Angel Worship?

In antiquity, the issue of whether or not Christians should give worship or veneration to angelic beings became a major problem. Adherents to certain Eastern religions openly practiced the worship of angels. Because some of the converts to Christianity brought these habits with them from pagan culture, there emerged the problem of Christians involved in angel worship.

The Christian community had to deal with this issue. Paul's letter to the Colossians, for example, is one of his epistles that deals specifically with the issue of angel worship; but nowhere do we find a more comprehensive view of the superiority of Christ over angels than in the book of Hebrews.

Again, angels are heavenly beings who come from the very presence of God, but even so, they are creatures, and to ascribe worship to a creature of even the highest importance or rank is to engage in the sin of idolatry. In Paul's letter to the Romans, in the very first chapter, he writes that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, who suppress the truth and hold it in unrighteousness, and so on, and what he gets at there is our propensity toward idolatry—serving and worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. The first, second, third, and fourth commandments all prohibit, in one way or another, any involvement in the worship of a creature.

The book of Hebrews opens with these words: "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds" (vv. 1-2). This is not the only place in sacred Scripture where Christ is revealed as the Creator of the universe. In John's Gospel, the Word is identified as the One by whom and through whom all things were made. The book of Colossians also stresses what we call the "cosmic Christ," the Creator of the universe. So, the things that call attention to the uniqueness of Christ in this opening word show why He is the consummate revelation of God. God spoke in various ways in various times in the past, but now He has spoken in this

way: by the One who is God's heir and who is the Creator. Christ alone is the appointed heir of the Father. We become joint-heirs with Him by virtue of our adoption, but only Christ has, as it were, the natural or essential relationship to the Father as the only begotten Son, as the rightful heir of God.

Then the author of Hebrews goes on with this marvelous verse: "Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (v. 3).

This is as high a Christology as you will find anywhere in the Bible. When we think about the glory of God, the refulgent majesty that blazes from time to time through biblical history—such as in the Shekinah cloud, in the glory that surrounded the appearance of the angels around Bethlehem, in the glory cloud that takes Christ up to heaven, and so on—we think of a brilliant light that is associated with the glory of God. The author of Hebrews says that the Son is the very brightness of that glory; that is, He belongs to the essence of the divine being. Again, in the biblical period, to ascribe glory was to ascribe deity. Glory was principally a divine attribute.

One of the most important early hymns of the Christian church was the "Gloria Patri," in which we sing as follows:

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be World without end, amen. Amen."

That is an eternal concept of divine glory that has no beginning in time and no end in time. It is something that goes forever. So here in Hebrews, the glory of Christ, as the brightness of the Father's glory, is affirmed as the express image of His person.

This may mean that Jesus manifests to us the perfection of the image of God like no other human being ever has. When Adam was disobedient to God, he failed to manifest and reflect the holiness of God, and that's every human being's sin. We're still the image of God in a certain sense, but that image has been tarnished so that we cannot accurately reflect the perfection of God's holiness, which is what we were created to do. Of course, the only

one who ever achieved that perfect reflection or manifestation of divine holiness was Jesus. So we might read in this text that He is the express image of the Father's person, that He is the perfect image-bearer, referring to His humanity.

However, I think the author has something else in mind when he writes this, because he says that Jesus is the brightness of the divine glory. That's an affirmation of His deity. He's the express image of the divine person of the Father. That seems to be the import of what the author is saying in this text. However, this is all anticipatory for what comes next. He writes that Jesus is "upholding all things by the word of His power, [and] when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they" (vv. 3-4).

Now, the emphasis in this passage may be shifting to the ministry of the incarnate Christ, because obviously there is no elevation of the divine nature above the angels as a result of some kind of earthly ministry. The elevation above the angels is the elevation of the incarnate Christ over the angels. The psalmist asks, "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels" (Ps. 8:3-5a). Human beings are a lower order of creation than the angels. Angels are of a higher order.

This means that the incarnate Jesus, as He clothes Himself in humanity, the human nature, is, at least at this point, lower than the angels.

However, it doesn't end there. The author of Hebrews says that Jesus has "become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they" (v. 4). Now, the author of Hebrews doesn't tell us what is the more excellent name that Jesus receives. It may be, in light of the immediate context of the passage, that the more excellent name than the angels is simply the title "Son," which is the focus of attention here. On the other hand, elsewhere in the Scriptures, we're also told of Jesus gaining a name as a result of the perfection of His obedience, and that name is not "Son" but "Lord." In Paul's letter to the Philippians, he admonishes us to have that same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus, who, even though He was in the form of God, took His equality with God not as something to be grasped or to be jealously guarded, but emptied himself (2:5-7). Obviously He did not empty Himself of His deity, but He emptied

Himself of His prerogatives, of His glory, of His exaltation, and He took upon Himself the form of a man and becomes obedient as a servant, even unto death. So what Paul is saying there is, "Look at this pattern that has been given to us by Christ, who gave up the privileges that He enjoyed in heaven to condescend to our loneliness, to take upon Himself our humanity, and to bear humiliation in our stead." That's the way we should behave toward our brothers and sisters—not guarding our own status or stature, but giving it away for the benefit of others.

Paul goes on to say, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (2:9-11). This is where we see this business of the name that is attributed to Christ by God. The name that is given to Him, the name that is above every name, isn't the name Jesus. It is the title reserved for God in the Old Testament, the title Adonai, which is Kyrios in the New Testament. That's why the very first confession of faith of the early Christian community was simply "Jesus is Lord," reflecting the truth that God Himself has given His title to His Son.

Now that's the broader context of the elevated name. However, the immediate context of Hebrews speaks of the concept of sonship. The author uses the rhetorical question quite effectively when he says, "For to which of the angels did He ever say: 'You are my Son, today I have begotten You'?

And again: 'I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son'?" (v. 5).

In other words, God doesn't call angels "sons." Angels are servants, not sons.

In church history, these passages in Hebrews and others fueled one of the worst heresies with which the church ever had to wrestle, the Arian heresy in the fourth century, which provoked the Council of Nicea. The church was divided between the Arians, who were Unitarians, and the orthodox Christians, who were Trinitarians. Arias had an adoptionist view of Christ; he focused on the fact that Scripture calls Jesus "the only begotten Son of the Father and "the firstborn over all creation" (Col. 1:15). His point was that the word translated as "to beget" means "to be, to become, or to happen," and it is commonly used to refer to someone who has a beginning in time. So, if one is begotten, that means there was a time when he was not. Arias was saying that since the Bible says Jesus is the only begotten or

the firstborn, He's obviously a creature. He may be the highest creature. He may be the first creature that God made before He made everything else. He may even be the Creator of the universe; perhaps God first made this Logos, this creature, and then gave Him the power to create the rest of the world. This is the view of Mormons and of Jehovah's Witnesses, for example. Jesus is highly exalted, but He remains a creature.

To these assertions of Arias and his followers, Athanasius and the others at the Council of Nicea said, "No." In the Nicene Creed, there is a statement that is very significant. The creed says that Christ was "begotten, not made." That is, in biblical categories, in New Testament categories, the concept of sonship is not related to biology. It's related to intimacy between the father and the son, the one who receives the blessing, the one who is the heir. That is indicated in several ways, the first of which is by Christ's being called the "only begotten." When begottenness is attributed to Jesus in the pages of the New Testament, His begottenness is singular. It is utterly unique; there are no duplicates of it anywhere in the world. So, when the Bible speaks of Christ being begotten, it speaks of begottenness in a specific sense that should lead us away from assumptions of biological generation.

In any case, the following verse says, "But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, 'Let all the angels of God worship Him'" (v. 6). Again, if the firstborn of all creation is a creature, nothing could be more blasphemous than for the author of Hebrews to say, in quoting the Psalms, that all the angels should worship Him, because God prohibits the worship of creatures. But if God commands the worship of His firstborn, He is saying that the firstborn is divine and not a creature. We know that the angels are subordinate to Christ, because God commands the angels to worship Him.

The author of Hebrews continues:

And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire."

But to the Son He says: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions." And: "You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment;

like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail." But to which of the angels has He ever said: "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool"? (vv. 7-13)

This passage refers to the "session" of Christ, His sitting on the right hand of God in the seat of cosmic authority. The risen and ascended Christ is given nothing less than cosmic authority as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. No angel is ever elevated to the right hand of God. In fact, no creature can ever be elevated to the right hand of God, nor would God give to any creature all authority in heaven and on earth, which authority He bestows upon His Son. This text emphasizes, as strongly as it can, the difference between angels and Jesus, the superiority of Christ over the angels.

The first chapter of Hebrews closes with these words: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?" (v. 14). Here we get a summary of the nature and the function of angels. They don't rule the cosmos, but the good angels are ministering spirits, sent forth by God. They're not sent to minister to everyone. They're sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation, to believers. Whether we have single guardian angels or the heavenly host, such as surrounded Elisha, is a matter of continual debate. But we do have a great help.

Recently, I read a sermon by Martin Luther that I'd never read before.

Luther was acutely conscious of the angelic world because of the demonic attacks he had to endure throughout his life. In the sermon, he said that if it weren't for the good angels, the angels of light who uphold the Christian church, the church would be completely destroyed by the wickedness of Satan and his minions. And so, let us remember that God has sent His good angels into the world as ministering spirits. Luther was right—our struggle is against the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and angels are there to help us as we struggle with those foes.