Hebrews 1:8 — "Your Throne, O God"

Biblical Unitarians interpret Hebrews 1:8-9 ('Your throne, O God, is forever and ever...Therefore God, your God, has anointed you') as a quotation from Psalm 45 addressed to an earthly king, applied to Jesus. In the original psalm, the king is honored with divine titles and language as God's representative and anointed one, but is not claimed to be God himself. Applied to Jesus, the passage affirms his exaltation and divine honor as the Son of God and Messiah, but does not require that Jesus be a co-equal divine person.

The phrase 'your God has anointed you' in Hebrews 1:9 is critical: it demonstrates that the one being called 'God' in verse 8 has a God above him, namely the Father. Biblical Unitarians argue this is incompatible with the Nicene doctrine that the Father and the Son are co-equal in power and glory. Rather, Jesus is God's anointed representative, honored with divine attributes and titles, yet subordinate to and dependent upon the Father. This Hebrews 1 passage thus confirms the Unitarian reading of Jesus's exaltation while maintaining the oneness and supremacy of God the Father.