Phil 2:6–11; 1 Cor 1:30; Matt 11:25–30. Hebrews makes bold to identify Jesus as God outright (e.g., 1:8) and will apply to him language that is in the OT applied to YHWH (e.g., 1:10), so this use of wisdom is not a limiting one but rather part of the way in which the diverse forms of OT speech (1:1) witnessed in advance to the one in and as whom God speaks.
Comments on Wording
1:2 he has spoken to us by his Son. The teaching of Jesus (e.g., Matt 5–7) is assumed (e.g., Heb 2:3) but not reported in Hebrews. Where the Son speaks in Hebrews it is in the words of the OT (2:12–13; 10:5–7). Chiefly, however, it is what Jesus did as breathed through the OT and the gospel that constitutes this act of speech. Ultimately, it has to be said that God speaks by and as the Son.
appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. This is a twist on their confession (e.g., 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:15–16; Rev 22:13; cf. Rom 11:36; Heb 2:10) that echoes Ps 2:8. For the Son’s role as creator, see 1:10; 3:3–4; see also the introduction to this commentary for the wider interplay between creation and salvation history. Only he who made all things can save and remake all things, and being the faithful God he is he does so. The Son having condescended to share fully in the blood and flesh of his brothers and sisters, his identity as the one who is the goal of creation (Col 1:15–16) becomes the child (seed) who inherits the promise on our behalf.
1:3 radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Language first devised for personified wisdom is used to express who the Son is; the reference to glory is also reminiscent of Exod 33–34.
upholds the universe by the word of his power. Continuing with wisdom language, Hebrews expresses that it is the Son’s own word that upholds creation and carries it to its goal. The cosmos has no other history. For the Son’s priest-king rule, see, e.g., Ps 110:1; Ps 45 (Heb 1:8–9); Ps 8 (Heb 2:5–9). The “upholding” (bearing) of all things includes the Son’s atoning work, and the divine “word” includes the Scriptures taken up by the Son (e.g., 2:5–9).
making purification for sins. The one who sits on the divine throne (Ps 110:1) is a priest forever (110:4). This anticipates 10:11–15.
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty. This direct allusion to Ps 110:1 announces a key text for the rest of the sermon. The force of the image is that the Son shares the divine throne itself; cf. Rev 3:21; 7:17; 22:3; Matt 28:18.
1:4 superior to angels. Angels are brought into the sermon firstly because Ps 8 was linked to Ps 110:1 in the confession (e.g., 1 Cor 15:27; Eph 1:20–23; Phil 3:21; 1 Pet 3:22), and the sermon is headed for that psalm in Heb 2:5–9. See also on 1:5–14 and 2:1–4.
the name he has inherited. The name could be the Tetragrammaton, YHWH (Exod 3:13–15; cf. Phil 2:9–11), but the stronger indication is that it is the name of Son.
Comments on Theological Themes
Regarding God’s past speech in the prophets, for Hebrews’ readers the “old is true” and this is the one God’s speech. It is therefore honored and authorized as a limited shadow, pattern, and witness to the Son. Nothing more than that, but it is that. Nor can this be said of any other human speech. As such the OT shares in all that is true in the Son. In the Son alone it finds its coherence. Conversely, any account of the Son must do justice to this divinely spoken self-witness. Again, to reject the Son is to reject that former word and so to reject God himself. These convictions give rise to the entire exposition to come.
The world’s time is marked supremely by the key moments of God’s speaking. Because God spoke in the Son, these last days are the beginning of the end. The world continues as it has, as if nothing happened to the outward gaze. But the key change that brings an end to this world and the beginning of the next (2:5) has already occurred and its change is already at work (6:4–6). This is what faith makes real in the present (11:1–2).
Verse 2b entails that the world itself is bound up with God’s promise to Abraham of an inheritance. The promise is fulfilled in the Son, the proper heir, who took the blood and flesh of the seed of Abraham (2:5–16). As will become clear, the covenantal family of God is finally that community that responds in faith to the end.
Using the language of radiance and exact imprint, the Son’s relationship to God—both identity and distinction—is expressed with the emphasis on the truth that he is the way in which God is seen and known (John 14:9; cf. 1 John 2:23). Jesus was and is God’s speech as God in human flesh. It is here that God is seen and heard; it is here that he is seen and heard (e.g., Matt 11:27; John 1:18; 6:46; 8:19; 10:30; 20:28–29; 1 John 1:1–4; 5:20–21).
The story-in-miniature in 1:3b–4 anticipates among other texts 2:5–16 where it will be clear that the Son assumes responsibility for the history of humanity. This cannot be understood as mere trail-blazing for others to follow, even if that imagery is also employed in Hebrews. It is not that he does this and then believers also do this, but that his history is made theirs; only then and as such is it re-presented in their pilgrimage, as it must be.
Whether the appointment of the Son as heir was pre-creational or at the point of his exaltation is not determined by this passage. Yet we should understand that he is eternally God’s Son before the exaltation and he inherits the name of Son upon his exaltation. As Son among “the children” given him (2:12–13), he inherits this name for the seed to whom the promise was given (2:16).
Teaching Hebrews 1:1–4
1. Scripture, revelation, and canon. Verses 1–4 comprise what was known as the exordium—that part of the discourse that both introduced the subject matter of the whole and prepared the listeners to receive it in the proper frame of mind. It did not need to be a kind of précis, as if the writer was compelled to tick off every key theme to come, but it would be poorly constructed if it did not orient our minds along the right lines. It is therefore crucial to notice that the entire discourse to come—for all its ritual drama—is about God speaking in these last days in the Son. Like a stone twice skipped across a pond, this theme will round out the opening movement (4:12–13) and the sermon itself (12:25–29) prior to its peroration of 13:1–17. Salvation greets us in the form of the inscripturated promise proclaimed through the Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ proclaimed through the inscripturated promise. It is for this reason, chiefly, that the sermon brings Christ and salvation into such a complete integration with God’s earlier speech. The sole and sufficient response to this word is faith as a life of obedience to the end (10:19—12:17). Contained in this is the proper understanding of the relationship of the OT and the NT, as the exposition to come will instantiate and illustrate.
2. Christology. Bound up with the foregoing in ways that rise to the level of John’s Gospel, the Son himself is supremely the revelation of God—because as God (in identity and distinction) he received the body prepared for him (10:5–10) and shared in the blood and flesh of Abraham’s seed (2:10–16). His personal pre-existence is assumed as is the sharing in blood and flesh (2:14) and bodily resurrection (13:20). The emphasis here in the exordium falls on his cleansing and exaltation/enthronement as the moments to receive the most attention in the sermon and as the basis for the exhortations (e.g., 4:14–16; 10:19–25). If he is not who he is claimed to be here, nothing follows. As goes christology, so goes the rest of our faith.
3. Salvation. Bound up with both of the foregoing, we can see that God acts savingly in his speech, and speaks in his saving action. God’s speaking and acting are two sides of one thing, in keeping with Jesus’ claim to be the way, the truth, the life (John 14:6; 11:25). For Hebrews salvation will be a matter of cleansing (1:3) so that the promise of entering into God’s holy presence is fulfilled. This was the inheritance promised Abraham, and it is the story back of all of Hebrews. As the same promise it is the pronouncement of forgiveness (10:11–18) in
