Why Did Jesus Need to ‘Become Superior’ to Angels?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John Podcast.
00:00:06.320 | Pastor John, you're off to Indianapolis for the Gospel Coalition's 2019 National Conference.
00:00:12.200 | There you're going to be delivering the opening plenary address of the conference today on
00:00:16.720 | Monday, that's 1 p.m. at the Indiana Convention Center.
00:00:21.480 | Please be praying for that.
00:00:22.720 | Please be praying for Pastor John.
00:00:24.320 | I'm not sure if that message is going to be live streamed.
00:00:26.520 | I assume so, but I'm not sure.
00:00:29.120 | But first, before you go, today's question comes to us from a listener named Austin.
00:00:33.000 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:34.880 | In my Bible study, I've been stumped by the phrase that says Jesus has become much superior
00:00:40.480 | to angels.
00:00:42.440 | If Jesus has eternally existed as God, how do I understand this passage and the theme
00:00:46.840 | that seems to pop up in Hebrews?
00:00:49.640 | Why and how did Jesus somehow become superior to angels?"
00:00:54.160 | Well, first thing I'd say is I love this kind of question.
00:00:56.720 | I just think that's so important that we not gloss over apparent difficulties and just
00:01:01.040 | read on and let them dangle.
00:01:04.560 | The text that Austin is referring to is found in Hebrews 1.4, and it's interesting that
00:01:12.640 | you don't have to leave this text, its immediate context, in order to see that in the mind
00:01:19.880 | of the writer, the Son of God has always existed as superior to angels.
00:01:26.600 | So then how does he become superior if he's always superior?
00:01:32.560 | So let me read it.
00:01:33.560 | So I'll start at verse 3 of Hebrews 1.
00:01:36.040 | He that is the Son of God is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint
00:01:46.120 | of his nature.
00:01:48.160 | No angel could ever have that said about him.
00:01:51.220 | And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
00:01:54.600 | So none of that can be said of any angel.
00:01:57.960 | The Son of God is by nature God, and the Son upholds the universe.
00:02:02.080 | So in what sense then did he become superior to angels?
00:02:06.680 | Here's what verse 4 goes on to say.
00:02:09.540 | After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
00:02:15.800 | having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent
00:02:23.680 | than theirs.
00:02:24.680 | So two massive realities explain the sentence in which the Son of God becomes superior to
00:02:34.000 | angels.
00:02:35.000 | The first massive reality is the incarnation.
00:02:39.520 | And the second one is the triumph of the God-man over sin and death and Satan by his death
00:02:47.560 | and resurrection.
00:02:49.240 | So the first one, the incarnation, the first reality that explains how he becomes superior
00:02:56.680 | to angels is that the incarnate Son of God is a new reality.
00:03:04.680 | The God-man, Jesus Christ, did not exist before the incarnation.
00:03:12.060 | So since he didn't exist from all eternity, the God-man, the union of divine and human
00:03:19.340 | nature, since he didn't exist from all eternity as the God-man, the God-man can become superior
00:03:28.540 | to angels, which in fact he did by virtue of his divine nature, but especially his triumph
00:03:36.140 | at work on the cross.
00:03:37.660 | That leads us to the second great reality, which is probably the one that gets the most
00:03:41.780 | focus in the New Testament.
00:03:43.820 | So the second reality that makes sense out of the Son of God becoming superior to angels
00:03:51.100 | is that he did what no angels could ever do.
00:03:56.940 | In his divine human nature, he went to the cross and he bore the sins of his people,
00:04:05.060 | and he disarmed the angelic principalities and powers and defeated death and rose from
00:04:12.780 | the dead and is enthroned with a new authority to do what only God can do because of what
00:04:20.340 | he did as the God-man on the cross.
00:04:23.840 | So the very question that Austin is asking is also raised in other places.
00:04:30.080 | This may help to bring in another way of asking the same kind of thing.
00:04:33.660 | For example, in Matthew 28, 19, Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has
00:04:38.980 | been given to me."
00:04:41.140 | Well, didn't he always have as the Son of God authority over everything?
00:04:48.460 | He did.
00:04:49.460 | He did.
00:04:50.560 | By virtue of his death and resurrection, however, it says, an authority was given to Jesus.
00:04:57.940 | What he didn't have before was this.
00:05:03.100 | He had—I mean, he gets the authority now as the God-man to exercise his eternal omnipotence
00:05:13.980 | in the service of a blood-bought people to whom he now becomes the agent of mercy because
00:05:24.520 | of what he did on the cross.
00:05:27.180 | So that's a new authority.
00:05:28.940 | I mean, John 17, 1 and 2 says it like this.
00:05:33.500 | God gave him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
00:05:42.420 | So the authority that he always had in terms of omnipotence is now used on the basis of
00:05:51.060 | his blood and righteousness to give eternal life.
00:05:55.460 | He couldn't do that before he did the saving work.
00:06:01.020 | And so that's a new authority or a new exercise of authority on the analogy of becoming superior.
00:06:09.980 | And here are a couple more examples of this kind of thing.
00:06:14.100 | Peter cries out on the Day of Pentecost, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for
00:06:19.260 | certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ."
00:06:25.340 | That's Jesus whom you crucified.
00:06:27.280 | So the Son of God has always been Lord of the universe.
00:06:31.220 | But the crucified and risen Christ is now installed in a new office as Lord and Messiah
00:06:39.540 | over his redeemed people and in this way becomes superior to angels.
00:06:46.800 | Or Romans 1, 3 and 4, where Paul says that the gospel concerns God's Son who was descended
00:06:55.140 | from David according to the flesh and was declared Son of God in power according to
00:07:02.300 | the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
00:07:07.260 | So by the resurrection, by the resurrection, an event in history, the God-man Jesus is
00:07:14.500 | declared to be Son of God in a new way, namely in power over sin, over death, over evil,
00:07:22.820 | and in that way.
00:07:24.100 | His newness, the newness of his sonship becomes superior to angels in a way he didn't experience
00:07:32.620 | before.
00:07:33.780 | Or 1 Peter 3.21, "Baptism is an appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection
00:07:39.100 | of Jesus who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities
00:07:46.080 | and powers having been subjected to him."
00:07:50.560 | So the death and resurrection of Jesus disarmed the angels, disarmed the authorities and powers,
00:07:56.820 | brought them into a new kind of subjection to the Son of God who had stripped them of
00:08:01.700 | the one weapon with which they could damn us, namely unforgiven sin.
00:08:05.860 | And in this way he shows his superiority over all the angels.
00:08:11.540 | One more example, Romans 14.9, "To this end Christ died and lived again that he might
00:08:20.520 | be Lord," of course he was always Lord, but he did something in dying and rising that
00:08:28.300 | made him Lord in a new way.
00:08:29.820 | So let me finish it.
00:08:30.820 | "To this end Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and
00:08:38.740 | of the living."
00:08:39.900 | If Christ had not died and lived again, he would not hold the office of saving Lord over
00:08:49.060 | his people.
00:08:50.060 | There would be no salvation.
00:08:52.040 | There would be no saving Lordship in the universe had Jesus not died and risen from the dead.
00:09:00.100 | So in all these ways, the God-man who died and rose again for sinners has become, attained
00:09:10.820 | a new level, a new kind of relationship to angels and to man as superior to angels in
00:09:20.300 | a way that didn't exist before.
00:09:22.340 | Excellent.
00:09:23.340 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:24.740 | And remember, Pastor John is off to Indianapolis delivering the opening address at the Gospel
00:09:28.820 | Coalition's 2019 National Conference at the Indiana Convention Center.
00:09:33.620 | That's at 1 p.m. today on Monday.
00:09:35.820 | Be watching for that and please be praying for him.
00:09:39.060 | Well, we return on Wednesday to address a 23-year-old man who feels called to pastoral
00:09:44.140 | ministry and he thinks he should forego seminary training and jump right into the work.
00:09:50.180 | What will John Piper say?
00:09:51.180 | We'll find out on Wednesday.
00:09:53.140 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:09:54.140 | We'll see you then.
00:09:54.140 | We'll see you then.
00:09:55.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]