Post 4: Study of Hebrews 1:2-4

 Hebrews starts "in media res," in the middle of the story. No greetings, etc. "This is where we are in history." It proclaims, asserts, the deity of Jesus Christ, His completed redemption, and His heirship of all things. Take it or leave it. As I often say, the Christian faith is a bundle, a package deal; it's not a cafeteria plan. We don't get to pick and choose certain parts. We do get to interpret some of them differently (for me, how I see the end of the world as we know it, but not the end of the world), but we don't get to pick and choose the identity of Christ or what He did. 

These verses present Christ as past, present, and future but that there is no difference in God's eyes. He did, He is, He will and all are true now. He is heir of all things now, not later. He is and was and is becoming. I am reminded of the movie Arrival, which I found one of the most fascinating science fiction movies of our time--no blood, no gore, just a human story with a believable premise about what if we were visited by aliens who have no sense of past, present, future and it shows in their language, and in order to understand them and communicate, the scientist/linguist must lose her own sense of the boundedness of time. We must do that when we study the Bible and God. We cannot be too fettered by the clock and calendar, yet our baby language demands we are. 

That's an aside; what really matters here is the writer's descriptions of the person and reality of Christ. These are expressed in terms similar to John, Colossians, and Philippians, as noted before (is it possible that John wrote Hebrews?) That Hebrews mirrors these other passages shows that the deity of Christ, and all that means, did not show up in the second century or even late first century; it was around and fully developed twenty or so years later in the writings, so there's no reason to think it wasn't the way the early church believed about Christ already, from the beginning, and not some invention to separate from and anger those of Jewish belief. 

That's an aside, too. Every possible supreme title/role is given to Christ Jesus that would make Him co-equal with God the Father, while still obedient to God the Father: Son, Heir of All Things, Creator, Brightness of His Glory, Express Image of his person, Upholder of all Things by The Word of His Power, Purger of sins, and Sitter on the Throne of Majesty on High. 

I remember when The Passion of the Christ came out. People got all wrapped up in how brutally Jesus was treated. Gibson, for all his faults, named it right--The Passion of the Christ. If Jesus just suffered as a human martyr, it's a tragedy for Him and but also for us, the human race, but we've a long history of martyring good people. He did not suffer just because the power structures didn't like Him; His suffering mattered only because of His identity.