God's Final Vocabulary Text: Hebrews 1:1-4
Introduction: An Argument Against Going Back
The book of Hebrews is a sustained argument, a magnificent sermon delivered to a group of first century Jewish Christians who were feeling the immense pressure to drift back. The newness of Christianity was wearing off, and the old, familiar rituals of the temple were calling to them. The smell of the incense, the rhythm of the sacrifices, the weight of the traditions, it was all very tangible. They were tempted to treat Jesus as just one more prophet in a long line of prophets, a glorious add-on to Judaism, but not the final word. They were tempted to go back to the shadows, because the shadows were comfortable.
The author of Hebrews takes up his pen to deliver a thunderous and absolute "No." He is writing to tell them, and us, that going back is not an option. You cannot go back to the kindergarten alphabet after you have been given the complete works of Shakespeare. You cannot go back to the architectural blueprint after the cathedral has been built. And you cannot go back to the preparatory system of prophets and angels after God Himself has stepped into history in the person of His Son.
This book is about the absolute, final, unrepeatable, and unsurpassable supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these first four verses are the overture to the entire symphony. They are a dense, tightly-packed, Christological explosion. The author wastes no time. He immediately establishes the great pivot of all human history: the shift from the partial words of the prophets to the final Word of the Son. This is not an evolution; it is a revolution. God used to send memos; now He has come Himself.
The Text
God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days spoke to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power; who, having accomplished cleansing for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.
(Hebrews 1:1-4 LSB)
The Old Word and the New (v. 1-2a)
The argument begins with a great contrast between how God used to speak and how He speaks now.
"God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days spoke to us in His Son..." (Hebrews 1:1-2a)
First, notice the bedrock assumption: God speaks. Our God is not a silent idol, nor is He the mute and impersonal force of the philosophers. He is a communicating God. All of reality is grounded in the fact that God has spoken and does speak. If God were silent, we would have nothing. No creation, no law, no gospel, no hope. But He is a speaking God, a revealing God.
The author honors the Old Testament as the very speech of God. It was God who spoke "to the fathers in the prophets." This is a high view of Scripture. The words of Isaiah were the words of God. The law of Moses was the law of God. We do not honor Christ by denigrating the Old Testament. It was God's holy and authoritative word.
But it was preparatory. It came "in many portions and in many ways." It was piecemeal. It was progressive. God gave a promise to Abraham, a law to Moses, a vision to Ezekiel, a psalm to David. It was like receiving a glorious mosaic, but one tile at a time. It was a collection of trailers, previews of the coming main attraction. It was true, it was divine, but it was incomplete.
Then comes the great turn: "in these last days spoke to us in His Son." The "last days" are not some future period; they are the era we are in now, the era inaugurated by the coming of Christ. The time of the prophets is over. The time of the Son has come. And notice the profound shift. God no longer speaks merely through a prophet; He speaks in a Son. The message is no longer just a word; the message is a Person. Jesus Christ does not simply deliver the revelation; He is the revelation. He is God's final vocabulary. There is nothing more to say after Him because He is the embodiment of all that God has to say.
Who is This Son? (v. 2b-3)
The author then unleashes a torrent of seven descriptions of this Son, establishing His absolute supremacy over all things.
"...whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power; who, having accomplished cleansing for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high..." (Hebrews 1:2b-3)
First, He is the appointed heir of all things. This is His destiny. All of history is moving toward the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The Father's eternal decree is that His Son will inherit everything. Not just the church, not just heaven, but all things. This is the engine of history. This is the foundation of our postmillennial hope. The Father has given the world to the Son, and the Son will not be shortchanged.
Second, He is the agent of creation: "through whom also He made the worlds." The Son is not a created being; He is the Creator. This drives us back to John 1: "All things were made through Him." The one who came to redeem the world is the very one who spoke it into existence. This establishes His deity and His absolute ownership rights over everything He has made. He is not a visitor here; He is the landlord.
Third, He is the radiance of God's glory. He is not a mere reflection of glory, like the moon reflects the sun. He is the very shining of the glory itself, as light shines from the sun. You cannot have the Father's glory without the Son, any more than you can have the sun without its light. He makes the invisible God visible.
Fourth, He is the exact representation of His nature. The Greek word is charakter, the impression a seal makes in wax. The Son is the perfect, flawless imprint of the Father's very being. He is not just like God; He is what God is. If you want to know the nature of God, you look at Jesus. This is a sledgehammer blow to any attempt to diminish His full deity.
Fifth, He is the sustainer of all things: He "upholds all things by the word of His power." The universe is not a machine that God wound up and left to run on its own. It is held together, moment by moment, atom by atom, by the continuous, powerful, personal word of Jesus Christ. The laws of physics are nothing more than a description of the way Christ consistently governs His creation. He is not just the Creator in the past; He is the Sustainer in the present.
Sixth, He is the perfecting priest: He "accomplished cleansing for sins." After describing His cosmic, divine glory, the author pivots to His work on the cross. This glorious Creator and Sustainer is also our Redeemer. The cleansing He made was a singular, finished, accomplished act. It is done. The Greek tense points to a completed action with ongoing results. The work of atonement is over.
Seventh, He is the reigning king: He "sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." This is the proof that His work was finished. The Old Testament priests never sat down; their work of sacrifice was never done. Christ sat down because the definitive sacrifice had been made once for all. His session at the right hand of God is not a posture of retirement; it is the posture of supreme authority and active rule. He is reigning now, from heaven, over all things.
Infinitely Superior (v. 4)
The author concludes this opening salvo by stating the first major point of his argument: the Son's superiority over the angels.
"...having become so much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they." (Hebrews 1:4)
Why start with angels? Because in Judaism, the angels were held in the highest esteem. They were seen as the mediators of God's law at Sinai (Gal. 3:19). To the original audience, angels were the pinnacle of created beings. So the author begins his argument for Christ's supremacy at the highest possible point. If he can show that Jesus is superior to the angels, then He is necessarily superior to everything and everyone else under them, including Moses and Aaron, who will be addressed later.
His superiority is demonstrated by His name. He has "inherited a more excellent name." What name is that? The name is Son. Angels, for all their glory, are servants. They are messengers. But this one is the Son. The relationship is entirely different. The remainder of the chapter will be a string of Old Testament quotations proving that God the Father speaks to the Son in a way He has never spoken to any angel. The name reveals the nature, and the nature determines the rank. He is not the chief servant; He is the Son and Heir.
Conclusion: Pay Attention to the Son
So what is the point of all this? This is not abstract theology for the ivory tower. This is the foundation for our entire Christian life. If God's final, ultimate, and complete word to mankind is His Son, then several things follow with ironclad logic.
First, there are no more words coming. We are not waiting for another revelation. We are not waiting for another prophet. To seek a new word from God that bypasses, adds to, or supersedes Christ is to fundamentally misunderstand the gospel. It is an insult to the finality of the Son. God has spoken. His name is Jesus.
Second, we must listen to Him. The author will state this explicitly at the beginning of chapter two: "we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard." If the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Ruler of the universe has spoken, the only sane response is to shut up and listen. To neglect His word is not just a mistake; it is cosmic treason.
Finally, we must worship Him. This glorious person described in these verses is not someone to be merely admired. He is God the Son, the exact representation of the Father's nature, the King of all creation. He is worthy of all our trust, all our obedience, and all our adoration. He is God's last word, and that Word is not a proposition, but a Person. And because of Him, we have a cleansing for our sins that is finished, and a King on the throne who upholds the world. Therefore, do not drift. Do not go back. Stand fast, and worship the Son.