A Little Lower (A reflection from Heb 1)
This blog entry is also titled "The 2nd Veil - The World". (If you can recall, the first veil is our logic. I wrote about it here.)
As I was in a Bible study with a group of brothers and sisters studying Heb 1, our teacher urged us to take time until we can know with certainty in our inner man that Jesus is God.
As I read that urging, I I asked myself (and the Holy Spirit): 'What is hindering us from this knowing?'
'A little lower' was what I heard.
At the first instance, I thought of 'a little lower than the angels', which is from Psa 8 and Heb 2. But I instinctively knew that that's not it.
What the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me, was that one of the veils hindering us from seeing Jesus (as who He is, for who He is) is that we have, sadly, deemed the Son to be a little lower than the Father.
Jesus the Son a little lower than God the Father.
Could it be that we have been so used to the world's ways of hierarchy that we have come to see God the Son a little lower than God the Father? As how hierarchy is normally defined in the world. The father higher than the children. The elder brother higher than the younger brother. So on so forth.
When there is no 'lower' or 'higher' in our triune God.
(Quite on the contrary, we often find God defying hierarchy, placing the younger above the elder. Remember Esau and Jacob (Gen 25)?)
As I pondered on the words 'a little lower', I set out to tear away this veil of being influenced/ moulded by world's way/ thinking/ principle, searching the Scripture, trying to find what God says about His trinity.
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I was determined to remove this veil and here's what I found.
1) God is one, in three persons.
The very first verse in our Bible tells us this.
The Bible starts with telling us God created the heaven and the earth (Gen 1:1). The Hebrew word for God here is Elōhim, always plural, in accordance with God's tri-personal nature.
2) God the Father called God the Son 'God' (Heb 1:8, 10)
God the Father Himself called to God the Son: 'O God' and 'You Lord'.
If the Father addresses the Son as God and Lord, that makes it very clear and plain to me.
3) The Father Himself said this of Jesus - You are the same, Your years will not fail (Heb 1:12).
God told us 'I am the Lord, I do not change' in Mal 3:6 (Here Lord is translated from 'Yahweh').
The only unchanging thing in this world through the ages is God and Jesus, or rather God = Jesus = unchanging.
4) Jesus laid the foundation of the earth and created the heavens (Heb 1:10).
Compare that to Gen 1:1 where it tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The NT authors repeatedly tell and remind us that all things were created by Christ. Take Col 1:16 for example, Paul declared that everything visible was created by Christ, through Christ and for Christ.
The whole of humanity had been wanting to know and had also been coming up with answers to the questions: Where does this world and everything that is in it come from? Where do we come from? Who created everything?
I once asked these questions myself, not knowing that the answer is given in God's Word. In fact, the very first verse of the Bible.
For those who refuse to take the Bible for the answer, I suppose they will be forever searching.
When I thought about this truth that Jesus created and sustained all things, these words came to mind: nothing was made that was made (John 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made).
Truly, everything that we can and cannot see were made. They didn't just suddenly appear.
And what does the Bible tell us? Without Jesus, nothing that was made, was made.
5) He who has seen the Son has seen the Father.
Jesus said that he who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9). As I read this verse that morning, the Holy Spirit revealed an illustration to me. And I love it!
Now, my husband and I are 'one in union'. The Bible says so and we are truly so.
Yet we are definitely not 2 in 1. We are still 2 individual beings.
I cannot say to someone 'He who has seen me has seen Timothy'. Just think about it. If anyone has seen Irene, does that mean he/ she has seen my husband, Timothy? That would be ridiculous. And just not possible.
But Jesus...He can say that! Because truly, we who have seen Jesus have seen the Father.
Jesus is the express image of God (Heb 1:3).
Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15).
I think, for many of us, seeing and accepting Jesus as the Son of God, the Christ, the anointed One, the Messiah, the Saviour, comes easy and natural.
But when it comes to seeing Jesus as God, that's when the hiccups come.
Yet this didn't come as a surprise to Jesus. He knew.
Why do I say that? Let's read Jesus' conversation with the pharisees in Mark 12.
Following Mark 12 discourse from verse 18, we will find groups of ppl asking Jesus hard questions.
First, the sadducees asked Him about the resurrection.
Then the pharisees or scribes, after hearing how Jesus had silenced the first group of ppl, came and test Him themselves. This time asking Him about the greatest commandment. Note how Jesus said to one of the scribes 'you are not far from the kingdom of God'.
And then Jesus threw this question back at them - How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David? Quoting from Psa 110:1.
Have you ever wondered, why did Jesus, seemingly out of nowhere, quoted Psa 110:1 and asked them about His identity?
Now this is my thought.
Jesus knew they didn't (and perhaps couldn't) see Him as God.
All the things which He had said earlier (from Mark 12:24-26 and Mark 12:29-31) about the resurrection (God being the God of the living) and the greatest commandment (loving the Lord your God with all heart, soul, mind and strength) - He must have known that these ppl did not relate it to Him.
To them, Jesus is not God.
Sad isn't it? These are the ones who supposedly were the 'closest' to God, who knew the Scripture the best. And yet they were veiled.
How it must have saddened our Lord.
When Jesus answered their questions about resurrection and telling them to love the Lord their God, He was in essence speaking about Himself.
Yet these ppl are greatly mistaken, not knowing the Scripture nor the power of God (Mark 12:24). They did not see nor understand 'The Lord said to my Lord'.
This quote from Psa 110 was God the Father speaking to Jesus.
The translated text "The Lord said to my Lord" in the Hebrew is this: "Yahweh said to Adonai". Yahweh is the name by which God revealed himself to Moses and means, "I am that I am" or "I am". Adonai means "Lord, master, owner, destiny determiner" and refers to Yahweh himself.
It is God the Father (The Lord) saying to God the Son (my Lord).
Do you see? The Son is not a little lower than the Father. Can you see it?
I heard a preacher said this recently: Jesus the Son is not equal to the Father. If A is equal to B, A can replace B.
Jesus the Son is equal with the Father. They are equal, one and the same.
Beloved in Christ, have we been so influenced by the world's ways and thinking and patterns that it has affected the way we perceive the things of God?
It is no wonder, then, that Paul told us not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind because it is only by removing this veil of 'conformity to the world' that we are able to prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2).
The word translated 'prove' is the Greek word dokimázō, which means to try (test) something to show it is acceptable (real, approved); put to the test to reveal what is good (genuine). In other words, with the veil of 'the world' over us, we will not be able to see. Not able to test and reveal the will of God.
Wouldn't it be fitting and needful, then, for us to remove this veil?
So that we can see and know, fully and deeply, all the things of God. Starting with this revelation that Jesus the Son is not lower than God the Father.
