Hebrews 1:3
Read Hebrews 1:3 Using Other Translations
What does Hebrews 1:3 mean?
Who being the brightness of his glory
Or "of glory"; of God the Father, the God of glory, and who is
glory itself; so called on account of his glorious nature and
perfections and because of the glorious manifestations of them in
his works of creation and providence, and in the various
dispensations of his grace, and especially in his Son; and
because he is the author of all glory, in the creatures, in the
whole world, in Christ as man and Mediator, and in his own
people. Now Christ is the "brightness" of this, as he is God; he
has the same glorious nature and perfections, and the same
glorious names, as Jehovah, the Lord of glory and the same glory,
homage, and worship given him: the allusion is to the sun, and
its beam or ray: so some render it "the ray of his glory"; and
may lead us to observe, that the Father and the Son are of the
same nature, as the sun and its ray; and that the one is not
before the other, and yet distinct from each other, and cannot be
divided or separated one from another: so the phrase (hyrqy Nyz) , "the brightness of his
glory", is used of the divine Being, in the Chaldee paraphrases
F18; see the Apocrypha.
``For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.'' (Wisdom 7:26)And the express image of his person;
this intends much the same as the other phrase; namely, equality and sameness of nature, and distinction of persons; for if the Father is God, Christ must be so too; and if he is a person, his Son must be so likewise, or he cannot be the express image and character of him; (See Gill on Colossians 1:15).
And upholding all things by the word of his
power;
the Syriac version renders it, "by the power of his word", to the
same sense, only inverting the words. The Targumist on ( 2 Chronicles
2:6 ) uses a phrase very much like this, of God, whom the
heaven of heavens cannot contain; because, adds he, (hytrwbg erdb alk lybo) , "he bears",
or "sustains all things by the arm of his power"; and the words
are to be understood not of the Father, upholding all things by
his essential and powerful Word, his Son; but of the Son himself,
who upholds all creatures he has made; bears up the pillars of
the universe; preserves every creature in its being, and supports
it, and supplies it with the necessaries of life; rules and
governs all, and providentially orders and disposes of all things
in the world, and that by his all powerful will; which makes it
manifest, that he is truly and properly God, and a very fit
person to be a priest, as follows:
when he had by himself purged our sins;
the Arabic and Ethiopic versions seem to refer this to God the
Father, as if he, by Christ, made the expiation of sin, and then
caused him to sit down at his right hand; but it belongs to the
Son himself, who of himself, and by himself alone, and by the
sacrifice of himself, made atonement for the sins of his people;
which is meant by the purgation of them: he took their sins upon
himself, and bore them, and removed them far away, and utterly
abolished them, which the priests under the law could not do: and
when he had so done,
he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high;
by "Majesty" is meant God the Father, to whom majesty belongs;
who is clothed with it, and which is before him: and his "right
hand" designs his power, greatness, and glory, and is expressive
of the high honour Christ, as man, is possessed of; for his
sitting here denotes the glorious exaltation of him in human
nature, after his sufferings, and death, and resurrection from
the dead; and shows that he had done his work, and was accepted,
and was now enjoying rest and ease, honour and glory, in which he
will continue; and the place of his session, as well as of the
habitation of God, at whose right hand he sits, is on high, in
the highest heavens.
F18 Targum in 2 Sam xxii. 13. & in Cant. v. 10.
