Hebrews · Chapter 1
Hebrews 1 KJV Explained Verse by Verse
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About Hebrews 1
Most of us have thought it at some point: I wish God would just tell me what to do. In the first sentence of this letter, that wish is already answered. God has spoken. He spoke long ago through the prophets, and now He has spoken through His Son. The real question is whether we’re listening to the One He sent.
Verse 3: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”
If you want to know what God is like, you don’t have to guess. You look at Jesus. He holds everything together by His word, and He made us clean by Himself. Then He sat down, because the work was done. You don’t wash before you come to the One who washes.
Line after line from the Old Testament shows the Son is far better than the angels. So what does God say to the Son that He never said to any angel?
Teaching Notes
God has spoken (verses 1–2)
God spoke to Israel’s fathers at many different times and in many different ways through the prophets (verse 1). Now He has spoken through His Son (verse 2). The real question isn’t whether God has said anything. It’s whether we’ve been listening to the One He sent. The prophets were messengers, but the Son is far more. He is the heir of all things and the One through whom God made the worlds.
Who the Son is (verse 3)
He is the brightness of God’s glory, the way the light of the sun is the sun reaching you. He is the express image of God’s person, the way a seal pressed into warm wax leaves its exact shape behind. If you want to know what God is like, you don’t have to guess. You look at Jesus. Watch Him touch a man with leprosy, or weep over a friend who had died, and you are watching what God is like. He upholds all things by the word of His power. The Son who made the worlds keeps them in place right now, simply by speaking.
When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down. Purged means He made us clean. He did it by Himself, with no help from us, and once it was done He sat down. That shuts the door on waiting to come to Christ until you’ve cleaned yourself up. You don’t wash before you come to the One who washes.
Better than the angels (verses 4–7)
The Son is made so much better than the angels (verse 4), and God’s own words are brought forward line after line to show it, most of them from the Psalms. To the Son God says, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (verse 5), from the second Psalm, alongside the promise God first made to David about his son. God never spoke that way to any angel. Some take “this day” to mean the Son had a beginning. He didn’t. The Son is God and has always been God. In Acts 13, Paul ties those same words to the day God raised Jesus from the dead. When God brings the firstborn into the world, all the angels of God are to worship Him (verse 6). The firstborn is the one who holds first place, the heir of the house. Angels are mighty, but they bow to the Son. When John fell down to worship at an angel’s feet in Revelation 22, the angel stopped him and told him to worship God.
Thy throne, O God (verses 8–14)
In verse 8 the Father calls the Son God. His throne is for ever and ever, and His rule is right all the way through. He loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and God anointed Him with the oil of gladness (verse 9). His holiness and His joy go together. The Son laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens will wear out like an old garment, but He remains the same and His years shall not fail (verses 10–12). To none of the angels did God ever say, “Sit on my right hand” (verse 13). Those words from Psalm 110 belong to the Son alone. The angels are ministering spirits, sent to help those who shall be heirs of salvation (verse 14). They are sent by God and answer to Him. You don’t call on them or pray to them. You go to the Son, and the Father sends what His children need.
Hebrews 1 (KJV)
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
4 Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
6 And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
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.
13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?