nd the prophets
spake.[9] St. Paul, like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
argues that the Law differs from the promise in having been ordained
through angels, as mediators between the Lord and His people Israel,
whereas the promise was given by God, not as a compact between two
parties, but as the free act of Him Who is one.[10] The main purpose of
the first and second chapters of our Epistle is to maintain the
superiority of the Son to the angels, of Him in Whom God has spoken unto
us to the mediators through whom He gave the Law.

The defect of the doctrine of emanations was twofold. They are supposed
to consist of a long chain of intermediate beings. But the chain does
not connect at either end. God is still absolutely unapproachable by
man; man is still inaccessible to God. It is in vain new links are
forged. The chain does not, and never will, bring man and God together.
The only solution of the problem must be found in One Who is God and
Man; and this is precisely the doctrine of our author, on the one hand,
that the Revealer of God is Son of God; and, on the other hand, that the
Son of God is our brother-man. The former statement is proved, and a
practical warning based upon it, in the section that extends from chap.
i. 4 to chap. ii. 4. The latter is the subject of the section from chap.
ii. 5 to chap. ii. 18.

I. THE REVEALER OF GOD SON OF GOD.

"Having become by so much better than the angels, as He hath
inherited a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the
angels said He at any time,

Thou art my Son,
This day have I begotten Thee?

and again,

I will be to Him a Father,
And He shall be to Me a Son?

And when He again bringeth in the Firstborn into the world He saith,
And let all the angels of God worship Him. And of the angels He
saith,

Who maketh His angels winds,
And His ministers a flame of fire:

but of the Son _He saith_,

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever;
And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee
With the oil of gladness about Thy fellows.

And,

Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the works of Thy hands:
They shall perish; but Thou continuest: