“YOU HAVE LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED LAWLESSNESS; THEREFORE GOD, YOUR GOD, HAS ANOINTED YOU WITH THE OIL OF GLADNESS ABOVE YOUR COMPANIONS.” 10 And, “YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; 11 THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT, 12 AND LIKE A MANTLE YOU WILL ROLL THEM UP; LIKE A GARMENT THEY WILL ALSO BE CHANGED. BUT YOU ARE THE SAME, AND YOUR YEARS WILL NOT COME TO AN END.” 13 But to which of the angels has He ever said, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET”? 14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation? NASB
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” 10 He also says, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. 12 You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” 13 To which of the angels did God ever say, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? 14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? NIV
The writer is finishing up his present point, which he has been building on since verse 4, that Christ is better than the angels. But let us not think of this as a comparison of values or worth. The only comparisons that can be made between the angels and the Son are infinite in dimension.
He is the Son of God; they are servants. He is the Creator, they are created. He is addressed as ‘God’ by God the Father. They are ministering spirits sent forth to render service to those who will inherit salvation; He is the Savior.
It is not to the angels that the world to come is subjected, as the writer will point out in chapter 2. The Son is worshiped by the angels, something that is not only their duty but their delight!
No, there can be no comparison, there can only be the distinction between God and the companions He has made for Himself.
I want to tell you in advance what we’re going to be talking about so you will know what the focus is going to be throughout, then we’ll take a step back and look at this picture.
We are going to see today that our Lord is eternal. We are going to talk about why His eternality is the greatest of all assurances and comforts for us. We are going to find out why His love for righteousness and hatred for lawlessness both condemns us absolutely and secures and establishes us completely in His grace forever.
We have made the point that He is greater than the angels and the prophets, so let’s lay that to rest and just look at Him and His eternal nature today.
First then,
HIS ETERNALITY
“The eternity of God is involved in His self-existence. He is uncaused. Therefore He must be without beginning. He transcends the whole chain of causes and effects. Therefore He can never cease to be.” God the Creator and Lord of All – Dr. Samuel Harris
The eternality of God cannot be taught without teaching His immutability – His unchangeableness. Lewis Sperry Chafer, in his Systematic Theology, briefly explains it this way:
“In no sphere or relationship is God subject to change. He could not be less than He is, and, since He fills all things, He could not be more than He is. He could be removed from no place, nor is His knowledge or holiness subject to change.” Systematic Theology Lewis Sperry Chafer, Dallas Seminary Press, Dallas Tx., 1947
Our text verses quote Psalm 102 which even the ancient Jews recognized as a Messianic Psalm.
“I say, ‘O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days, Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old Thou didst found the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. Even they will perish, but Thou dost endure; and all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing Thou wilt change them, and they will be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years will not come to an end.” Ps 102:24-27
There are other passages where God says the same of Himself:
“Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; Isa 46:9-10
“For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” Mal 3:6 Should those be words of great comfort? You bet! Both the sons of Jacob and we, owe our continued existence to His immutability!
We’ll speak more of this in a few minutes.
And James says of Him:
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” James 1:17
I love the beautiful language of Psalm 90 verses 1 and 2.
“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Ps 90:1-2
From everlasting to everlasting. From eternity past to eternity future. I say that for help in grasping the concept, but in reality, when speaking of eternity there is no past or future, because eternity speaks of timelessness.
In other words, we might say “God always was and God always will be”, but it would be more accurate to say “God is” and leave it at that.
When Moses asked who he should tell the Children of Israel had sent him to them, God answered,
“I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” Ex 3:14
Jesus then used this same term of Himself when challenged by the Jews in John’s Gospel.
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” 59 Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple. Jn 8:56-59
Why did they pick up stones to throw at Him? Because they knew the designation from Exodus and they understood His words to be a claim to Deity. It was blasphemy to them because they did not want to believe His words, and the penalty for blasphemy was stoning to death.
Now what we have in the words of Jesus, recorded in John’s Gospel, is scripture confirming scripture. Follow me here. We believe all Scripture is God-breathed, and we believe the entire Bible to be the inspired Word of God. So in John’s inspired gospel, we have recorded the Word of God Himself speaking and confirming His own words from the Old Testament.
Get it? That’s triple confirmation!
Then we come to our text and once more we have the inspired writer to the Hebrews, in his writing referring back to the inspired Psalmist’s words, and by this the Holy Spirit is confirming to us that both the Psalm and the letter to the HEBREWS declare the Son to be God, to be eternal, to be everlasting and unchanging.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”
That’s Jn 1:1-2, and down in verse 14 of that chapter John declares that this same Word became flesh and dwelt, or tabernacled, among us.
Now I want to talk about
WHAT HIS ETERNALITY MEANS FOR US
Let’s just set the tone by reading the words of the prophet, Isaiah:
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. 23 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. 24 Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, But He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. 25 “To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. 29 He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. 30 Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” Isaiah 40:21-31
People, this is Christ! Christ means Anointed and Jesus means Salvation, both are designations of His earthly mission and accomplishment, nevertheless, this one speaking through the Prophet 800 years before His coming is the same, everlasting, eternal Word of God. This is Jesus talking!
He raises up the rulers of the earth and takes them down again! He knows the stars by name!
He stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in! Did you catch that when I just read the words from Isaiah? And did you remember the words of our text?
10 And, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; 11 They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, 12 And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end.”
So what does His eternality mean for us?
He will never change toward us. His promises cannot change or be thwarted. He has made us now to be everlasting. We are not eternal because we had a beginning. But He has made us to last forever and that cannot be changed, because He would have to change and He cannot.
Lewis wrote, “We will live to remember the galaxies as an ancient tale”
And HEBREWS confirms that the galaxies will become old like a garment, and the eternal, unchangeable God will roll them up, and Christian, you and I will stand by and watch in wonder as He does so, because we will not become old and worn, we will not change once our glorification is revealed.
If you remember tonight, or on the next clear night, step outside away from any artificial lights and look up at the sky. If you can do so comfortably, lay down on your back and stare up for a while, and remember that you will live to remember what you see like you would remember the account of an ancient historical event. Because Jesus is going to fold them and dispose of them like an old cloak.
Listen to C.S. Lewis again.
“Nature is mortal. We shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image; the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.
…
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses; to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” 1949, Macmillan
We have to move along, so let’s talk about,
HOW HIS NATURE CONDEMNS US
Bearing in mind all the things we have just said about His eternality and immutability, go back to verse 9 of our text and see that the Father’s testimony of the Son is that He has hated lawlessness.
A number of the translations use the word ‘wickedness’ there for lawlessness, and at least one employs the word ‘iniquity’.
When it comes to God’s law violation of it is wickedness. Of the word ‘wicked’, my dictionary says ‘morally very bad’. ‘Evil’.
Disobedience to our Creator comes from a heart that has pondered wickedness, lawlessness, and then acted upon it.
So called philosophers of every age have asked the same pointless and sinful questions about the God that they do not know. They have said, “If God is good why does he allow evil to exist?”
They ask “If God is all powerful, why can’t He stop suffering and deprivation? Why are so many destitute and dying all over the world?”
They ask the wrong questions. Instead of asking “Why do these have to suffer so”, they should be asking, “Why do we not suffer; why are we not destroyed?”
God is. God hates wickedness. When the Father said to the Son, ‘You have hated lawlessness’, ‘have hated’ means eternally, unchangingly, He hates lawlessness. God did not suddenly wake up one day and decide He was fed up with evil or suddenly realize that evil is bad. In all of eternity, God hates lawlessness. He is just. He is Justice. If God went entirely by His justice man would have been destroyed in the Garden of Eden.
God is from eternity to eternity, absolutely holy. He is not holy because He abstains from certain things or withdraws Himself from His fallen creatures.
His holiness is “…intrinsic, uncreated and untarnishable; it is observable in every divine attitude and action. It embraces not only His devotion to that which is good, but is also the very basis and force of His hatred of that which is evil.” L.S. Chafer, IBID
Therefore the very fact of His eternal nature and His unchanging character continuously condemns the sinfulness of fallen mankind.
Do not think that evil is the opposite of holiness. Some have assumed in the past that God created evil and waited for the right time in His plan to place it among existing things.
Evil and sin are not the opposite of holiness. Whatever is anything less than absolute and perfect holiness is evil.
Therefore when men and women say in their heart, ‘Well, I’m not as bad as some and I am a lot better than many, they compare themselves to themselves and to others, forgetting or denying that they compare evil with evil, sinfulness with sinfulness.
Only God is absolutely holy, therefore all others are by definition, evil. The first step to understanding the reality about ourselves and our condition is to compare ourselves to God, not each other. Once we have done that, if we can do that honestly, the only proper conclusion would be to bow down on our faces and thank Him that He has not exterminated us.
Now let’s talk about,
HOW HIS NATURE SECURES US
Verse 9 says, “You have loved righteousness”. Again, saying ‘have loved’ to the Eternal, means His love of righteousness is intrinsic and neither growing nor diminishing.
From eternity to eternity God loves righteousness and hates wickedness. One truth could not exist without the other.
Here, another sharp contrast is drawn between the Creator and His creatures.
One moment we are trying in our feeble way to uphold what is right and the next we are abiding wickedness. In fact, we can be doing both at the same time in different areas of our life, so contrary and convoluted are we.
It gets worse though, in very many cases we cannot distinguish between the two. We are backwards in our thinking and in our morality because of the ruin of sin, and very often what we decide is right is evil and vice versa.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else”, wrote the prophet, “And is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jer 17:9
Well, the answer is that God can, but we cannot.
The fact is, His everlasting love for righteousness and hatred for wickedness is what brought Him down. Sin is an affront to God’s holiness. His justice will not allow sin to go unpunished and un-put away.
Sin came into His creation and death through sin and the unchangeable eternality of a Holy, Just God could not not destroy it.
Our security, Christ-followers, is in the eternality of God who, as the only One in existence who could deal with sin, by His own nature had to deal with sin and vindicate His holiness.
Our security, true Christians, is in the immutability of God, who loved us with the same eternal love with which He loves righteousness, so He came down to remove wickedness from us forever and raise us up to stand by grace in His righteousness. And now that can never change because to change our standing would require a change in Him and that He cannot do.
THE OIL OF JOY
Let’s talk about this anointing in verse 9 as we close.
Ancient kings and priests were anointed to their office by the pouring of oil on their heads (Lev 8:12, Num 3:3 1 Sam 10:1 for a few examples).
Keep in mind that the things said by the Father to the Son in these various Old Testament Messianic passages quoted here, although eternally true of Him, make reference to His work on earth in the days of His sojourning here.
It was by His suffering and death that He demonstrated in history His eternal love of righteousness and hatred of lawlessness.
“What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did. Sending His Son in the likeness of flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” Romans 8:3
“Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Phil 2:8
“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Col 2:13-14
Therefore while, as God, He is eternally King, in the work He accomplished He performed as High Priest to take away the sin of the world.
We’ll have much to say about that later. For now, be aware that as God/Man, He perfectly loved righteousness and hated lawlessness and was therefore anointed King and Priest, and exalted to the place of authority above all; above His created angels, above all men, above all kings, far above all rulers and principalities and powers, taking His rightful place at the Father’s right hand until the Father turns his enemies into a hassock.
And even here, dear ones, do we find our benefits in His eternal nature. He cannot be dethroned. His anointing is everlasting and the joy with which He was anointed was the joy and gladness overflowing the Father’s great heart, as the Son, the Victor, returned to His place, the battle won, the prize secured.
What is the prize? Why, it’s you and Me, believer. We’re the prize.
“He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—“ Col 1:22
That can never change for you or for me or for any who have believed on His name and in His Word, because of the eternal nature of the Son.
