The Father's Audible Witness to the Son
In Scripture, the name of Son sets forth both personal relationship and special representation. For instance, in John's writings, the Sonship of Christ especially connotes His personal relationship to the Father, Whose love rested upon Him before the foundation of the world (John 17: 24). In Hebrews, the Sonship of Christ is especially associated with His perfect revelation and representation of God to men, and also with His perfect administration of divine government.
The Son is the One in and by Whom God has now spoken, Whose sceptre is a sceptre of equity, and Whose throne is for ever and ever (Heb. 1: 2, 8).
The Sonship of God's Spokesman is therefore the keynote of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and this relationship imparts an infinite value to His past sacrificial offering and His present priestly service. For this reason Christianity is shown to excel and supersede the Levitical system, ordained through angels as it was, in the hand of a mediator, Moses (Gal. 3: 19). Christ, because of His inherent dignity as Son, is the Mediator of a better covenant which is established on the footing of better promises (Heb. 8: 6).
Contents
First Son, then Spokesman
All the superstructure of Christ's mediatorial service, as expounded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is founded upon the truth of His Sonship. Accordingly, the Deity of the Son is elaborately demonstrated in the forefront of the Epistle. However great had been the former messengers of God, and whatever variety was in their communications, they all are now surpassed by the advent of the Son. "God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son" (Heb. 1: 1, 2).*
{*Appendix D — Jesus Christ is called Son, but not Child of God
Jesus is never called teknon but whyos. It would be derogatory to, and a denial of, His eternal glory to speak of Him as God's teknon (child).* But He is Son (whyos) in more senses than one.
[*In the phrase, "Thy Holy Child" (Acts 4: 27, 30, A.V.), pais not teknon occurs in the original, and therefore "Servant" is a more correct translation than "Child."] He is Son of God as born in time and viewed on earth in His predicted association with Israel as their Messiah and King (Psalm 2). He is determined Son of God in power by resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1: 4).
And what is more important than all, and the basis of all, He is Son of God, Only-begotten Son in the Father's bosom, entirely apart from the time of His manifestation or the results of His work of redemption, Son of the Father in His own nature and personal relationship in that eternal subsistence which is essential to the Godhead and characteristic of it. For this last we have to consult the Gospel and Epistles of John.
Nothing therefore can be more correct than the language of all the inspired writers; nothing more feeble than its appreciation by theological writers even with the facts and words before their eyes. But the source of their failure is quite intelligible: a sense of Christ's glory as inadequate as of the derived privileges of the Christian. W.K.}
Now we see that directly the Son is mentioned (vers. 1, 2) in company with the prophets of olden time, the Spirit proclaims the all-surpassing personal glories of the Son that there may be no confusion of rank in the minds of any of the saints. As on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elias, the law and the prophets, both vanish that Jesus may be seen alone in His unapproachable personal glory, of which the Father's voice out of the cloud witnesses, so in this first chapter the Spirit witnesses that the Son is God and Jehovah, and is infinitely superior to the angels of heaven and the prophets of Israel, the Creator being necessarily far above the most exalted of His creatures.
The Son Who now is God's Speaker is Himself declared to be the One Whom the Spirit of God in Psalm 45 addressed as God (Ps. 45: 8) "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." In like manner, the Spirit had, "as to the Son," said in Psalm 102, "Thou, Lord (Jehovah), in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of Thine hands" (Ps. 102: 10).
The names and functions of the Godhead are here attributed by the Holy Spirit to God's Spokesman. "Son" denotes His personal relationship to the One Who sent Him, while "Spokesman" denotes His relationship to those to whom He came and spoke. He was deputed of God to be Spokesman, but not to be Son, for He was the Son in His own Person and nature before all worlds. He was first Son, then Spokesman.
Of old, in a subsidiary way, Aaron was deputed by Jehovah to be the "spokesman" of Moses to the people of Israel (Ex. 4: 14-16). He was to be to Moses "instead of a mouth," and Moses was to be to him "instead of God." Aaron was formally appointed to the office of an intermediary between Moses and the people, and was therefore Moses' spokesman. But his original personal relationship to Moses was that of brother, and Jehovah described him as "Aaron the Levite thy brother." Aaron was first brother, then spokesman.
This historical incident from Exodus may therefore be used to illustrate the truth of Hebrews 1. Aaron was the voice of Moses to Pharaoh (Ex. 7: 1, 2). Moreover, the family relationship between the two men consolidated this special service of communicating the commands of Jehovah to the king of Egypt. Aaron was first the brother of Moses, and then his spokesman. Christ was first Son, and then God's Spokesman.
The Servants and the Son in Christ's Parable
In the main feature of the Holy Spirit's opening address (Heb. 1), there is a correspondence between one of the Lord's parables spoken to the Jewish leaders and the Epistle written to the Jewish believers. In both the parable and the Epistle extreme emphasis is laid upon the coming of the Son. The authority and glory of God's New Testament message takes its unique character from the personal glory of the Messenger. How, indeed, could it be otherwise than unparalleled when Jehovah Himself became His own Messenger? The Lord when challenged by the high priest confessed Himself to be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (Mark 14: 61), but He had very shortly before that occasion, while teaching in the temple-courts, spoken to the Jews of His Sonship.
During the last week of His ministry in Jerusalem, our Lord illustrated His own rejection and death by the parable of the wicked husbandmen and their ill-treatment first of the servants and then of the son sent to them by the owner of the vineyard (Matt. 21: 33-46; Mark 12: 1-12; Luke 20: 9-19). This parable formed part of the Lord's final appealing testimony to the chief priests and elders of the people. It contained a solemn warning, too, for it showed that they (the builders) would refuse the Stone Jehovah laid in Zion, but that He, to their confusion and utter destruction, would make that despised Stone the exalted Cornerstone (Luke 20: 16-19).
In this brief pictorial summary of God's dealings with Israel as a nation set apart, sheltered, and cultivated to bear fruit that should be a joy to Him (Isa. 5), the Lord so worded the parable that we may observe the marked fundamental distinction, as well as the general resemblance, between the servants and the son sent to receive the fruits of the vineyard.
There is resemblance, in that both servants and son were "sent," that is, they were both accredited messengers of the owner. In the manner of their reception there is a further resemblance, for both were shockingly handled and murdered by the husbandmen. But the wide distinction between the servants and the son lay, not in the office, but in the person of the latter. While both were delegates as to office, the one sent "last of all" was the son, his "one son, his well-beloved" (Mark). The son was one whom the husbandmen were to "reverence," a respect not due to servants (Rev. 22: 8, 9). By reason of his filial dignity as the only son, he had an unequalled personal standing. He was the "heir," as the husbandmen recognized, and put him to death on that very account. They said, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on the inheritance." How vividly our Lord portrayed in this parable the awful sin of the Jews in crucifying the Son of God and putting Him to open shame (Heb. 6: 6)!
Crucifying the Son of God
This parable, therefore, was a testimony of the terrible sin of the Jews against the Son, rendered by Him in the ears of its responsible perpetrators on the very eve of its accomplishment. In the past the children of Israel had sinned against the many servants of God by whom He had spoken to them, but now they were about to lay violent hands upon the Son of God. That evil generation was guilty in respect of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from Abel to Zacharias, the son of Barachias (Matt. 23: 34, 35) but now as a climax they were about to deny and slay Him Who was pre-eminently the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3: 14, 15).
For those former outrages upon God's servants, the sword of His just retribution remained sheathed, but when the Jews should have committed the more determined and deadly sin against the Son, that sword would awake, and the rebellious husbandmen should not escape. Because they cast the Son and Heir out of the vineyard and slew Him, thus treading under foot the Son of God (cp. Heb. 10: 29) , Jerusalem is even now trodden under foot by the Gentiles (Luke 21: 24) , while in the future the terrible unsparing vintage judgments, now held in abeyance, will fall upon the guilty people from the hand of God (Rev. 14).
Not only as their King, but as the Son, the Jews refused their Messiah. When Pilate was disposed to release Him, they insisted upon His crucifixion, saying, "We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God" (John 19: 7). In thus denying before the Gentiles the Son, they denied the Father also, even as the Son Himself said of them, "Now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father" (John 15: 21).