John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 30, Hebrews’ Testimony

We’ve been trying to show why it could not or would not make sense for John to be saying that Jesus was ‘a’ god. Would the apostle John be out of step with the other apostles and view Jesus as a created being? We can see that the rest of the apostles whose writings we have in our New Testament, did not view Jesus as a created being but the Almighty God.

The Author of Hebrews

We don’t know who the author of Hebrews was, or whether he was an apostle, but his letter has been received by the church as Scripture. And in the opening of his letter he is at pains to make the point that Jesus is superior to angels. The reason for this argument is that his audience, Jews who have professed faith in Jesus as Messiah, but who are considering abandoning Christianity for their previous Judaism, are steeped in the notion that angels delivered the Law. So they might be willing to consider that Jesus is such an angel, a created being, whom God has used to proclaim the gospel.

But the author of Hebrews insists that Jesus is the Son and superior to angels (chapters 1 and 2), superior to Moses and Joshua (chapters 3 and 4), superior to the priesthood of Israel (chapters 5 through 7), superior as the mediator of the New Covenant (chapter 8), and superior as the sacrifice that truly takes away sin (chapters 9 and 10). Angels have no equality with the Son, nor do any of Israel’s prophets or leaders.

Understanding that the kings of Israel were types or foreshadowings of the Messiah, the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 45, a wedding song for the king and his bride, as applicable to the Messiah, Jesus the Son of God, and what it says there of the king of Israel must be taken more literally and supremely of the Christ. And it says,

But to the Son, Scripture says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the upright scepter will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. For this reason God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness with your companions.” And also, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will all pass away, but you remain, and they all like an old cloak will be rendered obsolete, and you will roll them up like clothing, and like a cloak they will be removed. But you are the same and your years will not cease.”

The second quote comes from Psalm 102:25-27. Each of these quotes then refer to Jesus as God. Even if we take the first one to read, “God is your throne,” which is a possibility, the passages overall are meant to refer to Jesus as God and therefore superior to angels. The Psalm 102 passage is referring directly to Yahweh and the author of Hebrews applies it to Jesus. God is the same, He does not change. This is a divine attribute. And the author of Hebrews doubles down on that when he says, in 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

In Hebrews 1:6 the author says of Jesus, “Let all the angels of God worship him,” worship Jesus, and the author is quoting the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 32:43, which is clearly referring to worship of Yahweh. This is why this author refers to Jesus as, “the exact imprint of [God’s] nature” (1:3). For him, Jesus is God, not ‘a’ god.