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John 5:18 is an interesting text. The Jews are referring to Christ making Himself equal to the elohim, saying God was His Father, and as this was not spoken in Greek, but in Aramaic, we get the text as ‘elohi’, then rendered as angels.

The Jews of the time of Jesus understood the term ‘elohim’ of the Old Testament to refer to the ‘gods’ or spirit beings of the host of heaven. These spirit beings, elohim, were created by the God Most High.

The Jews of the time of Jesus also understood that the Great Angel of the Old Testament who gave the law to Moses was an elohim. This was understood by the early church to be Jesus Christ in pre-incarnate form.

Psalm 45:6-7 refers to Messiah, the Son of God, and this understanding is borne out in Hebrews 1:8-9, which identifies the elohim spoken of as Christ.

The name of the One True God, Eloah, is in the singular in verse 5 of Proverbs 30:4-5.

When the OT was translated in the Greek of the Septuagint, the word aggelos was used for the sons of God, or the elohim in the Hebrew. Hence the word ‘angel’ in the English.

Psalm 8:4-6 is quoted in Hebrews 2:6-8, and verse 4 refers to mortal man enosh and adam in Hebrew.

In Hebrews 2:9 we see that it was for the suffering of death that Christ was made lower than the angels (elohim) for a little while. This accords with Philippians 2:5-9, which shows his incarnation as a man.

After Christ’s death, He was raised in power from the dead (Rom.1:4) and was then ‘highly exalted’ by His Father (Phil. 2:9).

The word rendered ‘angels’ in Psalm 8 and Hebrews is the Greek translation of elohim or gods. It suited the translators to retain the Greek ‘aggelos’ (messenger) as angel, to cloud the true sense of elohim being the sons of God, as distinct from Eloah, God Himself. It appears they did not want the fact of the extended order of beings, elohim, to be easily available to readers.

Bullinger makes note in the Companion Bible that the sons of God are all elohim as the OT shows by their usage of the word. The temple priests understood the full implications of the term elohim in relation to Christ, as a messenger of God.

The term son of man (no article) used in the text in Psalm 8 relates to dominion in the earth and is used three times in that sense in the Hebrew text relating it to Messiah.

The text in 8:6 refers to the dominion given to Adam and which was lost in the fall. The restoration of that dominion is the aim of the salvation of man by God, as part of His plan for mankind (Heb 2:1-9).

Christ became human and died to reconcile all to God (cf. Heb. 2:10-13). Christ proclaims our names in the congregation of the elohim and He is not ashamed to call us brethren.

God is concerned for the descendants of Abraham, to make us priests, through Christ, and ultimately to rule with Him (Rev 20:4).

The early church understood that the being who delivered the law to Moses was Christ. The greater salvation spoken of is by way of the help from the Holy Spirit, available after Christ’s death and resurrection.

No man can come to Christ except that God calls him, and none can come to God except through Christ. All this is accomplished by the help of the Holy Spirit, which binds us in agreement, and given through obedience.

By obedience to God’s Laws in the form of a man, Christ’s death paved the way for the whole of mankind and the fallen host to be resurrected, and reconciled to God the Father, Eloah, so that by the Holy Spirit, God Almighty can become all in all (Eph. 4:6).