who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 01:03-04, NKJV).
There is a Man sitting on the Throne of the Universe.
Soon He will return to establish His rule physically on this Planet, in the City of Jerusalem, from which He will reign over all the affairs of Earth and men.
There is no way that we would know these things without God having revealed them to us in His word, but reveal them He does, repeatedly, emphatically, unequivocally, and to believe them is an integral part of being Christian.
Logically, there is really no way around it. If you try to believe that He is Lord and Savior, but are unconvinced of His physical return, as many so-called Christians are, then you have "cherry picked" what you choose to believe about Him. Instead of taking God at His Word, you have set yourself up as the arbiter of what He meant, and what is just fanciful additions to, or interpretations of, Scripture.
Why believe any of it then? How do you know the things you have picked are the correct things? Or the only correct things?
The objective answer is, simply, that you can't. You are only guessing. And by guessing you are basing your eternal destiny on your own judgment.
Risky business.
But if your only source of information and belief is Scripture itself, then there are no dubious areas about the fundamental tenets of Christianity. You either believe what the Bible says about Jesus, who He is, where He came from, and what His purposes are, or you are a pretender.
I suspect it would be better to just disbelieve the whole package entirely, then to decide on your own what is or isn't necessary to avoid Hell. At least that way, the road to saving faith would be a straight shot, if you were fortunate enough to embark upon the journey, rather than some twisted, convoluted, self-devised maze of nuance and arrogance and confusion.
The New Testament clearly teaches that Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. These are not just noble cliches, but actual titles that convey absolute sovereignty and rulership over all mankind. He has that right not only because He is the Executor of Creation, nor solely because He is God, but He is so also by virtue of having become human, in addition to the other indisputable claims of authority.
But more than that, He is not just Lord over the lives and deaths of men, but He has ultimate power over all spheres of existence, physical and nonphysical.
Some ancient Hebrews were quite amenable to worshiping not only God, but angels. That is true for many Jews and Gentiles today. And in fact, recent history has seen an increase in the human veneration of angels, but the fact of it is not new at all. It has been a mistake for a long, long time. A mistake that the writer of Hebrews is brilliantly arguing against here and elsewhere, and that other texts of Scripture clearly affirm.
Angels are created beings. They have no equivalence whatsoever with Deity. They are likened to spirits and flames, and stars, but they are not uncaused, nor eternal.
Though powerful and intelligent and immortal, only Satan and his fellow rebels, the demons, seek to be worshiped. The remaining two-thirds who did not join in Lucifer's attempted insurrection, do not, and will not ever countenance being worshiped.
Every incident in Scripture where a human encountered one of the holy angels and acted on the impulse to worship, the angels themselves forbid it.
The Apostle Paul writes that one day, we the redeemed of mankind will actually judge angels.
In fact, the very plan of human redemption is so marvelous and brilliant, that angels seek to learn and understand it more deeply.
The bottom line is that only God is worthy of worship. And Christ His Son is the Living Lord of Everything. There is none higher. There is no other name by which we must be saved.
His place of authority is His by nature, by power, and by inheritance.
When you consider the esteem that God holds for us, His mortal, and vilely rebellious human creatures, you cannot fail to understand the indefinable grace and mercy and love He bestows upon us.
That He would condescend to send His Son to become one of us for all eternity, so that we would have Him as King, is a fact of Scripture too glorious for mere words.
It says all that need be said of the love of God for sinners, and for our bent and twisted species as a whole.
