Do We Need Extrabiblical Texts to Understand the Bible?
00:00:00.000 | Today we have a very specific question, but one that I think draws attention to much larger
00:00:09.000 | questions that we all face with Bible interpretation.
00:00:13.320 | The specific question on the table is this, "Why does the author of Hebrews belabor Christ's
00:00:19.040 | supremacy over angels?"
00:00:21.040 | It's a question that comes in from a young man, Pastor John, hello.
00:00:25.280 | Why do you think the writer of Hebrews spends so much time declaring that Jesus is greater
00:00:29.980 | than the angels?
00:00:31.920 | This is especially the case in those first two chapters.
00:00:35.860 | You would think that identifying Jesus as God and expounding upon the Trinity would
00:00:40.500 | be a better way of declaring the truth of Jesus's greatness, that the writer of Hebrews
00:00:45.040 | wouldn't need to compare Jesus to angels.
00:00:49.000 | The emphasis on angels is for a reason.
00:00:51.040 | I just can't figure out why.
00:00:53.600 | Pastor John, what would you say?
00:00:55.040 | I'm not sure, but it may be that the assumption of this question is that there is some key
00:01:04.240 | to answering the question from outside the book of Hebrews in the first century milieu.
00:01:09.600 | I'm not sure, but that's often the case.
00:01:12.560 | So let me just say a word about that assumption.
00:01:15.860 | I want to say something about the role of information from the first century coming
00:01:21.840 | from outside the Bible and used to interpret the Bible.
00:01:25.120 | And what I want to say is this, in, I dare say, 99% of the cases where something from
00:01:30.400 | outside the Bible might inform the meaning of what's in the Bible, it's the precise
00:01:35.000 | details and context of the biblical text itself, which finally determines whether information
00:01:43.700 | from outside the Bible is decisive or not.
00:01:47.120 | That's very crucial.
00:01:49.080 | Generally what we read from first century documents, say, applies very generally rather
00:01:56.240 | than with any precise specificity to our particular New Testament author or our particular document
00:02:04.100 | or our particular text and context.
00:02:06.880 | When it comes down to deciding on the meaning of the text, it's almost always the case
00:02:13.840 | that the words and phrases and flow of thought in this book, combined with what the author
00:02:20.460 | has said elsewhere, decide the meaning.
00:02:25.000 | And I say that so that the average reader of the Bible doesn't operate on the assumption
00:02:31.040 | that there's this goldmine of discovery just waiting to be had about the meaning of
00:02:37.760 | this text outside the Bible, if I just had hours and hours and knew some languages, oh,
00:02:44.080 | I could mine this goldmine of insight for the text outside the Bible.
00:02:50.200 | No, the goldmine is under your nose.
00:02:55.240 | And it's in English, it's in English.
00:02:57.440 | And if for every hour you spend poking around in first century documents outside the Bible,
00:03:05.680 | you spend a hundred hours ransacking the details of the author's words, the New Testament
00:03:11.680 | author's words and phrases and sentences and logical connections and flow of thought
00:03:17.400 | and wider views in his writings, you will find vast riches of gold you would never find
00:03:28.640 | if you switched and spent an hour with the Bible and a hundred hours outside.
00:03:34.280 | Some scholars will go on debating till doomsday how much angel worship there was in the first
00:03:42.000 | century, say, as a possible background to Hebrews and what form it took and how much
00:03:47.460 | the apostles may have encountered it.
00:03:50.060 | But we know that already from Colossians 2.18, "Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism
00:03:58.940 | and worship of angels."
00:04:01.440 | And John's temptation in Revelation 22.8, "John fell down to worship at the feet of
00:04:06.120 | the angel who showed them to me.
00:04:09.080 | And he said to me, 'You must not do that.
00:04:13.000 | Worship God.'"
00:04:14.620 | But is that the background for the book of Hebrews?
00:04:18.480 | Do we know for sure that the churches this book was sent to were dealing with that temptation?
00:04:24.840 | No, we don't know that.
00:04:27.660 | It would be sheer guesswork to draw from general facts that there was such a thing as angel
00:04:34.520 | worship in the first century the specific conclusion that that's the reason there's
00:04:40.440 | such a focus on putting Jesus above angels in the book of Hebrews.
00:04:44.280 | A preacher—now here's where it gets really practical—a preacher who stands up and makes
00:04:50.000 | a big deal out of first century angel worship as the background of Hebrews is like a miner
00:04:59.280 | carrying scraps of gold shavings into the gold mine of Hebrews where the walls are bright
00:05:06.360 | with veins of pure gold waiting to be dug out.
00:05:10.400 | So let me mention several veins of gold for our friend who asked this question, veins
00:05:18.120 | that he can dig into when we're done.
00:05:21.280 | First, he suggests that it might be better for the writer to focus on the deity of Christ
00:05:28.720 | than to focus on his superiority to angels.
00:05:32.560 | Well, evidently not, because that's not what he did.
00:05:38.400 | And I think the author of Hebrews would respond by saying, "I'm not talking about angels
00:05:44.760 | as an alternative to talking about the deity of Christ.
00:05:49.600 | I'm talking about angels as a means of talking about the deity of Christ.
00:05:56.120 | One way to teach the deity of Christ in my situation is to disabuse people of any notion
00:06:03.960 | at all that he's a top angel."
00:06:06.800 | So he says in Hebrews 1.6, "Let all God's angels worship him."
00:06:13.400 | Whoa, I love that sentence.
00:06:16.560 | That sentence is not an alternative to talking about the deity of Christ.
00:06:22.440 | It's a thunderclap showing the deity of Christ.
00:06:26.560 | Let every angelic being in heaven and hell fall on their faces and worship Jesus, very
00:06:32.760 | God of very God.
00:06:34.120 | You don't dare worship what is not God.
00:06:37.600 | Second observation, the author takes an Old Testament idea, which might lead some people
00:06:44.520 | to elevate angels more highly than they should, and he turns it around so it has the exact
00:06:50.600 | opposite effect.
00:06:51.840 | He refers in chapter 2, verse 2 of Hebrews, to the Mosaic law coming to us through angels.
00:07:00.520 | And then he says, "Since the law through angels came with such authority and consequence,
00:07:09.160 | how much more the message declared to us by the Lord."
00:07:15.920 | In other words, if you're impressed with the role of angels in giving the law, be a
00:07:22.280 | thousand times more impressed with the role of Jesus in giving the gospel.
00:07:28.720 | Third observation, in exalting Jesus above angels, he helps us know the proper place,
00:07:37.840 | not just of Jesus, but of angels, angels themselves, and the proper place of ourselves.
00:07:44.920 | In other words, more is going on here than just the superiority of Jesus over angels.
00:07:50.320 | So for example, in chapter 1, verse 14, when you demote angels from competing with the
00:07:57.040 | Son of God for glory, then they can have their true glory, which is, amazingly, to be our
00:08:04.480 | servants.
00:08:05.480 | Amazing.
00:08:06.480 | He says, "Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who
00:08:14.920 | are to inherit salvation?"
00:08:17.360 | So these competitors with the Son of God for glory turn out to be our servants.
00:08:22.240 | Oh my goodness.
00:08:24.260 | So more is going on than we think.
00:08:26.880 | The author has multiple reasons for talking about angels.
00:08:32.520 | Final observation, and I'm leaving out some really juicy ones, by the way.
00:08:37.400 | Keep in mind that sometimes the Bible says things that seem very foreign to our experience,
00:08:46.280 | and we wonder why such an emphasis might be there.
00:08:50.240 | For example, not many people in the West today are wrestling with whether Jesus' relationship
00:08:57.960 | to angels is this or that.
00:09:00.160 | But don't assume that will be the case when the Bible is translated and read in hundreds
00:09:08.240 | of other cultures, where this particular emphasis might be exactly what the Holy Spirit will
00:09:16.740 | use to awaken an entire people group to the reality of Christ's greatness.
00:09:21.920 | And the reason I point to that is because I remember the story of how useless one missionary
00:09:29.640 | thought the genealogies were in the beginning of Matthew, and then he read them to a Stone
00:09:37.320 | Age tribe, and they were all ears.
00:09:41.880 | They were riveted.
00:09:44.320 | And in the end, they said, "Well, then he's not just a spirit."
00:09:50.740 | And it was the genealogies that broke the back of unbelief and a thousand years of darkness.
00:09:57.580 | Who knows what cultures are waiting for this message about angels in Hebrews that may blow
00:10:04.800 | things wide open for the gospel.
00:10:07.760 | Wow.
00:10:08.760 | Yeah.
00:10:09.760 | Great story with an incredibly important point.
00:10:12.160 | There's a lot in this episode to process as a Bible reader.
00:10:15.680 | Thank you, Pastor John, for all of it.
00:10:17.280 | And thanks for joining us today on the podcast for our feed, our archive, or to send us your
00:10:21.320 | own question, go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:10:28.320 | Next time, we look at how to lead someone to Christ.
00:10:32.000 | What a great topic.
00:10:33.920 | It's up next time on Monday.
00:10:35.600 | When we return, I'm Tony Reinke.
00:10:36.880 | We'll see you then.
00:10:37.880 | Have a wonderful weekend.
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