 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 176, Hebrews Chapter 1, Verse 5 to 14. I'm the layman, Trey Strickland, and he's a scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike, how you doing? Pretty good. Something interesting and exciting to talk about this week, both in terms of the content and something else. Yeah, actually, Faith Life is doing another sponsorship, so we appreciate that. And this time, we're actually going to do the Logos Mobile Education from Faith Life, which lets you learn from leading Christian scholars like yourself, teaching all areas of expertise and courses offer access to instructions from leading theologians, including you and the Naked Bible Podcast. Listeners are going to receive 40% off of your Jewish Trinity course by going to logos.com slash nakedbiblepodcast. Mike, what is the course about? Yeah, this is a really good deal. The Jewish Trinity course is a video course that's really oriented around the idea of God as man in the Old Testament, Old Testament Godhood material, two powers in heaven sort of stuff. This was one of our early Mobile Ed courses. I, some listeners will know that I was one of the founding people involved in this product line. And when we were actually thinking about creating Mobile Ed, one of the thoughts that went into it was, just as the title suggests, Mobile Ed, you could get an education no matter where you are. And we sort of tried to create it very intentionally that the video segments of this course, again, my course and all the other courses are short, discrete, video lecture segments. 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So this is a good way to break into it. And again, that's almost half off. That's 40% off the course today at logoff.com slash naked Bible podcast. Go get Mike's Jewish Trinity course now for 40% off again, logoff.com slash naked Bible podcast. And we thank them again for supporting us and please go support them by supporting us and go get that course. And yeah, it's a great deal. It's a that's a significant discount. It's a good deal. All right, Mike. Well, good deal. All right. Back into chapter one, wrapping up chapter one of Hebrews. Yeah, Hebrews one, five through 14. Now, again, I'm going to true confessions here. I'm going to I'm going to basically camp on certain parts of the passage and really the parts are going to be versus five through nine. I will say a little bit about verse 13 in sort of a little bonus section. And then verse 14, there's this comment about angels being ministering spirits. I'm not going to say too much about that. We might pick up some angel talk and we get into chapter two. In fact, I know we will, obviously. But for today, yeah, it's going to be five through 14, but really mostly five through nine is where we're going to spend our time here. So again, if you're new to the format, this is what we do. We don't do verse by verse, you know, exposition of everything we do. Just sort of what's interesting. And again, what I think sort of needs some commentary for either apologetic reasons or exegetical reasons or theological reasons. That's how we do it. So let's jump in here to to verse five. Again, we'll just take it as it comes. I'm not going to read through the whole passage because we do have a good good bit to cover here, as you can imagine. And I've already alluded to sort of this little bonus round at the end. But verse five says, for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son today, I have begotten you. Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. Now, the last episode, the previous episode, if you've not listened to that, you really need to before you jump in here. But we made the point that one particular son, again, one particular son was considered eligible for the status of co-ownership, co-possession, co-sharing of, quote, all things, and then the name that, you know, the name of God, the special name that is above all names. And we talked about how the first four verses indicate the eternality of this son that distinguishes the son, this particular son from all other heavenly sons of God, all their members of the heavenly host, and frankly, all people, all things in heaven and earth. This particular son is distinct and those distinctions make him worthy of this status of being co-region, co-possessor, co-share with God himself. And the writer is going to, after introducing those thoughts, you know, that he associates the son with wisdom, again, which is eternal. An eternal attribute of God cast as an independent person in the Old Testament when he says he is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the Apagosma, a very, very rare term, only occurs here in one other place in the Septuagint. So we know what's going on there with that. You know, he's the exact imprint of his nature, the hypostasis. He is the essence and the intrinsic reality of the Father. Then, you know, after going through all that, then he says, OK, well, as if I haven't made the point already, let's compare, in other ways, this particular son to these other heavenly beings, to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son. Today I have begotten you, or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. Now, right away, you look at this, we look at this as moderns. We think father son, well, that's, you know, OK, one's the father, one's the son. That means one produced the other or one be at the other. And, you know, we have this language of begotten. You know, we we tend to have certain things in our head when we see these terms that we read into the passage because, hey, that's who we are. We're modern. But again, there's just a lot more going to it because, frankly, God did say this to other angels if it means I'm your creator. So by definition, again, when you go back to the Old Testament, the Old Testament has a heavenly host. Several places they're called sons of God. There are passages that talk about God creating again, all the celestial beings, all things, you know, in heaven and earth. God did say you are the one I have begotten. I mean, so this isn't unique. So it just that much should alert us to the fact. It's probably something else going on here besides creation and chronology. And there is and there are a number of ways to establish that. Now, again, I would allow I'm going to break this down into essentially three things. There's Old Testament usage of the term firstborn. OK, we've got in verse six. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. What we'll consider verses five and six here in tandem. Then we're going to spend a little more time on verse five. But again, we look at this and we think chronology. We think point of origin. And it's really not, again, something you can see, because God says that to other members of the heavenly host. That that's clear and Old Testament theology. So we have we have to ask, well, how is firstborn used in the Old Testament? Is it ever used anywhere else? Yeah, it is. We'll talk about that. Second, we have New Testament usage of the term firstborn. That's going to be something we need to think about. And then we've also got I'm going to make a point about grammar in in one of one respect, you know, one of these these passages. So Old Testament, let me just give you one instance here where firstborn is used and you in your head, you tell me, what's the problem for point of origin and chronology? Because that's how like Jehovah's Witnesses want to take this verse and use it to say, oh, see, Jesus was isn't eternal. He was created at one point and he was the first thing God created. You know, that's why he's unique and elevated, but he's still created and blah, blah, blah, blah. OK, Exodus 422, this is Moses in front of Pharaoh, you know, asking, you know, they're demanding, you know, to Pharaoh to let the people go because this is what God told in the demand. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, and God is instructing Moses would say, then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. Here's the question, is that true? Well, of course, it's true, Mike, you know, Israel's the son of God, you know, just like, oh, just like Adam. OK, the firstborn son of God is not the one he produced from Abraham. It's not Isaac. It's not the nation. God's firstborn human creation is actually Adam. So this can't, but wait a minute, Mike, it says firstborn. Firstborn has to mean the first thing created. It has to be chronologically prior. No, actually, it doesn't. And calling Israel my firstborn son, frankly, demonstrates that pretty clearly. Israel is not either individually with Isaac, the first child of Abraham and Sarah. It's neither individually nor collectively the first human beings God is responsible for. It just isn't. So that undermines significantly this whole chronological approach to this term, firstborn. Firstborn, again, try to fix this in your mind. Firstborn refers to a special status. It doesn't refer to chronological priority or original point of origin. Now, it can in other contexts, but here's the point. Don't get misled by the Jehovah's Witnesses or somebody else. Don't get misled into thinking that the term necessarily is about chronology and initial original point of origin. It's not. It's not necessarily about those things. And if you look at Exodus 422, that just can't be in the picture. The meaning of this term actually transcends this chronological stuff. It refers to a specific status, but that's what we need to fix in our minds. Let's go to the New Testament. Firstborn appears in Paul's epistles three times. And again, here they are. Colossians, we have this one in Hebrews. OK, we don't know if Paul wrote Hebrews and I would say he didn't. But in Paul, he uses this term three places. Colossians 115, where he talks about, I'll just read it to you. He's talking about Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. So there's the term. Then you've got Colossians 118. He is the head of the body, still talking about Jesus, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. And then thirdly, you have Romans 829. Read that one to you. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed with the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers, firstborn among many brothers. OK, well, look at the three references. You have the firstborn of creation, firstborn from the dead, firstborn among many brothers. Well, you could say, OK, you know, how do we? Well, you look at the first one, maybe that's chronologically. You know, like, oh, yeah, that means Jesus is the first thing God created, chronological priority. Then the firstborn from the dead, Jesus is the first one to be raised from the dead, even though you could obviously you could debate that, but we'll just just go with it. Just go with it now. He's the first one to be raised from the dead. And then the firstborn among many brothers. Well, like, what does that really kind of mean? You know, firstborn among many brothers. Well, it can't mean that he's the first human that would be glorified because you've got lots of other believers, in other words, but you're going to try to argue some chronological priority. Well, he's the first one that, you know, he's like the initiate. Ah, there we go. We got chronological priority now. Again, this is how people are going to think about these terms. Now, I like Hawthorne's little summary here. The English word firstborn is misleading for it. Normally suggests someone who is born and therefore created. But this cannot be the significance of the term here. And he's talking about Colossians. Can't be the term, the significance of the term in Colossians since the immediately following words, verse 16. OK, you get everybody, you know, a Jehovah's Witness is going to show you the reference here to verse 15. OK, but will they show you what follows in verse 16? Hawthorne says it can't be chronological, you know, this creation because of what follows in verse 16. These words provide a commentary on the title, emphasizing the point that he is the one by whom the whole creation came into being. There are no exceptions for absolutely everything in creation has been made by him. Now, did you catch the point? Listen to the verse. This is Colossians 1.15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, firstborn of all creation. Here's the question. Well, let me just read the next verse. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him, all things hold together. So on and so forth. And here's the question. How can Jesus be the source of all creation and be created? Isn't he as a created being included in all creation? If he is, then he can't have been created. It implodes. The thought implodes on itself. Either the text means all creation or it doesn't. You know, that means all the rest of creation. That's not what the text says. Says he is the firstborn of all creation and for by him, all things were created in heaven and earth, visible. I mean, it's all encompassing. It's everything. So how can you have it's like having the Creator created before there was creation? It implodes on itself. So again, typically people like the Jehovah's Witnesses will show you verse 15, but they won't show you verse 16 because you might think about it. You know, it's either all creation or it's not. And if Jesus is part of that creation, he had to be around to produce all that creation. He couldn't be uncreated. You know, it's just, you know, this is if you get him into a conversation, this is where you say, well, maybe he's an uncreated creator. Oh, yeah, that hell that solves. Yeah, it does solve the problem, doesn't it? And if he's uncreated and he's God, you know, again, the whole idea just implodes on itself. So again, firstborn, even in that passage, firstborn of all creation, it doesn't really work to establish a beginning point for Jesus. Like I said, firstborn from the dead, you could argue, what does that mean in a resurrected sense? You know, again, there is, there are obviously unique qualities about the resurrection of Christ because in one passage in the Gospels, you know, he takes up his own life, you know, that sort of thing. There are unique things about that. So I don't want to minimize that. But the question is, can the term for or must the term firstborn, you know, imply some chronological priority? Maybe it maybe it implies some qualitative priority or some qualitative point of uniqueness or some status uniqueness. Maybe that's the better way to say it. Now, third point, there's a grammatical issue here. If you go to Colossians 1, you have firstborn of all creation. If you had a reverse in your linear, OK, Logos Bible Software makes this easy because all the words are linked, you know, by hand into the original Greek and Hebrew. If you had a reverse in your linear and you clicked on the word of in firstborn of all creation, you would notice that, hey, there's no Greek word there for of. It's just supplied by the translator. Well, we have here, if you've taken a little Greek, this is going to be familiar. You know, we have here two nouns next to each other, actually an adjective and a noun, and they're genitive. Here we have genitive. So we have, you know, sort of a chain relationship. We've got a nominative noun, a genitive adjective and a genitive noun. We've got a little genitive chain here. You say, well, thanks for the grammar lesson. That really helps. Well, it actually does help here because what a genitive is, is it creates this X of Y relationship, the relationship of one noun to the other. Here we have firstborn and then creation. Those are the two nouns. What's the relationship between those two nouns? Well, if you put the word of in the middle, like English translators do, it makes it sound like the first noun, the firstborn, is produced by the second or part of the second, which is, I think, you know, a set produced, a set created, firstborn of creation. That's what that's the way it sounds to our ear in English. Well, the problem is you actually don't have a word there. And so the relationship of the two nouns is open to interpretation. If you go to verse 18, firstborn from the dead, you don't have this ambiguity. You have a preposition, ec, firstborn, ec, firstborn from the dead. And if you go to the one in Romans, you have a preposition there. So this is the only one of the three that has this sort of ambiguous relationship, firstborn of all creation. Now, if you're interested in Greek grammar, I would recommend, again, if you've had at least one year, then you can handle something like, you know, Wallace's second year grammar. But he talks about the genitive at length, really, you know, sort of. I don't want to say mind numbing detail because if you like languages, it's just awesome stuff. But it's very detailed. And he talks about the genitive relationships. And there's, you know, 15 or 20 different possible semantic relationships between two nouns when you have a genitive here. One of them is called the genitive of subordination. And I'm just going to read you what what Wallace says here. The genitive substantive specifies that which is subordinated to or under the dominion of the head noun instead of of instead of the word of supply the gloss over or something like that to get the feel for it. But it's going to suggest dominion or priority. So you could very well translate. And frankly, I would say this makes a whole lot of sense and you should. You could very well translate first born of all creation as first born over all creation. OK, that that takes, again, the chronology out of it. And it again, assigns a special status to first born. And that's legitimate, what I just did is legitimate because we don't have a preposition there. We have two nouns in a genitive relationship. Head down as first born, genitive is creation. And this is what this is what exegesis is. You have to determine these relationships according to the rules of grammar. And that is a distinct possibility. And I would say it makes a whole lot of sense because back to the problem. If you just look at verse 15, you know, maybe maybe there's a point of origin here. If you look at 16, well, how could if it's all creation, how could he be part of that creation and yet produce all creation? Doesn't make any sense. It implodes so that the general point being made here about the first born language, you know, going back to the, you know, to the whole, you know, subject matter of the passage here. Verses five and six don't get tripped up again by this first born language. It is not inconsistent with what we read earlier in the first four verses where this particular son is identified with God because he's identified with God's true essence, you know, what he is in reality and also his eternal attribute of wisdom. He's eternal. He's not created. And this first born language is not overturning that because first born refers to a status. It does not of necessity refer to point of origin or chronological precedence, that kind of thing. So it can be kind of misleading. The whole point, again, of this language is to contrast this particular son with the angels, you know, for to which of the angels did God ever say, you know, which of the angels did God ever say, you know, this that this is what the writer is going to try to do, contrast this person, this particular son of the first four verses and then with all the other angels. And he says in verse six, when he brings the first born into the world, you know, when God, you know, obviously, if you go back to the wisdom stuff we talked about last week, brings forth wisdom, wisdom is the co creator. OK, well, very naturally, all the other angels are going to worship him because he is superior. He has this equality, this equal status that he is the hypostasis of the deity of God himself. He is superior. So which of the angels, which of the other angels, the other sons of God that God ever say this? Well, the answer, of course, is none. Now, let's go back just to this sort of, you know, situation. You know, when you get into verses five and six, and you can probably tell, again, if you have a contemporary translation, you're going to have some of these statements. You are my son today, I've gotten you and I will be to him a father, he'll be to me a son and let all the angels worship him. OK, all that stuff, you're going to have sort of indented or set off because these are quotations from the Old Testament. English Bibles have a stylistic way of indicating that. These are you have a string here of Old Testament quotations that are really kind of interesting. Now, the question, again, is rhetorical for which of the angels that God ever say this to, all in your course, the answer is none. You know, there's a rhetorical factor here, but he's going to go into a bunch of these Old Testament passages and talk about how this particular son is superior, how this particular son is is characterized in some way as qualitatively different, categorized in some way. And the Old Testament passages that he quotes tend to support that. So in these two verses, we'll just take the first two. You are my son, today I have begotten you. Or again, I will be to him a father, he shall be to me a son. Having declared in verse four that the exalted son, this one particular son, received a more excellent name than the angels. And again, he's you have these links to eternity. The writer identifies the name as my son. OK, so before it was a son, we talked about that last time, one particular son, now it's my son. So there's there's a bit of a title thing going on here because he's going to quote the second of these quotations. I will be to him a father, he shall be to me a son. He's going to quote Second Samuel 7, the Davidic Covenant. So there's a bit of a dynastic relationship, a particularizing of the son in this citation. Verses five and six, though, together, he actually quotes two passages from the Old Testament, Psalm 27. And then the one I just mentioned, Second Samuel 7 14. And both are familiar messianic texts. I mean, the first one about ruling the nations with a rod of iron and all that. And then you've got this whole Davidic Covenant passage in Second Samuel 7. So this is familiar messianic territory. Lane in his Hebrew, Hebrew's commentary writes this, he says, there's a certain degree of unresolved tension in the writer's designation of Jesus as a son. And since the title can be applied to the preexistent son, we talked about that last week versus three, you know, verse three of getting into verse four. You can, you know, God can refer to Jesus as the son when he's the preexistent son. He can refer to him as son when he's the incarnate son. OK, then he Lane references verse two there. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. Again, this is that's a reference to Jesus coming as incarnate. And you can also, again, use the phrase proleptically or as a foreshadowing way to the exalted son. So what Lane is saying here is you can use, you know, you can use this sonship language of Jesus in three different contexts, preexistence, his existence as a man and then his exaltation later on after the cross, you know, after the resurrection and ascension. So continuing with Lane, he says it was apparently the writer's conviction that although Jesus was the preexistent son of God and, you know, again, that should be pretty clear because of last week. Jesus was the preexistent son of God, although that's the case, he entered into a new dimension in the experience of sonship by virtue of his incarnation, his death and then his exaltation. So what he's saying here is that this sonship language applied to Jesus. And again, he's the particular son. It's, you know, we need to think of sonship in different aspects, not just again, creation and chronological priority because the same language can be used of Jesus at three different stages of who he was and who he is and will be. And you can still use the same language. So, you know, Lane's just pointing out, you know, there we have to think about, you know, the elasticity of the language and not just go in one direction again, like those who want to see Jesus as a created being. Now, back to the two quotations, Psalm 27, 2 Samuel 14. Focus a little bit on Psalm two in a moment for some divine counsel implications. That's going to be our little our little tack on at the end, especially the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. There's something going on in Psalm two that if you're familiar with Deuteronomy 32 worldview, there's something there that's going to jump out at you, but we'll save that to the end. Here in this context, some take the first statement as indicating Jesus was a created being by virtue of the word begotten. And for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son today, I have begotten you. Some take that as indicating Jesus was created or that Jesus became the son of God when adopted by God. Usually that's put at his baptism when the voice of God from heaven says, this is my beloved son. OK, so some people say it either means Jesus was created or that he was adopted by God. But a few things are conveniently forgot by those who would take either this creation idea or the adoptionist view of Christology. Do we realize that Psalm two seven, which says again, it's a straight quotation, you are my son today, I begotten you, is quoted in other passages in Hebrews or excuse me, other passages besides Hebrews one five, believe it or not, that that Psalm actually gets quoted in other places. And those contexts, those other places defy a connection between the word begotten and either a creation moment or an adoption at Jesus' baptism. Now, let me let me try to illustrate what I mean here. Let's go to Acts 1333. I'm going to go back up to verse twenty nine. This is when Paul is explaining his ministry to Gentiles to the Jerusalem Church. This is Acts 13. It's pretty it's it's at the beginning of Paul's ministry and they want an explanation of what's this crazy guy doing preaching Gentiles. OK, so you go to verse twenty nine and it says this when they had carried out all that Paul's talking about again, the gospel here and what happened to Jesus, when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days, he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus. As also it is written in the second Psalm, quote, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you, unquote, Paul continues. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption. He has spoken in this way, quotes another Psalm. I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Verse 35, therefore, he says also in another Psalm, you will not let your holy ones see corruption. That's the end of the excerpt from Paul. Now, what do we have here? Did you notice that in that passage, the phrase today, I have begotten you refers to the resurrection event. So it can't be talking about the creation of Jesus. It can't be talking about a creation of the second person of the Trinity or or even the birth of Jesus. It has nothing to do with point of origin of a second person of eternity or another divine being or a point of origin of Jesus himself. Why? Because the phrase is specifically applied to the moment of resurrection, to the event of the resurrection. It's specifically connected to that event. The point, therefore, this phrase is not about chronology. It could be now in theory. Let's just wonder a little bit, because this is going to come back up here. It could be connected to kingship because the resurrection is required for the ascension when Jesus ascends and sits down at the right hand of the Father. So there's there's probably a connection to kingship. This phrase, you are my son today. I have begotten you has nothing to do with his his origin. Even if he says it, David, it's not talking about David's point of origin. It's not even talking about his selection. You know, Jesus selection to be king here in Acts 13. It's talking about the resurrection. Again, it just this just defies the way again. Somebody like a Jehovah's Witness would use the phrase. Hey, let's look elsewhere in the Bible where the phrase is actually. Here's another one. This is this one's actually from the book of Hebrews itself. It's a little later in the book, Hebrews five five. We'll go back to verse one start. This is the Melchizedek passage. It says this for every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. And he's talking about the high priest here of Israel, verse four. And no one takes this honor for himself. But only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, here we go. You are my son. Today, I have begotten you. Verse six, as he also says in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, verse seven, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence, although he was a son. He learned obedience through what he had suffered and being made perfect. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. OK, we'll leave Hebrews five here. The phrase, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you. Isn't connected to any creation point. It isn't connected to any beginning point for a divine being or for Jesus himself. It's not even connected to the resurrection like it was in Acts 13. It's connected to Christ's appointment and his function as the great high priest after the order of Melchizedek, which itself is connected to being the sacrifice for sin. In other words, the phrase is connected with becoming the source of eternal salvation. You know, it just has nothing to do with Jesus being a created being here. It's great here. Here it goes to the high priest, him being a sacrifice. Acts 13, it was the resurrection. You know, it's kind of interesting if you just just one little side note here back in Hebrews five, Hebrews five eight says, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Jesus was already a son before the utterance of the phrase, you are my son today, I've begotten you. OK, the phrase is not about chronology. OK, it's not about chronology. Jesus was already a son before we ever get to the point of him offering himself as a sacrifice for sins like like Hebrews five, you know, connects those two thoughts. And you have to look at these phrases in the ways that they're used elsewhere in the New Testament and, you know, in the Old Testament, if you get the same phrase as well, you can't just pull one out. And again, this is what cultists do. This is what a Unitarian is going to do or, you know, whatever. This is what this is how it's done. OK, you lift out of one of these and then you argue the point based on the one that you're focused on. The usage of the same phrase in other places that shows that your usage, that use, that tactical sort of utilization of the phrase to make one particular point is not legitimate. You've got to see how the New Testament writers understand these things. So I would say based on these usages and this variety, anyone who'd connect the phrase today, I have begotten you with the origin of Jesus, as though he was not preexistent, is simply guilty of ignoring the scriptural use of the phrase. It's pretty much that simple. The same goes for adoptionist Christology. None of these uses are connected to the baptism of Jesus. Did you notice that? None of these uses are connected to the baptism to argue adoptionism from the phrase, you know, you're my son today, I begotten you. To argue adoptionism from that phrase, you'd need to argue that God adopted Jesus as his son at the cross or at the resurrection, because that's where the phrases are used. You'd have to argue that God adopted Jesus as his son at the cross or at the resurrection. But you know, that's absurd. How do we know that? Because Jesus is referred to as the Son of God many times in the Gospels before either of those events. It just doesn't work. So you're either going to take the phrase in the context in which it's used, or you're not. Now, you know, just because we make these points doesn't mean people aren't going to do it. They are going to do it. You know, they're going to do it every day. You're going to see it on Facebook. You're going to see it, you know, all over the place, all over the web. You know, you're going to run into people at work or what, you know, you get into a religious discussion, you find someone who rejects, you know, the eternality, the pre-existence, the negative crisis, what you're going to get if they're taught. This is what you're going to get. But I would ask, you know, next time you get it, ask, hey, you know that phrase, you're my son today, I begotten you that we're talking about. Where are the other two passages that it's used? I'll bet they don't know. I'll bet they don't know. So I'm going to offer a little simple suggestion here in light of this again. We're just camping here on verse five. Both of the places where it is used, again, associated with the High Priest, you know, appointment as the High Priest after the Order of Mokhisadec and then the Resurrection, both of those are connected to kingship. If you really think about it, ask yourself, when did Jesus become king? When did he, again, to quote the context of Hebrews one, six, okay, and one, one, five, and six, you know, specifically in this case, you know, the whole, let's just go back to one, three. When did he become king? When did he sit down at the right hand of majesty? That's one, three. How, or he did so after he offered himself as a sacrifice. He did so after he was raised from the dead. Jesus became king when he rose from the dead and ascended to the throne at the right hand of God. You say so what? You know, Acts 1333, Hebrews 5.5 describes this chain of events, you know, one of the passages is about offering himself as a sacrifice for sin. The other one's about the resurrection. Well, I'm gonna suggest that the phrase, you are my son, today I've begotten you, describes the inauguration of Jesus' kingship. It doesn't describe his creation. It doesn't describe his baptism. It doesn't describe his adoption. It describes the inauguration of his kingship. That's why it's associated with him offering himself as a sacrifice for sin. And it's why it's associated with the resurrection because you need both of those things to happen before Jesus can ascend to the throne at the right hand of the majesty on high. Now in that light, it just makes good sense to have the phrase occur here in Hebrews right after Hebrews 1.3. Hebrews 1.3 is about, you know, sending to the right hand of the majesty on high, okay? And so when we're thinking about, ah, Jesus becoming king, then you throw in this phrase, today you're my son, today I've begotten you. And then right after that, what does he quote? I will be to him a father, he shall be to me a son. Where does that come from? Second Samuel 7, the Davidic covenant, which is about kingship. It's very consistent. It's coherent. It's logical, okay? All of these things have a context. So again, I'd suggest that you are my son, today I've begotten you, means again, this is Mike's expanded paraphrase here, it means you have now taken rule of all things. With me, all things back there in verse two, you have now taken rule, you're now the co-possessor. You've gone through the incarnation, you offered yourself, you rose from the dead, now come back home and sit here at my right hand. You are the rightful and only son who is eligible to co-possess and co-share all things with me and to have my name. You are now, you have now taken rule of all things with me and your father, and I'm not being displaced. God isn't going anywhere. It's not a succession plan. You have taken possession of your inheritance, rule over all things with me. And when you died, when you rose again and ascended to the throne, now we will rule together as father and son. That's what the phrase means. Now look at what follows. I get, well, before we get to that, before we get into verse eight, I wanna say one, this'll be like a little, again, this isn't the bonus round at the end, but there's just one other little thing here that I can't let go. In verse six, just real quickly says, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. Do you know where that comes from? Okay, if you have the ESV, and you look at the cross reference there, it'll say sighted from Deuteronomy 32 verse 43. And in the ESV, it'll say in the Greek text. You know what else, where else it comes from? Comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is Deuteronomy 32, 43, which, along with Deuteronomy 32, 8, when the Most High divided the nations, you divide them up according to the sons of God. These are the two places, 32, 8, 32, 43, where the Dead Sea Scrolls has the demonstrable original text. What am I saying? I'm saying that the writer of Hebrews had access to that text. He quoted, not just the Greek, the Greek follows the Dead Sea Scrolls here. That Greek actually expands a little bit on it, but that the writer of Hebrews had access to that Deuteronomy 32 text that some people you know, when you try to talk to them about the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and Divine Council stuff, you say, oh, well, that's not what my Bible says at verse eight. Well, you know what? The writer of Hebrews didn't have your Bible. The correct text. He had Deuteronomy 32, again, according to the reading at Cumran. So this is really, this is a great verse, again, as well, to, I hate to be recommending stuff like this, but I can't resist. This is a great verse for King James only people because they don't have this verse back in their Old Testament, Deuteronomy 32. So like he's quoting vapor, you know, where did he get the quotation? It's not back in your King James and Deuteronomy 32. I can tell you that because the King James in the Old Testament was done using the Maseridic text, what they had at their disposal at the time. So again, if I guess if you're sort of in a needling, cajoling mood, you know, with the King James only person you throw out Hebrews one, six, let's just move on. I don't wanna spend too much time on stuff like that, but it is interesting. So again, the meaning of the phrase, you know, to back up a little bit, I just couldn't resist throwing that in here. The meaning of the phrase, you know, that you're my son, today I've begotten you, again, is that you have now taken rule of all things with me, your father, taken possession of your inheritance, you're gonna rule over all things with me, we're gonna rule as father and son. Now you look at what follows. Good, on verse eight. But of the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, your God, has anointed you with all the gladness, with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And verse 10. You, Lord, he's addressing the son as God, he's addressing the son as Lord, you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens of the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain, they will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe, you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will have no end. I mean, why can he say these things? You know, why he can say these things? Because of what we talked about last week. Because this particular son has been identified as the wisdom of God, again, the attribute of God that must be eternal because you can't have a dumb deity. You can't have a time when God is hopelessly ignorant, especially before creation or it wouldn't have happened. Okay, he has identified this particular son with God. He is the Apagosma, again, the wisdom attribute or the wisdom description. He's referred to the son as the hypostasis of God himself, God's essence, you know, what he is in reality. And if you do that, you can say stuff like this. You can look at the son and say, you're thrown, oh God, is forever and ever. You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth. Well, of course, he was the agent of creation because he's wisdom, Proverbs 8. You can say these things. You have to have, again, the Old Testament context to pick some of these things out and to kind of make sense of what they're doing. There's just a lot here. And in verse 13, to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. And then he talks about angels. Are they not all ministering spirits? In other words, they have a lesser role. He never said to any of the angels, hey, sit here at my right hand. You're the co-possessor of all things. You're the co-ruler. Instead, the angels have a lesser role. They are ministering spirits, sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. That isn't that interesting. I don't want to get too far ahead. We're going to hit it in Hebrews 2. But think about this. You have the other sons of God. You got the other members of the heavenly host there. None of them qualify because they're not God. None of them qualify for this special status of being the co-possessor, the co-ruler, and all these things. They're assigned a lesser role. Who are they serving? Well, they're serving you and me. You're serving believers. What's the believer's destiny? The believer's destiny is to rule with Christ. They're actually serving us, who will in the end be exalted above them. That's what you got going here. And you're going to get a fuller description in Hebrews 2 of it. So not only in Hebrews 1, not only is this particular son superior to all the angels, but you and I are going to have a status because of being united to that particular son, where we are also at this elevated level, this higher level. So again, just think about that. Again, we'll get into it more in Hebrews 2. If you've read Unseen Realm, you probably remember that chapter. But that's kind of an amazing theological statement to make there. I want to add another thought here. Just going back, there's just a lot of things that pop into my head when it comes to, again, this phrase, you are my son, today I've begotten you. Now, if we're going to go down this, we're going to follow this trajectory that I've suggested here. If this phrase is really about inheriting the throne of the kingdom, taking possession of what belonged to God. And again, this particular son, this is his rightful status. If that's really the case, and that situation could only be enacted or realized after making himself a sacrifice for soon, rising again, ascending to the Father again, because that's where this phrase is used. Acts 13, Hebrews 5. If that's the case, I would suggest that kind of brings Philippians 2 into a sharper focus. You have the one who was the name, who was God, is given the name above all names after humbling himself in the incarnation. Just think of Philippians 2, this whole let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus and all that. You have him humbling himself in the incarnation, dying on the cross, rising again to take possession of the throne that belonged to him. So God the son becomes a man, then he resumes his role as God the son in his resurrected human body, in his resurrected body. Again, that's just how the resurrection works. At no time did the son lose the throne. At no time did he lose the name that he had before the foundation of the world. Rather, he surrendered the throne and acquiesced to the limitations of the incarnation. Both of those were necessities to be the sacrifice for sin. And I'll add just a little bit, rabbit trail here, it was also necessary to fulfill the covenants. Again, you probably heard me say that before, but these things are necessary, the surrendering of all this was necessary to be the sacrifice for sin. And that, again, is key to redemption and you have the resurrection, the ascension, the whole thing is a working system. So these verses in Hebrews one, this comparison, again, is not just sort of idle theological talk. And I especially like, again, the connection to that last verse about the angels being ministering spirits, sent out to serve for those, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. You know, these at all were inheriting. If you really, again, know the backdrop of the whole, you know, the whole council idea, but we're gonna get into that more in chapter two. Now, as far as this little bonus thing, I've hinted at a couple of times, let's go back to Psalm two. For those of you who've read Unseen Realm, you're familiar again with the Divine Council worldview. If you go actually take that worldview that derives from Deuteronomy 32 and you read Psalm two in light of that. And of course, also in light of Psalm 82, which draws on, you know, Deuteronomy 32. The Psalm, there's things in the Psalm that really jump out. So starting with verse two in Psalm two, just listen to what it says. I'm gonna read a bunch of verses here. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Just stop there. The nations, okay. Who are the nations under dominion of? Well, the sons of God from Deuteronomy 32. They're enslaved, you know, by the sons of God, you know, Psalm 82. The kings, the rulers of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. Well, are we talking about earthly rulers or supernatural rulers? Well, you know, ultimately in the Psalm, you're actually talking about both. But typically you only get a focus on the human ones. If you include the supernatural ones in here, look at the next verse. They take counsel against the Lord and his anointed, okay, God, Yahweh and his son, you know, this particular son that we're talking about in Hebrews and they say, let's burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. We gotta get out from under those guys. You know, it's this statement that they want, they want their autonomy. They know they themselves are under dominion. They're under power. They're under a greater power. We look at verse four in Psalm two. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Again, there's the phrase. Again, if it's associated with, what was it? Offering of himself as a sacrifice for sins Hebrews five, Acts 13 is the resurrection. Okay, God's response to this is to laugh first of all and basically say, you're not getting out from under my authority at all. And in fact, here's my response. I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill. You are my son. Today I've begotten you. In other words, they're not gonna know what that means. We know what it means in hindsight because of books like Hebrews and books like Acts. We know what it means in hindsight, but basically it's sort of a cryptic way of saying, you have no idea what's gonna hit you instead of, again, this release you want, this autonomy you want. You have no idea how you're gonna be judged, both the degree and how it's gonna work. So it's really, again, if you just read this without the New Testament, again, it's very earthly oriented. It just seems to be just a bunch of random thoughts. But if you read it in hindsight, there's a lot here, again, that really gets into this whole worldview. Verse eight, ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage. Christ is gonna own the nations and we're gonna own the nations with him. Why? Because, again, of this grafting in, we are the reconstitution of the council. We're gonna displace them. You shall break them. Instead of them breaking the bonds over them held by the greater authority, you. Again, this one who, the king that's set on Zion, the son, today I've begotten you. The one that, again, the whole phrase refers to the inauguration of kingship, the idea of kingship. You, the king, shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Again, and where, again, is that phrase or similar phrasing used in the New Testament? It's Revelation two, verse 26. The one who conquers and keeps my works until the end, to him, this is Jesus quoting Messianic Psalm of you and me. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him. I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron as when the earthen pots are broken in pieces. Even as I myself have received authority from my father and I will give him the morning star, a morning star being a reference. If you've read Unseen Realm, you know this stuff, but a reference to Messianic authority. I mean, just look at what's going on here and read the Psalm in light of the fuller picture and it just, almost every verse, it just has something really, really neat in it. Verse 10, now therefore, O kings be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear. Let's see some change here. It's a little bit of a sort of a plea, but on one hand, it's kind of an empty plea because of Psalm 82, they're not gonna change. Serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling. I mean, he doesn't extend an offer of redemption to them, but it's almost like, you know what's coming, so don't make it any worse. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath has quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Again, you got this mixture of earthly rulers and heavenly rulers, heavenly figures and so on and so forth, but their fate is sealed, even though you have this verse 10 or verse 10 or verse 11, hey, serve the Lord with fear and trembling. Their fate is sealed though because of verses seven and eight and verse six, because there is gonna be a Messiah and he is going to be the Son today, I've begotten you, and that is gonna mean offering himself as a sacrifice for sin, and that is gonna mean the resurrection, all these things we've talked about. So it's just a really, really interesting Psalm. Now, I wanna just, as a way of wrapping this up and one more point, in Old Testament theology, this is what we're familiar with, again, if you've read Unseen Realm, in Old Testament theology, the nations are ruled by earthly kings, of course, referred to as rulers, and they're also ruled by divine rulers. Again, the sons of God to whom the nations were allotted and vice versa. Hence, the kings here could refer to either or both human or divine rulers. The Psalm is about more than the son of David seeking or seeing earthly kings under his authority, earthly kings under his footstool. It's also about the gods of the nations being subdued by the son of David, Messiah, and broken under his reign. There's actually a similar situation of this in Ugaritic texts outside of the Old Testament. Now, I'm gonna put this article in the folder for newsletter subscribers. It's a short article, it's by Lowell Handy. It's called A Solution for Many Malakim MLKM. It's from an annual journal called Ugarit for Shungan, 1988. And you have the same thing happening in Ugaritic texts. You have, in the divine realm, you have more than one king, more than one MLK, more than one melec. And Handy's article does a nice job of showing that all of the different members of the divine council were called rulers. You have multiple rulers under the authority of in Canaanite religion, the High God El. And again, they have geographical responsibility and stuff like this. So it's just this terminology, how it doesn't just refer to earthly authorities, but it also refers to supernatural authorities. And the same term is used for both. And in both situations, again, the article goes into the fact that even in earthly administrations, earthly bureaucracies, you could have more than one person referred to by MLK, by king. It just means ruler, somebody who has authority. Now, ultimately, there's a hierarchy, there's a highest authority and all that, but it's just a really interesting article that shows, again, in the wider Semitic world, the wider Canaanite world, this concept, again, about there being Yahweh the most high, and then underneath him, you have these other rulers of the earth that are allotted to the nations, of course, and they ultimately go corrupt. They want their autonomy, but as Psalm 2 says, you ain't getting that. Instead, you're gonna get judgment. That whole way of thinking, again, is not contrived. It's something that, someone in ancient Israel, an ancient Canaanite would have been quite familiar with. It would have been just part of their worldview. But again, we miss that because we're modern. We just don't, we don't have that stuff in the can, so to speak. We don't have it floating around in our heads. So that's our little bonus, again, some divine counsel stuff there, and I even threw in Hebrews 1, 6, about, dude, run on me 32, 43, but let's not miss the fuller point. This language, just to wrap up here, this language about, today, you're my son, today I've begotten you, has nothing to do with point of origin or chronology. This is a statement about inheriting the throne of God, and the only one eligible for that is the one who, again, is eternal. He is wisdom. He is the essence of God, and none of the other angels are. And so, again, a lot of what we talk about, again, in divine counsel stuff, unseen realm, it really sort of comes to a head here. You can really see it jump out in Hebrews 1, the difference between this particular son and all the other ones. And it's gonna get even more dramatic when we drift into chapter two. We've already gotten a whiff of it here, that the ministering spirits, those who are given a lesser role, the ones who, the son, the particular son is being compared to, those ministering spirits who have a lesser role are actually assigned to help, again, to serve human believers who will, in the end, have a superior position to them. Again, back to Paul's 1 Corinthians 6-3. Don't you know that you're gonna judge angels? Don't you know that you're gonna rule over angels? So you get a glimpse of it here in Hebrews 1. And we wonder why some of them didn't like it and rebuild. Yeah. Yeah, that's such a mystery. But there's just so much irony in verse 14. You know, all those other guys we've been talking about that aren't at the level of this one though, we know what they do. They serve you guys. And then the next chapter, it's like, hey, you guys are gonna end up over them. Yeah, it's just full of irony. And I don't know how a layman or just anybody reading through Hebrews is gonna take away anything other than begotten you from. Yeah, the real key is looking up the phrase where else it occurs and noticing that it can't have anything to do with creation origin. And I'm gonna bet 99% of people do not do that. Oh, I would imagine that's gonna be on target. Hence the reason why you need to listen to the Neck and Bible podcast. There you go. That's a good mini-infomercial there. All right, Mike, well, we appreciate it. Looking forward to chapter two next week, correct? Yep, yep. I don't know how far we'll get, but definitely get into chapter two. All right, sounds good. And again, we wanna thank Faithlife for sponsoring the show. And again, remind you, go get Mike's Jewish Trinity Mobile Ed course for 40% off right now at Logos.com slash Neck and Bible podcast. So that's how you're gonna get almost half off there, Mike. And we encourage everybody, please don't get it. And all right, well, with that, Mike, I just wanna thank everybody for listening to the Neck and Bible podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Neck and Bible podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.neckandbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.ermsh.com.