Christ exalted above the angels.
I. CONSIDER THE ANGELIC DIGNITY. The word "angel" as employed here to be taken in a very wide sense, as "angel" primarily denotes office and service rather than nature. Jesus himself, looked at from a certain point of view, was an angel, a messenger, an evangelist. God can make a messenger, as we are reminded in this passage, from the winds and the flame of fire: e.g. the burning bush was a messenger to Moses. But doubtless there is also a special reference to those who in the Scriptures are peculiarly indicated by the word "angel." Such a being came twice to Hagar in her need, and stayed Abraham when he was on the point of slaying Isaac in sacrifice. The angels Jacob saw ascending and descending are not to be taken as merely creatures of a dream. An angel touched the great Elijah in his solitude and despair, and more than once directed him in his goings. Notice, also, the glorious appearing to Manoah and his wife. Nor must the dreadful errands of angels be forgotten—their connection with the destruction of Sodom and of Sennacherib's army. These are the visitations mentioned, but how many more there may have been unrecorded! The angelic visitations of the New Testament must particularly be recollected, because they were fresh to the knowledge of writer and readers of this Epistle. And if we are not to set down these manifestations to mere hallucination, then it is plain that the beings manifested must have belonged to a glorious order. Such a being, breaking suddenly upon the vision of a man, could not but awe, and might even terrify. Of such a one it might even be said, "Surely this is a son of God." But that would be a fallacy, springing from mere magnificence of appearance. And yet it is a fallacy which, in other shapes, will ever deceive the judgment of men till they put that judgment under guidance of the Spirit of God. Men of great intellectual power, men of genius, are reckoned to have in them something that lifts them for ever above common men. Whereas the dazzling brightness and beauty flowing from them should put us on our guard. In the Divine order of existence the spiritual man is ever higher than the natural man, although the natural man may look far more imposing. Mary saw an angel once, and probably the glory from him appealing to the senses was such as she did not see in her own Son all the time he was on earth. Angels are to be taken as the crowning illustration of all that is most magnificent and impressive in the way of outward splendor.
II. THE ELEVATION OF JESUS ABOVE THE ANGELS. To emphasize this, the writer appeals to certain passages from the Old Testament Scripture. The line of his appeal is plain. He assumed that these passages related to the Christ. He knew, and his readers knew, that Jesus was the Christ, and hence they all feel that God himself has exalted Jesus in his way far above all principality and power. And it must have been a very practical thing in those days thus to insist on the supremacy of Christ over angels. For, as there were pseudo-Christs, so there was danger of pseudo-angels. The devil appearing as an angel of light may not have been the mere figure it seems to us. Paul hints at the possibility of an angel from heaven preaching some other gospel. There might be a splendid appearance seeming to have authority in it. Spirits had to be tried whether they were of God. We know from the First Epistle to the Corinthians how the wonderful attracted men rather than the useful. And so we need to be reminded that it is not an angel, purposely glorious to the outward eye and appearing occasionally to a Zacharias or a Mary, or even as that terrible form who rolled back the door of the sepulcher and made the keepers shake and become as dead men, who is nearest God in heaven. The meek and lowly Jesus, moving about among men, despised and rejected, so that they see no beauty that they should desire him, is far above the angels. And, indeed, he also in due time and for certain purposes can appear in a visible glory which makes all angelic glory seem a common and feeble thing trey.