God’s Final Revelation

1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, doing so at many different times and in different ways,

God spoke to our ancestors... The author as a Jew speaks to Jews about God's manner of speaking to Israel from the beginning until this day. Just as it was to Israel that God spoke before by the prophets so it is now to Israel that he has spoken by a son.

2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

God has spoken to us by a son... God has spoken to Israel by a son. This book was written by an apostolic Jew, perhaps in consultation with a group of apostolic Jews. It was written to Jewish believers in Yehoshua in the apostolic generation. It is about what it means that God has now spoken to Israel by a son and no longer only by servants, and what it means to all nations that it is to Israel that he has spoken by this son.

To the writer, it has become clear that this Jew, Yehoshua, born of a Jewish mother, who, after observing all the Torah of God, laid down his life for his people that he might take it up again, is the one who is being called by God in the Scriptures his son. And it is as a son that he has made him the heir of all things. And through his love for his son, and therefore through his son himself, for the sake of his inheritance, he made the universe. Just as these mysteries have been revealed and made clear to the writer, so the writer now sets out to make them clear to his readers. For it is these things that God has in these last days spoken to Israel, by addressing this Jew, Yehoshua, as his son.

3 Who being 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, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Who being...and sustaining... The name, Yehoshua/Jesus, is not stated here. It is not used until later in the work. The title, Mashiach/Messiah is also not used here. It is immediately without question, without being stated, that the writer is speaking of him. But just as the writer chooses not to use the definite article, "the", and name him or title him, "The Son", (for which there would be precedent in the Psalms), but instead refer to him with an indefinite grammatical construct, as "a son", so the writer does not choose here to use his personal name, Yehoshua, or prophetic title, Mashiach. Instead, the writer wants the reader to focus on the thought that God has spoken to Israel by one who was in the role of a son and through a son, instead of through someone who was only in the role of a servant, as he did in the past. This is according to God's promise that it would be through a son that he would keep his promise to Abraham, that in him and in his seed through Sarah he would bring forth an heir to the blessing of resurrection and life, to a Humanity cursed with death on account of sin.

It is because this Jewish son, this Israelite promised to Abraham, this son, incarnates the word which God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a covenant, and incarnates the oath of God's word to them, that this promised son sustains all things. For without this promise of God, concerning this Jewish son, and without this promise being realized, all things would perish and could not have been sustained in existence from the beginning. For this Jewish son, this son of his love, this justification of life for Israel, this one is the justification and inheritor of all things. This is the way God loved the world. Here, says the writer of this book, is what God has said to Israel now in these last days: This son of Abraham, this Jew, God has called his son; he is God's love for the world. Indeed, this one who is his love is the exact representation to the world of who he is.

For it is because of the atonement that he has made for the sin of Israel that all things were purified and the curse of God could, in all places, be turned into the blessing of God. Accordingly, God raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, in order that eternal blessing might be brought through Abraham and through Israel to all creation for all eternity. This is the foundation of the world. This is the revelation of the mystery that the writer of this Book To the Hebrews would make fully known to his readers.

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For more on the expression, "the exact representation of his being" see the study by this name on on the Heb\Wrk\Nts page on this site.

4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

The angels... are the first messengers of God in the unfolding of time. It was first angels who brought God's messages to Abraham. But when God spoke to Abraham by a son Abraham would receive a message of an atoning death and resurrection from the dead, of a new creation, in which the angels themselves would receive Good News and would be saved. Therefore God gave this son a name that is above every name.

What is the authority given to this name that makes it to be above every name that is named? The writer explains that it is that God addresses the one who has this name as his son.

5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son; today I have become your father”? [Psalm 2:7]

My son... With this, the writer brings us into the mystery of what the Psalmist has said about this son. Using this verse from the Psalms, the writer begins to lay out the meaning of God speaking by a son, rather than by a servant. The angels, as faithful servants might hope to be elevated from the level of servants to the level of sons of God. Indeed, they have even poetically been called sons of God in the Scriptures. But at no time has God ever said to any angel, "You are my son; today I have conceived and given birth to you".

This is the greatness of the position of a son. Not even the greatest and most faithful of servants could aspire to it. To whom, then, does the prophet refer when he speaks of someone being declared, on a certain day, to be made God's son, even to be conceived and born from him? Although the writer does not yet name him, it is this Jewish son, Yehoshua the Mashiach, the son promised to Abraham and to David, who the writer says the Psalmist was speaking about.

Or again, “I will be his father, and he will be my son”?

His father... This prophecy, recorded in both Samuel and Chronicles, says that not only will there be a son of David who will come to rule over Israel, fulfilling the promise of blessing to Abraham and his offspring, but more than this, God will own this son of David as his own son and will be his father, so that the Son of David will also be the Son of God*.

It was a mystery to the Jewish mind how that a Jew, like themselves, even if he were a king, could be called a son of God. In order to address this mystery, the writer here will not turn to conceptual metaphysics in theology or reasoning. For God did not choose to reveal himself through intellect, or to the wisdom of the wise. He chose to reveal himself through his relationship with the seed of Abraham. The writer of the Book to the Hebrews therefore sets forth to lead his audience deeper and deeper into the Hebrew Scriptures, the record of that relationship between God and Israel.

Taking it a step further, he points out that, just like God never said to any angel, "Today I have become your father," he also did not promise this concerning any angel, although God's angels are the greatest of all God's servants. We see from this that the language is not just poetic. The Scriptures are not talking about God speaking to Israel by someone, a Jewish son, a son of David, a son of Abraham, who is merely, poetically speaking, like a son of God. The writer here wants us to understand that on the day when this son of David faithfully brings the message of God to Israel, in his doing so, he will be acting in a role as a son. Not despite the fact that he is a Jew, but because he is this Jew, God will be his father. It is revealed, according to the Scriptures, that this moment of resurrection in which God becomes the father of this Jewish son is the entrance of creation into eternity. This place is the intersection of time and eternity, it is without beginning or end.

Isaac was the first conception of the promised heir of Abraham. Yehoshua, as the promised son of David, was the final conception of that promised heir. In his acceptance of death and in his resurrection he became the one in whom all the promise of the blessing of life was made to Abraham. He became the entrance into eternity, the son of God. We ourselves cannot come finally and eternally to the Father in any other way than through this revelation of this Jewish son being conceived and born as the eternal son of God in his death and resurrection for the redemption of Israel.

It is possible for us to fall short of seeing the divine glory bestowed upon this Jewish son, to end up thinking that he may be the greatest of all human servants, even as great as or greater than the greatest angels, yet literally only a servant, not a true son. Or it is possible for us to theologically imagine him to be the eternal son of God through our own reasoning and in doing so fail to come to the Father through his revelation of the Father in his death and resurrection for Israel's and the world's redemption.

Our theological imagination and reasoning can be a counterfeit to revelation. He set aside his divinity and took only to himself the humanity of a Jew. He does not reveal the Father through the divinity which he set aside, nor through the act of setting it aside, but only through being the Jew which God promised to Abraham. We also, therefore cannot come to the Father through our ideas of the son's divinity, nor through our ideas of his setting his identity aside to become human, but only through the revelation of his fulfillment of God's work of redemption through him. For this reason, the writer to the Hebrews carefully lays out the testimony given to him in the Scriptures, in order that we might be perfect in the foundation of our faith. We begin to see, then, how that by a servant God can deliver a message from mind to mind, but by a son God can create a whole new mind. It is only when we have a truly new mind created by the humanity of this promised Jew that we will have received the revelation of true eternity of the father and of his love, his son.

6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

Let angels worship him... The writer shows that this midrashic and targumatic reading of the Scriptures must be understood as correctly understanding them. The verse is cited from Deut. 32:43, as translated in the Septuagint, and alludes to Ps. 97:7.

Psalms 97:7 in the JPS reads: "Ashamed be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of things of nought; bow down to him, all you gods."

Deuteronomy 32:43, based on the JPS, reads: "Sing aloud of His people, O you nations; for He avenges the blood of His servants, and renders vengeance to His adversaries, and makes expiation for the land of His people."

The same verse translated into English from the Septuagint reads: "Rejoice, you heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice you nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people."

A translation, or targum, of the Scriptures will sometimes amplify the text in order to convey the intended original meaning. The Septuagint's version of Deut. 32:43, from which the writer appears to quote here, is, at the very least, an amplified translation. However, it seems to even be more than this. It seems to convey an oral, or Midrashic, tradition as to the full version of this discourse. The thought of Psalms 97:7, "Bow down to him, all you gods," is brought also in the text of this verse from Deuteronomy, according to the Septuagint.

The writer of the Book to the Hebrews states that this redemption and purification of the Land and its People, spoken of clearly in both versions of the text, occurs when God "brings his firstborn into the world". This phrase refers to the very same event as has just been refered to by the quotations from Psalms, Samuel and Chronicles. The writer will later use the concept of "firstborn" for purposes very similar to what Paul uses it in Romans 8:9. In the context here it refers directly to Psalms 2:7. In the language of the KJV: "You are my son; this day I have begotten you." The reference is, as shown in Acts 13:33, to his resurrection, a new creation, from his death atoning for Adam, redeeming Israel. For this reason the angels, even though they minister in positions like gods, are commanded to worship him and praise him for their salvation and the salvation of all that they serve.

7 In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.”

Angels... It is completely clear that the angels are of the highest order of creation. They are spirits, like God, who is a spirit. And they are agents of power, conveying the power of God's messages to sustain, or to destroy and create.

8 But about the son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.

"O God..." Nevertheless, the angels do not sit upon the throne of God, nor can they ever. But concerning the son of whom we speak, the Jewish son, the son of Abraham and of David, it is written not only that he should act in the position of God but that he should sit on the throne of God, ruling the kingdom of God. And more, it is written that God himself has spoken to him and promised him this honor.

9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”

The oil of joy... There is one son of Adam whom God has set above all other sons and daughters of Adam, above the first man and woman, the father and mother of all. This son, the son of David, whom God raised from the dead, upholding and redeeming and re-creating all things in his death and resurrection for the sake of the salvation of his nation Israel, God has anointed alone with the personal joy of his own Spirit, the oil of God's own gladness. There is no other Mashiach. Ultimately, God is the God of Israel because he is the God of Israel's Mashiach.

10 He also says, “In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

In the beginning... God personally promises this Jewish son that he will sit upon his throne and rule as God. Therefore, God addresses him prophetically also as Lord, Adonai, revealing that the very beginning of creation rested upon the foundation of his work, which he accomplished on the cross for Jerusalem and for Israel, that the world might stand in the beginning and be saved in the end. These are the foundations of the earth and the heavens were stretched out with his hands. All of this was accomplished on the cross of Israel's salvation, when God raised Israel's Mashiach from the dead.

11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.

Like a garment... Heaven and earth perish by nature. They are not eternal. But the the son whom God has anointed, the one who accomplishes all his will, endures beyond death beyond the destruction of all things. Because he accomplishes the will of God in the perishing creation, creation has hope.

12 You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

You remain... The purpose of God in creating the worlds was not to possess only a corruptible creation where souls were subject to mortality. It was to possess an eternal creation, incorruptible and inhabited with immortal spirits and immortal souls. Therefore he made all things to rest upon the foundation of the son of his love, to whom, before he created the universe, he promised resurrection and eternal life, and to whom he gave all things.

13 To which of the angels did God ever say, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

My right hand... Again, there is one office above all others, the office of the Servant King, the one who who performs all God's will, who conveys all of God's word. And although all of God's angels are holy and faithful and perform services to God which God alone can measure, yet to none of these did God say, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet". But to a son, a Jewish son, his own son, God spoke these words.

14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

Those who will inherit salvation... They also, the angles, though they are faithful servants who have brought the word of God to the children of Adam, will not be elevated in The World To Come in reward for this directly, but instead they will be elevated together with the children of salvation, by the grace of the word of God which is in the son, which will elevate both the children and their faithful ministers with them

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* Son of David, Son of God — This correlative is brought out in Romans 1:3-4. Read a study here on this subject in the form of Mahx Notes on these verses from Romans.