But I see no reason why we should desert the proper and most usual signification of the words, nothing in the context persuading us so to do. Besides, this suits not the apostle’s design, who doth not prove from the Scripture that the Lord Christ was manifested to be more excellent than the angels, but that really he was preferred and exalted above them.
sent dy, “being,” in verse 3.—Turner. The name “sonsof God” is given to angels. But it is a different thing to apply a common name in the plural to a class, from what it is to apply the same as an individual name in the singular to an indi- vidual. When Jehovah, in Ps. ii. 2, 7, declares his anointed to be his Son whom he has begotten, this is something different from what is said, when the angels as a class are called sons of the Elohim who has created them.— Ebrard. Kpeir. re- fers to superiority in rank or dignity. The term “better” suggests the idea of moral excellence, which is not the thought here.—Craik. TRANSLATIONS.— Kpeir. Exalted above the angels.— Stuart. Greater.—Booth- royd, Conybeare, and Howson. Superior to the angels.—Craik. Tevoy. Being made.—Diodati. A:eQop. More distinguished, more singular.—Ebrard.—Ep.
VER. 4.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 125
So, then, xpe/rrwv yevéuevog is as much as “ preferred,” Kesler yev6-~ “exalted,” actually placed in more power, glory, dig- “”’* nity, than the angels. This John Baptist affirms of him, ’Eypoodéy fuov yeyoverr Sri xpairos wou 7v-—“ He was preferred before me, because he was before me,’—preferred above him, called to another man- ner of office than that which John ministered in, made before or above him in dignity, because he was before him in nature and existence. And this is the proper sense of the words: the Lord Jesus Christ, the revealer of the will of God in the gospel, is exalted above, preferred before, made more excellent and glorious than the angels themselves, all or any of them, who ministered unto the Lord in the giving of the law on mount Sinai.
Some object unto this interpretation, “That he who is said to be made or set above the angels is supposed to have been lower than they before.” To which I answer, And so he was, not in respect of essence, subsistence, and real dignity, but in respect of the infirmi- ties and sufferings that he was exposed unto in the discharge of his work here on the earth, as the apostle expressly declares, chap. ii. 9,
2. And this gives us light into our second inquiry on these words, namely, when it was that Christ was thus exalted above the angels,
(1.) Some say that it was in the time of his incarnation; for then the human nature being taken into personal subsistence with the Son of God, it became more excellent than that of the angels. This sense is fixed on by some of the ancients, who are followed by sundry modern expositors. But we have proved before that it is not of either nature of Christ absolutely or abstractedly that the apostle here speaketh nor of his person but as vested with his office, and discharging of it. And, moreover, the incarnation of Christ was part of his humiliation and exinanition, and is not, therefore, espe-
cially intended where his exaltation and glory are expressly spoken of,
(2.) Some say that it was at the time of his baptism, when he was anointed with the Spirit for the discharge of his prophetical office, Isa. Ixi. 1, 2. But yet neither can this designation of the time be allowed; and that because the main things wherein he was made lower than the angels, as his temptations, and sufferings, and death itself, did follow his baptism and unction.
(3.) It must therefore be the time of his resurrection, ascen- sion, and exaltation at the right hand of God, which ensued thereon, that is designed as the season wherein he was made more excellent than the angels, as evidently appears from the text and context: for,—[1.] That was the time, as we have showed before, when he was gloriously vested with that all power in heaven and earth which was of old designed unto him and prepared for him. [2.] The order also of the apostle’s discourse leads us to fix on this season: “ After he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down,” etc.; “ being made
126 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. I.
so much more excellent;” that is, therein and then he was so made. [3.] The testemony in the first place produced by the apostle in the confirmation of his assertion is elsewhere, as we shall see, applied by himself unto his resurrection and the glory that ensued, and conse- quently they are also in this place intended. [4.] This preference of the Lord Christ above the angels is plainly included in that grant of all power made unto him, Matt. xxviii. 18; expounded Eph. i. 21, 22. [5.] The testimony used by the apostle in the first place is the word that God spake unto his King, when he set him upon his holy hill of Zion, Ps. ii. 6-8; which typically expresseth his glorious instalment in his heavenly kingdom.
The Lord Christ, then, who in respect of his divine nature was always infinitely and incomparably himself more excellent than all the angels, after his humiliation in the assumption of the human nature, with the sufferings and temptations that he underwent, upon his resurrection was exalted into a condition of glory, power, autho- rity, excellency, and intrusted with power over them, as our apostle here informs us.