Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 96

Hebrews 2:7, "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honour." In verse 9, it is said, "Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels."

It is remarkable that Jesus, as the inferior being, should have been destined to be worshiped by the angels, who were his superiors. On referring to the eighth Psalm, verses 3-6, we find that the author of the Epistle, in quoting some words, has perverted their real purport. The Psalmist in using the ejaculation, "When I behold the heavens, the works of thy fingers, and the moon and the stars which thou hast fixed," must be understood as if he had expressed himself in the following words:—I am so struck with awe and wonder, that I feel the utter nothingness of human creatures; and I say to myself, "What is mortal man, that thou rememberest him, and the son of man, that thou takest note of him." The frailty and mortality of man, suggested to the Psalmist the sense of a deep humility; on the other hand, man is rendered conscious of his noble state, as the possessor of an immortal spirit, which makes him almost an equal to the ministering angels on high. It is with respect to this supreme endowment that the Psalmist exclaims, "Thou hast made him but little less than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour." Blessed with intelligence, he rules the inferior creatures of the field and the forest, of the air and the sea.

This Psalm has, consequently, no allusion to any non-Jewish doctrine, but is a sublime amplification of the divine resolve, as contained in Genesis 1:26, "We will make man in our image, according to our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the heaven, and the beasts, and over the whole earth." Taking this plain view of the several portions of Scripture, the candid reader will agree with us, that the inflexible truth of our revealed writings does not allow the shade of a proof in favour of the rank given to Jesus in the mystical theology of the Christians. 

The reference in Hebrews parallels that of Philippians 2:

Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

Jesus was pre-existing in the form of God, and yet humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant. Just like other humans, Jesus made himself lower than the angels, but as God, was the subject of angelic worship. This passage, called the Carmen Christi, is considered by scholars such as E.P. Sanders to be a pre-Pauline oral tradition. Paul did not write the Carmen Christi, but received it from the followers of Jesus.

The Carmen Christi tells us the following:

1. Jesus is God, since he was in the form of God
2. Jesus is different than The Father
3. Therefore, God is multi-personal (unitarian monotheism is false)
4. The word "God" is sometimes used to distinguish The Father from Jesus
5. Jesus, although he was still God, took on flesh and as a result held a postion without honor and glory. Jesus as God never lost the highest glory. Jesus as God and man had no glory yet
6. As a result of his work, Jesus as God and man received the highest level of glory and exaltation.

The passage affirms the basics of both the incarnation and the trinitarian doctrines, and it predates Paul!

John, in the opening of his book, gives us something very similar, which teaches that within God is an I-Thou distinction, and that Jesus was both God and man.

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

 

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 

 

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:1-18)

Williams has a different take on this chapter:

The explanation of the Psalm given us by R. Isaac is that it speaks of man in general, who is less than angels* because he has a body,** and yet receives such honour from God, by virtue of the soul, that God has made him rule over the animal world. But is not this a bathos? Does not the Psalm in reality suggest to us something more?

Had not the Psalmist in mind the moral greatness of men, whose very children are the means of God's power being recognized (Psalm 8)? Man indeed is a little less than angels, yet he is given honour and glory; and the phrase points to a wide vista of influence and power, in which the dominion over the beasts and birds and fishes is but a foretaste of that supremacy over "all things" which is verbally stated by the Psalmist.

* Whether Elohim here should be translated "angels" is of no immediate importance. R. Isaac accepts the rendering of the New Testament and Jewish writers generally, and I think rightly. But most moderns translate it by "God." ** Yet why is the possession of a body necessarily a mark of inferiority? Does not such a suggestion smack of Manichaeism?

If so, it will be observed that the writer to the Hebrews is not so far wrong. Man is to be exalted, and his argument is that we see One Man exalted already. He was made lower than the angels, but, because He suffered death, He has been raised far above them, crowned with glory and honour. He is, therefore, in such a position that angels must worship Him, as the author already wrote in the first chapter. Thus R. Isaac's further difficulty that here Christ is said to be less than the angels, whereas there He had been described as superior to them, falls to the ground.

But it may be objected that if we thus explain the passage as a tribute to the hope of the eighth Psalm by its fulfilment in the case of one Person already, how is it a proof of Christ's divinity? But who ever said it was a proof of this? Certainly not the writer of the Epistle. For he does not adduce the Psalm as a proof of Christ's divinity, or indeed as a proof of anything in the modern sense of the word "proof." He was, quite evidently, a Jewish- Christian, accustomed to turn to the sacred Scriptures to illustrate, and thus to confirm, everything he wrote (for they were permeated, as he believed, through and through with the power of God), and, convinced as he was that Jesus was the Messiah, passage after passage of Scripture came into his mind, bearing upon the subject from every possible point of view.

He was a Jew, and he wrote like a Jew, for whom Scripture was like Moses' bush, all on fire with the presence of God, and if he was writing about the character of Messiah, or His nature, or His position and work, and recalled words of Scripture which suited his thought, he (like every other Jew quoted in Talmudic writings) would not hesitate to use them for his purpose. Scripture for Jews of old had such wide and manifold applications as to suit every truth.

Let the Jews, then, judge the writer of the Epistle by Jewish standards. In all probability he never supposed that the author of the Psalm consciously referred to Messiah (whatever he thought the Divine Author who inspired him might Himself have intended), but he did see that it held out the promise of a greatness for Man which is yet to be, and also that already One Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, has attained to that greatness. You may deny the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah—that is another matter altogether—but you cannot blame the writer of the Epistle for the way in which he quotes Scripture, if only you deal out to him the same measure of justice that you allow to other Jews.