Hebrews 1:3

καθαρισμόν. The preceding διʼ ἑαυτοῦ (EKLM) of the rec. is not found in אAB Vulg. Arm. It may have risen from the preceding αὐτοῦ, but would not have been added by so “faultlessly rhetorical” a writer, and is involved in the middle ποιησάμενος.

τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν. The ἡμῶν in the rec. is a needless dogmatic intrusion and is not found in אABDEM Vulg. Copt., &c.

3. ἀπαύγασμα, “effulgence,” a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in the N. T. The substitution of “effulgence” for “brightness” in the Revised Version is not, as it has been contemptuously called, “a piece of finery,” but is a rendering at once more accurate and more suggestive. It means “efflux of light”—φῶς ἐκ φωτὸς, i.e. Light from Light, as in the Nicene Creed (“effulgentia” not “repercussus,” Grotius). It implies not only resemblance—which is all that is involved in the vague and misleading word “brightness,” which might apply to a mere reflexion:—but also “origin” and “independent existence.” The glory of Christ is the glory of the Father just as the sun is only revealed by the rays which stream forth from it. So the “Wisdom of Solomon” (Hebrews 7:26)—which offers many resemblances to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and which some have even conjectured to be by the same author—speaks of wisdom as “the effulgence of the everlasting light.” The word is also found in Philo where it is applied to man. This passage, like many others in the Epistle, is quoted by St Clement of Rome (ad Cor. 36). Many on the analogy of ἀπήχημα “echo,” and ἀποσκίασμα “a cast shadow,” support the rendering “reflexion,” especially because Philo uses ἐκμαγεῖον and μίμημα as illustrations of it, as the Book of Wisdom uses εἰκὼν and ἔσοπτρον. But “effulgence” gives a truer theological sense, and Hesych. explains ἀπαύγ. by ἡλίου φέγγος and Lex. Cyrilli by ἀκτὶς ἡλίου.

τῆς δόξης. God was believed in the Old Dispensation to reveal Himself by a cloud of glory called “the Shechinah,” and the Alexandrian Jews, in their anxious avoidance of all anthropomorphism and anthropopathy—i.e. of all expressions which attribute the human form and human passions to God—often substituted “the Glory” for the name of God. Similarly in 2 Peter 1:17 the Voice from God the Father is a Voice ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεποῦς δόξης “from the magnificent glory.” Comp. Acts 7:55; Luke 2:9. St John says “God is Light,” and the indestructible purity, impalpable essence, and infinite diffusiveness of Light make it the best of all created things to furnish an analogy for the supersensuous light and spiritual splendour of the Being of God. Hence St John also says of the Word “we beheld His glory” (John 1:14); and our Lord said to Philip “he who hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Comp. Luke 9:29.

χαρακτήρ, “the stamp.” The word only occurs in the LXX. of Leviticus 13:28. The R.V. renders this word by “very image” (after Tyndale), and in the margin by “impress.” (Comp. Colossians 1:15; Philippians 2:6.) I prefer the word “stamp” because the Greek χαρακτήρ, like the English word “stamp,” may, according to its derivation, be used either for the impress or for the stamping-tool itself. This Epistle has so many resemblances to Philo that the word may have been suggested by a passage (De plant. Noe, Opp. I. 332) in which Philo compares man to a coin which has been stamped by the Logos with the being and type of God; and in that passage the word seems to bear this unusual sense of a “stamping-tool,” for it impresses a man with the mark of God. Similarly St Paul in the Epistle to the Colossians (Colossians 1:15)—which most resembles this Epistle in its Christology—called Christ “the image (εἰκὼν) of the invisible God”; and Philo says, “But the Word is the image (εἰκὼν) of God, by Whom the whole world was created,” De Monarch. (Opp. II. 225).

τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ. Not “of His person” but “of His substance” or “essence.” The word ὑπόστασις, substantia (literally that which “stands under”), is, in philosophical accuracy, the imaginary substratum which remains when a thing is regarded apart from all its accidents. The word “person” of our A. V. is rather the equivalent to πρόσωπον. Ὑπόστασις only came to be used in this sense some centuries later. Perhaps “Being” or “Essence,” though it corresponds more strictly to the Greek οὐσία, is the nearest representative which we can find to hypostasis, now that “substance,” once the most abstract and philosophical of words, has come (in ordinary language) to mean what is most solid and concrete. It is only too possible that the word “substance” conveys to many minds the very opposite conception to that which was intended, and which alone corresponds to the truth. Athanasius says, “Hypostasis is essence” (οὐσία); and the Nicene Council seems to draw no real distinction between the two words. In fact the Western Church admitted that, when ὑπόστασις is used for πρόσωπον, we might speak of three hypostaseis of the Trinity; and in the Western sense, of one hypostasis, because in this sense the word meant Essence. For the use of the word in the LXX. see Psalms 38:6, Psalms 88:48. It is curiously applied in Wis 16:21. In the technical language of theology these two clauses represent the Son as co-eternal and co-substantial with the Father.

φέρων τε τὰ πάντα. He is not only the Creative Word, but the Sustaining Providence. He is, as Philo says, “the chain-band of all things,” but he is also their guiding force. “In Him all things subsist” (Colossians 1:17). Philo calls the Logos “the pilot and steersman of everything.” Plutarch also uses the word φέρω in the sense of upbear, i.e. rule. (Comp. Cic. pro Flacco, 38, “Rempublicam vestris humeris sustinetis.” Sen. Ep. 31. “Deus ille optimus … ipse vehit omnia.”)

τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, “by the utterance of His power.” It is better to keep “word” for Logos, and “utterance” for ῥῆμα. We find “strength” (κράτος) and “force” (ἰσχύς) attributed to Christ in Ephesians 6:10, as “power” (δύναμις) here.

καθαρισμὸν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ποιησάμενος, “after making purification of sins.” The διʼ ἑαυτοῦ is omitted by some of the best MSS. (א, A, B), and the ἡμῶν by many. But the notion of Christ’s independent action (Philippians 2:7) is involved in the middle voice of the verb, which the διʼ ἑαυτοῦ merely expands and emphasizes. On the purification of our sins by Christ (in which there is perhaps a slight reference to the “Day of Atonement,” called in the LXX. “the Day of Purification,” Exodus 29:36), see Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 10:12; 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Peter 1:9 (comp. Job 7:21, LXX.). The καθαρισμὸς is the result of the ἱλασμός. The objective gen. τῶν ἁμ. implies that the “purification” is the “cleansing” of our sins. Some prefer to render it “from our sins.” Winer, p. 233.

ἐκάθισεν. His glorification was directly consequent on His voluntary humiliation (see Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; Psalms 110:1), and here the whole description is brought to its destined climax.

ἐν δεξιᾷ. As the place of honour, comp. Hebrews 8:1; Psalms 110:1; Ephesians 1:20. The controversy as to whether “the right hand of God” means “everywhere”—which was called the “Ubiquitarian controversy”—is wholly destitute of meaning, and has long fallen into deserved oblivion.

τῆς μεγαλωσύνης. In Hebrews 10:12 he says “at the right hand of God.” But he was evidently fond of sonorous amplifications, which belong to the dignity of his style; and also fond of Alexandrian modes of expression. The LXX. sometimes went so far as to substitute for “God” the phrase מקום makom, “the place” where God stood (see Exodus 24:10, LXX.).

ἐν ὑψηλοῖς. Literally, “in high places”; like “Glory to God” ἐν ὑψίστοις, Luke 2:14 (comp. Job 16:19); and ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, Ephesians 1:20 (comp. Psalms 93:4; Psalms 113:5). The description of Christ in these verses differed from the current Messianic conception of the Jews in two respects. 1. He was Divine and Omnipotent. 2. He was to die for our sins. The analogy between these two verses and Colossians 1:15-20 is too close to be accidental.