The letter to the Hebrews is unique in many ways. It appears to be more a treatise than a letter. This is evident with the opening sentence, which covers four verses in the Authorized Version. There is no customary greeting, "Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." Instead, the writer begins with the word "God," and immediately states his proposition.
God is not silent. He is not dumb as were the gods made by men's hands. He is communicative. God has spoken. This fact is startling in its implications. If God has spoken from Heaven, man on earth must listen. It is unthinkable that a mortal would ignore a message from God. So Isaiah prefaces his disclosure of the words of God with the admonition, "Hear, 0 heavens, and give ear, 0 earth: for the Lord hath spoken" (1:2).
God has spoken in history, and His revelation has been made in two ages: "in time past" and "in these last days." The former refers to the whole period from the coming of man upon the earth to the coming of the Son of man to the earth. The "last days" designate the final age of God's dealing with man on earth. There will be no additional revelation until "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 1:7, 8).
God has spoken to two classes of people, the fathers and ourselves. He has spoken through two kinds of agents, the prophets and His Son. The message in time past was presented in many parts and in many ways. Various means were employed to convey the divine instruction to the prophets. Various means were used to pass it on to the people. God used dreams, visions, angelic appearances, and natural phenomena to speak to the prophets. They in turn used not only direct communication, but all kinds of object lessons and dramatizations to portray what they had received from God.
The greatest revelation was reserved for the last age of mankind upon the earth. God had spoken to man by His Son. Jesus is the living Word. He is the very power through which all creation was spoken into existence. That Word "was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Men were thus able to see the glory of God manifested in a personality before their very eyes. The word of the Lord came to the prophets so they could speak of the Lord of the Word, or, of the Word who became Lord.
The Son is superior to the prophets. He is superior to the angels who appeared to the prophets. He is superior to the angels who delivered the tablets of stone to Moses upon Sinai. To turn one's back upon Jesus, and revert to the regime of the law, constitutes a spurning of the superior for the inferior. It is as if a mature person suddenly regressed into his former childhood state, babbling and prattling, and playing again with the toys he once discarded. Such a person in the physical realm is an object of pity. It is no sin to be a child, but it is a tragedy to remain one or to revert to childhood.
The superiority of Jesus over prophets and angels is demonstrated in seven declarations as to His power. No other intelligent being in the universe can qualify in these respects. The fact that God has spoken to us through one so dynamic is sufficient to demand the absolute attention of all who are aware of it. These seven power-packed attributes of the Son are a means of strengthening our trust in Him to the glory of God. Perhaps these seven are mentioned because the number signified completeness, or perfection, to the Hebrews.
1. The Son has been appointed heir of all things. Three truths are apparent in this brief statement: the Son is an heir, the inheritance is universal, and the heritage is by appointment. This is an affirmation of the power of divine relationship. In Romans 8:16 the apostle declares that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our own spirits that we are children of God. He then reasons, "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (v. 17). We are all sons of God, but Jesus is the Son of God in a unique way, and universal heirdom is based upon that sonship.
There is, of course, one great difference between the way we become heirs of our earthly parents and the way Jesus is an heir of God. We inherit the possessions of a father upon his decease. We are made heirs by his death. This is not true in the case of Jesus. He is not the successor of His Father. The original word rendered, "heir" may have three connotations. It sometimes meant one who acquired something by casting lots. It was also used as we employ it today, to designate one who received his father's goods upon the death of the parent. But it was also used to describe one who was the possessor of anything appointed to him by another; that is, one who was a master or ruler over such an appointed possession.
Jesus said, "All things that the Father hath are mine" (John 16:15). To be a joint-heir with Christ means that the riches of God are available to me through Jesus. No prophet who preceded Jesus could claim to be heir of all things. The era of the prophets was an age of greatness, as men spoke when motivated by the Holy Spirit. But that Spirit now lives with us and in us, and we share in the patrimony of the Father because our Lord is the universal heir.
2. The Son is the one by whom the worlds were made. This is the language of creative power. The Son was the divine agent in bringing about the creation. He was the instrumental cause employed by God. This is but one of several passages affirming this truth. John wrote, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (1:3).
The real purpose of the writer to the Hebrews was to demonstrate the surpassing dignity and power of Jesus. By affirming that the Son existed before all else, and was the agent through whom all else was brought into existence, he makes the worship of angels and other created beings an inferior system of praise. Any creator must exist before the creation and be superior to his creation. God's creation is the result of causes, and the prime cause is the divine intelligence. The implementary cause is the Word of God, which became flesh and lived among us as the only begotten Son. Every result must proceed from a cause, and the cause must be adequate to produce that result. That cause also must exist before the result, and the result must proceed from it. The power to produce a universe must be a universal power, and must be available before the universe itself.
3. The Son is the brightness of God's glory. This signifies reflecting power, as we shall see by the study of the terms used. The word "glory" is an interesting one for the researchist in the development of language. It is a translation of doxa, from which our familiar "Doxology" is derived. Basically it meant "an appearance, a manifestation." From this it came to mean "honor," "praise," or "applause." This is the appropriate recognition given by one in whom reverence or adoration is aroused. Later derivations were "glory" or "splendor," signifying the state or condition inspiring or demanding praise.
The meaning graduated to a significance relating to brightness, or dazzling light, and finally to the perfection characteristic of God. The ancient writers, poets, and prophets used it to signify divine perfection in the moral order, like the sun in the physical universe. As one could not gaze with the naked eye full into the face of the sun without being blinded, so he could not stare directly into the face of God and live. Isaiah saw this glory as the "train of the Lord," which filled the temple (6:1). Ezekiel saw it as "a fire infolding itself, and brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire." He said, "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (1:4, 28).
The Son is that brightness of God's glory. His disciple John described the new Jerusalem thus: "The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:23). All the splendor, majesty, beauty, and perfection associated with God are to be found in Christ. The word rendered "brightness" occurs nowhere else in the sacred Scriptures. It is therefore limited to the Son of God.
The word literally means "reflected splendor," the dazzling brilliance reflected by a luminous planet. This aptly describes the role of the Son. The rays of the sun in its meridian reflect the brightness of the heavenly body, so that one actually sees the rays rather than the sun. Likewise, as one looks at Jesus he sees in Him the manifestation of the glory of God, which is the light of the spiritual universe. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). We need to ponder a long time on the life that is light, the light of God reflected in a world of sin, which could neither overcome nor distort it.
4. The Son was the express image of God. This relates to divine power. The word "image" is from another original, which occurs nowhere else in the New Covenant Scriptures. In its inception, it was the word designating a graving tool, and so it came to refer to something that was engraved or stamped out by a die. The Greeks employed it to designate the image or superscription of the emperor upon coins. It was also used of the impression made by a seal pressed into soft wax upon an official document.
It was translated into English as "character." As such it was applied to letters, numerals, or other marks or signs stamped upon articles for the purpose of identification. The simplest way to illustrate it is by the use of a rubber stamp. When such a stamp is pressed down upon an ink pad and then transferred to a sheet of paper, the image is the exact replica of that on the stamp. So Jesus is the "image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). While we cannot see God, we know exactly what He is like from His "express image" manifested in the Son. As you can look at the imprint of a seal and see exactly what is on the die, so you can look at Jesus and see the revelation of God.
5. The Son upholds all things by the word of His power. This is a description of sustaining power. There is a difference between this and creative power. It is one thing to design and manufacture an automobile and start it. It is a wholly different matter to keep it in running order until it has served its time. All things were created by the power of God's word, and all things are maintained by the word of God's power.
We speak of "laws of nature," but there is no tangible proof that there are such laws. The expression represents our human way of trying to account for the regularity and consistency within our earthly existence. We set our watches by it, and project men to the surface of the moon because of it. The rotation of the earth, the march of the seasons, and the revolution of the planets, all of these force us to conjecture that the Master Designer who first pulled the switch to set the universe in motion also has to have computerized laws by which to maintain it.
I suspect that which we are seeing is the unvarying application of the word of divine power, so that the functioning of the intricate balance is a constant testimony to us of His existence. It is not so much that He set up a code of laws called "nature." Rather, what we call nature is simply God touching His own creation, which responds to that touch, even as it came into existence through it. In our feeble attempt to account for it all, we invent terms and devise and publish scientific explanations. All of this is the human attempt to grasp something that inevitably escapes our grasp. It is beyond us. It comforts me to realize that the universe always is in God's hands, and that as a part of it I am also in His hands. I need not explain a snowflake to appreciate its beauty.
6. The Son purged our sins by himself. This is a description of cleansing power. For many centuries man has used soaps and solvents to purify and whiten. Even the prophets of old mention "fuller's soap," and a fuller was a bleacher of cloth. It is an unfortunate thing, however, that the very detergents we use become pollutants. Streams are covered with foamy suds because detergents were flushed into them from the sewer lines of a great city. Fish die and vegetation turns yellow and withers. In an attempt at sanitation, we become unsanitary. In a desire to destroy germs, we destroy life.
The master defiler of the ages is sin. Directly or indirectly, sin is the cause of all defilement in the universe. Man has no way of freeing himself from sin. He cannot undo a single act he has ever committed. He is helpless in the grip of his carnal nature, like one caught in quicksand. His very struggle to extricate himself drives him more deeply into the sucking mass. He has to be freed by one from the outside. He cannot save himself. He must have a Savior.
Blood is the only "detergent" that can cleanse or purge man from sin, and Jesus provided this cleansing himself. The expression with which we are concerned could mean one of two things. It could mean that Jesus purged our sins without the aid of another. The inference is that He had no assistance but acted alone. The statement could also mean that Jesus purged our sins by sacrificing himself. He did not employ the blood of bulls, goats, or any other substitute. This is probably what is meant. In Hebrews 8:27 it is made clear that as a high priest Jesus did not need to offer a daily sacrifice for sin, because He did it once for all when He offered up himself.
Whatever the meaning, one thing is certain. What we could not do for ourselves Jesus did for us. No man can purify himself, but Jesus purged the sins of all men. He was God's redeeming agent and we are the redeemed, purified and made fit for the Master's use. The cross lifted the curse, the blood bathed away the baseness, and grace gave us gladness in the divine presence.
7. The Son sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. This is the language of ruling power, of universal authority. The right hand always signifies the position of special authority. Thus Jesus said to Caiaphas, the high priest, "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matthew 26:64). Paul wrote that God raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in "the heavenly places," where He is above all principality and power, might and dominion (Ephesians 1:20,21). Peter, who witnessed the Lord's ascension, substantiates this with the assertion that Christ has gone "into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him" (I Peter 3:22). Jesus uses His position in a special way for those who are His servants. "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:34). This shows that Jesus still labors in our behalf. He is our intercessor at God's right hand.
At the risk of being boresome by repetition, let me once more remind you that the writer has a purpose in outlining these special powers accruing to Jesus by virtue of His nature and character. He is demonstrating that to reject Jesus, and return to the powerless and legalistic framework of Judaism, is to degenerate. It is to substitute the worse for the better, the least for the greater, the weaker for the stronger. It is to return to the degradation of bondage after having been set free by the grace of God.
Jesus possesses the power of divine relationship, creative power, reflecting power, divine power, sustaining power, cleansing power, and ruling power. He is both the center and the circumference of the moral universe. Anything that does not proceed from Him has no validity, anything that does not draw men to Him as no veracity. He is either Lord of all in our lives, or He is Lord of nothing at all! One cannot manipulate Him who is all in all!