AFTER this exhortation to heed the message he is giving from God, the Apostle now continues with his teaching to the Hebrew Christians. He continues from the previous verse and from the end of chapter 1 where he left off to make his exhortation. Verse 5 continues from the previous verse because Paul is continuing to relate what God has said. So in the first phrase we could read as “It is not to angels that God has spoken..” rather than ‘He has spoken’. Paul refers back to the end of chapter 1 as far as the argument he is making is concerned. Paul is concerned to make the point that Jesus is superior to angels and that he is the one on whom we should fix our minds.

Having said this, I have found verse 5 to the end of chapter 2 very difficult to understand, not so much with regard to individual details, but the thrust of the whole argument which Paul is making. The difficulty for me is to determine what the first quotation from the Old Testament is referring to, whether it is a prophecy concerning Christ, or whether it is a quotation regarding how God views mankind. In other words is ‘man’ and ‘son of man’ referring to human beings or to the human being, Jesus Christ. At first I thought Christ was being referred to in this quotation from Psalm 8, but on reflection I find that understanding the quotation as a description of God’s action towards mankind is the one that fits the context the best. To support this view I offer two further considerations. One is that if ‘man’ and ‘son of man’ refers to Christ in the quotation then, the change from verse 7 to verse 8 seems to have no point. The other reason is that Psalm 8 is never taken as a messianic psalm and a prophecy concerning Christ.

What is Paul saying then? It is most startling and wonderful, and in the end exalting to God and to Jesus. The angels were created by God as ministering spirits (1:1). This is there office and this does not change. For the angels who remained faithful to God, they are celestial beings of great dignity and power, but they will always be servants doing the will of God, and ministering to human beings who inherit salvation. With regard to the angels that rebelled against God i.e. devils and Satan, there is no salvation for them. They are eternally under condemnation from God. In this sense angels, though of high dignity, are servants and only servants. God has not exalted them, or promised to exalt them to highest dignity, nor did God place them with authority over the ‘world to come’.

We now have to consider what is meant by the ‘world to come’. I have come to understand this as a comprehensive description of the heavenly realm, and specially the destiny of the people of God who are inheritors of salvation. In this sense it includes our entering the kingdom now by faith in Christ, as well as the fulfillment of our redemption in the heavenly glory.

Who has the world to come been subjected to? This brings us to the quotation from Psalm 8. Paul knows that what he is saying is incredible so he approaches it carefully. He seems to be saying, well let us look at Psalm 8, and see what it says. When we look at this Psalm we see that it is speaking about how God created mankind. The Psalmist considers this and sees it as incredible. He sees what human beings in the creative purpose of God are in the world, and it seems incredible, but God made man a little lower than angels, and crowned him also with glory and honour, and subjected everything to him. What a tremendous thing! Can it be true? At creation God had already created angels as his servants, but as the crown of his creation he created man, and gave him dominion over all the creation, and wonder of wonders and something he did not give to the angels in the same way, man had fellowship with God and walked with God in the garden.

This is what the creation story tells us. Have we managed to absorb the wonder of this creation purpose of God concerning mankind? It is tremendous, wonderful, mind blowing. This is the high place God purposed for human beings, and if Adam had not sinned this would have been realised. In a very real sense from the beginning angels were meant by God to serve mankind who were destined for this specially relationship with God.

Then came Adam’s sin and the fall of mankind. Mankind was cast out from the presence of God, and became corrupted, and verse 8 as it continues picks up this thought. God purposed that mankind should have complete dominion and high position, but we do not see this. Everything is not in subjection under mankind, far from it. Has God’s purpose been thwarted? Has God changed this purpose or does it still stand? It is here that the wonder of Christ comes in, and the wonder of God’s purpose in Christ, which exalts him above angels and everything.

We must leave this meditation here for the next week, but in closing this meditation let us get hold of this amazing destiny of mankind in the purpose of God. It is a destiny higher than anything we can imagine in our sinful pride as sinners in this world, yet it will be realised, and has been realised in Christ. As and when it is realised, though it is so high, it destroys pride, and humble obedience and submission to God is the result, which is the highest dignity of mankind, where the world to come will be subject to us. Let us think on this long and hard, and seek to get into it. Such meditation will be more than rewarding to us in faith and worship.