3. In this preference and exaltation of the Lord Christ there is a degree intimated: “ Being made so much more,” ete. Now our conceptions hereabout, as to this place, are wholly to be regulated by the name given unto him. ‘Look,’ saith the apostle, ‘ how much the name given unto the Messiah excels the name given unto angels, so much doth he himself excel them in glory, authority, and power; for these names are severally given them of God to signify their state and condition.” What and how great this difference is we shall afterwards see, in the consideration of the instances given of it by the apostle in the verses ensuing.
4, The proof of this assertion which the apostle first fixeth on is taken from the name of Christ,—his name, not given him by man, not assumed by himself, but ascribed unto him by God himself. Neither doth he here by the name of Christ or the name of the angels in- tend any individual proper names of the one or the other; but such descriptions as are made of them, and titles given unto them by God, as whereby their state and condition may be known. ‘Ob- serve, saith he, ‘how they are called of God, by what names and titles he owns them, and you may learn the difference between them.’ This name he declares in the next verse: God said unto him, “ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” It is not absolutely his being the Son of God that is intended, but that, by the testimony of the Holy Ghost, God said these words unto him, “Thou art my Son,” and thereby declared his state and condition to be far above that of the angels, to none of whom he ever said any such thing, but speaks of them in a far distinct manner, as we shall see, But hereof in the next verse.
VER. 4.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 127
Some by this “excellent-name” understand his power, and dignity, and glory, called “a name above every name,” Phil. ii. 9. But then this can no way prove that which the apostle produceth it for, it being directly the same with that which is asserted, in whose confir- mation it is produced.
5. The last thing considerable is, how the Lord Christ came by this name, or obtained it. KexAnpovéunue,—he obtained it by “inheritance,” as his peculiar lot and portion for ever. In what sense he is said to be xAnpovduos, “ the heir,” was before declared. As he was made the heir of all, so he inherited a more excellent name than the angels. Now he was made heir of all, in that all things being made and formed by him, the Father com- mitted unto him, as mediator, a peculiar power over all things, to be disposed of by him unto all the ends of his mediation. So also be- ing the natural and eternal Son of God, in and upon the discharge of his work, the Father declared and pronounced that to be his name. See Luke i. 35; Isa. vii. 14, ix. 6. His being the Son of God is the proper foundation of his being called so; and his discharge of his office the occasion of its declaration. So he came unto it by right of inheritance, when he was “ declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead,” Rom. i. 4.
This, then, is the sum of the apostle’s proposition, and the confir- mation of it. A name given by God to that end and purpose doth truly declare the nature, state, and condition of him or them to whom it is given; but unto Christ the mediator there is a name given of God himself, exceedingly more excellent than any that by him is given unto the angels: which undeniably evinceth that he is placed in a state and condition of glory far above them, or preferred before them. .
I shall only observe one or two things concerning the Hebrews, to whom the apostle wrote, and so put an end to our exposition of this verse.
First, then, This discourse of the apostle, proving the pre-eminence of the Messiah above the angels, was very necessary unto the Hebrews, although it was very suitable unto their own principles, and in general acknowledged by them. It is to this day a tradition amongst them that the Messiah shall be exalted above Abraham, and Moses, and the ministering angels. Besides, they acknowledged the scrip- tures of the Old Testament, wherein the apostle shows them that this truth was taught and confirmed. But they were dull and slow in making application of these principles unto the confirmation of their faith in the gospel, as the apostle chargeth them, chap. v. 11, 12. And they had at that time great speculations about the glory, dig- nity, and excellency of angels, and were fallen into some kind of worshipping of them, And it may be this curiosity, vanity, and
KexAnpovounne.
128 AN EXPOSITION OF THE - [CHAP. if
superstition in them was heightened by the heat of the controversy between the Pharisees and Sadducees about them ;—the one denying their existence and being; the other, whom the body of the people followed, exalting them above measure, and inclining to the worship of them. ‘This the apostle declares, Col. ii. 18. Treating of those Judaizing teachers who then troubled the churches, he chargeth them with fruitless and curious speculations about angels, and the worshipping of them. And of their ministry in the giving of the law they still boasted. It was necessary, therefore, to take them off from this confidence of that privilege, and the superstition that ensued thereon, to instruct them in the pre-eminence of the Lord Christ above them all, that so their thoughts might be directed unto him, and their trust placed in him alone. And this exaltation of the Messiah some of their later doctors assert on Dan. vii. 9, 18 770 W127 D713 "1 IY —“T beheld until the thrones were set,” “ placed,” “ exalted,’—as in the original Chaldee, and as all old translations, Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic, render the words, however ours read, “until the thrones were cast down,”—affirming that one of those thrones was for the Messiah, before whom all the angels ministered in obedience.