and they are completely controlling.
In short, and with an eye on the wider range of first century parallels that have been proposed as the “key” for Hebrews’ thought, we affirm that Hebrews, as canonical, divine speech, is not a patchwork of ideas drawn from diverse sources and tossed out for consideration, as if in the hope that some useful insight can be salvaged for the larger human enterprise of understanding. Rather, as revelatory speech, it moves with total certainty from its beginning to end in infallible exposition of the truth. Our receptions of Hebrews’ vision will always be imperfect, but we may be confident that it not only gives us a reliable vision but illuminates the path to right understanding.13
Meeting Jesus Again
From that mode of thought we can turn our attention to that to which Hebrews’ witness chiefly points: the Son.
The distinction between translating for someone and putting words in their mouth blurs, but we may hazard that world leaders who have personal translators working for them in a sensitive negotiation assume that there is a difference. With that rough comparison in mind we may say that our task as a commentator is to let the writer of Hebrews be the theologian in the room; our role is to translate. The teaching of the letter therefore follows in our commentary. It might nevertheless be of some use to the reader to get a broad view of this commentary’s conclusions on Hebrews’ vision of Christ. If at any point I misrepresent and steer the reader wrong, we live in hope that the Word will make himself heard in spite of and even against me.
It must first be said: Hebrews is a sermon exhorting the members of a house church to persevere in a faith that corresponds to the word of forgiveness and cleansing that God has spoken in the Son. That salvation, as both God’s word and deed, is contained in Jesus Christ—all that is true of, in, and through him. Everything depends, then, on knowing him. At its broadest (not restricted to Hebrews), he is finally known by the things said about him, by the things done and given through him, by what he says and does, and by the names and titles he bears—all within the context of the history of God’s word and deed, and only when the Son himself shows us the Father and makes him known in the Spirit as the believing community proceeds in obedience. God reveals himself through himself.
Accordingly, the knowledge of Christ—or christology—is inseparable from participation in his benefits. It cannot be pursued without loss if our interest is only in building a profile of his person. This applies to all aspects of the knowledge of him, including the study of the particular names and titles that are used of him.
Thus, the particular names and titles given him are not things that can be understood in isolation from the rest of what must be the case if we are to know this one. But if this is understood and maintained, there is real gain in considering these names and titles (henceforth simplified to “names”).
The five routine names used in Hebrews are Son, Jesus, Christ, Lord, and priest. Mediator follows as a close sixth (8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. Guarantee in 7:22).14 Through Ps 45 he is addressed as God (1:8–9). Also mentioned are apostle, shepherd, and, by implication, king (e.g., 7:1–2; cf. 1:3, 8–9, 13; 12:27); by more remote implication, prophet (1:1–2; 2:3; but after 1:1–2 the prophetic identity is the water in which the argument swims). Note also “son of man” in 2:5–9, though whether the titular sense is intended is properly questioned. Perhaps one could include here also forerunner, pioneer, perfecter, minister, heir, though these are more like ad hoc ways of expressing what he does or is. He is of course not only priest but offering, but Hebrews nowhere designates him as the Lamb of God, let alone a bull, calf, or goat. Despite the fact that he is portrayed as the speech of God, not even in 4:12–13 is he called the Word (Logos) as in John’s Gospel.
Son: Being the assumed identity even where he is not named as such (e.g., 2:5–18), this name seems to capture the identity and drama at their farthest reaches: vertically (the descent, ascent, heavenly-earthly), horizontally (eternity past to future as well as the narrower drama of the descent and ascent; typologically it aligns with patterns and expectations of Israel), theologically (indicating relation to God, identity in distinction; his sharing in divine authority and power), and anthropologically (sharing in blood and flesh with his siblings, the seed of Abraham; the Davidic king; being tempted; representing, etc.). It is aligned both in antecedent expectations and in Hebrews with both royal and priestly identities and roles. As a way of knowing Jesus, “Son” is not reducible to particular Jewish or Greco-Roman notions but has been filled out by Jesus’ presence in history and in Scripture as the church has come to grips with and developed its confession prior to the composing of the sermon that is Hebrews.
Jesus: Being the name by which he was known in “the days of his flesh,” it seems to refer particularly to him as the concrete figure of his past history who is now raised and crowned with glory and honor. He is the man who lived, did God’s will, suffered, tasted death for all, and was raised and exalted.
Christ: This seems to connote the one anticipated by Israel (messiah), witnessed to in her prophets (esp. Moses), who would achieve her hopes and, as such, serve as God’s appointed priest-king. It is not clear that these connotations have so eroded that the term is merely a personal designation, though it is equally unclear whether those connotations are fully activated in every use of the word. There might be echoes of this title’s embeddedness in the gospel narratives (5:5; 6:1; cf. 11:26).
Lord: Admittedly this is not used frequently but it seems to connote the one confessed with the church, the pre-resurrection Jesus from the viewpoint of his resurrection (2:3; 7:14; 13:20); though see 12:14 and possibly some of the other uses of the word where it could be taken as referring to God as such or to the Lord Jesus. The tradition has already identified this title with the Lord (YHWH) of the OT Scriptures (e.g., 1:10).
Our conviction that there exists some degree of interchangeability in the usage of these names is due to this: If we attempt to find a strictly consistent strategy in the employment of these names and to discern a coded message thereby in particular passages, it is hard to resist the conclusion that we are artificially clamping a theory down on the text. No doubt this is due to the ultimate coalescing of all that the separate names can signify in the single, unified figure and his history, and thus the mutual influence that the separate names have already had on each other even before this sermon was composed. There were never strict lines of difference and any lines are further blurred when the names are more governed by their subject than he by them. It is an error to think of these “identities” as “natures” that must have their own version of the hypostatic union; none of these terms aligns just so with the later debates that gave us the creeds.15 We must also consider the sermon genre, which relies on freedom of expression in achieving rhetorical ends. Again, the entire problem of title-christologies—reducing Christ to the sum of what the individual names and titles are taken to mean—should not be given new life. The titles are situated in a drama that brings its own elements to the mix, as was said above and as the opening series of OT citations in 1:5–13 illustrates.
The one who is priest is the one who is Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord, so that the associations that attach to the latter are in some sense transferable to and activated in that priestly identity and role. At the same time, the identity of “priest” is not an empty cipher but one filled with its own history and content through the order of Melchizedek and Aaron’s shadow as well as the givenness of Jesus, with the result that his identity as priest has already shaped the conceptualization of him as Son, Jesus, Christ, and Lord. Hebrews is not merely homogenizing all these categories but it isn’t laboring to keep them distinct either. As priest—strictly the royal priest who is and acts as the word of God—he has left heaven for earth where he participates fully in the humanity and human situation of the seed of Abraham; inaugurates the new covenant through his self-offering; qualifies the people for its benefits; unlocks and releases those benefits
