Hebrews 1:3

ὃς ὢ ἀπαύγασμα.… “Who being effulgence of His glory and express image of His nature.” The relative ὃς finds its antecedent in υἱῳ, its verb in ἐκάθισεν; and the interposed participles prepare for the statement of the main verb by disclosing the fitness of Christ to be the revealer of God, and to make atonement. The two clauses, ὢν … φέρων τε, are closely bound together and seem intended to convey the impression that during Christ's redemptive activity on earth there was no kenosis, but that these Divine attributes lent efficacy to His whole work. [On the difficulty of this conception see Gore's Bampton Lec., p. 266, and Carpenter's Essex Hall Lec., p. 87.] ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης … ἀπαύγασμα may mean either what is flashed forth, or what is flashed back: either “ray” or “reflection”. Calvin, Beza, Thayer, Ménégoz prefer the latter meaning. Thus Grotius has, “repercussus divinae majestatis, qualis est solis in nube”. The Greek fathers, on the other hand, uniformly adopt the meaning “effulgence”. Thus Theodoret τὸ γὰρ ἀπαύγασμα καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πυρός ἐστι, καὶ σὺν τῷ πυρί ἐστι · καὶ αἴτιον μὲν ἔχει τὸ πῦρ, ἀχώριστον δέ ἐστι τοῦ πυρός … καὶ τῷ πυρὶ δὲ ὁμοφυὲς τὸ ἀπαύγασμα : οὐκοῦν καὶ ὁ, υἱὸς τῷ πατρί. So in the Nicene Creed φῶς ἐκ φωτός. “The word ‘efflulgence' seems to mean not rays of light streaming from a body in their connection with that body or as part of it, still less the reflection of these rays caused by their falling upon another body, but rather rays of light coming out from the original body and forming a similar light-body themselves” (Davidson). So Weiss, who says that the “Strahlenglanz ein zweites Wesen erzeugt”. Philo's use of the word lends colour to this meaning when he says of the human soul breathed into man by God that it was are ἅτε τῆς μακαρίας καὶ τρισμακαρίας φύσεως ἀπαύγασμα. So in India, Chaitanya taught that the human soul was like a ray from the Divine Being; God like a blazing fire and the souls like sparks that spring out of it. In the Arian controversy this designation of the Son was appealed to as proving that He is eternally generated and exists not by an act of the Father's will but essentially. See Suicer, s.v. As the sun cannot exist or a lamp burn without radiating light, so God is essentially Father and Son. τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ. God's glory is all that belongs to him as God, and the Son is the effulgence of God's glory, not only a single ray but as Origen says: ὅλης τῆς δόξης. Therefore the Son cannot but reveal the Father. Calvin says: “Dum igitur audis filium esse splendorem Paternae gloriae, sic apud te cogita, gloriam Patris esse invisibilem, donec in Christo refulgeat”. As completing the thought of these words and bringing out still more emphatically the fitness of the Son to reveal, it is added καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ. χαρακτήρ, as its form indicates, originally meant the cutting agent [χαράσσειν], the tool or person who engraved. In common use, however, it usurped the place of χάραγμα and denoted the impress or mark made by the graving tool, especially the mark upon a coin which determined its value; hence, any distinguishing mark, identifying a thing or person, character. “Express image” translates it well. The mark left on wax or metal is the “express image” of the seal or stamp. It is a reproduction of each characteristic feature of the original. ὑποστάσεως rendered “person” in A.V.; “substance,” the strict etymological equivalent, in R.V. To the English ear, perhaps, “nature” or “essence” better conveys the meaning. It has not the strict meaning it afterwards acquired in Christian theology, but denotes all that from which the glory springs and with which indeed it is identical. [We must not confound the δόξα with the ἀπαύγασμα as Hofmann and others do. The ὑπόστασις is the nature, the δόξα its quality, the ἀπαύγασμα its manifestation.] There is in the Father nothing which is not reproduced in the Son, save the relation of Father to Son. Menegoz objects that though a mirror perfectly reflects the object before it and the wax bears the very image of the seal, the mirror and the wax have not the same nature as that which they represent. And Philo more than once speaks of man's rational nature as τύπος τις καὶ χαρακτὴρ θείας δυνάμεως, and the ἀπαύγασμα of that blessed nature, see Quod deter, insid., c. xxiii.; De Opif. Mundi, c. li. All that he means by this is, that man is made in God's image. But while no doubt the primary significance of the terms used by the writer to the Hebrews is to affirm the fitness of Christ to reveal God, the accompanying expressions, in which Divine attributes are ascribed to Him, prove that this fitness to reveal was based upon community of nature. The two clauses, ὂς to αὐτοῦ, have frequently been accepted as exhibiting the Trinitarian versus the Arian and Sabellian positions; the Sabellians accepting the ἀπαύγασμα as representing their view of the modal manifestation of Godhead, the Arians finding it possible to accept the second clause, but neither party willing to accept both clauses separate or individual existence of the Son being found in the figure of the seal, while identity of nature seemed to be affirmed in ἀπαύγασμα. [ὑπόστασις was derived from the Stoics who used it as the equivalent of οὐσία, that which formed the essential substratum, τὸ ὑποκείμενον, of all qualities. The Greek fathers, however, understood by it what they termed πρόσωπον ὁμοούσιον and affirmed that there were in the Godhead three ὑποστάσεις. The Latin fathers translating ὑπόστασις by substantia could not make this affirmation. Hence arose confusion until Gregory Nazianzen pointed out that the difference was one of words not of ideas, and that it was due to the poverty of the Latin language. See Suicer, s.v.; Bleek in loc.; Bigg's Christian Platonists, p. 164 5; Dean Strong's Articles in J.T.S. for 1901 on the History of the Theological term Substance; Calvin Inst., i., 13, 2; Loofs' Leitfaden, p. 109 note and p. 134.]

φέρων τε τὰ πάντα … “and upholding all things by the word of His power”. The meaning of φέρως is seen in such expressions as that of Moses in Numbers 11:14 οὐ δυνήσομαι ἐγὼ μόνος φέρειν πάντα τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον, where the idea of being responsible for their government and guidance is involved. So in Plutarch's Lucullus, 6, φέρειν τὴν πόλιν of governing the city. In Latin Cicero (pro Flac., 37) reminds his judges “sustinetis rempublicam humeris vestris”. See Bleek. In Rabbinic literature, as Schoettgen shows, God is commonly spoken of as “portans mundum,” the Hebrew word being סָבַל. In Philo, the Logos is the helmsman and pilot of all things (De Cherub.) τῷ ῥήμαι, by the expression of His power, by making His will felt in all created nature. The present, φέρων, seems necessarily to involve that during the whole of His earthly career, this function of upholding nature was being discharged. Probably the clause is inserted not merely to illustrate the dignity of the Son, but to suggest that the whole course of nature and history, when rightly interpreted, reveals the Son and therefore the Father. The responsibility of bringing the world to a praiseworthy issue depends upon Christ, and as contributing to this work His earthly ministry was undertaken. For the notable thing He accomplished as God's Son, the use He made of his dignity and power, is expressed in the words, καθαρισμὸν τ. ἁμαρτιῶν ποιησάμενος “having accomplished purification of the sins”. This was as essential to the formation of the covenant as the ability rightly to represent God's mind and will. This itself was the supreme revelation of God, and it was only after accomplishing this He could sit down at God's right hand as one who had finished the work of mediating the eternal covenant. ποιησάμενος, the mid. voice, supersedes the necessity of διʼ ἑαυτοῦ. The aorist part. implies that the cleansing referred to was a single definite act performed before He sat down, and in some way preparatory to that Exaltation. The word receives explanation in subsequent passages of the Ep. vii. 27, ix. 12 14. καθαρισμός as used in LXX suggests that the cleansing referred to means the removal of guilt and its consciousness. The worshippers were fitted by cleansing to appear before God.

ἐκάθισεν ἐνδεξιᾷ … “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. ἐκάθισεν seems to denote that the work undertaken by the Son was satisfactorily accomplished; while the sitting down ἐν δεξιᾷ κ. τ. λ. denotes entrance upon a reign. The source of the expression is in Psalms 110:1 (cited Hebrews 5:13) where the Lord says to Messiah κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, and this not only as introducing Him to the place of security and favour, but also of dignity and power. “The King's right hand was the place of power and dignity, belonging to the minister of his authority and his justice, and the channel of his mercy, the Mediator in short between him and his people” (Rendall). Cf. Psalms 80:17. In contrast to the ever-growing and never complete revelation to the fathers, which kept the race always waiting for something more sufficing, there came at last that revelation which contained all and achieved all. But the expression not only looks backward in approval of the work done by the Son, but forward to the result of this work in His supremacy over all human affairs. μεγαλωσύνη is ascribed to God in Jude 1:25 and in Deuteronomy 32:3 δότε μεγαλωσύνην τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν. Cf. also Clem., Ep., xvi. Here it is used to denote the sovereign majesty inherent in God (cf. Hebrews 12:2; Mark 14:62). The words ἐν ὑψήλοις are connected by Westcott and Vaughan with ἐκάθισεν. It is better, with Beza and Bleek, to connect them with μεγαλωσύνης, for while in Hebrews 10:12 and Hebrews 12:2, where it is said He sat down on the throne of God, no further designation is needed; in Hebrews 8:1, as here, where it is said that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty, it is felt that some further designation is needed and ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς is added. No local region is intended, but supreme spiritual influence, mediation between God, the ultimate love, wisdom and sovereignty, and this world. This writer and his contemporary fellow-Christians, had reached the conviction here expressed, partly from Christ's words and partly from their own experience of His power.