Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In 1952 pupils in a New York public school were invited by their teacher to mention things associated with Christmas.

The children responded spontaneously: “Santa Claus,” “Reindeer,” “Christmas trees,” “presents.”

Then a pensive little girl said, “The birthday of Jesus.”

“Oh, no,” the teacher replied quickly, “that’s not what we mean.”

I’m sure that the sentiment of the teacher is how much people treat Christmas this year, too.

Online sales are up, the shops are busier.

Presents given and received.

Food and drink consumed and yet…

A son is born.

Yet He is eternal, He is uncreated, yet He came and took on the form of man.

Yet He is God, His is the Kingdom, yet He was born in a barn.

Yet we are His creation and all the universe, He lives forever, yet His creation put Him to death though He can never die.

Who can understand the mysteries of God?

Today we are looking at the supremacy of Christ by looking especially at the verses in Hebrews 1.

I am hoping that we will look more closely at the Book of Hebrews in the New Year.

Here the writer of Hebrews is asking the question: Who is greater: Angels or Jesus?

Robbie Williams in his catchy pop song says that “he is loving angels instead” missing indeed the creator.

But what do angels do?

Another time we’ll come to what they are.

Very briefly, angels have at least four roles:

They continually worship and praise God

They communicate God’s message to people

They minister to believers

They will be God’s agents in the final judgement and Jesus’ second advent

Who is greater, then, angels or Jesus?

Well, the writer of Hebrews tells us in unmistakable tones:

Yet, as we find, Jesus was not created but is from forever to forever.

The confusion was Jesus as Man and as God and those who received this letter were more concentrated upon Jesus as a Man thinking this made Him lower than the angels but they had not understood that He was fully God and fully man.

To make the argument the writer quotes seven times from the Old Testament and we are going to look at each in turn as to why Jesus is superior to the angels and everything else...

The first two Old Testament readings reveal that Jesus has a superior name:

And we read the fulfilment in:

None other has the name of the Son.

He already existed and is eternal.

Without beginning, without end.

But into this world He came as a babe, still intact as God, revealing His nature to the world as One who is Father and Son, as One who loves the world so much that the Son was sent begotten, not made.

The second reading comes from:

Jesus is superior to the angels because he always was God’s Son and because two Old Testament sonship prophecies were marvelously fulfilled by him at his incarnation and resurrection and exaltation.

His name is “Son,” while all that can be said of angels is that they are messengers

The whole ministry of the Christ is included in the promises from His birth to His death to His resurrection to His everlasting Kingdom on the Throne of David we saw in the reading we heard at the beginning:

Not only that, He is the firstborn which is a title given to Jesus.

What does this mean?

He preceded all others in time or space.

He had all the rights and privileges that accompany being firstborn.

It does not mean that He was created.

It is used in other places such as

It just means that Jesus has a name that is superior to any other name for He was before anything else was.

The third of the seven quotes reveals Jesus has a superior honour

Who does worship belong to?

We should not and cannot worship humans or angels.

As I have already said some were trying to put angels above Jesus yet it is these same angels who worship Him – you do not worship things that are less but those things that are greater and worship belongs to only one, in the Jewish mind, and rightly so, worship belongs to God.

And we find that Jesus is worshipped by angels at His birth on earth:

And it is these same angels with multitudes of others who worship and will worship:

Jesus has a Superior Status

according to the fourth and fifth of the seven quotes.

The first of these is found in verse 6 and is quoted from:

Angels are simply messengers – and what are they messengers of?

Jesus is the message.

His superiority over the angels is established and established.

It was angels who announced the birth of Jesus, who pointed the way to Him.

But the fifth quotation establishes once and for all that Christ is God.

Not that we have not already seen this from the fact that angels worship Him but right here in verse 8 and 9 is a quotation from

Verse 8 in Hebrews 1 makes it perfectly clear that this is addressed to Jesus: And to the Son he says: Your throne, O God.

The word ‘God’ here is the word Yahweh.

God with a capital G.

It is irrefutable.

Of course there are many other verses which establish that Jesus is God such as:

Not only does this quotation deal with the fact that He is God but also establishes the Trinity.

It is addressed to Your throne, O God, and then goes on to say, God, your God has anointed you.

Here we see Jesus in the first address: O God.

Then we have the Father God, your God.

And who is left but the Spirit by whom Jesus is anointed.

The angels are but servants but Jesus is the eternally enthroned, authorised, sceptred, anointed sovereign.

This brings us to the next way Jesus has supremacy:

Jesus has a Superior Existence

The sixth quotation is from

This is evidence that Jesus is the One who is the everlasting creator.

He is eternal and uncreated, unchanging.

I love the great messianic Psalm that is:

Who is this about?

None other than our Lord and Christ, Jesus the Lord who came to visit man and raised us to the heights of His throne.

How much more superior than angels is Jesus.

He created the angels, they worship Him, they give Jesus the honour due to Him and they spread the message of Him.

And Jesus will outlast all the material universe and He Himself is immortal and He is the famous quote from

The last proof of Jesus supremacy is that:

Jesus has a superior vocation

The last of the seven quotations from the Old Testament found in verse 13 and is a quote from:

The divine honour that belongs to Jesus will soon find His inheritance being given to Him at the end of days.

The angels are His servants sent to minister to those who are His inheritance and those who will share in reigning with Him.

And there are incredible stories of what angels have done in protection God’s people and in some of the most basic of affairs.

A friend told me the story of when he was in a hill car park when his car slipped over the edge.

He was able to get out of the car but all his worldly possessions were in it as he was homeless.

The problem was that the car was stuck.

He asked God for help and no sooner had he done so that a tow truck drove up to the car park, which was not lit and down a track.

The man got out of the truck without a word, hitched up a chain to my friend’s car and pulled it out.

Unhitched the chain, got back in the vehicle and drove off leaving my mate standing there trying to comprehend what had happened.

In fact as the stranger was about to drive off my mate asked him whether he was an angel to which he received a smile but no answer.

The fact is angels serve: Jesus rules.

None of the angels will rule.

It is their privilege to serve Jesus and us.