THE SON THE ONLY BEGOTTEN.
Hebrews 1: 5-6 For to which of the angels said he at any time, You are my Son, This day have I begotten thee ? (Ps. 2: 7). and again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to Me a Son? (2 Sam. 7: 14). And when He again brings in the firstborn into the world, He said, and let all the angels of God worship Him (Ps. 97: 7).
FIRST SECTION Hebrews 1: 4-14
The Son of God more than the Angels.
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
It is because Christ is the Son of God that He is Higher than the angels, and that the New Testament is so much Higher than the Old. If we would grasp the teaching, and get the blessing of our Epistle, and indeed become partakers of the inner power and Glory of the Redemption Christ has brought, we must tarry here in deep humility until God reveals to us what it means, that His only Son has become our Savior. The infinite
excellence of the Son above the angels is the measure of the excellence of that Heavenly Life He brings and gives within us. The angels could tell of God and of life. The Son has, the Son is, that Life of God, and gives it. He that has the Son, has Life ( being one born out of spiritual death separation from God, into eternal Life through the Son, union with God ).
You are My Son, this day have I begotten You. The words are used in Acts 13: 33, of the resurrection of Christ. So the word firstborn in the next verse also has reference to the resurrection (Col. 1: 18; Rev. 1: 5). The Son was not only begotten of the Father in eternity, but begotten again in the resurrection. In the incarnation the union between the Divine and the human nature was only begun: it had to be perfected by Christ, in His human will, yielding Himself to God's Will even unto the death. In the resurrection (Rom. 1: 4; 1 Cor. 15: 1-4), "He was declared to be the Son of God with power" the full out birth of humanity into the perfected fellowship and equality with Deity was completed; the Son of Man was begotten into all the likeness and Glory of the Son of God. Thus Paul applies it (Acts 13: 33) "God raised up Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, You are My Son, this day have I begotten You." He then became the first begotten from the dead. ( This is also the Words of God spoken to our heart through Jesus Christ when by inspiration He reveals our having been in Him in His death, burial and resurrection from the dead, the secret things held within God's heart.)
And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son. The words were spoken to David of a son God should give to him, but with the clear indication that their meaning reached far beyond what any mere man could be. In the Son of Man, who in the resurrection was raised up in power, and declared to be the Son of God, they find their complete fulfilment.
And when He again brings in the firstborn into the world, He said, "let all the angels of God worship Him." The Psalm speaks of Yehovah coming to redeem His people: the Son is so one with the Father, that as the Father works only through Him, and can only be known in Him, the worship can only arise to God through Him too. The angels worship the deliverer as Yehovah.
Christ is the Son of God! What does this mean to us, and what is the blessing it brings our faith? It points us first to the great mystery that God has a Son. This is the mystery of Divine Love; and that in a double sense. Because God is Love He begets a Son, to whom He gives all He is and has Himself, in whose fellowship He finds His Life and delight, through whom He can reveal Himself, with whom He shares the worship of all His creatures. And because God is Love, this Son of God becomes the Son of Man, and the Son of Man, having been perfected for evermore, enters through death and resurrection into all the Glory that belonged to the Son of God. And now this Son of God is to us the revelation, the bearer, of the Love of the Divine Being. In Him the Love of God dwells in us; in Him we enter and rest in it. When God speaks to us in this His Son, it is the infinite Love imparting itself to us, becoming the inward Life of our life ( He being the All in all, the true Life that is alive for ever more and receptive of the promises spoken to the Son of His Love through whom we become receptive ones as heirs of promise.).
And if we ask how this can be done, our answer is the second great lesson taught us by the Truth that Christ is the Son of God! It was by being begotten of God, by a Divine birth, that Christ became the Son. In eternity it was a birth; in the resurrection it was a birth from the dead. And so it is only by a Divine birth that the Son, that the Love of God, can enter and possess us. It is by an eternal generation that the Son is God. In eternity there is no past; what God is and does is all in the infinite power of an ever-present Now. And so it is in the power of that eternal re-generation that the Father begets us in His Son (1 John 5: 1-18), and begets His Son in us; that the Father speaks the eternal Word to us and in us. The Word of God is the Son, coming from the heart of the Father, spoken into our hearts, and dwelling there. The Son is the Love of God; as the Son, so the Love of God is begotten within us, making us, by a New birth, partakers of its (His) own nature and blessedness.
If we would learn the lesson of the Epistle, and experience in our Christian life the full power of the everlasting Redemption, we must above all learn to know Jesus better. The general knowledge we had of Him before and at conversion is not enough for a strong and healthy growth. God desires that we come to a close friendship, to an intimate acquaintance, with His beloved Son, that we should be the Loving, happy witnesses of how completely He can save. Let us do so. Remembering that angels and prophets could only point to Him who was to come, that the words of Scripture, and even of Christ Himself, only profit as they waken the expectancy of something Higher, let us wait on God to speak in His Son to us. God's speaking in us will be a mighty act of creative power, a birth of His Love and Life within us.
O God ! Teach us that the blessed secret of a full Redemption which brings our Salvation is this Christ, our Savior, is the Son of God.
1. Christ, the Son of God's Love: in His heart and in mine.
2. "Let all the angels of God worship Him," All the servants around His Throne point to Him: it Is to Him we must look. And that in worship. It is worship, worship, worship, the Son must have. It is to the heart that worships Him He will make Himself known. Let our study of the Glory of Christ in the Epistle be all in the spirit of worship, all tend to make us fall down in adoring worship.
3. The Son is a Son only in the power of a Divine birth. And that not only in eternity, and in the resurrection, but in our heart too. This is the mystery of the Divine Life: let us bow in deep impotence and ignorance, and wait on God Almighty to reveal the Son in us.
4. The Son is the Word, because the Divine speaking is but another aspect of the Divine begetting. Speaking to us in His Son is all in the power of a Divine Life. The speaking, just as the begetting, is Love imparting and communicating itself in Divine power as an inward Life. It is by God speaking to us in the First Begotten that we are begotten of God.
Here we have the answer of the hidden thing that God held within His heart from before the creation of the world and that of man. Deuteronomy 29:29
"The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."
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