The Bible is the Word of God; it is his textbook of man. These revelations have been suited to human life and times, while remaining a record of the ways of both God and man.
When the writer of Hebrews made his review, it was to look directly at Jesus, and to let this appraisal interpret the past. For indeed, it was never possible for types and ordinances to reveal the very image of things in the heavens as Jesus revealed them. If God has now spoken unto us by his Son, it behoves us to take the advantage in full of seeing the substance in itself—”God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. . .
Jesus had been manifested, he had ministered by word and act, he had been crucified, had risen and ascended. One commentator has pointed out that the movement of thought in Hebrew is from the present to the past.’ John’s gospel and epistles have the same view of the Son: . which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. . . .” (1 John 1. 1).
With the aid of this new revelation, it is possible to look again at the very elements with which the past has been concerned and see them in the light of this “new and living way”.
What are the elements which make the human situation? They are God and man, the high and the low, the flesh and the divine nature, and, inseparable from these, the Son of God—the means chosen by God to raise man from the natural to the spiritual level.
With the writer to the Hebrews, we look at Jesus, and we are taken immediately to the point that, though Jesus has only recently been manifested, strictly speaking, he is before all things. Not that this has very much to do with time—that preoccupation of finite man. When, for instance, Jesus spoke of Abraham in relation to himself, the Jews could only think in terms of years, while Jesus was speaking rather of the Father’s purpose in him giving him a higher status.
If we want the authentic beginning to human history, we turn to Genesis, but Hebrews goes into the prior objects of the Creator of which Genesis and all history have been but the development. So it is said that Jesus was heir of all things in this creation, and that nothing that is, exists apart from him. Further, we are informed that Jesus was constituted the brightness of the glory of God and the express image of his person. Over and over again in these first lines of Hebrews is stressed the true Sonship of Jesus. The emphasis must be allowed its due weight. It is because of his high birth as only-begotten Son of God that Jesus has the inheritance that sets him high above any being that may be, under God, in heaven and earth.
There are none higher in nature than the angels—but these are not sons as Jesus was the Son. To which of them indeed did God say, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” It is by his inheritance, that is. his relationship to God, that Jesus is superior.
The oft repeated, “only-begotten”, is most significant in establishing the relationship of Father and Son. Gabriel’s words to Mary leave us in no doubt that Jesus was the Son of God by birth, and so was unique in his person, being both Son of God and Son of man. The change of nature which made Jesus the firstfruits from mortality did not constitute him Son of God in that true sense in which he was so, nor will the change of nature awaiting the saints make them only-begotten Sons of God. The claim of Jesus to have “come down from heaven”, refers to no journey through space, but as the Sacrifice And Priesthood the manna of old was made by means unknown to man, so was Jesus heaven-sent. He was pre-eminently of God.
This special status of Jesus is, furthermore, the only one that suits the elements of the human situation as set out above. Man was made lowly—God is eternal. How should man make the step from the mortal to the immortal by any contrivance of his own? There is never a possibility of this suggested in any part of the scriptures. The idea is precluded by the insistence in Hebrews that Jesus was before all things; all things were created for him. There is no hint that Jesus was added to a purpose gone awry, no glimpses of a destiny for the human race other than that which has been worked out in history, and whose key figure is Jesus.
The title “Son of man”, identifies Jesus with man as closely as does its counterpart relate him to God. From our vantage point in Hebrews, we observe “that the unique role marked out for him required him to be born of a woman, to suffer temptation, to experience life as a man. Though a unique person, this he did, suffering death also.
The point made in Hebrews is that he was made like his brethren that he might be a faithful and merciful High Priest, on their behalf, in things pertaining to God.
So completely identified with the human race is Jesus, that all are linked with him by the Psalmist: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visited him? . . . Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8. 4-6).
Such is true of all men in their natural order; again, it is specially applicable to a selection who will share higher honours with Jesus; and to Israel, as the firstborn of God among the nations; and it applies in the supreme sense to Jesus, who is Lord of all.
Being Compassionate