s heirship, we dealt with the fact that He is the motif of history.

Then we started last time on the “who” but we never got the main verb last time, it was just who is, who does, who this, who that, and then we’re going to get who “sat down.” But the verb “sat down” is the main verb, everything else modifies the sitting down, so that should tell you in what light you ought to take these tremendous and powerful statements of Christ’s deity. The point of the passage is incidentally His deity; that’s not the main point of the passage; the main point of the passage is this sitting down, we’ve to find out what this sitting down is all about. That’s the main point, and incidentally, the One who sits down turns out to be God. It’s hard to say this but it’s almost incidental. It’s necessary to the argument, but grammatically in the syntax of the sentence it’s incidental. Now let’s look at these incidentals.

“Who,” and what was the first thing we found after who? “Who,” present participle in the Greek, “who is,” “who constantly is,” who eternally is, “who is His glory’s shining and the hallmark of deity, the chief mark of deity. “Who is His glory’s shining and the hallmark of deity.” So that is contained in the first part of verse 3 and that proves Christ’s deity. Okay. “Who is,” and down through history your orthodox bodies in Christianity have always held to this. In fact this is one of the verses where Nicea obtained their language, “God of God, very God of very God, light of light,” and so on, “begotten, not made.” Where do you think that language comes from? It comes from this passage as well as some others.

The second one, “who carried,” “who carries the whole thing” so those are two things that the one who sits down, keep in mind the “who” ultimately is not explained totally by these; these are just modifiers to the main verb, “sat down.” Who is it that’s doing the sitting down? It is the One who is His glory’s shining, it is the one who bears the hallmark of deity, it is the one who carries the whole universe, that is the one who sits down. You see how that builds power into the verb to sit down, because of who it is that’s doing the sitting.

Now there’s one other participle that modifies “sat down.” We’ve got one participle, present; we’ve got another participle, phero, carry, and we have a third participle, “who has purged,” some of you who have your Greek text, notice what kind of a participle it is? Is it a present participle like the other two? It is an aorist participle which refers to a point or an event. The other participles were continuing, “who is,” “who constantly carries,” but now who’s “purged.” Now what does that show you? All the participles modify the same person. There are three participles, “who is, who carries, who purges.” Now the first two participles were present meaning they refer to His deity; He is eternally that. He is the eternal One who eternally is the glory’s outshining. He eternally is the One who carries the whole thing. Now He, at an event, a point in time, He purged. So the change from the present participle to the aorist participle denotes a shift from the deity to the humanity. But please notice it’s all run together grammatically.

Now the doctrine that this teaches is called in theological terms the doctrine of the hypostatic union. And Chalcedon, the Council at Chalcedon, stated the doctrine of the hypostatic union in terms that approximate what I’m going to say. If you haven’t heard the hypostatic union you ought to have this sentence some place. It is that: Jesus Christ is undiminished deity, the word “undiminished” is very necessary, He is undiminished deity, He didn’t stop being God, He is undiminished deity and true humanity, not just pseudo humanity, He is true humanity. He is undiminished deity and true humanity united without confusion or without mixture, in one person forever. That is the statement of the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ. He is unidiminshed deity and true humanity, united without mixture, in one person forever. Memorize it and next time they ask you to give a prayer at a football game that’ll be a fine way to conclude the prayer, In the name of the One who is undiminished deity and true humanity, united without mixture, in One person forever, Amen. You’d have everybody confused and foul up the whole first quarter. That would be a perfect way of teaching doctrine with one sentence; it’d give them something to think about the next week.

The doctrine of the hypostatic union says that Christ has two natures but He’s not schizophrenic. How do you comprehend this? You can’t totally, this is a mystery; it’s not a contradiction but a mystery. He’s one person but He has two natures; on the one hand He’s eternally the Son; on the other hand He becomes the Son in His humanity. So the thee participles I want you to notice and this is how the Holy Spirit treats the doctrine of the hypostatic union in the text is “is,” “carries,” “purges.” It doesn’t distinguish, there’s not a special sign before one of these participles saying whoops, we’re shifting from another person to another person; huh-un, it’s all one person. And yet obviously the first one being a present participle, the second one being a present participle, these refer to His deity, and this refers to his humanity. And it modifies the main verb; the main verb, “sat down.”

All right, who is it that does the sitting? The one who is, the one who carries and the one who has purged, He sits down. Now let’s look more closely at the third participle, “when He had by Himself purged our sins,” literally in the originally language it doesn’t read “purged.” It reads to make, “when He made purification.” “When He made purification,” now the word “make” here is an aorist middle participle. Aorist means it’s a point, it’s an event, He has made a purification; participle, it’s modifying the main verb. Middle voice, the Greek language has three voices: active, he killed; passive, he is killed; middle, it’s very complicated, sometimes it’s reflexive, he’s killed himself, but not always, the middle voice emphasizes the participation of the subject in the action, sometimes in the sense of being benefited solely by the action but that wouldn’t fit here. He made purification for Himself, that doesn’t fit. So we’ve got to explain the occurrence of the middle voice somehow and we can’t do it by taking it as reflexive so we’ve got to do it another way and the way we do it is to say that Jesus Christ, as the King James translators, “He purged,” in other words, He did it without help, it was He did it all by Himself, without any help whatsoever.

Now what does that mean? It means that He is two things; it means that Jesus Christ is the priest and Jesus Christ is the sacrifice together so He made purification. Do you see that? He is the priest and He is the sacrifice, both together, wrapped up in one point. “He made purification.” Now the word “purification,” is a technical term and this is a technical term that refers to legal purification. It is always used in the Old Testament for the priestly work and that’s just focusing in on Christ’s priesthood.

Now there’s one interesting point about this and those of you who have languages it can appreciate it, if you have a good background in English you can appreciate it. But let me show you how one voice, just one shift, a shift in the voice of this participle has led thousands and thousands of people into heresy and let me show you how it happened. Jesus Christ made purification; the verb in the Greek was aorist, an aorist tense. It’s an aorist middle voice, that’s the tense, that’s the voice, it’s an aorist middle. Now as you know, later on, about 300-400 or so we started getting Latin translations from the Greek New Testament. First there was the Old Latin text, and then finally the Vulgate, the Latin Vulgate which became the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Those of you who have studied Latin know that there is no perfect active participle in Latin; there is a present active participle and there’s a future active participle and in the passive there is a perfect passive participle and a future passive participle, but there’s nothing that corresponds to this Greek. So when the Vulgate was translated they used the present active participle.

Now without me going any further what does that do to the doctrine? If you’ve translated this by a present active participle what do you think is going to happen here to the work of Christ? It moves it into a continuous action. What Roman Catholic practice reflects this dogma? Mass. Now there is a backup to prove this doctrine, they think from other ways, but I’m not trying to insinuate that Roman Catholicism has built the whole doctrine of the mass on this verse but I am saying that historically this verse is one of the most powerful tools that was used to convince the person who had only the Vulgate edition of the Bible. And it all came about through a translation error. For those of you who kind of pooh-pooh translation, watch it. This is a very, very critical point, but let me show you, lest some of you walk out of here tonight, oh gee, you have to know the original languages in order to keep from heresy. No, turn to Hebrews 10:10, it says, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Now that verse should be loud and clear, whether you’re screwed up between the Greek and the Latin in 1:3 or not, certainly 10:10 should undercut this concept that you have to continually sacrifice Christ. Now that’s what is happening in the mass. It is a continual re-sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not just a reenactment, it is an actual sacrifice that’s going on.

Now to the credit of Rome… to the credit of Rome, she has been able to maintain at least in some of her adherents a sense of sin that is Biblical beyond what is found in certain flippant fundamental circles. But, the solution to the sin problem has been totally destroyed by this approach. Jesus Christ’s work on the cross is once and for all; He has made it all by Himself, period over and out. He doesn’t continually do it. In the Reformation it was this finished work of Christ that… we talk about the finished work of Christ on the cross, why do you suppose that word “finished” is always stuck in there? Because a vast, vast segment of Christendom doesn’t believe it was finished; the continuing work of Christ… huh-un, the finished work of Christ on the cross.

So now let’s look at Hebrews 1:3 again, “when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down,” now we are going to examine in detail this phrase, “sat down,” this is the main verb of the sentence, it’s going to occur four or five more times in this chapter. So let’s see if we can learn something from it. First, let’s go to where it comes from, Psalm 110. It’s a quotation from Psalm 110, the strangest Psalm in the Old Testament. This Psalm was in the air in Palestine during the ministry of Jesus Christ. Christ referred to it often in His own ministry, the apostles referred to it over and over in their ministries. Psalm 110 was well known and was identified with Messiah in Jesus’ day. Let’s look at it; it’s a Psalm of David.

Psalm 110:1, “The LORD said unto my Lord,” now David is speaking, “The LORD” is Yahweh, if you have a King James the first one is all caps, LORD, “said unto my Lord,” now look at that, Jesus used that to prove part of the Trinity here, LORD, Lord, David. Now who was above David if David was king? Was there any human being above David in the power structure of Israel, apart from the prophets obviously. In the power structure there’s nobody over the king, so if David has a Lord, who must He be? He must be God. So we have to draw the Creator/creature line there, between Lord and David. But then what do we have? We’ve got a dualism here, don’t we? We have two Lords, and that’s exactly what Jesus said, you’re right, you’re absolutely right. Here’s the Trinity showing up in the Old Testament, at least two persons of the Trinity.

“The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand,” “sit,” there it is, “sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. [2] The LORD shall send the rod of Thy strength out of Zion; and rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies. [3] Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power; in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning, Thou hast the dew of Thy youth. [4] The LORD has sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. [5] The Lord at Thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath. [6] He shall judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; He shall wound the heads over many countries. [71] He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall He lift up the head.” A very militant, potent psalm of this mysterious Lord of David. Who is the Lord of David and who is under Yahweh? This is the Messiah. And Psalm 110 is one of the most clearly Messianic psalms in all of Scripture.

Now to show you that this psalm was in the air and almost just burst out when people would talk about the Messiah, turn to Mark 14:62 you’ll see not only that the Christians used it, believers used it, but the unbelievers also knew it. So both and believer and unbelieving Jew knew this. Now if you’ve read the newspapers recently it shouldn’t be any miracle to you that unbelieving Jewish people can have a fantastic grasp of Scripture. People say look, I don’t understand it, how could the Jewish people in Jesus day have all the Scripture teaching, see miracles in front of their eyes and not believe. The same way they’re doing it now in Israel, just watch. You can see it happening in Israel, you see the soldiers marching into battle with bazookas and what on their shoulder? The Torah, the sacred Torah. You find them around the campfires, armored people climb out of their tanks at night, sit down and what do they read? The promises of the land to the boundaries, in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 30. And they obviously see the (quote) “chance” fulfillment of all these things. Now if people can do it today they could do it then and they do it the same way.

Mark 14:62, verse 61 first, the high priest… by the way, it is this high priest and the place where this is that in a film called The Third Temple you’ll see where they lowered a movie camera into a thing that they were digging in underneath the mosque that’s on the mountain there and they found the place where this occurred; that room is intact and they show you in the film where this actually occurred. Now in this interrogation, verse 61, Jesus “holds His peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, and said unto Him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? [62] And Jesus said I AM;” and then He added this, and this infuriated the priest, “and you are going to see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. [63] Then the high priest tore his clothes, and said, What need have we any further witnesses? [64] You have heard the blasphemy.”

Now how can the high priest make that charge unless Christ is loading this with a divine nature. In other words, He’s claiming to be God at this point. When he says I’m sitting at the Father’s right hand, that is a claim to deity, so don’t let anybody tell you the New Testament doesn’t teach Christ’s deity. You see, the reason why idiots say that is because they’re dumb Gentiles who have never studied the Old Testament. Now this, Caiaphas, was an unbelieving Jew and though he was an unbeliever he knew when a claim for deity was occurring. He got the point. He really got the point. So some dumb 20^th century Gentile come with “Jesus never claimed to be God,” well it seems funny that Caiaphas, the high priest, caught it real quick. In fact, do you know why Christ was crucified? Because He claimed to be God. See, that’s why He was crucified; He could have gotten around it, there were lots of Messiah’s, Jesus could have very easily got out from under the sentence if He would just stop going around claiming to be God. It was precisely His claim to deity that nailed Him to the cross.

All right, that “seated,” sitting on the right hand of power is taken from Psalm 110. Now let’s develop certain points about Christ sitting down. We’re going to go back over some of these points later but let’s get all these points down; we’ll give you six points on the seating of Christ or we call it the session. It’s not talking about Presbyterians, it’s talking about Jesus Christ sitting down at the Father’s right hand.

The first principle is that Jesus Christ is located tonight somewhere, some specific point in space His resurrected body exist at a point. Acts 1:10. In Acts 1:10 He slowly goes up and the word means to take a journey. Jesus Christ’s body was moved from one point to another point, He took a journey and it took time. Whatever it did it took some 40 days or so for Jesus Christ to ascend from the earth, to go where He was going and to be seated and have everything ready, and when He was then He sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. So it took some time to go on this journey, strange journey, where it is we don’t know. But you mustn’t ever lose the fact that in His humanity Christ tonight is at a place. And He’s going to come back from that place during the latter hours of the Tribulation, the latter days of the Tribulation. He will return and He will be seen coming from a location in outer space. So Jesus Christ went out into space and he will return from space and so the first thing is the humanity of Christ is located somewhere.

Second point is that angels, who are in God’s presence, always stand, they never sit. Angels are not permitted to sit in the presence of God, they must always stand. Verses: Isaiah 6:2; Isaiah sees a vision, he sees the seraphim standing about the throne of God. 1 Kings 22:19 in the angelic conference the angels are standing on His right and standing on His left, they are not seated. So everywhere we see the throne room the angels must stand, so to speak, at attention. Jesus Christ walks in and sits down; that clearly establishes that there is a qualitative difference between Christ and angels. Christ does something that no angel including Satan himself before he fell was able to do. He actually sits down in the presence of God.

The third point, the Aaronic priesthood always stood because their work was never finished. When the priests of Aaron would continually offer sacrifice, again and again and again, they had to constantly stand, never sit because their work was perpetually unfinished. Jesus Christ, as a priest after Melchizedek, finishes His work and sits down. So it’s also a sign, not only of His divine nature, not only of His extreme acceptability with the Father but it’s a sign of the fact that His work is finished. He’s seated; done!

The fourth point, seated at the Father’s right hand Jesus Christ fills two particular offices, the office of priest and the office of king. This is what it means when it says He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a priest of a city called Salem, which some think is Jerusalem, and he was the king of Salem. Melchizedek, it means the righteous king. So the sitting down is a claim to Christ’s kingly reign and His priestly reign. He is both priest and king, which suggests something. It suggests… it does more than suggests, it teaches, that Church and State are united in the person of Jesus Christ. There is no separation of power; there is now in a sinful world, but in Christ’s person Church and State are one. He is the Supreme head of the secular state, He’s the king, He is the supreme head of the community of believers, He is the priest, together in one person, He is the King-priest.

To show you that David partially filled this, turn to 2 Samuel 7, this is David and David, after receiving the Davidic Covenant did something and it’s most interesting. 1 Samuel 7 is very critical, by the way, because it along with Psalm 110 and Psalm 2 pictures the work of the Son. See verse 14, remember verse 14 in this chapter, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son.” That’s Yahweh and the King of Israel. But now look at verse 18; what is David doing in verse 18? “Then went King David in, and sat before the LORD,” that’s unusual because usually only priests went into the tabernacle. David walked in and he sat down. And he sat down in the presence of God. He in his life was partially fulfilling the position of Christ. And it shows you, he talks to Him, “and he said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” David had a fantastic communion with the Father and it is a fore view or a type of the future communion between Christ and the Father. That’s the fourth point about sitting down, He functions as priest and king.

Now turn back to Hebrews 1 for the fifth point; I want you to notice the order of Christ’s person, the order of Christ’s person in these verses. What phases of His person are presented and in what order? Let’s look. The main verb is in verse 2, “He spoke,” so all the participles that modify speaking have to precede it and one of those, “whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world” and so on, all those deal with the Son as the Wisdom of God. He is the Wisdom of God, it doesn’t mean God’s wisdom is separated from himself, it means that the Son is the expression of the Father’s wisdom. He’s the key to all creation. He is, in other words as we said in the Proverbs series, the one who has chokmah does what in Israel. There are three classes of people beside the King: the prophet, the priest and who else? Who was the third office, eliminating the king, prophet, priest and the wise man, the counselor. And the counselor would be one who has a mastery of general revelation, basically. He’s one who knows his way around the creation and how it works. So he therefore is called in for counseling, for directive. He is the wise one, the wisdom of God. So Jesus Christ is the Wisdom. This is why in Isaiah 9 one of His titles is, “He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,” see that order.

The second thing about Christ is that He is the Prophet. Now notice how there’s a neat flow to this. He can’t be a prophet unless He has wisdom, unless He’s the One who has designed history to get revelation going. So you have the office of prophet flows out of the fact that He’s the wisdom of God. Now the next office is the priest because He’s purging. Now that follows because remember we said last time, you’ve got the prophet here and he’s speaking revelation but you’ve got man’s sin; how can a holy God reveal Himself to the creature. Here’s one if you want to bat around in conversation some time, look you’ve got a holy, righteous God. How can God, who is righteous and just reveal Himself, which means He must reveal His attributes of righteousness and justice, how can He reveal those attributes to a fallen creation without destroying the fallen creation? Stop and think of it for a moment. Can God reveal them at all, at any point, can God reveal anything about Himself to you or to me without destroying us? Now the very fact that we’re living here tonight, that we’ve survived, is the fact that somehow this problem has been solved. Otherwise none of us in this room would know anything about God whatsoever, unless God solved this problem. But a holy righteous God cannot reveal Himself to a sinful being without destroying the sinful being unless… unless something happens and this is why the third office, priest. Priest’s do something about sin and so Jesus Christ as the priest takes care of the problem so that prophecy or revelation can proceed. [Tape turns] If he didn’t He couldn’t proceed; you’d never get the words of God into the world without it destroying the world; just kind of too high voltage, blow the whole thing.

And finally, the last office is king. After He does all the other things, then He’s king; that’s always the order and human viewpoint always reverses this. Man wants a king before he wants to solve the other problems and it doesn’t go that way. See, that’s human viewpoint, we always want the perfect government before we have the sin problem licked. Huh-un, it doesn’t work that way; you lick the sin problem first.

Now about this “purging” again, let me stop at point five, we’re going to have one more point but before we go to point six I want you to notice again where it says “He had by Himself purged our sins,” this is just a little amplification, a footnote on His office as priest. I’m going to put a sentence up here that’s slightly different, “He purged us from our sins.” Now some translations have that. But if it had that instead of what you have here, “He has purged our sins,” we would not have a final solution. This would mean that He somehow separated our sins from us and put them over here, but it means that the sins would still be there; separated yes, but still floating around, so to speak. But when it says “He purged our sins,” it means that they themselves have ultimately been dealt with. All sin has been completely and finally dealt with by the Priest. Now that is a very, very strong statement. It is not that He has removed our sins from us but rather He has purged the sins themselves.

Now we come to the sixth point about the sitting down and this is going to explain a lot later on when we get details of the angelic conflict. The sixth point is this: Satan wanted this office. Satan wanted this more than anything else. Satan coveted this office. And this is why Satan is so viciously hostile to Jesus Christ. This office, Satan thought would be his, that’s what he meant in Isaiah 14, “I will be like the Most High,” he wanted to be and sit in this office. And he’s been bumped from it. Now up until Christ got to the throne room Satan, theoretically, had a chance. Theoretically he had a chance because the throne was empty, so to speak, there was no one at the Father’s right hand. Satan thought up to that point he could get there. Christ has gotten there and now he can’t get there. Satan is now totally and completely excluded from this office. And this represents a cosmic defeat for the powers of darkness; they can’t occupy this and this was one of their major objectives.

Now let me develop this a little bit further. The first point under point six, I’m going to try to justify what I’ve said under point six: both Satan and Christ are called “the morning star.” Both Satan and Christ are called the morning star. Now what does a morning star do? The morning star precedes the sun in the horizon. If you ever get up early enough you’ll see the morning star some time if you can see that hour of the morning. But you look at this, it precedes the sun and this is the work of the priest. Let me show you the two verses: Isaiah 14:12, Satan is called the son of the morning, s-o-n, son of the morning or morning star. But in 2 Peter 1:19 Jesus Christ is called the morning star, and it’s their office. That’s why Satan’s first name is Lucifer. What does Lucifer mean, it’s got a sinister connotation to us but originally that was his name, it wasn’t Satan. Satan’s a title he got later on. The main title is Lucifer, it means the light-bearer. Satan himself was God’s light-bearer. So he is called the morning star.

The second point under point 6 and this is interesting, you’ll have to look at some details so let’s turn first to Ezekiel 28:13, that’s one [can't understand word] we’re going to do a little comparison here with some words, so hold Ezekiel 28:13 then turn to Exodus 39:10, so you have two passages. We’re going to flip back and forth between the two. First we’ll say here’s Satan and here’s the high priest in Israel. Now look at Satan’s covering in Ezekiel 28:13, look at the stones. “You have been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy” clothes, “thy covering,” now if you look at verse 14 for a moment you’ll see he is called the Messianic cherub, that’s the word for Christ. Lucifer is called “the anointed” one, the mashach, the mashach k^erub, he is the one who is the Christly cherub and he is covered with… watch the stones; “sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle and gold.”

Now turn over to the garments of the high priest in Exodus 39:10; here is the breast plate of the high priest. What is it? “A sardius, a topaz, a carbuncle, this was the first row. [11] and the second row: an emerald, a sapphire, a diamond, [12] And the third row,” now the three in the third row are missing from Satan, [13] “And then in the fourth row beryl, onyx, and jasper.” Satan had nine, the high priest of Israel had twelve and those stones collectively are the breastplate of priests. Satan, apparently functioned in some sort of a priestly work that was incomplete. See, the high priest had twelve stones, Satan had nine. And whether he was going to be promoted, get three extra stones and fill the slot we don’t know, but he has an amazing jump on that office. He’s called the Messianic cherub, he’s called the son of the morning, he has priestly garments, and he had his eyes on the office. And then God made man and Satan understood he’s going to be replaced, and so Satan ever since has been trying to stop his replacement and he lost. He lost because Jesus Christ made it to the throne room.

Now Satan is angry. And so therefore Satan is not through yet. He is going to erect a temple and do something very special with that temple. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 2. Notice what he is going to have his man of sin do during the Tribulation. They’re going to have a temple, and he’s going to do the next best thing he can; the first best thing was to occupy God’s throne room, which he can’t do because Christ is there no Satan has been bumped out of objective number one. But his second objective is going to be to occupy the temple on earth which is going to be central to the location of the globe. And Satan knows it and he wants to have all men worship him because of He can control men he still can control the cosmos. Now we don’t understand why, how this cause/effect works, all we know is this: that God’s word says the way to control the cosmos is through control of the planet earth. And the way to control the planet earth is through control of humans. So Satan wants to establish control over this race because by establishing control here he can control earth from which he can control the universe. We do not know why it is but the earth is some key link to controlling the cosmos.

Now during this time he’s going to have the man of sin revealed; look what the man of sin does. 2 Thessalonians 2:4, “Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Several points, number one about that verse is notice the act of sitting in the temple is a claim to deity. And Satan wants his man in the temple; he wants his man there. He’s been bumped out of the real temple in heaven, he can’t get there so the next best thing is to occupy the central temple for the globe, from which then he can control the world’s worship. So Satan has still not given up the idea that he must have this priestly office. Now every other time we read, and we’re going to read lots of it in Hebrews 1 and 2, every time you read Christ is better than the angels replace the word angels with Satan. Now it’s true, Christ is better than all the angels, but if you put the word Satan in your mind as you read the text it’ll become more powerful to you, that Jesus Christ has become better than Satan. That means Jesus Christ is in Satan’s chair. It never really was Satan’s chair but Jesus Christ is there and Satan can’t do anything about it now. Christ has made it and that was an irreversible defeat, it was a tremendous strategic defeat for the forces of Satan.

Now let’s turn back to Hebrews 1 for the last part of this verse. This is why angels are going to come up here in this passage. Why all of a sudden do we start talking about angels? Because the angels circulated around this office of priest in some way and when Jesus Christ got there at the Father’s right hand, that means it had implications all over the board.

Now the last verse, verse 4 and we’ll be done with the first four verses, I know some of you thought we’d never make it, but we’re going to even if we have to run over five minutes. Hebrews 1:4, this is another sentence with another main verb. The main verb of this sentence, “has obtained,” or “has inherited.” What is the modifier, “being made” or “having become.” So let’s look at our sentence first and then we’ll go for the details. “Having become … He has inherited,” perfect tense, results continue. Now that sentence is parallel to the one you just saw which was “having purged … He sat.” “Having become He has inherited;” “Having purged He has sat down.” Those sentences are meant to describe basically the same action from a different perspective.

Now look at verse 4, “Being made so much better than the angels,” but the word isn’t “being made,” it means “having become better than the angels.” Does this refer to His deity or His humanity? “Having become better than the angels.” Humanity, deity always was. So the humanity of Jesus Christ, in His humanity He has become better than the angels. “Having become,” that means over a process of time which is leading up to, if this sentence is parallel, what is the parallel to this. Look, “having become” is parallel to what? “Having purged.” What does that tell you about how Christ in His humanity became better than the angels? What does that tell you? By looking at these two sentences and seeing they’re parallel, “having purged … having become.” Obviously these two clauses are linked somehow.

Does this throw light on how it is that Christ became better than angels? How did Christ become better than angels? [someone answers] Fulfilling the Law and in particular what about the Law? He became a perfect sacrifice. Jesus Christ was obedient to the point where He gave His life. Can angels give life? They don’t have it to give. Remember the definition of life—spirit in a body. Angels don’t have that, they’re pure spirit. That’s why your definitions are very critical, that they be sound and Biblical because now we understand something. This is love, Jesus Christ became better because He loved and love is giving and Jesus Christ loved us and He purged our sins and by that act of obedience to the Father’s will, Jesus Christ became better. Jesus Christ became better because He has done something that no angel can ever do. Could Satan, who is a perfect spirit, Satan can’t offer the perfect sacrifice for sin. Satan can’t be a priest. Jesus Christ alone can be a priest. And not only can He be a priest, He can be the sacrifice and be the sacrifice and priest all rolled together. So the act here of His becoming better has to do with His atonement. Having atoned for sins “He has by inheritance, He has inherited,” perfect, “a more excellent name than they.”

Now what does it mean “He has inherited a name better than they.” We’ll give you some verses; we’ll turn to only one of them. These picture Christ’s name and what the name is that He’s inherited that no angel can claim, including Satan. Both Psalms 2 and 110, all verses in those psalms tell you what His name is. Psalm 2; Psalm 110. both those psalms depict Christ’s name in the sense it shows His authority, His kingly reign authority. Another verse, Mark 16:19. Another verse, Ephesians 1:20 to the end of that chapter. Another verse, Philippians 2:9.

Now conclusion, turn to 1 Peter 3:22, this is a very astounding verse but the early Christians obtained much strength in their life; faced with the powers of Rome, faced with awesome things, tremendous powers of opposition to them. And the early Christians always went back that Christ is our King-Priest. “Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God,” and now look, “angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him.” That’s His name that is better than any other name, the name means the authority at this point. Jesus Christ has gained authority, He has sat down in the throne room, He functions as priest and this verse shows you that He has authority all over the universe. It is not just over believers.

We’re going to study what the details are next time but this should show you the tremendous changes that occurred in the universe nineteen centuries ago. The universe is not the same as it used to be; there is a God-man on the throne.