Theology Proper in Hebrews, Part 1
(avg. read time: 9–18 mins.)
Throughout the Christian era, Hebrews has been a major source for Christology. As I have illustrated previously, and as I hope to explore further again, the author of Hebrews masterfully interweaves themes of Christ’s divinity and humanity, thereby presenting a robustly incarnational theology that would be influential for many statements in the early Church and since on Christology. The prologue of Heb 1:1–4 is one of the densest expressions of theology in the NT, which is then presented as a framework for reading Scripture that informs the author’s argument for the rest of the book. Most distinctively, Hebrews provides a fascinating presentation of Christ as our heavenly high priest. In the traditional schema of the threefold offices of Christ as prophet, priest, and king, Hebrews is by far the main source for understanding Christ as priest, as no other work presents it so explicitly, so robustly, and so centrally to its argument (though, like the Melchizedek to whose “order” he belongs, Christ is presented not only as priest, but as the priest-king). It is no wonder that the text has drawn so much attention for its Christology.
However, relatively little attention has been devoted to what the text says about God the Father. In part, this is explicable by how theology proper/paterology in general is so often—at least in the West—de-emphasized and there is less distinction in its articulation when compared to Christology and pneumatology. Christology’s importance needs no explanation, but it is unfortunate that, in the efforts to show how Christ is identified as God and as equal to God the Father in the many respects identified in creeds and confessions that less attention is given to describing the other person in this relationship appealed to for identifying Christ. Now some non-Pentecostals might say that it is really the Holy Spirit who receives less attention in the articulations of theology, but one can now find volumes upon volumes and articles upon articles about pneumatology, many of them operating according to the same premise that the Spirit has been overlooked. But can one say the same in recent history about theologies of God the Father (i.e., theology proper)? How many books and articles are specifically dedicated to this subject compared to Christology and pneumatology? There are, of course, plenty of Trinitarian theologies that say something about God the Father in the process of talking about the Trinity, but you are less likely or less frequently going to find distinct volumes and articles talking about the First Person of the Trinity in the same fashion that you will Christology and pneumatology. This is especially unfortunate in the case of Hebrews because at every juncture the author links the Son to the Father, whether it is in terms of overlapping identification, mediation of revelation, or otherwise identifying the Father as the “source” of the Son and his work.
As such, I aim to show that the Christology presented in this book is ultimately inseparable from the presentation of theology proper. But I will only be doing this in relative sketch-work. A book could be written on this subject, and maybe I can get a chance to do that someday. As for now, I will proceed through texts and themes as they are brought up in the texts in more summary fashion.
The Prologue of Heb 1:1–4
First, let us briefly summarize what is said about Christ in the prologue. Christ is presented as the supreme speech-act of God, the one to whom all of salvation history—all of the previous speech and action of God—has been building. The author demonstrates this with Scripture citations interpreted prosopologically as direct divine speech either to the Son or to the angels (in one case about the Son). The very method of arguing contributes to the author’s point since these same Scriptures testified beforehand to the Christ who has now already come and will come again. This Christ is the one who has been identified as God’s Son in a unique way, the one who sits and reigns at his right hand, the executor of God’s will, and the embodiment of God’s unchanging, irrevocable, and inexorable loving faithfulness. He is the one through whom God made the ages and he is also the one who fulfilled God’s purposes for the ages. He is also the supreme revelation of God to the world that God created, being the radiance of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being, in some ways identical to the Father insofar as both are one God and in some ways distinguishable from God insofar as one is the Son and the other is the Father.
Already, we can see from this summary how closely Christology is tied with theology proper. After all, the God who is the Father of Jesus is the same God who has spoken for a long time through the Scriptures in anticipation of when the Scriptures would come to climax and fruition through the coming of the Son, his supreme speech-act in flesh (on Scripture as divine speech outside of the prologue, see 1:5–13; 3:17–19; 4:3, 7–10 [cf. 3:7–11]; 5:5–6, 12; 7:21; 8:8–12; 10:30; 12:26–27). Through all the diverse means, texts, and personalities God has communicated up to this point, the purpose was to prepare the way for the Son, in whom all of his promises have their “Yes”, as Paul would say (2 Cor 1:20–21). By speaking through the Son at this time (cf. 2:3), God has announced that these are the last days prior to the consummation of all of the most glorious promises. Whatever span of time may pass between the first coming and second coming of Christ, the Father has shown in the person of Jesus that his loving faithfulness to what he has done and what he has promised is irrevocable and inexorable. As he has done and as he has promised to the ancestors, so he has done in Jesus and so he will do even more when Jesus comes again, for Jesus is God-in-person, even as he is the agent of the Father. It is the Father’s wisdom that is embodied in Jesus. It is the Father’s glory that is radiated in Jesus. It is the Father’s being that is the source of the imprint of Jesus. It is the Father to whom Jesus points in everything that he does and everything that he is. It is the Father’s throne in which he shares and the Father’s will which he carries out. It is from the Father that the direction of creation and salvation history come, as indeed it is the Father who appointed Christ the heir of all things (even as the Father created the ages through him). It is the Father’s salvific power that the Son enacts through his death, resurrection, and exaltation.
Majesty on High
The prologue describes Jesus’s exaltation in terms of him sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (1:3). Similar expressions appear in other statements about Jesus’s exaltation in 8:1; 10:12–13; and 12:2. The imagery, of course, derives from Ps 110:1, which the author quotes as the Father’s speech to the Son in 1:13. The text and its influential language remind us that it is God the Father, as the Majesty on high, who is the agent of Jesus’s exaltation and the reference point for that exaltation. He is the one to whose right Jesus sits. His rule is defined in relation to his Father’s rule as he shares in that rule at his right hand. It is God’s kingdom in which Jesus reigns (12:26–29). Thus, the author tells us that it is God who subjects the coming world, the new creation, to Jesus (2:5–9).
Jesus as the Executor of the Will of the Promise-Making and Covenant-Making God
The next theme is difficult to express concisely, but in essence the audience is reminded again and again that it is as the executor of God’s will that Jesus does what he does, since it is God’s promises that he fulfills and his covenant that he brings to fruition. This is part of what is expressed in the prologue (1:3) in the statements that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the imprint of his being (i.e., his “Godness”). It is also seen in the notion of God as the source of inheritance both for Jesus (1:2, 4) and for his people. But more pervasively, it is seen in how Jesus, the Holy Spirit (2:4), and the angels (1:14) enact God’s will. In the case of Jesus, the fact that he is enacting God’s will is in the “warp and woof” of all that Hebrews says of him, particularly in terms of his faithfulness and obedience (2:5–10, 17; 3:2, 5–6; 5:7–9), and of the fact that he is God’s apostle/sent one (3:1). But it also shines forth in several particular texts.
Jesus is described as the Son who is the faithful high priest and as the one who gives a share in the promised rest (3:1–6, 12–15), but this is inseparable from the fact that the Son has done as he has done in God’s house for the people who constitute God’s house, and it is God’s rest into which Jesus brings people (3:1–4:11). Jesus can do this precisely because it was God’s will to bring about these last days by speaking through his Son (1:2; 9:26; cf. Acts 2:17; 1 Cor 10:11; Eph 3:9–12; 2 Tim 3:1; Titus 1:2–3; Jas 5:3; 1 Pet 1:20; 2 Pet 3:3; 1 John 2:18; Jude 18). It was to fulfill God’s ancient promises that God opened up the way to him through Jesus the high priest (6:11–20; 7:18–22; 9:26; cf. 9:18–20). It was God who established the promised new covenant by making Jesus the high priest of this covenant forever (8:6–10:18; 12:24; 13:20). As such, Jesus enables others to receive that inheritance that comes from God (9:15, 28). Jesus’s whole earthly and heavenly ministry demonstrates the faithful love of God, showing that the God who has promised is faithful and will do as he said (10:23). It is because Jesus’s work is the embodiment of God’s will that he responds with condemnation and vengeance against those who despise it (6:4–6; 10:29–31; 12:14–17, 25). Receiving the promise is thus tied to following the will of God embodied in Jesus (10:36–38; 12:26–29). Jesus’s place in the history of faith in 11:1–12:2 shows how he brings to fruition the hope the listed people have had in God, because it is God’s promises that he brings to fruition. It is God’s promised new Jerusalem that Jesus gives access to (12:22–29; 13:13–16). And it is through Jesus that God brings about his will for his new covenant people in line with the promise of the “interiority” of the new covenant (Jer 31:31–34) when he works through Jesus in them (13:20–21).
God and the Worship of Jesus
A theme related to this notion and to the previous one about Jesus’s exaltation that is difficult to articulate succinctly is how God the Father is the “source” of the Son’s worship. This is an implication of the description in 1:3 of the Son himself being the radiance of the Father’s glory—perhaps the chief expression of his worshipfulness—and the imprint of his very “Godness.” This same God, who does not share worship even with the angels, commands the angels to worship the Son (1:6). Furthermore, through recognizing the quoted texts as divine speech, the author shows that God designates the Son as God (1:8) and Lord (1:10–13). In other words, God declares that worshiping the Son is part and parcel of worshiping God (cf. 12:28). God also testifies on his behalf by signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Spirit that he connects with the proclamation of the gospel (2:4).
God Is the Father of Jesus in a Unique Way
Maybe the most direct demonstration of the inextricable link of theology proper and Christology is the frequent references to Jesus as the Son (1:2, 5, 8; 3:6; 4:14; 5:5, 8; 6:6; 7:3, 28; 10:29). This reference inherently describes Jesus in a special relation to God as the one who is his Father, and it describes God in a special relation to Jesus as the one who is his Son. Indeed, God is Jesus’s Father in a unique way, as most of the citations directly and indirectly reference his distinction as the unique Son of God, including by placing the Son on the divine side of the Creator/creature distinction (such as in his reception of worship and place on the throne).
But God is also Father in a derivative or adoptive fashion to those Jesus sanctifies. That is, they are children because they become related to the Son through salvific union (2:11–17). This derivative character also appears in how the author refers to people as the church/assembly of the firstborn in 12:23. It is perhaps most apparent in the author’s instruction in 12:5–11 on regarding their trials, their tests, as discipline from the God who is their Father. After all, the Father disciplines those he loves, not simply punitively, but also in the broader sense of educating. Because he is our Father, he is also our teacher.
God Is Creator
God’s identity and work as Creator is also noted here, though in a more complex fashion than is often recognized. After all, what are often taken as statements about God creating the physical world in 1:2 and 11:3 are actually, as I have argued in published work, statements about his making of history (“the ages”) and arranging them through his Son and for his Son, as his Son inaugurates the consummation of the ages and brings them to completion (9:26). But that is not to say that the more typical statement of God as the originator of what exists is absent. We are reminded that God created the angels (1:7), in implied contrast to the Son (as indicated in the next quote of Scripture). The author describes the general work of creation, in one case in a quote, in terms of the “foundation of the world” (4:3; 9:26). It is also implied in God being the builder of all (3:4), in him “preparing a body” for Jesus (10:5), and in being called the “Father of spirits” in contrast to fleshly parents (12:9). Both of these emphases of creation in relation to origins and salvation history come together in the use of Ps 8 in Heb 2:5–18. The one who fulfills this statement about God’s creative will is the Son, Jesus, but it also points forward to God’s will of new creation, when he will make other humans like Jesus, his means for accomplishing which are the gospel events and their fruits. A similar linkage of creation and new creation (and thus of origination and salvation history) appears in the teaching on entering God’s rest in 3:7–4:11, as God established his rest with his rest on the Sabbath as an expression of his reign over creation, but it remains open for others to enter that rest.
More indirectly connected to this theme of God as Creator is the invocation of another traditional description of God. That is, God is described as the “living God” (3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22). This is connected with him being the Creator in that he is the only Creator and only true God deserving of worship, and it is also connected with him being the one who can thus give life and have judgment over life. We see these various points attested in the traditional usage of the descriptor “living God,” especially in the contrasts made to idols, which have no life in them (cf. 1 Sam 17:26, 36; 2 Kgs 19:4, 16; Jer 10:10; Dan 6:20, 26; Hos 1:6–11; Matt 16:16; Acts 14:15; Rom 9:22–26; 2 Cor 6:14–18; 1 Thess 1:9; Rev 7:2).
God as the One Who Makes Complete
As indicated in the description of God as Creator, God is not only the originator; he is also the one who makes complete, so that he envelops both the beginning and the end as the Alpha and Omega. God is the one who made Jesus complete through suffering (2:10), which implies both his vocational completion and that his completion came after his death, namely, in the resurrection. The same is implied in reference to God’s completion of Jesus in 5:9. This is the point also in the author saying Jesus has been made complete “forever” (7:28), which is possible because of the indestructible life from God (7:15–17, 23–25). God will also make others complete through Jesus by enabling them to share in what Jesus has received (11:40; 12:23; cf. 7:25; 10:14). This completion language also appears in relation to what God has done with his covenant in 8:8. That verb συντελέω used in the quote of Jer 31:31 has more of the sense of “completing” or “consummating” the covenant than of simply “making” it or “bringing about” a covenant. The verb and its associated noun are rare in the NT, but both of them otherwise can appear in some eschatologically significant contexts when they are not borrowed from the LXX (9:26; Matt 13:39–40, 49; 24:3; 28:20; Mark 13:4). There are multiple words that overlap in meaning with this verb and the associated noun, but I have described this particular term as having a sense comparable to “denouement,” the resolution of the grand story at which everything is brought together (hence the συν element), hence its association with eschatology in another text in Hebrews, one in Mark, and several in Matthew. Thus, this eschatologically oriented text attests to God’s eschatological action which has already been inaugurated through Jesus and will one day be made complete when God makes the people themselves complete.
God Is Eternal and His Purposes Do Not Change
In line with the fact that God is Creator, the author also tells us that God is eternal and that his purposes do not change (i.e., they are immutable). The divine throne is described as lasting forever in 1:8, and this is because God himself is eternal and his purposes are unchangeable (6:13–19). This quality of God undergirds his unbreakable oath in covenant with Abraham, and so illustrates that God’s faithful love is inexorable, unyielding before those who would seek to resist its fulfillment. It is also why God can be said to have spoken the same gospel to ancient Israel and to much later Christians (4:2, 6). The ultimate demonstration of God being eternal and being inexorably faithful in his expression of love is Jesus himself, who is said to share God’s throne (1:8), and to be the same yesterday, today, and forever (13:8). The fact that God is forever is what undergirds Jesus being the high priest forever (5:6–10; 6:16–20; 7:17, 21, 24, 28). As the Son is, so too is the Spirit described as eternal (9:14 [though there is a textual variant here that says “Holy” Spirit instead of “eternal” Spirit]). The eternality of God the Father, Son, and Spirit is the source of the guarantee that salvation and redemption (5:9; 9:12), judgment (6:2), inheritance (9:15), and the covenant (13:20) are everlasting in endurance and/or consequence.
God and His Word
We are also told at multiple points about the power of God’s word. The author does not make the connection between Jesus and the word as intricate and explicit as John does in his prologue, but there remains a deep connection here as well. It is implied most indirectly in how Jesus is linked with God’s wisdom, which was in turn linked with God’s word. It is also implied in the statement that the Son upholds all thing by his powerful word (1:3), which has an obvious link with creation, but also to sustaining the world in this statement and others noted previously. It also appears, albeit more in reference to salvation history than only origination, in 11:3 as preparing for the culmination of the ages in Christ. The most memorable statement about God’s word, particularly as manifested in the gospel (per 4:2, 6), appears in 4:12–13. This follows the closing exhortation in 4:11 to make every effort to enter the rest, lest any should fall. For the word of God is living and active, piercing and separating all things in judgment. Nothing can be hidden from God and all will be laid bare before the one to whom all must give an account at the final judgment. God’s word has these characteristics because it is a manifestation of God’s power, wisdom, and will. Hence, the word of God in the gospel is linked with the powers of the age to come in 6:4–5. Finally, the gospel is described as the “word of God” in 13:7 as what the leaders had spoken to the audience. All that is said about the word of God and its effectuality comes from the fact that the word has its source in God, it is not merely a word “about” God; it is God’s own word.