1:10 And, “You, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the works of your hands.
This and the next two verses are a quotation from Psalm 102:25-27. This whole Psalm is a prayer to YHWH, as clearly indicated by verse 1, “Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry for help come to You.” Verse 24, which leads into the beginning of this verse, says, “So I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: your years are throughout all generations.” It is impossible to avoid the fact that the verses quoted here in Hebrews are, in their original, referring to YHWH. This is the strongest possible statement that Christ is God: not merely like God, not merely some form of lesser divinity, but YHWH Himself, the same One that the Hebrews have worshiped for thousands of years. (Next time you get a chance to talk with a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, try these verses on them!)
In the beginning This is the same phrase used in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created … ” and in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word … ” When everything began, Christ already existed. He had no beginning. Again, this underscores His eternal existence, and therefore His divinity.
You … laid the foundation of the earth The writer has already pointed to Christ in verse 2 as the One “by whom He (the Father) made the worlds.” Here He brings the action even closer, with the picture of a master builder laying the foundation of a house. This was not some kind of distant, proxy involvement in the creation. It was “hands on” all the way. What’s more, it was not merely a reworking of what already existed, but a building “from scratch.” In every sense He is the Creator, as truly and as fully as is the Father.
The heavens are the works of Your hands Not only the earth itself, but the whole of the created universe was the result of the creative effort of the Son. This is yet another plank in the author’s presentation of Christ as greater than the angels. The very place of their habitation owes its existence to His work.
Verses 11-12 They will perish, but you continue. They all will grow old like a garment does.
You will roll them up like a mantle, and they will be changed; but you are the same. Your years won’t fail.”
The emphasis here is on the eternity of the Son, as compared with the limited existence of created things. Both the earth and the heavens have an appearance of being lasting, but the time will come when all those things which seem so solid now will cease to be. Those who see the universe as eternal are wrong: it is temporary, a mere parenthesis in the eternity of God.
but You continue The Son will never cease to be. Not only does He remain, when all else falls apart, but He remains in the present tense: forever the I AM, never the I WAS or the I WILL BE. The contrast again is between that which was created – which had a beginning and therefore will have an end – and the uncreated, and therefore eternal, Son.
they will grow old like a garment … We all understand that after a while our clothing wears thin, and the time comes to throw it out and get something new. When we look around at our world, most will recognize that it is wearing thin. Denuded forests, ravished ore deposits, species passing into extinction, dying reefs, receding ice caps – all around us is the evidence that our world is almost ready to be rolled up and put aside.
The simile of a garment is interesting. We use garments to cover ourselves, but also as a means of expressing our personalities. In the same way, the creation both hides and reveals God. It hides Him by placing something – the material universe – between Him and us, so that we do not see His essence, but His works. Yet, as Paul points out in Romans 1:20, it also reveals Him, demonstrating to man enough of His power and wisdom that those who chose to ignore such revelation are “without excuse.”
There will be a time, however, when the veiled revelation afforded by the material universe will not be enough. A time when God will be seen in His true glory, unshadowed by temporal things. That which half-revealed Him will no longer be relevant, and will be laid aside. In their place will be a new garment, one vastly beyond our imaginings – the new heaven and new earth – through which the full glory of God will shine unhindered.
but you are the same. Your years won’t fail. In Malachi 3:6, God declares, “I am the LORD, I change not.” He is the only thing in the universe that doesn’t. He is not impacted by weather, or erosion, or war, or the fickleness and unfaithfulness of humankind. He is not swayed by honor or derision. He cannot be bowed by pressure or bent by cunning. Alone in a changing, deteriorating universe, He remains constant.
He is not subject to that passage of years that brings degeneration. He is the “ancient of days”, yet always as new as tomorrow.
All this stands in stark contrast to the angels, and clearly shows the absolute superiority of the Son.