Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 Commentary

During a recent Sabbath dinner, a Jewish acquaintance asked my wife and me, “Who do you pray to – Jesus or God?” I told her that while it was very hard to explain, we profess that Jesus is God. However, for Jewish people who are deeply steeped in monotheism this is almost impossible to understand. So I tried to explain to our Jewish acquaintances that Christians believe in one God in the three persons who are the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit. But I think we were all glad to see our hostess bring out dessert that turned our attention away from difficult theology and toward her delicious food.

Over the years God has graced my wife and me with many close relationships with devout Jews. We have found that we share a common commitment with them to submitting to the Scriptures’ authority. We’ve had many conversations with Jewish friends that revolve around things like Sabbath observance and the role God’s law plays in our daily lives.

But our conversations have always hit a kind of “wall” when we’ve tried to talk with our Jewish friends about God and, particularly, the second person of the Trinity who is Jesus Christ. So my wife and I have largely stopped trying to explain Trinitarian theology to them. Instead, we join countless Christians in continuing to pray that the Spirit will help our dear Jewish friends recognize Jesus as the Messiah for whom they’re fervently longing and praying.

Yet Jewish people aren’t the only religious folks who struggle to understand just who Jesus is. Our Muslim friends and neighbors think of him as just one in a long line of Allah’s prophets. While most Americans think of Jesus as a historical figure, increasing numbers of especially younger people think of him as little more than a religious or spiritual leader. Barna research suggests that almost 20% of American young adults simply aren’t sure what Jesus was.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson directly addresses the issue of just who Jesus is. We sense that Hebrews’ author is speaking into Jewish confusion about Jesus’ identity. This, after all, is a letter in which that author “lays,” as it were, Jesus next to Jewish theology. As a result, Christians can understand little of Hebrews’ sometimes-mysterious theology without at least a passing understanding of Jewish theology, including its rejection of Jesus’ Messiahship.

Jesus is, Hebrews’ author insists in verse 2, God’s “mouthpiece.” Of course, that wasn’t always so. In verse 1 Hebrews tells its Christian readers, “In the past [palai]* God spoke [lalesas] to our ancestors [patrasin] through the prophets [prophetais] in many and diverse ways.” It’s a reminder that that God has since the beginning of measured time never been completely silent or left God’s dearly beloved people in the dark about God’s character, plans and purposes.

The God who spoke everything that has been created into existence didn’t just create God’s Israelite people through the word of God’s covenant with their ancestor Abram. God also graciously inspired God’s spokespersons to speak in a variety of ways to the beneficiaries of that covenant.

But, according to verse 2, “in these last days [eschatou ton hemeron] he has spoken [elalesen] to us by his Son [en Huio].” It’s not completely clear to what Hebrews is referring by the phrase eschatou ton hemeron. The Message paraphrases it as “recently.” However, the New Testament’s use of the Greek word eschaton often has eschatological overtones. As a result, Hebrews 1’s use of eschatou may reflect its author’s belief that Jesus didn’t just appear during some of its readers’ lifetimes but also, in doing so, ushered in the eschaton, the final stages of God’s work in the world.

Yet no matter how we understand “these last days,” Hebrews 1’s central point is clear: the God who once spoke primarily through the prophets has now spoken most clearly through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. People who wish to hear God speaking listen not just or even primarily to the prophets, but especially to Jesus. While the Spirit of Christ inspires the Church and God’s people to speak God’s truths, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reminds us that God speaks most clearly and unmistakably through Jesus Christ.

So, Jesus is more than a good example for people to imitate. He’s also God’s chief spokesperson. Jesus is more than a fount of good moral advice. He’s also God’s chief spokesperson. As a result, all who claim to speak for God must be sure to first “clear it” with Jesus’ words so that our words are entirely consistent with his. On top of that, those who call ourselves Christians who claim to speak for God about things about which Jesus didn’t speak want to always be very careful and humble about it.

However, Hebrews insists that in Jesus we don’t just hear God speaking. In him we also see God. After all, verse 3 refers to him as “the radiance [apaugasma] of God’s glory [doxes] and the exact representation [charakter] of his being.” This Old Testament language echoes descriptions of the appearance of God’s glory in Israel’s tabernacle and temple. Hebrews 2:9, in fact, uses similar imagery when it refers to Jesus as “crowned [estephanomenon] with glory [doxe] and honor [time].” In Christ we witness God’s glory no less than the Israelites did in the temple and tabernacle.

But, of course, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, generally looked less than glorious to the human eye that sin naturally blinds. He, in fact, usually looked very ordinary. Hebrews 2:9 even implies that when it reports that he “was made lower [elattomenon] than the angels for a little while.” What’s more, it adds, Jesus “suffered [pathema] death [thanatou].”

As a result, no Christian should be surprised that people needed the Spirit’s help for them to see God’s glory in him. That’s as true of our contemporaries as it was of Jesus’. As a result, the Church does little to point to God’s glory when it shrinks Jesus down to a good moral example or dispenser of good advice.

As if to address such shrinkage, Hebrews 1:3 goes to remind its readers of Jesus’ saving life, death and resurrection. After he “had provided [poiesamenos] purification [katharismon] of sins, he sat down at the right hand [en dexia] of the Majesty [Megalosynes] in heaven [en hypselois].” Jesus didn’t, in other words, just speak for God and reflect God’s glory. He also rescued his adopted brothers and sisters by offering his life to purify us from our sins.

Yet Hebrews’ author doesn’t just claim that Jesus is God’s chief spokesperson or the world’s Savior. In verse 2 he goes on to profess that God “appointed [etheken]” Jesus “heir [kleronomon] of all things [panton],” and through God’s Son also “made [epoiesen] the universe [aionas].” This language is, candidly, mysterious. Yet that shouldn’t shrink its magnificence and expansiveness. Hebrews 1:2, after all, startlingly and boldly claims that God didn’t just create everything that was created through the second person of the Trinity. Jesus Christ also stands to somehow inherit everything he created at the end of measured time.

In fact, Jesus the Son of God “sustains [pheron] all things [ta panta] by the power [dynameos] of his word [rhemati].” So Hebrews insists that the creation isn’t heading toward oblivion. It’s heading toward becoming Jesus Christ’s inheritance. While those who have the most power, money and military may seem to hold God’s world in their hands, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson sees things very differently. It professes that everything is, instead, held together by the sustaining power of the ascended Christ’s mighty word.

I often feel as though Hebrews 1’s Son of God is a Jesus whom human words are inadequate to fully describe. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why things like art, music and poetry can play such an indispensable role in worship. Human words simply aren’t enough. Jesus’ friends also need other vehicles through which the Spirit can help us catch even just a glimpse of Jesus’ majesty, glory, beauty and might.

However, Hebrews 2 also serves to remind its readers of the proper place of both angels and people. It’s true that God made people “a little lower than the angels [5].” God also graciously put people whom God created in God’s image to serve as God’s caretakers of the world. Yet people don’t yet bear the glory of the angels. And while for a season Jesus seemed a little less than those same angels, he is now far, far above them in every imaginable way. So Hebrews 1 and 2 leaves no place for the worship or glorification of either angels or people.

That’s part of what makes this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s ending so startling. Hebrews’ author ends this passage that’s full of glorious images with one final, magnificent assertion about people. Yes, we are “lower” than both Jesus and the angels. Yet God graciously brings “many sons and daughters to glory [doxan].” While this too is a somewhat mysterious assertion, perhaps preachers can say at least this: some of Jesus’ glory “rubs off on” his friends. Because the Spirit graciously lives and works in us, when people see and hear us, they ought to be able to catch a glimpse of something of Jesus’ reflected glory.

In fact, God’s dearly beloved people might say that our family members, friends and neighbors should be able to see something of a family likeness between Jesus and his followers. We are, after all, not just “made holy [hagiazomenoi]” by God [10]. Christians are also, according to Hebrews 2:11, members “of the same family” as Jesus. As a result, Jesus is not “ashamed [epaischynetai] to call [kalein]” us “brothers [adelphous] and sisters [12].” That at least suggests that the adopted members of God’s family shouldn’t be ashamed to call even our fellow Christians with whom we disagree our family members.

*Denotes the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

The narrator of John Steinbeck’s book, East of Eden, talks about human glory: “Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet.

“Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; a man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then – the glory – so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises charting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes.

“Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories [italics added].”