1:2b-3 . . . whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Having declared the new way God has revealed Himself, i.e., in His Son, the author goes on now to state seven distinctives about Christ. He does not elaborate on them, and seems to assume that his readers understood what each of them signifies. Let us look at each of them in turn.
1. The Heir of All Things.
In the illustration we used earlier in reference to v1-2a, we said that the one through whom God has now spoken is His Crown-Prince. Here is the proof. The Son has been 'appointed heir of all things.'1 It would be amiss to ask questions here like "When did God appoint the Son as heir?" "Was there a time when the Son was not the heir?" Etheken, translated here as "appointed," points to the decidedness of the matter. There is no possibility of some other candidate usurping, or even contesting, the Son's place in heaven's scheme of things with regard to the cosmic inheritance. He is the Crown-Prince, who will decidedly inherit all things, and it is with him, the Son, anyone who has any business from now on will have to deal. Not Mary, not St Peter or St Paul, or any of the other patron-saints. No one else but the Son.
The idea of being an heir and inheritance is quite common in the NT. Most of them, however, concern our inheriting, or not inheriting, the glorious promises of God. Rom 8:17 and Eph 1:18 are the only other places where Christ's inheritance is highlighted. Eph 1:18 records one of the items in Paul's glorious prayer; he prays that "the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints." His prayer reminds us that we are part of "his glorious inheritance."2 Are we? Can we say honestly that Christ could look at his inheritance and, seeing us amongst all the other things, he could actually say that his inheritance is glorious? Rom 8:17, on the other hand, reminds us that we are "co-heirs" with Christ. Have we matured in the Spirit and become the kind of person with whom Christ can say it is his joy to share his inheritance with us? Worth more than a thought, right?
2. The Maker of the Universe.
There is a tendency in us to partition the work of the Trinity in a way that makes God the Father primary the Creator and Sustainer, the Son as the Saviour who atoned for our sins, and the Holy Spirit as Counselor in our walk of faith. The Son "through whom he [God] made the universe," however, is a blue-blooded biblical teaching:3
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (John 1:3)
. . . yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (1 Cor 8:6)
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (Col 1:16)
The Son did not come out of the blue just so he could die a criminal death on the cross and save us. He was there from the very beginning. He was for him all things were made. Every species of fish, deer, and dodo we have hunted to extinction. Every river we have polluted with our toxic waste. Every patch of ground we have mulched with our discarded plastic bags and stylofoam boxes. Every child we have neglected to love and protect. Every neighbour we have wounded with our gossips and bad-mouth. The Son made them all, and he will inherit them all, for we are co-heirs.
3. The Radiance of God's Glory.
The NT, and especially John, makes much of the Son as light.4 The Greek word apaugasma, though it appears only here in the NT, denotes "radiance shining forth from the source of light."5 The word has both an active and a passive sense, and could be translated either as "radiance" or "brightness" (NIV, KJV, NASB, NKJ) or "reflection" (RSV, NRS). Taken within the larger context of the NT's testimony about the Son, there is no question which is the preferred rendition. Jesus does not merely reflect the light, he is "the light." In one of the rare moments when the transcendent nature of the Son was briefly revealed on the so-called 'Mount of Transfiguration' in all its blazing splendour, Peter, James and John saw him "transfigured before them, his clothes dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them" (Mk 9:2-3). However understood, it means that anyone who wishes to behold the glory of God needs only look to the Son. The ancient creeds and confessions of the Church confesses this fact in speaking of him as "very light of very light." The church has often descended into the depth of darkness; let us live in manners that would allow the Son's glory to fill it again.
4. The Exact Representation of His Being.
The word hypostaseoos is difficult to pin-down, and has been understood as "being" (NIV, NRS), "nature" (NASB, RSV), or "person" (KJV, NKJ). It refers to what something is in all its essence. Of God's hypostaseoos, the Son is the charakter. Elsewhere in the NT, Christ is often spoken of as "the image" (eikon, from which we get the English word 'icon').6 Charakter, on the other hand, refers to what comes out when a piece of metal has been pressed in a die to produce, say, a coin. The resulting 3-D image on the coin is an exact copy of the die; that is the charakter (in practice the image on the coin is, of course, the obverse of the die, but it would be misguided to press such a point). The point here is that anyone who wants to know what God is like needs only to look at the Son.7 Those of us who has our conception of God mal-influenced by an inadequate understanding of the OT should look afresh at the new revelation in the Son through whom God has now spoken.
5. Sustainer of All Things.
Foreign to the biblical world-view is the idea that God is a "watch-maker," who designed and put the watch together and it runs on its own energy thence. God's continual, intimate and gracious involvement in all the details of our life is is the grand theme of bibilical theology, one unique among the religions of the world. Again, we often associate this gift with God the Father. The author of Hebrews reminds us that here too is the Son engaged. The verb used here, pheroon, is capable of a broad range of meanings, including 'bear up,' 'bring,' 'establish,' 'guide,' 'maintain,' 'support,' and 'sustain.' "The immediate context," avers O'Brien, "however, suggests the additional nuance of the Son's 'carrying' all things to their appointed end or goal. The notion of direction or purpose seems to be included."8 That the Son is such a sustainer is affirmed elsewhere in the NT. Col 1:17 states it plainly; "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Without the Son, things fall apart. So Paul continues in the same vein, "For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven" (v19-20). In practice this means that, to quote Paul again, "our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor 3:5, NKJ). This marvellous truth is simply another facet of God's character as the One who is constantly making new beginnings possible. The wonder that every Christian experiences is that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:17). The sustenance is simply what happens in the walk—if he/she continues to walk, i.e.,—with Christ afterwards.
The author adds a detail here about how the Son sustains the universe, i.e., "by his powerful word." The author does not elaborate; perhaps what he has in mind is the view given to us of creation when "God said, 'Let . . .' and it was so." The noun used here for 'word' is rhema instead of the more common logos, and some commentators have sought to make a contrast between the two, suggesting that logos is the word of revelation while rhema is the spoken word. Such a distinction serves little purpose; more importantly, it cannot be demonstrated to be evident in the use of the two words either in biblical or extrabiblical Greek literature.9
6. Purification for Sins.
Purification for sins is the work of the high-priests, and the author will have much to say about this later in the letter where he is at pains to stress that what the Son has done for us in this matter is far superior to anything the Levitical high-priests could accomplish. Here it is mentioned only in passing, and almost abruptly so. But it is not. There is no theologically sound way to get across the chasm from sustaining all things to sitting at the right hand of God without dealing with the subject of sin; not for the Son, and certainly not for fallen humans! Jesus' glory laid in him taking up the cup of suffering for our sin. He would have preferred not to, as his excruciating prayer in Gethsemane shows (Matt 26:36-42).
If this mention of the Son making purification for sins seems to break the beauty of the train of thoughts in these two verses for us, it is a good thing for it reminds us again what it means to live with God and how it is made possible: Christ dwelt decisively with our sin at the cost of his own life. Let us sin no more.
7. The Right Hand of God.
Finally, but only after he had made purification for sin, the Son sits, and is sitted now, "at the right hand of the Majesty on high."10 The 'right hand' is a biblical idiom for "power," and to "sit at the right hand" is to be placed in the highest honour, while the expression "the Majesty on high" is a periphrasis for God. The verb ekathisen is aorist in tense, indicating that it is an accomplished act; it can't be occupied by any other candidate. For the author, and the rest of the NT, there is no greater finality concerning the Son than this crowning fact, which was prophesied long ago.11 The author will return to this exaltation of the Son again. For the moment it is enough; he has set out his theses concerning the superiority and finality of the Son. In the rest of the letter he will demonstrate the facts of these claims and expound on their significance and why his readers, pressured and tempted to leave the faith as they are, should persevere in their faith in Him.
Now, we may not now be pressured or tempted as the original audience of the letter were, but do we possess in our hearts and mind such a glorious view and comprehension of the Son that, should such a time of trial cross our days we shall so have our eyes fixed on Him? Is this the enduring vision of Christ that empowers and move us to great works for Him?
Low C. H., ©Alberith, 2016