Hebrews 1:8-9
Your Throne, O God
We are continuing with the topic of the Son’s superiority over the angels. It might seem to us an unnecessary matter to prove, but we live in a day when belief in angels and demons (spiritual beings as a whole) is thought medieval by those of “scientific” persuasions. However, as I stated yesterday, among devotees of the New Age movement, and the younger generations’ penchant for the more occult-like and darker books one finds in today’s book stores, it seems the “spirit-world” is becoming more popular, though in its ugliest and most dangerous forms.
But now the Preacher turns to another Old Testament passage to trumpet our Lord’s surpassing greatness. First, he marshaled Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14, and Deuteronomy 32:43; now he turns to the beautiful and majestic Psalm 45 which speaks of the enthronement and subsequent wedding of the Davidic king who is obviously understood in Messianic terms. The Preacher specifically quotes verses six and seven: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.” Now let us stop here for a moment and see what the Preacher is doing. There is no doubt that in the psalm, the writer is not calling the king, “God,” but referring to our God and Father in heaven who is the God of the king being enthroned. But the Preacher makes an advance on the psalm by interpreting these verses as to say that the one enthroned is God, and this is because the one being enthroned is the Son of God. In other words, the Preacher reinterprets the psalm as referring to the Son who now sits at the Right Hand of the Father—the supreme place of authority and power.
Another advance the Preacher makes on the psalm is that while the Preacher quotes, “The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom,” the psalm says, “The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.” Now any grammarian will tell you that the being verb (copula) simply connects a subject and a complement such that the sentence can easily be turned around and mean the same thing; for instance, to say, “Sam is that man” and then, “That man is Sam,” is to say one and the same thing. But still, the Preacher’s purpose in changing the place of the phrases suggests that he means to say that “righteousness and justice are the foundation of [the Son’s] throne” (Psalm 89:14) in such a way no earthly king can say nor kingdom shall ever be. For, the Son “loved righteousness and hated wickedness” throughout his earthly sojourn, and so has been anointed—exalted—with the oil of gladness above all others—men and angels included.
