When I prepared sermons for Jail Ministry, my main goal was to bring to the men the message that God’s heart had for them (and me) that week. And most of the time I felt that that was best done by letting whoever the story was about speak in their own words. If the story was about Jesus, then what did Jesus say in that passage? If it was Elijah, or King David, or the Samaritan woman at the well, then, what did they say?

It is kind of  like the maxim most writers are taught early on: “Show, don’t tell.” But sometimes, to understand the story we have to tell. Kierkegaard would argue that in the case of Jesus, this is all the more so… because His words were not the only extraordinary thing about Him. No: His very Life was the extraordinary thing.

That the infinite God who created the Universe, Space, and Time, became a human being and dwelt among us is the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened on planet Earth. It has happened only once. And that intersection of the Infinite with the finite, the Eternal with the transient, the Creator with His creatures, implies such a shock to reality that it would have been even more extraordinary if we had not noticed at all, if His appearance had not changed the course of History.

I am starting now a Study through the letter to the Hebrews. I love it for its clear and logical exposition. I also love it for how closely its beginning resembles my favorite Gospel, the Gospel according to John.

While the synoptic Gospels show us what Jesus did and said, John’s Gospel always feels like it goes deeper, further; highlighting, both through Jesus’ words and through John’s explanatory comments, deeper truths that we might not catch on seeing what the others show us. John is not afraid to tell. Neither is the author of the letter to the Hebrews.

On who the author is, you can do your own research. Some early sources assigned it to Paul; but the fact that the writer does not identify himself argues against that… as does the fact that this is a letter squarely addressing the Jewish Church, not the Gentiles (Paul’s given mission.)

Some have suggested Barnabas. I like Luther’s proposition that it was Apollos of Alexandria.

Like Paul, the author of the letter to the Hebrews appeals to his readers’ intelligence… and like Paul, when dealing with his own countrymen, he buttresses all his arguments on the story of God’s people.

The Son is the Message

Most of us are familiar with John’s gospel’s use of the word Logos – The Word  (or as translated into Spanish – The Verb) – to describe the Son of God. It is a powerful image invoking the Old Testament all the way back to Genesis, where it is by God’s Word that all of Creation is accomplished. That idea, of the Word actively carrying God’s power, is there throughout the Old Testament. It was the Word of God that came upon the prophets to give them both the message and the power to relay it.

So, here, the author of Hebrews picks that as the beginning of his exposition:

Hebrews 1:1-2 God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

The author is not wasting any time: If we know one thing about the God of Israel is that He is a God who speaks. Over and over again we are told in the Old Testament that the gods of the nations are mute and deaf and, though portrayed as having hands, powerless. But the LORD that acts on behalf His people also speaks to them.

And, therefore, what He requires of His people is that they hear him:

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Hear, Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.

This, in Jesus’ own words, is the One great commandment. In Hebrew, the word we translate as “Hear” also means “Obey”. God wants a conversation. In fact, that conversation between God and humanity is what the God that made the universe has chosen to be the core of His relationship with us.

(This is why, throughout my writing, I insist that God’s voice can never be silenced by the world or the enemy; and that every single human being in this world can and does hear it.)

So, the author of Hebrews begins by telling us this:

Our God has been speaking to us since the beginning, in many ways, because He is a merciful and loving God, and He will do whatever it takes to get us to hear Him. But NOW something amazing has happened – not a new invention but rather something that was already promised by God from the very beginning – NOW the promised time has come: the end of the age… when the Son that was promised to Adam and Eve would come to crush the serpent’s head, when the seed of Abraham in whom all the world would be blessed, finally would enter human history…

It is through that Son that the Father has chosen to speak to us so that we would know His promise has been fulfilled. That Son is the Message – the Word – like John said.

Why is His person the message? Because the message is Salvation. It is through receiving that message that we are saved, and when we are saved, we become new persons:

John 1:12-13 but as many as received him, to them gave he [the] right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God.

Salvation is, ultimately, about our accepting the message and becoming part of God’s family with all that that implies, even to inheriting eternal life. Therefore, what better medium to carry that message than God’s Son, who will inherit all things in His Father’s house and through whom all things were made.

…by whom also he made the worlds

Now, here, the author is foreshadowing one of his other themes in this letter. Not only are we able to inherit life eternal but when that happens, this finite, fallen universe, enslaved to temporality, will have outlived its usefulness. Eternal lives need an eternal universe… This one isn’t it. But – no worries – the very same Son who authored this universe (who made the worlds) is more than able to prepare a new one for us:

John 14:1-3 Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me. In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be.

The Son is the LORD

Having begun to speak about the origin, authority, and power of Jesus, the writer now sets out to establish the firmness of the foundation of his claims, by citing Scripture.

And he will be absolutely clear…

But before I proceed, let me set down a caveat: It would be a mistake to approach a letter written to Jewish believers of the first century from our vantage point over 20 centuries later. We have too much baggage. Whether you have studied Theology or not, just the Christian undercurrent of American culture is enough to have planted some “modern” ideas into our minds that would make no sense to the people of those days.

I am not here to challenge your theological convictions or what you think you were taught in Sunday school. But I want to point out that what most people think they believe, is based on what someone else told them it was right or safe or reliable to believe. But few are those that follow that up by studying it themselves to make sure it actually made sense to them:

Acts 17:10-11 But the brethren immediately sent away, in the night, Paul and Silas to Berea; who, being arrived, went away into the synagogue of the Jews. And these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, receiving the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so.

The Berean Jews were more noble than the Thessalonian ones because they did not blindly accept Pauls’s teaching. Instead, they went back home and searched the scriptures to find out if anything that he was teaching contradicted the word of God. They verified the Truth of the Word of God to their own satisfaction.

Why my caveat? Today, if you believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, you are among the majority of Christians. But if you claim to understand it… well, that is a different story. If you do claim so, I would say, let’s start with something simpler, explain to me the supposed wave-particle duality of electrons in Quantum Physics. And If I see you can wrap your mind around that with no problem, then I will listen to your explanation of the Trinity.

I start with this challenge because if you approach this letter thinking you actually know all these things, you are bound to miss the beauty of the exposition.

Yes, there is no doubt that the word used to describe God in Genesis 1, Elohim, is plural in the original language. Yes, I can enumerate for you the various places in the Old Testament where someone speaking with the voice of the LORD appears to be different from, and even subject to, the will of the LORD. There is a plurality. But then again, just as that LORD revealed to Moses that His Covenant Name, Yahweh (or Jehovah), means I AM, Jesus told the Pharisees in no uncertain terms that “Before Abraham was, I AM”.  So, there is also a unity.

How do you distinguish the Son from the Father? We need to accept that there is a mystery here… but it is a glorious mystery. And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is now about to try to express how he, and his people, at that time, understood this:

Still talking about the Son of God, He describes Him…

Hebrews 1:3 who being [the] effulgence of His glory and [the] expression of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made [by himself] the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high,

To me, it is just amazing how in so few words, this writer can pack so much information. I love the rhythm of that first phrase. He is talking about the Son, who is the radiance of God’s glory and the character (expression) of God’s hupostasis (substance)…

The first half is straightforward. God resides in unapproachable light. Moses could not see the face of God, but God showed Him the radiance left behind as He passed before him. God exists in glory, a glory that we cannot imagine, but its light, its radiance – not just physical but the way it illuminates our lives, the way that it dispels the darkness of this world and the wrong choices we make – that radiance, we can understand. That radiance, we can see. The Son is that radiance.

John 1:1-4 In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. *He* was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Do you see how closely John’s introduction parallels that of the author of Hebrews?

The Greek word character means the impression that is left in wax as the King’s seal is pressed into it. The pattern impressed onto the wax is an exact replica of the pattern on that signet ring. More than that, the pattern, by virtue of the King’s action, carries all the authority of the King on that matter.

You don’t have to see the King or have the King present to know that whatever that document says is His will… and it is at the peril of your life that you dare question that command. You may never see the King, but His underlying reality (that is what hupostasis means, translated into Latin as sub-stance) is beyond doubt because there we see the impression of His ring as proof of His existence, and His Will is indeed being carried out through those commands.

That impression on the wax may be the closest thing we can ever see of the King; but, be assured, it is an identical replica of the ring, the authority, in his hand.

The Son of God is the radiance, the light that we can see, of the invisible God of the universe; He is the exact representation of His Reality, His Person.

He is all that we can see and all  that we need to see of God the Father.

It is no surprise that Johns’ Gospel also contains this thought:

John 18:8-9 Philip says to him, Lord, shew us the Father and it suffices us. Jesus says to him, Am I so long a time with you, and thou hast not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father…

And now, the writer of Hebrews tells us one more thing… Not only is the Son the closest palpable representation of the LORD that we humans could ever behold or meet, he reiterates to us again that He happens to be the Creator: the one who keeps the whole universe together.

and upholding all things by the word of his power

This is a very interesting thought. Newton’s Law of inertia says an object in motion will keep moving forever unless acted on by a force; because of that, we think that the world we live in, the universe, will keep going on and on unaided from second to second… and may even last forever.

But if you come from a people who know that this universe did not exist until God one day made it, then you don’t assume it will last forever. Only God can guarantee that: only God can hold it together. You see: nothing made by us humans lasts forever.

To John, the fact that Jesus is the Creator, is implied by Him being the Word.

John 1:1-3 In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. *He* was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being.

Jesus Himself, in His own words, hints at this when in answering the Pharisees their question about divorce, tells them “Don’t you know that he who created them (that is, the Creator) made them male and female from the beginning?” (Matthew 19:4)

How is this a hint?

Because Jesus, who was never shy about talking about His Father, does not say it was the Father that created Adam and Eve. He says, the Creator did.

And the Son’s Lordship has been openly declared since the beginning

Even in this, John parallels this letter, except that John highlights it by contrast:

John 1:10-11 He was in the world, and the world had [its] being through him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not…

The world should have recognized its Maker! How did it miss it? John is shocked, distressed; but it gets worse: His own people missed it. Yet, the Father had made it clear from the beginning that this Son was coming. And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is about to prove it.

But here again, we need to understand a bit about how the people of God interpreted their history. And we need to make sure we do not confuse this with the way we think about that history. Take for instance the subject of angels…

Centuries of western culture has planted in our minds weird ideas regarding what an angel is. Just consider the movie “It’s a wonderful life” and the TV show “Highway to Heaven”… they present the unbiblical idea that somehow human beings can become angels after they die. And heartening as the idea presented by the TV show “Touched by an angel” might be, that divine messengers can intervene in our lives in our hours of personal need, that is not a teaching you will find in the Bible. God is more than willing and able to intervene in our lives in every moment of personal need. He is the One that said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Angels in the Bible do “minister” to humanity but they do so as part of God’s “Big Plan”, “the Big Picture”. It is not that they do not “care” about us (personally), it is that that Big Picture is their job.

Thus, the Jews called the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud that watched over them in the desert: The Angel of the Lord. To them it was also that Angel (the word means messenger) that gave Moses the Ten Commandments on the Mountain.

Why?

Because the Angel of the Lord was a physical Presence, a Presence they could feel, hear, see; a Presence that entered into their finite human world from the realm of the infinite God. To them, thinking of God as having “material” reality was a difficult almost contradictory thought… after all, He made all that is material. Why would He partake of that which is so far below Him?

I think we need to consider this as we listen to the writer go on. He has already used words that describe the Son as an agent of God, something more than an ordinary human being. Now he needs to make clear to his audience that he is not saying the Son is an angel (which are also, to them, clearly more than human beings and also clearly direct agents of God).

The Son is more than an angel. First and foremost because He, single-handedly fulfilled the Promise of Salvation:

having made [by himself] the purification of sins

And, thus, having fulfilled the Father’s perfect plan, He returned to His righteous place as Lord

set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high

The Son is much more than an angel because of His place in the hierarchy of Heaven:

Hebrews 1: 3-6 …set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high, taking a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they.

He is, after all, the Son of God, the One who inherits the Father’s Name. He is the One that God singled out as Son. (I really believe this is the origin, the reason, for John’s appellation for Jesus as the One and Only Son – also translated as only begotten – in John 3:16.)

And the Father has been revealing this all along:

For to which of the angels said he ever, *Thou* art my Son: this day have *I* begotten thee? and again, *I* will be to him for father, and *he* shall be to me for son? and again, when he brings in the firstborn into the habitable world, he says, And let all God’s angels worship him.

The first is a quote from Psalm 2:

Psalm 2:6-8 And *I* have anointed my king upon Zion, the hill of my holiness. I will declare the decree: Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; *I* this day have begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee nations for an inheritance, and for thy possession the ends of the earth.

The Lord reiterated this promise to David when David proposed to build the Temple. God told him, No. Among the reasons was that the earthly Temple was meant to be a foreshadow of the real Temple on High and only One could build it.

2 Samuel 7:12-14a When thy days are fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. It is he who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.

That promised was fulfilled in Jesus. Solomon could have served as a foreshadow of that promised, ultimate, Son of David; and therefore the prophecy also applies to him with a caveat:

2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the sons of men; but my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be made firm for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.

In citing these verses the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is reminding them that the Promise-fulfilling Son of God was also prophesied to be the Son of David.

The second passage he cites, and again, when he brings in the firstborn into the habitable world, he says, And let all God’s angels worship him, is harder to find unless you look in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Scriptures widely used at the time of Jesus.

In the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32, God is declaring Who He is, that he is the only One who brings Justice and Salvation. This is the way most of our Bibles render it:

Deuteronomy 32:39-43 See now that I, I am HE, And there is no god with me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal, And there is none that delivereth out of my hand, for I lift up my hand to the heavens, and say, I live for ever!

If I have sharpened my gleaming sword, and my hand take hold of judgment, I will render vengeance to mine adversaries, and will recompense them that hate me. Mine arrows will I make drunk with blood, And my sword shall devour flesh; [I will make them drunk] with the blood of the slain and of the captives, With the head of the princes of the enemy.

Shout for joy, ye nations, with his people, For he avengeth the blood of his servants, And rendereth vengeance to his enemies, And maketh atonement for his land, for his people.

But in the Septuagint, that last verse, 43, reads:

Rejoice, ye heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice ye Gentiles, 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.

Th word translated here as “purge” means to purify, to thoroughly cleanse, which is exactly the meaning of the word kaphar translated as atonement in the Hebrew text. The Septuagint rendering is not spurious; fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to that expanded reading during the Second Temple period.

I think its is fascinating that the insertion of the line let all God’s angels praise Him appears in the passage precisely where the redeeming work of the Lord is being spoken of, including even the redeeming of the Gentiles.

This is the point the author of the letter is trying to get across to his readers. No angel was ever called to be the Kingdom-inheriting Son of God, and no angel was ever given the responsibility to redeem the whole world.

Is Jesus that to us?

Who Jesus is to us completely defines our relationship with Him. The recipients of the letter to the Hebrews were in danger of thinking of Him maybe as an angel or on the same level as the angels. (Remember that passage where Paul is telling the story of his conversion to the Sanhedrim, and someone sides with him saying that maybe an angel had indeed spoken to him?)

The danger to us today is to think of Jesus only as the greatest man that ever lived, worthy of being listened to and followed; maybe thinking of him as a miracle worker, even supernatural, yes; able to help us in our hour of need, yes; way greater than us, yes… but does that mean that we give him our unconditional allegiance?

Does that mean that we worship Him? That when we Hear Him, we Obey Him?

No ifs ands or buts.

Think about it. It is not easy for us to think in such overwhelmingly absolute terms because we have never lived under the power of an absolute monarch. On the contrary, we live in a nation founded on the principle that all of us are equal to each other. No other man can tell me what to think, what to believe, or what to do.

Sure, there are laws that all have to obey but within those equally shared boundaries, I can do whatever I want. In this country, I am my own king.

Not so in the Kingdom of God. Because… well… it is His Kingdom!

And there is a hitch: I know in my heart, and He has told us clearly, that we all have come short of the glory of God. We have all sinned. There is no one righteous, not even one. And if the rule for who enters into His Kingdom is the measure of His righteousness, then we are all hopelessly lost.

But this God who made us, loves us to such an extent that He actually allowed His own Son, the Creator of the Universe, to step down from that infinite majesty in order to make, by Himself, through Himself, purification for all of our sins (Hebrews 1:3). He did that, on the cross. And then to show us what that means, He rose from the dead and sat at the right hand of the majesty in Heaven (Hebrews 1:3).

That is the God we are talking about and that is the Jesus, the Son, we are talking about. And the question we have to answer is: How do we stand in His presence? What does all this require of me?

I claim that common sense and logic leave me only one alternative: He is the One I must worship, adore, serve, and obey.