THE THEME. Chapter 1: 1-3.
THE SON-THE GLORY OF HIS PERSON.
1: 2-3 God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the effulgence (outshining ) of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power.
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
FIRST HALF-DOCTRINAL.Chapter 1- 5: 18
The Son of God the Mediator of the Better Covenant.
We know that whatever a man sets his heart on exercises a mighty influence on the life, and leaves its stamp upon his character. He that follows after vanity becomes vain. He that trusts in a god of his own fancy will find his religion an illusion. He that sets his heart upon the Living God will find the Living God take possession and fill the heart. It is this that makes it of such infinite consequence that we should not only have a general idea of the Christ through whom God speaks to us, but should know Him aright and have our heart filled with all that God has revealed of Him. Our knowledge of Him will be the food of our faith, and as our faith is will be our experience of His saving power, and of the fellowship with God to which He leads. Let us listen to what we are taught of the Son in whom God speaks to us.
Whom He appointed Heir of all things. The great object and aim of God in creation was to have an inheritance for His Son, in which He might show forth His glory and find His blessedness. The Son is the Final Cause, the End of all things.
He is the Beginning too. Through whom He also made the worlds. He is the origin and Efficient Cause of all that exists. "Without Him nothing was made that was made." The place the Son had in the divine Being was such that God's relation to all that was outside of Himself was only through the Son. Of all that exists the end and the beginning meet in Him.
He is the Middle, too. Upholding all things by the word of His power. He bears all things, "all things consist in Him." As little as they were created without Him, can they exist without Him? He upholds them every moment by the Word of His power, even as by His Word they were created. This is the Son through whom God speaks to us.
What is it that makes Him worthy of taking this high place between the Creator and the creature? Because, as the Son, it is He alone in whom the unapproachable and utterly incomprehensible Glory of God is made manifest, through whom as Mediator the uncreated God, and the works of His hand, can come into contact and fellowship. His relation to creation rests on His relation to the Father. He is the out shining of God's Glory, and the express image of His substance. As we only know the sun by the light that shines from it, so is Christ the outshining, the revelation of God's Glory. As the light that shines from the sun is of the same nature with it, so the Son is of one nature with the Father God of God. And as a son bears the likeness of his father, because he has his life and nature from him, so the Son of God is the express image of His substance. He is of one substance with the Father His express image and has therefore Life in Himself, even as the Father has Life in Himself.
Someone may be tempted to think that these are theological mysteries too deep for the ordinary Christian, and not needful for our Christian faith and life. And they are inclined to ask, of what importance it can be to a simple believer to know all this? My brother, think not thus. It is all important that we know the glory of Jesus. The more the soul is filled with that glory, and worships Him in it, the more it will see with what confidence it can count upon Him to do a divine and supernatural work in us, and to lead us to an actual Living
fellowship or intimacy with God as our Father. Oh, let us not be so selfish and mean as to be content with the hope that Jesus saves us, while we are careless of having intimate personal acquaintance with Him. If not for our sake, then for God's sake, for the sake of His infinite Love and Grace, let us seek to know aright this blessed Son whom the Father has given us. Let us turn away from earth, let us meditate and gaze and worship, until He, who is the outshining of the divine Glory, shines into our very heart, and He, to whom the Father has given such a place as Creator and Upholder and Heir of all, take that place within us too, and be to us the beginning and the center and the end of all.
It is through this Son God speaks to us. Not through the words of the Son only, for they too are human words, and may, just like the inspired words of the prophets, bring in but little profit. It is through the Son the Living, mighty, divine Son, direct that God speaks: it is only in direct living contact with the Son that the words can profit. And the Son, not as we superficially think of Him, but the real divine Son as God has revealed Him, known and worshiped and waited on as the out shining of the divine glory, it is this Son of God, entering
into our heart and dwelling there, in whom God will speak to us, and in whom we shall be brought nigh to God. When Christ reveals the Father, it is not to the mind, to give us new thoughts about Him, but in the heart and Life, so that we know and experience the power in which God can dwell and work in man, restoring him to the enjoyment of that blessed fellowship of intimacy for which he was created, and which he lost by the fall. The great work of God in Heaven, the chief thought and longing of His heart is, in His Son, to reach your heart and speak to you. Oh, let it be the great work of your life, and the great longing of your heart, to know this Jesus; as a humble, meek disciple to bow at His feet, and let Him teach you of God and eternal Life.Yes, even now, let us bow before Him in the fourfold Glory in which the word has set Him before us. He is the Heir of all that God has. He is its Creator. He is the Up holder too. He is the Outshining of God's Glory, and the perfect Image of His substance. O my Savior! anything to know You better, and in You to have my God speak to me!
1. "No man knows the Son, save the Father, neither does any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son Wills to reveal Him." How dependent we are on the Father to know the Son; on the Son to know the Father. Let us acknowledge this dependency in deep humility, and believe in receptivity and wait In meekness of soul for the divine revealing.
2. There are times when there arises in the soul a deep longing to know God. External teaching does not satisfy. Treasure such longing as God's Love drawing. Turn from the world in stillness of soul, and exercise faith In the secret power that Jesus can exert in the heart. Become a disciple of Jesus, one who follows Him and learns of Him.
3. You who are Heir, Creator, Upholder of all, the brightness of the Father's Glory, the express Image of His substance, my Lord Jesus, reveal the Father to me, that I may know that God speaks to me.
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