Hebrews 1:5–14

Original Meaning

The Son’s Unique Relationship to the Father (1:5)

THE AUTHOR BEGINS with a question: “For to which of the angels did God ever say?…” Rather than a request for information, this query is rhetorical, a way of making an assertion. The writer is, in fact, proclaiming, “There is no angel to whom God has said …!” The two quotations in verse 5 continue a focus on the sonship of Jesus started in 1:2.

It seems clear from the Dead Sea Scrolls that the concept of the Messiah as God’s Son was an aspect of Jewish thinking even prior to the Christian era.3 Also, numerous passages in the Gospels focus on Jesus’ unique relationship to God as Father.4 Our Lord adopts the designation “Son” in both overt statements and inferences (e.g., referring to God as “my Father”), and the title itself, as used by other characters in the divine drama, is often closely associated with the title “Christ” (i.e., Messiah; see Matt. 16:16; 26:63; Mark 8:29; Luke 4:41; John 11:27; 20:31). As the Christian movement expanded, the appellation “Son” formed an important aspect of early Christian preaching about Jesus (e.g., Acts 9:20–22).

Both Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14 had been adopted in earliest Christianity as pointing to the enthronement of Messiah. In its original context, Psalm 2 speaks of the concerted rebellion of the nations and their rulers against God and his Anointed One. The psalmist asserts that this rebellion will be smashed by the awesome, overwhelming power of the King whom God has enthroned in Mount Zion. Early Christ-followers applied this psalm to Jesus as Messiah and saw in it the promise of victory over those earthly forces opposed to the church (e.g., Acts 4:23–31; 13:33–34). Second Samuel 7:14 communicates the words of the prophet Nathan to David, promising that great king that one of his offspring will have an eternal kingdom. The author of Hebrews sees the fulfillment of this prophesy in the person of the exalted Son.5

But what of the temporal imagery in these two texts? What does it mean that God has “become” the Son’s Father “today” and that he “will be” his Father? These, of course, are not references to a bringing into existence, nor what some in the church would later call “the eternal generation of the Son,” speaking of the eternal nature of the relationship between God and his Messiah. We have already seen that Jesus was considered the Son prior to creation itself and is later referred to as “Son” in the Incarnation (e.g., Heb. 5:8). Rather, the early church understood these passages to refer to Jesus’ induction into his royal position as King of the universe at the resurrection and exaltation. With these events God vindicated Jesus as Messiah and established his eternal kingdom (see Acts 13:32–34; Rom. 1:4). God’s becoming the Son’s Father, then, refers to God’s open expression of their relationship upon Christ’s enthronement, an interpretation that fits both Old Testament contexts in question.6

Bridging Contexts

BEFORE WE CONSIDER interpretive issues surrounding the author’s main points in this passage, it is important to identify a number of procedural dynamics and assumptions that form the backdrop for Hebrews 1:5–14. (1) Why does the author focus such attention on the angels? Were the listeners allured by the worship of angels or tempted to interpret Christ as an angel, as suggested by some scholars? (2) We must then consider four scriptural and four theological assumptions that lie behind his uses of the Old Testament in this passage. With this groundwork in place, we can center attention on the main propositions the author wishes to communicate through this chain of Old Testament quotations.

Why the angels? Some scholars have understood the comparison of Christ with the angels in Hebrews 1 to indicate the readers were toying with the worship of angels13 or, perhaps, a form of errant Christology in which Christ was considered subordinate to an angel.14 Although speculation concerning angels seemed to present a problem in some New Testament communities (e.g., the church at Colosse) and was known in various Jewish and Gnostic circles,15 this interpretation misunderstands the author’s intention for the comparison.

The author establishes the unquestionable superiority of the Son to execute his first exhortation, found in 2:1–4, which consists of an “argument from lesser to greater.” This method of argumentation, often used by the rabbis, held if something is true in a lesser situation, it certainly is true in a greater, or more important, situation. Having established Christ’s superiority to the angels, the preacher proceeds to argue in 2:1–4: Those who rejected the revelation given through the angels were severely punished; since the Son is greater than the angels, it follows that those who reject the revelation given through him deserve even greater punishment.

In 2:1–4, in other words, the author casts the angels in a positive, though inferior, role.16 This positive role is basic to the rhetorical argument that the hearers need to take seriously the revelation delivered through the Son. So the answer to our question “Why the angels?” has nothing to do with the worship of them and everything to do with the execution of a skillful argument on the part of our author. To be sure, the listeners had a high regard for and interest in angels, as did others from a worship orientation in Greek-speaking Judaism. At this time Jews placed great emphasis on angels as intermediaries between God and people. They were seen as exalted beings who functioned as heavenly emissaries. This fact makes the rhetorical argument all the more powerful. The audience’s respect for the role of angels provided a reference point from which to speak of the much higher position (and, therefore, authority) of the Son of God. In this insight one finds the author’s purpose for 1:5–14: The preacher wishes to impress on his listeners the Son’s supreme, unequivocal authority.

Assumptions concerning the Old Testament. Hebrews presents us with the best example of thoroughgoing early Christian exegesis of the Old Testament;17 behind this exegesis lie several assumptions clearly illustrated in the “chain” of 1:5–14. (1) The Old Testament consists of the words of God. Hebrews never mentions an Old Testament author, nor does the preacher use “it is written,” Paul’s favorite way to introduce an Old Testament quotation. Rather, such quotations are almost always framed as coming directly from the mouth of God, being introduced with forms of the verb “to say” (lego). The author, therefore, understands God as the speaker of these passages.

(2) The Old Testament presents truth. Our writer of Hebrews assumes that since the Old Testament presents the words of God, those words are true in what they communicate. His arguments would make no sense if this were not the case. Notice that in the chain quotation, with the exception of the introductory formulae, he feels no compulsion to explain the texts. He simply states them as offering facts concerning the Son and the angels.

(3) The Old Testament presents a unified revelation. This assumption is especially seen in the author’s uses of verbal analogy, the rabbinic technique of considering two passages together on the basis of a word or words they had in common. 18 Inherent to this methodology is the presupposition that God speaks consistently and systematically through Scripture. This approach is similar to what modern interpreters do in cross-referencing a text under examination.

(4) The Old Testament bears witness to Christ. Speaking of the early church’s Christological interpretation of the Old Testament, Klyne Snodgrass states:

Texts that may have been general statements about the nation, prophets, priests, or kings were often idealized in anticipation of God’s end-time deliverer who would fill the categories as no one else had. David had been the king par excellence, but one day there would be a king like him, only better. The early church applied such texts to Jesus because of their conviction about his identity. The conviction about his identity did not derive from the Old Testament. They did not find texts and then find Jesus. They found Jesus and then saw how the Scriptures fit with him. They were not proving his identity in the technical sense so much as they were demonstrating how the Scriptures fit with him. Often they were merely following his lead in pointing to texts that summarized his ministry.19

Christological interpretation could not be more forcefully illustrated than it is in the chain quotation of Hebrews 1. The author reads the Old Testament through the glasses of a Christian, with Christ at the center of interpretation. Moreover, he draws most of his material concerning Christ from the Psalms. These four assumptions form the bases for the manner in which he handles the Old Testament here and throughout the book.

Theological assumptions. To these assumptions concerning the Old Testament may be added several theological assumptions behind Hebrews 1:5–14. (1) The author understands the Son to be equal with God. This is unmistakable from his act of addressing the Son (via the Old Testament quotation) with the vocative “O God” in 1:8, as well as his application of Old Testament creation passages to the Son.

(2) As seen especially in his quotation of Psalm 102:25–27, the author believes the Son to be Lord over the cosmos. With other early Christian writers, he proclaims the Son as both originator and terminator of the universe; thus, all reality has its unity in him (e.g., Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16–17; Rev. 4:11; 10:6).

(3) From the author’s emphasis on the angels, we can conclude he believes in a spiritual realm inhabited by spiritual beings called angels. These beings have specific functions in the mind of this preacher, especially the worship of God and ministry to his people.

(4) The author assumes that Christ has his enemies and that all of these enemies have yet to be placed under his feet (1:13). This final assumption addresses their dilemma of persecution, as we shall see in the following chapters. The listeners were overwhelmed with the sense that forces around them were out of their control. Therefore, they questioned God’s control of their circumstances (e.g., 2:8–9).

These assumptions concerning the Old Testament and reality as the readers were experiencing it provide a theological framework from which the author approaches his material in 1:5–14. He presents his message with the conviction and vigor of one convinced that his worldview reflects reality. The author’s enthusiasm and confidence challenge us concerning the theological frameworks with which we approach the task of applying this text. Do we have a clearly articulated theology of the Scriptures? Do we have a studied and reasoned Christology? Have we continued to explore and read theological works to sharpen our minds in these areas?20 If we have a “soft” theological foundation, our application, at the end of the day, will be weakened. Application must have its reasons and impetuses, and these are theological in nature. With this in mind, we turn to certain interpretive issues surrounding the author’s main points.

Three main points. As demonstrated in the Original Meaning section, this preacher of Old Testament texts supports his main theme of the Son’s superiority to the angels with three main points. We must consider several interpretive questions and quagmires surrounding each of these. (1) Hebrews 1:5 teaches that the Son is superior to the angels by virtue of his unique relationship to the Father. One can fall into the proverbial ditch with this passage on one of two sides of the hermeneutical road. On the one hand, an “Arian” interpretation of the begetting of the Son by the Father in Psalm 2 must be flatly denied. Arius, a fourth-century heretic, insisted that the Son had a point of beginning, saying of him: “And before he was begotten or created or appointed or established, he did not exist; for he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted because we say: ‘the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning.’”21 The council of Nicea, which met in A.D. 325, answered Arianism by interpreting the “begetting” to mean that he was “of the same essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance [homoousios] with the Father.…” This creed follows the pattern seen in Hebrews 1 of stressing the Son’s nature as divine.

On the other hand, to interpret Hebrews 1:5 as asserting the “eternal begetting” of the Son by the Father is also misdirected. For example, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas understood the “today” in this verse to be the day of God’s unchangeable eternity. P. E. Hughes follows Westcott in pointing out that this interpretation is foreign to the context.22 What is important is the Old Testament background of these passages, supporting a royal enthronement interpretation of the “begetting,” and their use elsewhere in early Christian teaching points to the resurrection/exaltation as the fulfillment.23 The idea communicated is that the Son came into inheritance of all the rights and authority of his filial relationship to the Father when he was enthroned at God’s right hand.24 This is the author’s first building block in asserting the supremacy of the Son over the angels.

(2) The next point (cf. 1:6–7) focuses attention on the inferiority of the angels. One might be tempted, based on the command “when God brings his firstborn into the world … ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’” in verse 6, to think of the birth of Jesus and the Yuletide singing of the heavenly host (Luke 2:8–14). Yet, as shown in our Original Meaning discussion, the term “world” in verse 6 almost certainly speaks of the heavenly realm, an interpretation fitting to the immediate context, which focuses on the enthronement.25 The key for understanding the author’s intention in verses 6–7 is to note that Psalm 104:4 (and possibly 97:7) features activities performed by the angels. They worship the Son (Heb. 1:6) and are ministers for God (v. 7), the latter being further emphasized in 1:14. By these activities they are shown to be inferior to the Son, whom they worship and serve.

We must hasten to reemphasize that the angels play a positive role in the first two chapters of Hebrews. The first level of our application at this point should not focus on “bad things” that threaten to redirect our commitment to, and the veneration due, Christ. We could rush to an application that pinpointed money, fame, or pleasure as supplanting our affections for the Lord. However, the sense of the author’s comparison with the angels in 1:6–7 is more like this: “Even when compared to beings as high as the angels, the Son is of an infinitely higher status. As great as other people or institutions are, look at the surpassing greatness of Christ by comparison. He is the point of reference by which all others must be evaluated.”

(3) The final building block in the author’s treatment of the Son’s superiority to the angels (1:8–12) contains two main topics. (a) The preacher, through the vocative “O God” (v. 8) and the proclamation of the Son’s role in the cosmos (vv. 10–12), unmistakably ascribes deity to the Son. (b) Closely associated with this, the author focuses on the Son’s eternal rule and nature (1:8, 11–12). At this point it is appropriate to mention the formulation of Trinitarian doctrine worked out in the council of Constantinople (A.D. 381) and expressed well a few years later by Augustine: “We believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, maker and ruler of every creature, and that ‘Father’ is not ‘Son,’ nor ‘Holy Spirit’ ‘Father’ or ‘Son’; but a Trinity of mutually related persons, and a unity of equal essence.”26

In other words, God is one essence (the one God), but there are three distinct persons in the Godhead. It may seem strange to introduce a discussion of the Trinity to our discussion of Christology, but the early Christological debates over heresies such as Arianism gave rise to the Trinitarian discussions later. The statements concerning the Son in Hebrews 1:8–12 fit well this orthodox formula, “distinct persons and one essence.” In that passage we have the Son directly addressed as God (v. 8), and in the next breath the declaration that God has anointed him, setting him above his companions (v. 9). These proclamations express no contradiction but rather a mystery, which to our finite minds is incomprehensible.27 Theological blunders occur when we emphasize the “unity” of the Godhead to the neglect of the distinctness of persons, or visa versa.

Hebrews 1:5–14 climaxes with the quotation of Psalm 110:1, which presents clearly the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God. This Old Testament text further demonstrates that the preacher’s main interest at this point lies in impressing on the listeners the supreme position and authority of the Son. This impression he uses to good effect in the next chapter.

Contemporary Significance

IT IS NO exaggeration to suggest that Western culture in general and the church in particular are in the midst of an authority crisis. In the wake of Watergate, the moral demise of religious leaders, and the 60s’ rejection of moral and cultural norms, we live with the ever-present, nagging question: “To whom or what should we listen in order to find out what to believe and how to order our lives?”28

Some answer the question by turning to the occult. Psychic hotlines, a joke just a few years ago in comedy routines, now rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from those who call the appropriate 900 numbers. Most bookstores have extensive sections on “New Age” and “Eastern Religion.” Spirituality is marketable, running sales to one-half billion dollars annually. To many, however, this spirituality abandons any notion of authority or accountability, the spiritual experience being gauged by its achievement of self-authentication.29 Others look to science as the savior of humanity. Science will save us from cancer and AIDS, we pray, and eventually will unlock the mysteries of the universe. Still others look to religious leaders or gurus who interpret God and reality for them. Even within the Christian church, confusion exists over the nature and authority of Scripture30 and the nature of authority held by church leadership.

As we have seen in this section, the author uses a chain of Old Testament quotations to a specific end. He focuses the listeners’ attention on the preeminent position of Jesus in order to draw them to the preeminent authority of Jesus. Therefore, these verses speak volumes to an age grappling with issues of authority—to whom should we listen; whom can we trust; who has the right answers to our life questions?

Spiritual reference points. One problem in a relativistic culture is the confusion over where to look for truth and meaning in life. The “spiritual reference points” keep shifting as we try great books, great speakers, great churches, and great experiences, hoping that these will produce answers and provide points of reference by which to navigate the difficulties of modern life. A parallel between Hebrews’ audience and many modern people is a fascination with and high respect for angels. My wife and I frequent a local bookstore and café where, sans bambinos, we can browse the books after enjoying a fine meal, tea, and pastries. On a recent visit, knowing I would soon be writing on this section of Hebrews, I decided to count the works in their religion section addressing the topic of angels. In this “secular” store making no claim to specialize in religious books were eighty-five different works! They had intriguing titles, such as Angels A to Z, Know Your Angels, Ask Your Angels, Angelic Healing, Angelic Voices, Angel Magi, Angels: An Endangered Species, Meditating with the Angels, and (my personal favorite) Big George: The Autobiography of an Angel. They ranged from those attempting to present a biblical explication, like Billy Graham’s Angels, to Angels and Aliens—clearly of a different stripe.

This fascination with angels is also evident from the popularity of the television drama Touched by an Angel, a show about heavenly beings who help people in a variety of difficult circumstances. There are magazines, such as Angel Times, dedicated to recounting the contacts numerous moderns have had with angelic beings. My wife recently talked to a lady who, since a professed encounter with an angel during a near-death experience, has been collecting angel figurines.

Angels are clearly both popular and big business in Western societies. The question is, how should the church respond to this cultural trend? Keeping in mind that the author of Hebrews uses his first audience’s respect for angels to speak to their need for a higher opinion of the Son, I believe there are at least two applications we can draw from his contrast of Christ and the angels. (1) We must build on a biblical understanding of angels. Christians need to know what the Scriptures reveal about angels; thus, the topic should be addressed from pulpit to classroom podium.31

Much contemporary angelology has strong New Age overtones. Based on dubious metaphysical and psychological experiences, it often is divorced from biblical revelation. Many see any spiritual encounter, regardless of its nature or message, as communicating truth, and even some professing to be followers of Christ are buying into the broader culture’s infatuation with angels. Yet, as 1 John 4:1 warns, we are not to believe every spirit, but should test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Paul also reminds us that even Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).

Notice that the author of Hebrews draws on the Old Testament witness to angels. That witness does not present angels as independent vendors of ecstatic spiritual experience but as servants of the living God. Moreover, by their activity of worship they point to the Son (1:6–7), and rather than crisscrossing the planet for any and every human encounter, they are sent out specifically “to serve those who will inherit salvation” (1:14).

(2) We can use a biblically based discussion of angels as a launching point from which to speak about the supremacy of the Son of God. The author of Hebrews uses his audience’s respect for angels as a reference point from which to zero in on the greater authority of Christ. When was the last time you heard a message detailing the power and glory of angels that then proceeded to magnify God’s Son by comparison? What if we invited people to come hear a lecture on angels? This passage would be appropriate to use evangelistically32 with those who do not know Christ (but are interested in angels) and educationally with those who do. Thus, we could use the topic of “angels” as a means of explaining, by contrast, the exalted status and person of Christ, as does the author of Hebrews. We could call people to rivet their attention on the word of God as delivered by the Son and challenge them to obedience to that delivered word.

Jesus’ enthronement and unique relationship to the Father. During my years in seminary two young men came to my door seeking to share their “faith” with me. Shortly into the conversation I said, “Tell me what you believe about Jesus.” Taking out their version of the New Testament and turning to John 1:1, they explained, “The Greek here shows that Jesus was a god (or lesser being), not the one true God.” I asked them to wait a minute while I went inside to get my Greek New Testament. Upon returning I handed the speaker my Greek text and asked him to translate the passage, which he could not do. It turns out that their interpretation was based on a faulty understanding of the use of the article in the Greek language. They reasoned that since the word for God (theos) has no article in front of it, the word used of the logos in John 1:1 is indefinite, that is, “a god.” The problem with this interpretation is that a Greek term needs no article to be definite, especially if there is only one of the subject under consideration.

Several years later in a New Testament survey class, while I was using this experience to speak to the role of grammar in interpretation, a Mormon lady in the back of the room blurted out, “But Dr. Guthrie, you can’t say they were wrong. They were just sharing what they sincerely believed!” I responded, “If you believe that Jesus is not God, and I believe that Jesus is God, one of us is wrong. There are only so many options.”

From cults to traditional religions, from critical scholars to the culturally sensitive, the deity of Jesus—his unique relationship with the Father shown in his exaltation—has presented a stumbling block through the ages. Unable to deny his phenomenal impact and the impressiveness of his teaching, many deny his nature by presenting him as less than God. Yet, as C. S. Lewis noted in his classic Mere Christianity, we do not enjoy the option of casting Jesus as a good teacher but not God. From what he himself taught, Jesus was Lord, liar, or lunatic. The answer in Hebrews is unambiguous: The Son’s deity is vindicated by his exaltation to the right hand of the Majesty (1:5, 13) and confessed in the traditional material of earliest Christianity. The cults and critics who deny this truth deny the authority of Jesus for their lives.

This doctrine of the deity of Christ must be recognized as a key to perseverance in the Christian life. The erosion of confidence in this orthodox tenet of the faith inevitably undermines one’s relationship with the living, enthroned Jesus. We will see in the chapters ahead that Hebrews challenges its readers to “consider Jesus” (3:1; 12:1–2), the exalted author and finisher of the faith, as a means of staying the course of commitment. Our Lord is the Eternal One (1:8–12; 13:8), and we need not fear that our changing circumstances or the passing of time will diminish his abilities on our behalf. With a clear picture of Jesus as God, we also are impressed with our accountability to him as the One who will judge the living and the dead (2:1–4).

The agent of creation. In the beginning of scientific investigation, many pursued scientific knowledge from the conviction that God had ordered the universe. However, with the advent of the Enlightenment, old theological moorings were abandoned, and science became for many not only a philosophical orientation but also a means of pursuing truth. Science, in other words, became the supreme epistemological authority of the universe. There was no creation, they suggested, but just a cosmic accident that resulted in an evolutionary process ending in what we know as physical reality. Some fundamentalist Christians have reacted by rejecting science altogether, putting it in a dichotomous relationship over against revelation and focusing on the age of the earth as the issue central to the creation debate. Other Christians, however, stress that science can play a positive role of participating with the heavens in declaring the glory of God (Ps. 19:1–6) for those who will listen.33

Hugh Ross is one of the latter. In his book Creation and Time, Ross suggests that recent findings in astrophysics present believers with an unprecedented opportunity to proclaim the biblical picture of God as creator to the scientific community. Among the facts about the universe agreed upon by virtually all astronomers, Ross presents the following:

(1) The universe is only billions of years old, not quadrillions or a near infinite number of years.

(2) The universe can be traced back to a single, ultimate origin of matter, energy, time, and space as we know them, and, therefore, the Cause of the event must have an existence independent of the universe.

(3) The universe, our galaxy, and our solar system demonstrate more than sixty characteristics that require exquisite fine-tuning for their very existence and for the existence of any kind of physical life. Three of the characteristics must be fine-tuned to a precision of one part in 1037 or better.34

Even secular scientists are acknowledging the profound theological implications of such findings. Among the evidence, none has greater implications than that which supports the so-called Big Bang. In April 1992, George Smoot, project leader for the satellite dubbed Cosmic Background Explorer, proclaimed that the ripples in the radiation left over from the Big Bang had been observed. He commented, “What we found is evidence for the birth of the universe,”35 and “It’s like looking at God.”36 Speaking of the recent findings in astronomy, agnostic Robert Jastrow writes that scientists have been “scaling the mountains of ignorance … conquering the highest peak … pulling [themselves] over the final rock … [to be] greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”37

Moderns are confronted with overwhelming evidence for an “Entity,” a Creator, who exists outside the reach of their exploratory means. The scientific system of “authority” has found its limitations, encountering an aspect of what theologians call “general revelation.” The “specific revelation” of Hebrews is that the Son of God is the One who has “laid the foundations of the earth” and woven the heavens with his hands (1:10). Of course, science cannot prove that Jesus is that Agent of creation. What it does do, however, is to confirm the picture of the creation that the Bible (and Hebrews specifically) has presented all along—that what we know as physical reality has not always existed and that God, an all-powerful and transcendent Being, created the universe in an orderly fashion and governs that universe still.

For Christ’s followers a glimpse at the awesome dimensions and physical dynamics of the universe should remind us of the phenomenal and incomprehensible authority, power, and creativity of the Son of God and bring us to our knees in worship. We should be reminded that as the One who stands outside of time, our eternal Lord provides a stability to our existence that can only be had through a relationship with him. The world around us is becoming old, like worn-out clothes ready to be folded and put away, but he remains the same (1:11–12).

We can say to our friends in the broader society, “This God, about whom scientists are uncovering so much evidence, has done more than create; he has entered our physical realm in the person of Jesus Christ, in order to communicate truth to us that is beyond scientific investigation. Part of that truth is that God’s Son, as the Agent of creation, is also our ultimate authority, to whom we all must give account.”38

Original Meaning

The Inferior Position of the Angels (1:6–7)

THE TERM FIRSTBORN (prototokon) continues the idea of sonship established thus far in Hebrews. In the ancient world this term most often referred to the (human or animal) child first born to a mother. Furthermore, it had strong religious overtones in the consecration of the firstborn to Yahweh (e.g., Ex. 13:2, 15; 22:29; Lev. 27:26; Num. 3:13). A firstborn son had a special place in the heart of his father (e.g., 2 Sam. 13:36–37; 1 Chron. 3:1), shared the father’s authority, and inherited the lion’s share of his property.7 In most of the eight New Testament occurrences of the word, it serves as a title for Christ, expressing his preeminence in the church and the cosmos, and is especially associated with the resurrection (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:15, 18; Heb. 11:23; Rev. 1:5).

“World” (oikoumenen) refers not to planet earth, but rather to the heavenly realm.8 This interpretation finds support in the author’s use of the same word speaking of the heavenly realm at 2:5 and well fits the immediate context, which magnifies the exaltation of the Son to the right hand of God. The occasion used to introduce 1:6 is the same highlighted in 1:5.

Verses 6–7 present the angels in two activities that imply their subordination to the Son. (1) With the quote of Psalm 97:7 they are exhorted to “worship” the Son, an act that implies the Son’s deity. (2) Psalm 104:4 expresses their role as servants of God—a theme made more clear by the author’s recapitulation of, and further comment on, this passage later at Hebrews 1:14: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” In the Scriptures angels are created, heavenly beings, who primarily function as messengers for God, revealing his will or announcing key events (e.g., Gen. 19:1–22; Ex. 3:2–6; Judg. 2:1–5; Matt. 1:20–24). They also serve to protect God’s people (e.g., Ex. 14:19–20; 1 Kings 19:1–8; Acts 12:7–11). In contexts accentuating God’s power and majesty, angels worship him or attend his throne.9 It is therefore of no small significance that they here are said to worship the Son, an implicit acclamation of his deity.