Matt Robison

The New Hierarchy of Creation – Why Satan Rebelled

Hebrews 1:13-14 (ESV)

And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Chapter one is a build up to one of the author’s many “therefores,” and the end, just quoted, is a stout one. The kind that makes you want to sit down if you are standing. Let’s follow the logic:

Jesus has become superior to angels (v.4)
Why and how? Jesus is the Son, and no angel has been called that (v.5)
Angels are to worship the Son, and are now servants of wind and fire (v.6,7)
Jesus’s throne is forever. Not only that, but He has laid the foundation of the earth itself (v.8-12)
Jesus sits at God’s right hand, and no angel has been invited to do that (v.13)
Angels are to minister to those who will inherit (v.14)

THEREFORE (going into chapter 2):

We must pay all the more attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away, because what we have heard has come from the Son. The Son! And if the message declared by angels was reliable, how much greater the Son’s word? If we neglect His word, what else is there? He is above every name. There is no testimony that could have more authority or weight.

So that’s the general flow. And while the first THEREFORE could be studied extensively, I want to focus on the final reasoning leading up to it, the final guidepost before the author arrives at his point. His whole argument is telling us what the new hierarchy of creation is, ending by telling us that angels now serve us.

A man now sits on a throne in heaven, ruling with all authority. Even over the angels. This inverts what was before, the old order of creation. And because we are united with the Son and King through baptism and by the Spirit, we are part of his body.

We who were made a little lower than the angels are now above the angels, thanks to the saving work of Christ. This is even corroborated by 1 Cor 6:3a.

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

Chew on that. We have angels ministering on our behalf, and why? Because we are now adopted into the royal household, and have the full rights of sonship, which includes use of the household servants, who used to be over us as guardians and managers (Gal. 4:1-3). But then Galatians 4:7:

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Heirs of what? Heirs of the world.

C.S. Lewis, in his Space Trilogy, hints that this is one of the main reasons that Satan rebelled: jealousy over the authority that mankind would eventually wield over him and his like. And I think he has a point.

Satan, an angel, had some semblance of authority over mankind, but he knew that it was not to be forever. Eventually, man would mature and come fully into his kingdom. So while he still had authority, he tempted Adam to grasp for his kingdom early, the same temptation he would eventually try on the last Adam (Matt. 4:8-9).

Satan, one of the guardians or managers set to watch over us, didn’t want us to grow up into our inheritance. So he ensured we would not…at least not without drastic measures that he couldn’t foresee.

Next, I’ll delve a little into the significance of the angels being wind and fire, as that seems to be a hinge of the structure listed above.

From Promised Land to Promised Earth

Jesus doesn’t make up the Beatitudes on the spot. Each one has several Old Testament referents, and have long been part of the Word of God. What he does do, however, is inject more weight into them from a New Covenant/Kingdom of God context, which means greater glory and greater promises. This follows with the general direction of the history of the people of God (and consequently the history of the world): marching on toward ever greater things.

The most obvious example is the one directed toward the meek, which alludes directly to Psalm 37:11.

Psalm: “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.”

Matthew: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

But notice the key difference. The “land” has now become the “world.” The potential inheritance has grown.

This is consistant with the rest of the New Testament, as we see hints that the entire earth itself is the new promised land.

Paul says that the promise to Abraham, which in the OT was couched in terms of the “land”, was really that he would be the heir of the world. And we, as his children, have the same inheritance. (Rom. 4:13)

Likewise, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:2, that the saints are to judge the world. That is, to perform kingly duties, to discern between good and evil while partaking of Jesus, the Tree of Life. That is to be expected, since Revelation 5:10 says explicitly that God has made us both kings and priests, for the purpose of ruling on the earth, which you would think is so obvious and plain written, that no Christian would deny the fact. But we Christians are experts at discounting obvious parts of the Bible, and when we do, we’re called a “scholar.”

Here’s another one. When Paul quotes the fifth commandment in Ephesians 6:2 as still applicable to children, he calls it the first commandment with a promise: “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” But here, he’s not talking about the old land of Canaan. Why would the Ephesians care about that? Here, as everywhere else in the New Testament, the promise has expanded, and “land” has become “earth.”

It shouldn’t surprise us that God has made some glorious promises for his people. They are so glorious, so gracious, and so world-changing, that its understandable that we find them hard to believe. For some reason, however, we tend to believe that just the opposite is what God has in store for the world.

Which is a just tad ungrateful. It’s like turning down a filet mignon in favor of finding dinner in the dumpster out back, and thinking you’re doing the cook a favor.

Why I Hate (Love) Christmas Music

I used to not like Christmas music. For me, the season brought on headaches from my eyes being in a constant state of rolling to show my disdain and convince myself I had superior aesthetic taste. My favorite radio stations would be taken over by the holiday spirit. Me, complaining that top 40 radio stations played such abysmal, tasteless music between Thanksgiving and December 25th, as if this was a break from the norm. Just a few months earlier, I would be complaining that they played the same songs over and over again.

Yep. I was a moron.

But honestly, I still don’t like about 80% of Christmas songs. Mainly the syrupy sweet, saccharine nonsense that threatens to overwhelm your emotional pancreas. So no thanks, Bing Crosby. I still don’t need your White Christmas, and that includes the movie about the snow and the retired general and the ski resort and the crazy tap dancing.

But give me “Joy to the World.” Fill the air with the majesty and theological richness of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” Let me get caught up in the desperate plea of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

I could probably listen to (and sing along with) skillful renditions of these songs all year long.

What changed?

The music certainly didn’t. These songs are much older than I am, and I’ll bet you 13 gazillion dollars that they will still be around long after I’m dead.

There are two things that changed. First, I had to get over my stuffiness and condescension over the general celebration. But even then, I was a Christmas agnostic, shrugging my shoulders in a “live and let live” kind of way. This was not ideal, but a necessary step that performed the right kind of controlled demolition to my core assumptions.

This leads to the second and primary reason I get into the spirit: I better understand the narrative arc of creation.

The story of Jesus, beginning with the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation, really is the greatest story ever told, because it is the climax of the Story. As Christians, we should always be aware of where we are in the Story. It should be the background of all of our thinking. And like many good stories, this one is a vast, sweeping epic, and has its highs and lows.

And one of the highs is the birth of the true King. The Anointed One who would crush Israel’s enemies and the Enemy. The Lion of Judah who would go to face the giant alone. The Root of Jesse who would rise in defiance of death. But first…he had to be born.

The only peak higher than the Incarnation is the Resurrection. Songs that try and harness just a little bit of that vast sweep resonate deeply, because it was a glorious moment filled with hope and promise…and yet we know that even then, the best is yet to come. The bow has been strung and drawn, arrow notched. The tension becomes thick. We are on the edge of our seats.

Yes, even though we know the end, we are on the edge of our seats. Because these songs, the good ones, act as a master storyteller who spin a yarn so well as to make it seem new again, doing their best to imitate the Storyteller, who is actually in the process of making ALL things new.

And so when we are taken back to that night in the City of David, we can truly say with the heavenly host,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Because God became a man, and everything changed. And that was just the beginning.

And so that’s why I have come to like Christmas music. And not only the classics. I don’t discriminate against contemporary Christmas music, as long as it assumes and understands the weight of glory inherent in the part of the story it is trying to relate. But honestly, nothing really tops the classics.

What are your thoughts on Christmas music? What is your favorite (non-lame) song?

A Socialist Jubilee and Our Real Equality

The Jubilee Laws of Leviticus 25 are prized poster boys for Christian socialists everywhere. Every seven weeks of years, the 50th year would be consecrated with the sounds of a trumpet, the slaves would be freed, land sold would be returned to its rightful owner and have its Sabbath rest, and debt would be forgiven. This is where God finally becomes an egalitarian. He’s just as economically ignorant as the rest of us!

But the problem with using Jubilee as justification for a socialist paradise is that the set of laws screams just the opposite.

First, they presuppose some sort of inequality in order to even be obeyed, and this is in line with the rest of Biblical revelation, including that of the rest of the Pentateuch. Just look to the Ten Commandments. “You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet” tell us two things immediately: that private property is a real thing that is to be protected, and that some will have more of it than others.

Second, the Jubilee Laws actually maintains certain inequalities and locks them in. Lev. 25:29-30 specifically makes exception for dwellings within walled cities. If one is sold and is not redeemed within a year, it would remain with the new owner in perpetuity and would NOT be release for during the Jubilee.

Not surprisingly, to find the real point of Jubilee, you just need to look at the text.

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine.” (Lev. 25:23)(ESV)

“For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 25:55)

Both rich and poort are equal in this way: what they have is really God’s, and they both rely on his mercy for their possessions no matter the quantity. And it is the ending of servitude to each other, only to affirm the people’s total servitude, both rich and poor, toward God.

Distributing goods more fairly among a certain number of people is not the message of Jubilee. The real message is that, for goods to be distributed more fairly, everything would go back to God, and our hands would be empty. That is real fairness. That is our real equality. Anything more than destitution is a mercy.

Thanks be to God for his great mercy.

Thanksgiving Psalms and Food

Psalm 147:9

He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. (ESV)

Psalm 136:25

he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 111:5

He provides food for those who fear him.

Psalm 104:14-15

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

Psalm 104:27, talking about all of creation:

These all look to you to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

In fact, just go read Psalm 104 in its entirety. I’ll wait until you are finished.

Done?

Jesus is probably pulling from the ideas expressed in these (certainly not exhaustive) Psalms, and in turn from Deuteronomy when he says in Matthew 6:26

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

We are the same as the animals because, like them, we are completely dependent on God. But we are not like them, because we are in the image of God, and are more valuable.

So do not worry. Be thankful, for our Father’s mercy endures forever. Be filled with good things.

Happy Thanksgiving.