Christ's superiority to angels.
Heb. ii. 6 — 8. One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the zvorks of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection wider his feet.
OUR blessed Lord has said, " Search the Scrip- tures ; for they are they which testify of me." Hence it appears, that the Jews were highly privileged ; because, if they would only look up to God for the illumination of their minds, they had within their reach an infallible directory in their way to heaven. But we are still more highly privileged, in that we have a multitude of passages pointed out to us by men, who were themselves inspired of God to discern and to explain the meaning of them. If we had been left to ourselves, we might have doubted whether our interpretations of the Scripture were just : but, when holy men of God are moved by the Holy Ghost, to open and apply those very words to Christ, which the prophets, under the influence of the same Spirit, spake of him, we proceed without any fear of error or delusion.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the types and pro- phecies of the Old Testament are more fully opened
to us, than in any other part of the apostolic writ- ings. That epistle was evidently written on purpose to point out the connexion between the Jewish and Christian dispensations ; to shew their perfect cor- respondence with each other, and the completion of Judaism in Christianity. It would be profitable to trace this through the whole epistle : but we must content ourselves with noticing only the passage be- fore us.
Let us then consider,
I. The testimony here adduced —
The manner in which the Apostle speaks of this passage of Holy Writ is somewhat remarkable : at first it appears as if he himself did not recollect the author, or the part of Scripture where the passage occurred ; but the fact is, that the Jews were so con- versant with their Scriptures, as not to need any thing more than the mere citation of the words : the writer of them, and the place, were sufficiently known to all. What its import is, we can be at no loss to determine.
[David, contemplating the starry heavens, and the per- fections of God as displayed in them, breaks out into a devout acknowledgment of the condescension of God, in noticing so poor and abject a creature as man ; and his goodness in having subjected to man the whole animal creation ^ This is the primary meaning of the text : and, if we had not been in- structed by God himself to look for any thing further, we should have rested in that as its full and only import. But we know on infallible authority, that there was a prophetic meaning in the psalm ; and that it referred to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Having this clew given us, we find, that the mystical sense of the passage is, if we may so speak, by far the most literal. The words, in fact, are inexplicable, as referred to man, whether in his innocent or fallen state: for Adam was not reduced from a higher state in order to be made lower than the angels'': nor is man, in his fallen state, " a little lower than they, but a great deal lower. Moreover, fallen man was not crowned with glory and honour;" nor are all the creatures in a state of subjection to him. The very words themselves therefore lead our thoughts to Christ,
" Ps. viit. 3 — 8. ^ y)\uTTioan(: conveys this idea.
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in whom alone they ever received their accompHshment : and the manner in which the Apostle quotes them, shews, that the Jews themselves had interpreted them in that very sense in which he quoted them : for he is arguing with the Jews, to shew them the superiority of Christ to Moses, their great lawgiver, and to the angels, by whose ministration their law was given : and, if he had quoted passages from their writings which did not bear directly on his point, or had put a con- struction upon them which had not been generally received, they would have denied his interpretation of the passages he adduced : and consequently his whole argument would have immediately fallen to the ground.