Hebrews 1:4

Having become by so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they.

The remainder of this chapter, beginning here, extols the supremacy of Christ, as compared with angels. The force of the argument lies in the outlandish burden of importance the Jewish mind placed upon the function of angels in their history, especially in the giving of the Law of Moses. Cargill wrote that by the time of Christ,

The Jews had developed an elaborate system of angelology ... They came to think of angels as intermediaries between God and man (and) also believed that there were millions and millions of them. They had many duties. They delivered messages, presided over the destiny of Israel, controlled the movement of stars, manipulated history. There were angels over the sea, the frost, the dew, the rain, the snow, the hail, the thunder and the lightning. There were angels who were wardens of hell and torturers of the damned. There were destroying angels and angels of punishment.[10]

In spite of the fact that an angel appeared to Cornelius and that an angel released Peter from prison, the visible ministry of angels was a strangely diminishing phenomenon in the early church, the emphasis going more and more to Christ and Christ alone. The author of Hebrews met the issue squarely, identifying Christ as God come in the flesh, and marshaling the Old Testament scriptures themselves to prove his superiority over angels. Significantly, the author did not refute these popular ideas regarding angels by any appeal to his own apostolic authority (though likely he was an apostle, probably Paul), appealing rather to the Old Testament scriptures which the addressees received and conceded to be Messianic. If Paul was the author, and in view of the procedure here, this method of appeal would explain why he chose to identify with them (as in Hebrews 2:3,4), and to omit all reference to himself as an apostle, or even any personal reference at all. The appeal which the author made to the Jewish scriptures, recognized by that generation as Messianic prophecies, takes all the weight out of the arguments which, during intervening centuries, have been invented to "prove" that those very scriptures were not Messianic.

As to the actual place of angels in the economy of redemption, there is a further discussion of that at the end of the chapter; meanwhile, let it be observed that there are no less than seven points of superiority of Christ over angels, catalogued by the nineteenth-century scholar, Adam Clarke, as follows: he has a more excellent name than they (Hebrews 1:4,5); the angels of God adore him (Hebrews 1:6); the angels were created by him (Hebrews 1:7); even while being a man, he was endowed with greater gifts than they (Hebrews 1:8,9); he is eternal, but they are not (Hebrews 1:10-12); he is more highly exalted (Hebrews 1:13); angels are only servants of God; Christ is the Son of God (Hebrews 1:14).[11]

The author of Hebrews laid out a proposition in Hebrews 1:4 to the effect that Christ is greater than angels; and he then proceeded to prove it by reference to seven passages in the Old Testament.

[10] Robert L. Cargill, Understanding the Book of Hebrews (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1967), p. 10.

[11] Adam Clarke, op. cit., p. 682.