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THE GOD-NESS OF THE SON
Scripture references are to the King James
(Authorised) Version
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Q Hebrews 1: 8: Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Why does God refer to
Jesus, His Son, as God?
A The verse which follows (9), helps to put the statement of v. 8 into context. It reads (emphasis added):
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy fellows.
The passage is a quotation from Psa. 45:7.
The one who has ‘loved righteousness and hated iniquity’ is a clear reference to Jesus, who by perfect faithfulness to His Father demonstrated the truth of what the Father had declared of Him at His baptism ‘this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Matt. 3:17).
At Jesus’ baptism at Jordan, God anointed Him with the holy spirit (‘oil of gladness’). Jesus received the holy spirit ‘without measure’, whereas the members of His Church, fellow-priests (‘thy fellows’) did not (John 3:34, 35). Indeed, the reference to ‘thy fellows’ tellingly rules out God Himself from the comparison.
But why is Jesus called ‘God’? Because He is ‘as God’, the ‘God with us’, the one referred to in John 1:3 as the (pre-human) Word, without whom ‘was not anything made that was made’.
The same idea is also referenced in
succeeding verses of Heb. 1, specifically vs. 10-12, which St. Paul extracts
from Psa. 102:25-27:
Heb. 1 –
10. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth;
and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11. They shall perish; but thou remainest; and
they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 12. And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up,
and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
Psa. 102
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25. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. 26. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: 27. but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.
The extraordinary power and status accorded to the glorified Jesus should never blind us to the fact that Jehovah alone is God Almighty. But it is evident that Jesus is no mere man He is as God would be were there no God.
The separateness of God and His Son is a fundamental doctrine of the Scriptures. The Ransom-Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross can only be understood if this fact is grasped.
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Sept. 2017