For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘You are my Son; today I have become Your Father’? Or again: ‘I will be His Father, and He will be My Son’?
– Hebrews 1:5 (Berean Study Bible)
God couldn’t have said it much plainer than in Hebrews 1:5.
The question is rhetorical, with God assuming the reader will understand the answer is, “There is no angel whom the Lord has called His Son.” This passage is one meant to address the dilemma posed to the first century Christians, but it is one whom every person must answer in his own heart:
Who is the Messiah?
Jesus didn’t come as they expected. He arrived when the Jewish people were eager to throw off the rule of Rome and govern themselves. Expectancy electrified the air with the belief the promised Anointed One would soon establish His kingdom forever and bring deliverance to His people.
That is exactly what Jesus Christ did. But Israel looked for an earthly ruler to force his will upon their oppressors from without. The Christ came to destroy the oppressor from within. Only Jesus understood the enemy was one much more insidious and deadly than mere Roman soldiers. God’s weapons of warfare were unconventional and infinitely more powerful, because the battle He came to fight was one of cosmic importance.
In the bloody battle for the planet, only one person would die.
Then He rose again, with the keys to death and life in His hand.
Jesus the Christ is neither mere man nor angel.
In the first chapter of John, we learn Jesus existed in eternity as the Word, co-equal with God. He is as far above the angels as an artist is above his creation. Angels are beings who serve God and His people. They do not have the divine nature of God.
Religious groups have seriously erred when they have attempted to either relegate Jesus to angel status or elevate angels to brotherhood with him. This is a dangerous doctrine, because it denies the very essence of Christ.
As the Son of God, the Word, the second person of the Trinity, poured out Himself into a human vessel. He came to win back what we lost at the garden. In His humanity, Jesus Christ inherited the name of the Almighty and a kingdom.
Satan, once the highest of angels, envies the majesty of God and plots to take His throne. But he will never have it, because he, too, is a creation of God and powerless against Him.
Some days, it may feel like the devil has the upper hand against you. Be sure that the battle is very real. But God didn’t trust the gospel to a mere creation.
He sent Jesus.
So He became as far superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is excellent beyond theirs.”
– Hebrews 1:4 (Berean Study Bible)
