The Son-Word
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Epistle to the Hebrews
11 min read
The article is a direct commentary on Hebrews 1:1-4. Understanding the historical context, authorship debates, and theological themes of this unique New Testament letter would greatly enrich the reader's understanding of McKnight's exegesis.
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Book of Wisdom
14 min read
The article includes an extended sidebar quoting the Wisdom of Solomon and drawing parallels between its description of Wisdom and Hebrews' description of Jesus. This deuterocanonical text's background and theology would provide valuable context.
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Logos (Christianity)
12 min read
The article's central concept is Jesus as the 'Son-Word of God' - the divine Logos. Understanding the Greek philosophical origins and early Christian development of Logos theology illuminates why the author frames Jesus as God's ultimate speech/communication.
From Hebrews: The New Testament Everyday Bible Study, with questions by Becky Castle Miller.
The Faithful God and the Son-Word
Hebrews 1:1-4
1:1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
God has always communicated with humans. But God only fully communicated with humans in the face of God’s Son. We can call the Son here the “Son-Word of God.” In Jesus Christ we see the fullness of who God is, what God does, and what God wills for all creation. As the Son-Word of God, Jesus is unlike anything else that reveals God and unlike any other human. As the Son-Word of God, Jesus is better than various features in the story and practices of Israel.
Lines as aesthetically designed as these are deserve more than an ordinary paragraph of prose. Unfortunately, most translates do just that. To echo the aesthetical beauty of these opening verses to the Sermon, I reformatted the NIV in a way similar to my own translation (The Second Testament). In Greek the entirety of verse one is the subject of the verb in verse two! That is, “The God who spoke [back then, in all those ways] spoke to us in these last days.” One more feature of this beautiful introduction: the following words all begin with the Greek letter “pi” (p, π): “past” and “ancestors” and “prophets” and “many times” and “various ways.” David deSilva reproduces those p’s in his translation: “piece meal and partial were God’s past pronouncements to the patriarchs through the prophets” (deSilva, Hebrews, 19).
God spoke
Though the NIV starts with “In the past God,” the original text begins with “in many places and in many patterns.” This will set up the time of God’s multivariant speaking to humans, which was “in
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