Hebrews 1 explained: God's Final Word Through the Son

God speaks through a Son (vv. 1-2)

In the past God spoke bit by bit over many centuries, through prophets, dreams, visions and messages. Now, in what the writer calls the last days, God has spoken through a Son (later named as Jesus), the one through whom everything was made and who will inherit it all.

Who the Son is (v. 3)

The Son is pictured as the light shining out from God and the exact imprint of God's being, like a seal pressed into wax, holding the universe together by his word. After making people clean from their sins, he sat at God's right hand, the place of highest honor, which many readers take to mean that this work was complete.

Greater than the angels (vv. 4-6)

Many Jews of the time believed angels had helped deliver God's law at Mount Sinai, so the writer argues that the Son outranks them. He quotes Psalm 2 and God's promise to David about his heir, both first said of Israel's kings, plus a call for angels to worship that most likely comes from the ancient Greek version of Deuteronomy 32.

What angels are (v. 7)

The writer quotes Psalm 104 as it reads in the ancient Greek translation, picturing angels as winds or spirits and as flames of fire: powerful servants, but changeable ones. The original Hebrew psalm runs the other way, saying God makes the winds and fire his messengers.

The Son's lasting throne (vv. 8-12)

Psalm 45, a song for a royal wedding, addresses the king as "God" with a throne that lasts forever, and scholars debate how that Hebrew line was first meant. The writer also applies Psalm 102, a prayer to the Creator who remains when the universe wears out like old clothes, to the Son, which Christians read as saying the Son shares God's own nature.

Seated while angels serve (vv. 13-14)

Psalm 110 pictures a king invited to sit beside God until his enemies become his footstool, an old image of a victor resting his feet on defeated foes. Angels, by contrast, are sent out to help the people who will receive God's rescue.

Key verse: Hebrews 1:3

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on what day the Psalm 2 quotation in verse 5 has in view: the Son's eternal relationship with God, his resurrection, or his being enthroned in heaven.

Something to think about

What would it take for you to trust that a messenger truly shows you what the one who sent them is like?