Thursday, December 17, 2020

Kenneth L. Schenck on Hebrews 1:10-12 and the Worship of Jesus

 

 

With regard to 1:10, we have already seen that the catena begins with a focus on Christ’s exaltation as royal Son of God. Nothing in the verses that follow points to a shift in this temporal location; rather, the train of thought maintains this timing. Bauckham and others have argued that the passage is chiastic, which allows for a different timing for the middle citations of the chain than at its beginning. To argue for this structure, however, they must ignore its overt literary structure. The grammatical structure of the chain links the first three quotations in 1:4-6 (ειπεν . . .και παλιν . . . δε παλιν) and views 1:7 (μεν) in contrast with the two citations of 1:8-12 (δε). With the timing of 1:5a effectively established as the point of Christ’s exaltation, it follows that the citations in 1:5b and 1:6 also likely refer to the recently enthroned Christ. The οικουμενη into which God leads his newborn πρωτοτοκος is thus the world of 2:5, the coming world, the heavenly Jerusalem of 12:22-24. A disciplined interpretation of 1:6 thus will not read it in the light of Jesus’ birth. In the train of thought here, the angels bow as servants before their king as God seats him on his new, heavenly throne.

 

The contrasts between the Son and the angels in 1:7-12 continue this celebration of Jesus’ enthronement. The appointed role of the angels in the new era is transient, like winds and flames (1:7). They are currently ministers to those about to inherit salvation (1:14). By contrast, the appointed role of Jesus is unending and permanent. The citation of Psalm 45 in 1:8-9 fits nicely with the enthronement of a king whom God ‘anointed with oil of rejoicing in the presence of your companions.’ The main point of contrast in 1:10-12 is thus the permanence of Christ’s kingship in contrast to the creation and the angels as its ministers. The point is not Christ’s literal role as creator. We will not need considerable evidence elsewhere in Hebrews to conclude that the author is thinking of Jesus literally as creator, for the enthronement context of the passage might easily lead us to see Christ as the one who grounds the creation of the world, as the one who brings the creation to the telos that God intended for the world in creation.

 

Both of these proctological passages, therefore, seem somewhat figurative in nature: 1:2 because of its close association with God’s wisdom, and 1:10-12 because it appears in the context of Jesus’ enthronement as cosmic king. Our search for further clues in the rest of Hebrews only leads us further away from a literal reading. Hebrews 2:10, for example, strikingly distinguishes God as the one διου all things exist, from Jesus as the one God perfects through suffering. This verse uses the same language as 1:2 of God as creator in a passage that distinguishes him from Jesus. Hebrews 3:4 similarly mentions God as creator in a context that distinguishes him from Jesus. Hebrews 11:3 also mentions God as creator rather than Christ. The only other possible reference to Jesus as creator appears in 8:2, where the ‘Lord’ is said to pitch the true tent, but the precise referent here is ambiguous, as is the nature of the tent . . . This level of exaltation and worship for someone who had only recently walked the earth is clearly unprecedented within Judaism. However, we do find precedents in Jewish literature that illuminate how the early Christians likely conceptualized and arrived at it . . . In the Parables of Enoch, the Son of Man figure receives worship repeatedly (e.g., 48.5; 62.9), and he receives this worship while seated on God’s throne. We get no sense, however, that God’s oneness or supreme sovereignty is ever in question, for this messianic figure is ruling for God and under the ultimate sovereignty of the one God. He is mediating God’s sovereignty to the cosmos. The worship he receives, from one perspective, seems to blur the lines between the kind of reverence appropriate for a king and the kind of reverence appropriate for God. We wonder, however, whether the problem is in fact one of our own making. Perhaps interpreters have created two dictionary entries for the word worship here when in fact there is only one. That is to say, perhaps scholars have assumed that the worship of God is a different kind of worship from the use of προσκυνεω in other contexts, when the difference is more one of degree.

 

Bauckham similarly dismisses the figure of Moses on the throne of God in the Exagogue of Ezekiel the Tragedian as evidence against his fundamental understanding. The idea of Moses sitting on God’s throne is figurative, a prediction of Moses’ biblical career in relation to Israel, based on the comment in Exodus 7:1 that God would make Moses a ‘god’ to Pharaoh. Moses thus stands in relation to Israel as God stands to the cosmos. Certainly Bauckham is correct here, but we question whether he can so easily dismiss the relevance of this passage to the worship of Jesus in the New Testament. Bauckham no doubt feels far less comfortable with the image of Moses on the cosmic throne than Ezekiel the Tragedian did. When it came to the mediation of God’s rule over the world, it was possible to see the human throne as a reflection of God’s throne. Thus Jesus can be like God in relation to the creation just as God is God over everything, including Jesus. Divinity so conceived is primarily a matter of power and authority, and God can allow others to represent his authority in the world.

 

In each case, the apparent blurring of the lines between the worship of the one God and the worship of another figure occurs with a royal figure who is mediating God’s power and authority. We find a similar dynamic at work in the Life of Adam and Eve 13-15, where the angels are commanded to worship Adam as the image of God. As in Hebrews, the angels are merely servants of God. Adam, on the other hand, was made to rule over the creation as God rules over all (cf. Gen 1:27-28). He was made to reflect and mediate God’s rule as an image of God’s sovereignty. Satan’s refusal to reverence Adam according to God’s will was thus rebellion against God’s authority.

 

This careful distinction between Jesus as Lord and God in relation to the cosmos and YHWH as LORD and GOD over all, is carefully maintained in both Paul and Hebrews (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:28; Phil 2:11). The wording of Psalm 110:1 and Psalm 45:6 already distinguished the ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ (which the early Christians took to refer to the Messiah) from YHWH as the ‘LORD’ and ‘GOD.’ Hebrews and other New Testament authors who drew on these passages recognized the inherent distinction while understandably blurring the imagery of worship and divinity at times, particularly in poetic contexts. Hebrews 1 is a great case in point. Hebrews 1:8-9 can boldly acclaim Jesus’ God, YHWH, anointing him as king. Hebrews 1:10-12 can use a YHWH passage from Psalm 102 that originally spoke of God as creator, without forgetting that it was at the exaltation that the LORD said to Jesus (as ‘Lord’) to sit at his right hand. (Kenneth L. Schenck, “The Worship of Jesus Among Early Christians: The Evidence of Hebrews,” in B.J. Oropeza, C.K. Robertson and Douglas C. Mohrmann, Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honor of James D.G. Dunn. A Festschrift for his 70th Birthday [Library of New Testament Studies 414; London: T&T Clark, 2009, 2019], 114-24, here, pp. 119-20, 122-23)