Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Thou madest him a little lower than the angels...Hebrews 2:7


Many today think this should be translated....you made him a little lower than God. This would be a fitting translation for spiritualists...but not for Christians. We shall see why. The word translated angels in the old King James version can be translated as God rather than angles and more often is. It can also mean magistrate or Lord. It is dependence on human scholarship however that renders the newer version to say "lower than God." It is dependence on divine inspiration to render it lower than the angles. The epistle to the Hebrews renders it in the same way that the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation by Hebrew scribes) renders it. That is "lower than the angels". More over it is used in Hebrews 2 in a way that could only make sense as "lower than the angels." The writer of Hebrews, likely Paul, refers the statement to the incarnate Christ.... "Thou ( the Father) madest him (The Son) a little lower than the angels." Psalm 8, from which Paul quotes the text, is in His explanation, a Messianic prophecy. Whom shall we believe..the scholastic linguist of the inspired writer? 
Paul states that it is Christ, as man, who will finally have all things put under His feet in Hebrews Chapter 2. Now we know that the divine Son was not made at all in His original nature. He just was.  Neither was He, in His pre-incarnate form, a little lower than God. Chapter 1 has forever ended that possibility. But for the obstinate we can also refer to Philipians 2 where Paul mentions that Jesus did not seek to retain His equality with God the Father, but chose to lower Himself to man's lower estate for our sake. That also establishes the fact that Jesus laid aside, not inferiority, but an equality with God which He had possessed. 
But how does that infer that when He took humanity He took a nature lower than the angels? How does it say that mankind was made lower than the angels?...and how does it fit into the essential definition of what type of  high priest we need in Christ? 
That we will continue in the next blog. Let us however consider our High Priest who, for our sakes, suffered the attacks of Satan in a nature lower than Satan's and yet overcame. Would it not be important to us to know such an High Priest for evidently that would mean hope for us who are now, after the fall, even weaker than the fallen angels by nature, according to Ephesians 2. We shall continue this next time. Blessing of God to you dear reader and to our Great High Priest and our Father.

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