Bible Commentaries
Hebrews 1

Verse 1

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS By W. LEONARD, D.S.S.

INTRODUCTION

Contents and Characteristics— The writing placed in our Bibles between the thirteen Pauline Epistles and the seven Catholic Epistles is itself a letter. The author calls it so, 13:22, but he also calls it in the same sentence a ’word of exhortation’. Written to a community which was in serious difficulties and dangers, it comes very close to the form of a homily. While the author really writes a great treatise in the brief form of a letter, he never forgets that he is warning and exhorting.

A ’headless’ letter, without salutation or exordium or preliminary communications, it belongs to what Roller ( Das Formular der Paulinischen Briefe, 1933) has described as a ’fore-asiatic’ or Levantine type. It opens abruptly with a magnificent Prologue. It closes, however, with an Epilogue which is quite personal and epistolary.

The author’s concern is a great contrast. He wishes to set the revelation or religion, which has been recently brought by the Son of God, against the revelation or religion formerly taught by God to the Hebrew Fathers through the Prophets. The superiority of the New over the Old is really the one lesson of our Epistle, and it is taught by insisting on the super-excellence of Christ from every point of view. This includes simultaneous insistence on the inferiority of the Old Dispensation in all respects. Its imperfection and insufficiency to remit sin and give confident access to God are amply shown in such terms as make the letter a great impeachment, cf.

The Prologue, 1:1-4, is practically a synthesis of everything, for it sets the Person of the Son and his work and his victory in most splendid prominence, making special mention of the ’cleansing of sin’, which he alone wrought (p??ðs?µe???), before he passed to his throne on the right hand of Majesty on high.

Christ’s superiority over the Angel Ministers of the Old Covenant, 1:5-14, is just allowed to stand out in an Old Testament anthology—mostly Psalm texts. A warning, 2:1-4, flows from that superiority and from the mention of Christian salvation of which the Angels are helpers. Then it is shown that the salvation was won by the self-abasement of the Son below the angelic state of immortality. His sovereignty—a universal sovereignty of glory and honour—is actually the reward of a death endured on behalf of men who were held in slavery by sin and death. As his death was a sacrificial death, Christ thereby wrought our atonement through the trials of mortality and suffering, entering simultaneously into such full experience of human weakness as fitted him to be a compassionate or sympathetic High Priest, 2:6-18. The sacerdotal thesis of the Epistle, already insinuated in the Prologue, 1:3, here comes into clear view and is to dominate the rest of the letter. Heb is above all the Epistle of the Priesthood of Christ.

Christ ’Apostle and Pontiff’ is meanwhile shown to be superior to Moses, the legislative mediator of the Old Alliance, 3:1-6a; and a long warning is also based on this vindication of Christ’s higher position in the House of God, 3:6b-4:13. Very aptly the warning and exhortation are made to gravitate towards the divine rest which was lost (in type) by the unbelieving generation that Moses led.

Our author now returns to the Pontiff—the thoroughly sympathetic Pontiff—of our religion and in an atmosphere of confidence we stand prepared to contemplate his High Priesthood, 4:14-16.

Human weakness and divine vocation are two conditions of High Priesthood, for the Priest must have the sympathy with men which belongs to a fellowsufferer and the confidence of access to God which comes from a heavenly authorization. Jesus here figures both as Son and as Melchisedechian Pontiff. When he has been set before us in the robes of priestly sympathy—praying as a sufferer, and then glorified, and the Cause of our salvation—we salute him as High Priest according to the order of Melchisedech and await developments, 5:1-10.

Those developments do not come until a warning of great severity, but mercifully tempered with words of confidence and encouragement, has prepared dull cars for hearing, 5:11-6:20. Thereupon, Melchisedech is dialectically made to assert his superiority over Aaron. Christ, typified by him, is seen receiving homage from Abraham and blessing him—annulling Mosaism together with its priesthood—holding his own priesthood on a title of everlasting life—being confirmed by divine oath as the guarantor of a better covenant—and remaining as an all-sufficient Priest for ever, 7:1-25. A sort of intermedial epilogue is inserted here, 7:26-28.

The long section 8:1-10:18 which ends and crowns the dogmatic part of the letter is concerned with Christ as the Minister of a better sanctuary, 8:1-5, as the Mediator of a better Covenant, 8:6-13, as the, Offerer of a better Sacrifice than that of Expiation day and in fact as the Abolisher by his one all-sufficient sacrifice of the whole weak and insufficient multiplicity of Mosaic sacrifices, 9:1-10:18.

The moral part or last exhortation of this ’ word of exhortation’, 10:19-13:17, can be summed up in the one word: ’Perseverance’. It is a fine combination of heart-shaking severity, well-motived comfort, inspired encouragement, and strong exhortation to persevere to the end. The epilogue has been mentioned already, 13, 18-25.

Taking up Heb after a careful reading of the thirteen epistles of St Paul, we shall be struck with the differences. The author seems a calm, placid man compared with that divine volcano whom we venerate as the Apostle of the Gentiles. His expository and argumentative order is so remarkable that St Thomas Aquinas said with admirable felicity: ’No other Scripture moves with such fine order of words and sentences.’ A very careful study of the letter will reveal a most perfect system of joinings—a very noteworthy thing in a writing which so constantly combines dogmatic exposition with exhortation. One might easily guess that this writing was not dictated to an amanuensis, as St Paul’s letters were. In fact it has been said that the great Apostle ’speaks’ in his letters, while this man ’writes’. Although the author constructs periods of the classical type quite as rarely as St Paul, yet he balances his thoughts very skilfully, and frequently uses paronomasia, alliteration and other stylistic elegances. He appears to pay much attention to rhythm. At times his vocabulary sounds learned, for he uses words like aìsTðt?????, µet???ppaTe?+??. d?µ?????ó?. These are only a few of the obvious things which a reader of the Greek text will notice. Critical readers will say, like Origen, that this is a more ’Greek thing’ and more a work of art than Paul’s letters are.

Canonicity and Authentlelty— It is of Catholic faith that Hebrews is an inspired Scripture belonging to the canon of divine books which the Church received from the Apostles. The final verdict in the matter was given by the Council of Trent (Session IV, Apr. 8, 1546). By placing Heb in its list as one of fourteen Paulines the Council favoured the Pauline authenticity of our letter but did not directly define it.

Outside of Catholic circles denial of Pauline authorship became almost universal during the 19th cent. The early obscurity in which the Epistle was involved throughout western Christendom was used to discount eastern unanimity, and the first clear assertion of Pauline paternity at Alexandria was regarded as a guess or an exegetical conclusion. Against this current of denial the Biblical Commission raised a bank on June 24, 1914. The first of three queries set before the Commission reads as follows: ’Doubts concerning the divine inspiration and Pauline origin of the Epistle to the Hebrews, doubts which were chiefly caused by abuse on the part of heretics, were current in the early centuries and held the minds of some Christians in the west. It is, therefore, asked whether in spite of the perpetual, unanimous, constant, assertion of the Oriental Fathers, with which the whole Western Church entered into complete agreement after the 4th cent. —whether in spite of this and in spite of the action of Supreme Pontiffs and sacred Councils, especially that of Trent—in spite also of the perpetual use or the universal Church, such force is to be attributed to the said doubts as to justify hesitation in receiving this letter not only amongst the canonical writings—which is defined as of faith—but also as a letter to be certainly placed amongst the genuine writings of St Paul? The answer was negative, that is: No such force is to be attributed to those early doubts ( EB429).

The human authorship of a writing is primarily an historical matter and must be settled by consulting historical testimonies. Now historical testimony is available here, and in spite of some obscurities is cogent. History says that Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. These are briefly the facts. The letter was certainly used and held sacred by Pope Clement of Rome about a.d. 95. St Polycarp of Smyrna grobably alludes to it. Fifteen or twenty years later, St Justin representing Palestine, Asia Minor and Rome, is also a probable witness for the first half of the 2nd cent. Later, in the West some unexplainable obscurity covered it, beginning apparently in the second half of that century. St Irenaeus of Lyons writing in the last quarter of the century used it as sacred, but only seldom, and not under the name of Paul. The Muratorian Canon in its mutilated state excludes it. About a.d. 200 the Roman presbyter Caius rejected it. Hippolytus of Rome, who lived into the thirties of the 3rd cent., used it as sacred, but (if we trust two notes in the Bibliotheca of Photius) denied that it was Paul’s. In Africa Tertullian cites it about 220 not as Scripture but as a writing of Barnabas having some authority. St Cyprian neither uses it nor includes it in his collection of Pauline Letters to Seven Churches. If the so-called Tractatus Origenis edited by Battifol and Wilmart in 1900 are really a western work of a.d. 300 or later, the name of Barnabas was associated with our letter at the beginning of the 4th cent. The African canon of 359 called after Mommsen mentions only thirteen letters of St Paul. That is as far as documents allow us to follow western opinion, for no argument can be drawn from the omission by oversight of Phil, Thess, Heb from the 4th cent (?) canon of the Codex Claromontanus. The Ambrosiaster who wrote under Pope Damasus (366384) is also a doubtful witness.

In the East things are quite otherwise. The facts must be given very compendiously. At Alexandria, shortly after 150 we find the presbyters (amongst whom Pantaenus must have taken his place well before 180), handing down our letter as a Pauline writing. Clement, a disciple of Pantaenus since 180 and his successor as head of the Didaskaleion about 200, noticed the great difference of style, but did not think of receding from the Alexandrian tiadition of Pauline authorship. He supposed—or perhaps the suggestion had been made earlier—that the letter was written in Aramaic and translated into Greek by Luke. The great critic Origen also held fast to the assertion of the Ancients regarding Paulinity, but explained the un-Pauline elegance of the letter by assuming that a scholiographos (a writer working on notes), Luke or Clement of Rome or rather Godknows-who would be responsible for the phrasing and composition of the letter.

Origen’s critical opinion did not obtain a following in his own Greek-speaking East. Although there is not a single dissenting voice heard either in Alexandria or any other Oriental Church on the question of the Pauline origin of our letter, such writers as consider the literary question adopt the hypothesis of an Aramaic original, ably written and skilfully translated. Clement’s and not Origen’s view also dominated in the West, when doubts about the letter had vanished.

The Arian controversy increased interchange of relations between Last and West. From the time that St Athanasius was in Rome and Trier, from the time of St Hilary’s return from exile in Asia Minor, the epistle to the Hebrews had come into its own in the West also. St Augustine declared that the authority of the Oriental Churches was decisive with him, and the Councils of Hippo and Carthage ( EB11-15) renewed the sacred and Pauline credit of Heb in Africa, just as the action of Pope Innocent (405) did in Rome and throughout the other Western lands.

Dissenting voices were not heard again until the days of Humanism. Catholics, with one or two exceptions, then as before held to Pauline authorship, but Origen’s

hypothesis mostly displaced that of Clement as an explanation of the stylistic excellence of the letter. Protestants, with a few notable exceptions attributed Heb to some other writer besides St Paul, and in the 19th cent. the negation of Pauline authorship became altogether prevalent amongst non-Catholic scholars. Apollos was regarded as the author by Luther and by many after him; Silas was the choice of others; Philip the Deacon of Sir W. Ramsay; Barnabas has had the suffrages of Renan, Zahn, Salmon and recently Bomhäuser; Aquila and Priscilla (joint authors) were favoured by Harnack. Others, like Westcott, content themselves with the assumption of an Alexandrian Jew, while for others, like Moffatt, he is a great unknown, ’a voice and nothing more’.

Many of the literary difficulties against Pauline origin have already been mentioned as characteristics of the letter—the absence of name, exordium, opening salutation—the purity of its Greek together with the elegance and perfection of diction and style. To these add the peculiar mode of citing the Old Testament and arguing from it—furthermore the difference of doctrinal viewpoint between this letter and the Paulines. The Biblical Commission was asked in 1914 whether the arguments drawn from these differences were such as to weaken belief in Pauline authorship; or whether on the contrary the perfect harmony of doctrine and doctrinal assertions the similarity of the admonitions and exhortations, the frequent coincidences of phrase and vocabulary rather favour and confirm Pauline origin. The Commission answered No to the first; Yes to the second. The Pauline authorship stands ( EB430).

We have to confine ourselves here to brief statements that might seem too dictatorial, but they have been well weighed and considered. The thought of the letter is indubitably Pauline, and there is no real difference of viewpoint beyond that required for the treatment of a new subject not entirely absent from the Paulines but never treated ex professo — namely the Priesthood and sacrifice of Christ. The mode of citing Scriptures as God’s utterances or under a formula of indefinite anonymity is peculiar, but not entirely foreign to St Paul, and perhaps adopted as more suited to a Hebrew circle of addressees. The literary argument remains. Even the most painstaking comparison leaves a considerable residue of stylistic features that seem un-Pauline. There are, however, very notable ’concords’ and the ’discords’ are found to be reducible in a measure that would surprise some of the bolder impressionist critics.

This brings us to the third query set before the Biblical Commission: ’Whether Paul the Apostle is to be regarded as the author of this epistle in such a sense that it must necessarily be asserted that he not only conceived and expressed the whole of it under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but that he also gave it that form in which it has come to us?’ The answer was No, with due reservation regarding any further judgement of the Church ( EB431).

Therefore, on the question of the Epistle’s form, which includes everything that belongs to arrangement, composition and adornment, the Commission allows wide freedom. Actually modern scholarship has made the hypothesis of a translation from an Aramaic original untenable, but Origen’s view of ’Pauline thoughts composed and phrased by a redactor’ is widely held by Catholic writers. Personally we can only state the conviction produced by a long and minute study of the matter. St Paul does not seem to have dictated the letter. Either he wrote it with his own hand or he used a collaborator. In the latter case, however, the collaborator’s part must be reduced to rather small proportions, if the indubitable Pauline origin of the letter is to stand. The development of ideas and the internal cohesion of thought go so much with the language, that Paul must be regarded as the dominant cause of everything, except perhaps the smoothing of transitions, the filling of phrases or the final polishing of the whole. A genius—such as St Paul most certainly was—is always capable of doing surprising things, and experience has shown that comparatively little retouching (especially at the joints) can sometimes work in a writing a great literary transfiguration. The identity of the secondary hand will probably have to be left in the future as in the past to the divine omniscience. Purpose and Addressees— The purpose of this ’word of exhortation’ is clear. The fibre of the community to which it was directed had been weakened, and defections were to be feared. The author wishes to give them a magnificent tonic, so as to strengthen them against the danger of falling away. He wishes to bring them back to the fervour of their first days and to a worthy emulation of the faith of leaders whose lives had been crowned with a glorious end.

This purpose is closely bound up with the identity of the Addressees. The title ’To the Hebrews’ is itself a highly authoritative indication, for it stands in all the MSS and is mentioned early in the 3rd cent. by Clement of Alexandria and by Tertullian. The letter was certainly sent to a circle well versed in the Old Testament and acquainted with the rites and terminology of Jewish worship. They had heard the Gospel from the disciples of Jesus; had gone through persecution early, but had not seen a great number of martyrdoms. All these things point to a Jewish community, and furthermore, the community was of such a kind as is difficult to find outside of Jerusalem. This is the traditional view. The Addressees were the whole Hebraeo-Christian community of the Holy City. Recently Bornhäuser has added a plausible but not fully established precision. The author would have had chiefly in mind converts from the ranks of the Levitical Priesthood such as those mentioned in Acts 6:7. Time and Place— There is only one exact chronological indication in the letter itself, namely, the fact of Timothy’s release, but unfortunately we know nothing about the time or circumstances of such an occurrence.

On the assumption that the letter was addressed to the Judaeo-Christian community of Jerusalem, we can tather from the text other indications which serve to fix an approximate date. The temple and its worship had evidently not ceased. Therefore Heb must be placed before the fateful year a.d. 70. Moreover, there is no indication that the Jewish war had broken out. Seeing that St Paul hoped to see the Hebrews soon, 13:23, he could not have written the letter after the autumn of 66, when the attempt of the Legate Cestius Gallus on Jerusalem had ended hopes of peace. In fact it is difficult to suppose that Heb could have been written after the news of the provocatory doings of Gessius Florus had reached Italy in midsummer 66.

Therefore, most probably St Paul wrote before the summer of that year. This is the late extreme. As an earlier extreme—an annus ante quem non—we may place 62. In that year or the following James, the brother of the Lord and Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred, and some others, also probably Christians, were stoned to death. Trouble developed after the death of James through the ambition of a certain Thebutis, and during the years which followed till the revolt of 66, Jewish nationalism under the patronage of Herod Agrippa II was exceedingly vigorous. Such national enthusiasm would naturally emphasize the cult of the magnificent temple.

The beginning of 63 seems unlikely, for Paul was apparently not a prisoner when he wrote our Epistle. As his eyes were turned to the East, we may suppose that he had finished his intended journey to Spain. Hence he did not write before the year 64, and if the imprisonment of Timothy resulted from the Neronian persecution, the beginning of 65 seems to possess a maximum of probability.

With regard to place, we are in a better position to decide. The’ brethren from Italy ’who send greetings, 13:24, are most naturally understood to be Italians and in Italy. Therefore, the letter was written from Italy, perhaps from Rome.

Theological Doctrine— The Epistle to the Hebrews is of very great theological importance. So much was this felt in some Egyptian circles that it was placed immediately after Rom. This is the place it holds in the Chester Beatty Papyrus Codex (P46) of the early 3rd cent. Its Christological doctrine, in particular, crowns the Christology of St Paul and advances to the very threshold of Johannine heights. In the following brief summary the teaching of our Epistle will be treated under the headings: (a) God and His Salvific Providence; (b) Christology; (c) Soteriology; (d) Human Justification, Sanctification and Salvation; (e) the Holy Spirit; (f) the Church; (g) Eschatology.

a. God, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is in the first place ’the living God’ of Hebrew religion, the God who was not ashamed to call himself the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It is chiefly as the Revealer speaking formerly through the Prophets and last of all through his Son that he pervades the Epistle. When God is mentioned, the first Person of the Blessed Trinity is undoubtedly meant, but he is nowhere called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as in other Paulines. In fact, it is only through the citation of two prophetic texts, 1 Kg 7:14 and Psalms 2:7, that he directly and indirectly receives his Trinitarian name of Father, which, however, is implied in the name of Son given nine times to Christ. The teaching of the Epistle is undoubtedly Trinitarian, and all the three Persons are actually mentioned in one brief context, where it is said that God bore witness to the doctrine first spoken through the Lord, vouchsafing distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will, 2:3, 4. God is the Creator and End of all things, 2:10. The Creator is specially called ’the Father of spirits’ which in the context means ’human souls’, 12:9. The paternity of God as the adopting Father of a human family is mentioned not only in the text in which the divine scheme of salvation is outlined, 2:10, but also in the passage where God appears disciplining his children to holiness, 12:5-10.

Of the attributes of God his severe justice is perhaps most prominent, for his punitive wrath appears in the just retribution of disobedience, 2:2, in his punishment of the rebellious generation of the Exodus, 3:16-19, in his severity towards apostates, 6:8, 10:31. His terrific majesty appeared on Sinai, 12:18-21, and he is described as a ’consuming fire’, 12:29. But while the note of God’s severity is kept up throughout the letter, he also appears as the God ’who does not forget good deeds’, 6:10,’ and as ’the God of peace’, 13:20. His goodness is the reason of his severity, for his gifts are so great that contempt of them is an outrage of incalculable magnitude. He wishes ’to bring many children to glory’, 2:10, destining them to participate in the his of his own Sabbath rest, 4:3-10. In fact, his condescension towards man is astounding. The angels are the ministering helpers of human salvation, 1:14; man through the Incarnation is destined for a glory and honour not granted to those superior spirits, 2:5-16; for man, if he wills, God’s throne is a throne of grace, 4:16.

Man appears in the Epistle as a weak creature needing God’s help very much. Sin and death are his sad heritage. But God’s scheme of salvation was precisely a scheme to bring strength out of weakness and life out of death. Christ’s mortal humanity fitted him to be a Propitiator and a sympathetic High Priest. Next after Rom there is no Epistle which so effectively teaches us, as Heb does, to say that we are sinners and do need the cleansing grace of God. But it insists magnificently on the sinlessness of Jesus. In approaching God, sinners, as our Epistle teaches, can feel that they stand behind a sympathetic Pontiff who attracts them by the cords of fellowship in suffering, and inspires their confidence by his sinlessness and allsufficient atonement. Besides the ’weakness of flesh and blood’ (which is man), there is very little’ anthropology’ in Heb—nothing, for instance, like the psychology of Rom 7.

Although there is mention of the holiness of the primitive Patriarchs, Abel and Enoch and Noe, God’s plan of salvation is regarded as the realization of the promise made to Abraham. No doubt the Hebrew destination of the letter had some part in determining the prominence given to the great Patriarch, but the salvific Providence of God as conceived by our author is so much centred in the ’seed of Abraham’ that the proposition: ’In no wise is it to the help of angels that (Christ) comes, but he comes to the help of Abraham’s seed ’ contains nothing that does not belong to the whole web of this letter.

b. Christ is the centre of our Epistle, as he is the centre of all Pauline theology. He is the Saviour, spoken of under his saving name of ’Jesus’ ten times; he is the Christ or Christ six and three times respectively; the double name Jesus Christ occurs in three very solemn places, 10:10, 13:8,21. Above all, Jesus is the Son of God. It is Jesus the Son of God who has passed as our great High Priest into heaven, 4:14; to him Melchisedech has been typically assimilated, 7:3; him apostates crucify again, 6:6, and trample under foot, 10:29. The most characteristic usage of the Epistle is that of the anarthrous ?íó? used to qualify the Son as Supreme Revealer, 1:2, as Supreme Ruler of the House of God, 3:6, as exhibiting the contrast of that divine dignity and an obedience learned in the school of suffering, 5:8, as the High Priest established by oath and perfected for ever, 7:28. His Lordship is recognised in the title "Our Lord" prefixed once to the name Jesus, 13-20; and the titles ’the Lord’, 2:3, and ’our Lord’, 7:4, also occur unattached. Special titles of the Saviour such as are found in the same precise form nowhere else in the New Testament are: ’Author of salvation, 2:10, Apostle and High Priest of our religion, 3:1, great Priest, 10:21, Author and Finisher of htith, 12:2, and the Great Shepherd of the Sheep’, 13:20.

In fixing the plenary divine sense of the appellation ’Son of God’ and in presenting Christ as true God and true man our Epistle stands excelled only by the Johannine writings. The Son is a distinct divine Person through whom the Almighty created the world. ’Light of Light, and Imprint of the Divine Substance’, he is a distinct but consubstantial Person proceeding by generation from the Father, 1:3, 5. He is the omnipotent sustainer of the universe, 1:3. His supereminence over the angels belongs essentially to his Godhead, though its manifestation in the sacred humanity belongs to the exaltation of that humanity. Similarly his universal heirship is derived from his Sonship, though actualized in his glorification.

The Incarnation is set forth in an extraordinarily rich and specifically sacerdotal manner. If the Son were not Man, he would not be a priest. Just as in Ps 109, which in a true sense is the greatest OT fountain of our Epistle, priesthood is inseparably bound up with the Messianic kingship. However, it is a Psalm of man’s destined grandeur as Sovereign of creation and of the infra-angelic littleness of his mortality that is used to show the Priest-Victim in whom Manhood attains its unlimited kingship over the universe. Man who had lost immortality by disobedience had to attain the predestined glory of his adoptive sonship by treading the way of painful obedience. Hence ’the grace of God’ was that the Man who recapitulates humanity ’should taste death for all’, 2:9. As the Author of human salvation the Son, according to a plan of solidarity with our condition, was to attain his own glory, the perfection of his Saviourship and the sympathy of his priestly quality by undergoing sufferings and death. He could not, of course, give up his natural Sonship and become an adopted Son, but he could and did become the brother of those called by God into participation in his Sonship. In the Incarnation he finds fellowship of flesh and blood with men, makes his own their attitude of filial creature-confidence towards God, and submits to all the physical debt of human guilt, even to death. Thus the devil’s empire of death was broken and the black slavery of mortality undone. Man was weak, and the Saviour became weak; man was subject to pain, and the Saviour submitted to pain; man was liable to mental anguish, and the Saviour experienced anguish. By the Incarnation therefore he bound himself to us in a full programme of sympathy. The knowledge that he sinlessly experienced all the painful trials of sinful flesh gives sinners every confidence in this faithful High Priest.

One who has meditated Hebrews 2:5-18 will be in possession of the main points of its teaching on the humanity of Christ. We learn elsewhere of his prayer, 5:7, that he endured the cross and its shame and suffered contradictions from sinners, 12:2, 3. Opprobrium was his lot, 13:13; cf. 11:26. He shed his blood, 9:12, was numbered amongst the dead, and was raised from death, 13:20. He passed through the heavens, 4:14 f., and sat down at God’s right hand, 1:3. He shall come again to gather his own to final salvation, 9:28. Furthermore, such circumstantial details are mentioned as his descent from Abraham, 2:16, and from the tribe of Juda, 7:14. He preached just over a generation before the Epistle was written, 2:3. His crucifixion was a public spectacle, 6:6, which took place outside the gate of Jerusalem, 13:12. There is no mention either of his manifestation of himself after the resurrection or of his visible ascension into heaven.

C. The Soterlology of Heb is the very core of its sacerdotal theology. Actually, apart from the use of the name jesus, Christ is nowhere called Saviour, but he is represented as having brought salvation and Eroclaimed it, 2:3; he is the appointed Author of human salvation, 2:10, the Cause of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 5:9, and the final Giver of salvation at his second coming, 9:28. His work, conceived in its sacerdotal aspect, is essentially that of saving, the people from their sins. He made a cleansing of sins, 1:3, and established a covenant whose special fruit is the remission of sin in the interior domain of conscience, 8:12; 9:14; 10:18. The remission accorded is a positive renewal of the human soul, for Christ is the sanctifier, 2:11. Sin is destroyed even in its most terrible consequence, for Christ’s work ends the empire of death by which the devil held men in the servitude of hopeless fear, 2:14, 15. There is no such fullness regarding the causal mode of the salvific work as we find in Rom and other Paulines. However, the meritoriousness of Christ’s death is implied in his obedience, 5:8; 10:9, and its value as redemption or ransom is explicitly mentioned twice, 9:12, 15. Our Epistle concentrates on the sacrificial character of Christ’s death, and his blood is regarded as sprinkled to cleanse, rather than shed to purchase. This ritual point of view, however, does not exclude the juridical concept, for Christ’s sacrifice effects an expiatory propitiation, 2:17, and releases men from a servitude, 2:15. At the same time it is true that the sacerdotal conception of salvation, precisely because it is worked out liturgically in relation to the high-priestly ministry of Expiation Day, is notably, though not fundamentally, different from the soteriological elements found in other Paulines. In all the Pauline writings, the death and glorification of Christ puts salvation within the reach of mankind, but whereas the author of the Epistles to the Gentile Churches emphasizes the resurrection of Christ, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes the Saviour’s Te?eí?s?? as an entry into the heavenly sanctuary. In other words, St Paul in the other epistles fixes his gaze more particularly on the first moment of the Saviour’s ’perfection’ or glorification, while in Heb he fixes it on the last. Nevertheless he has shown explicitly in one place, 13:20, that the resurrection is no more extraneous to his soteriology here than the session at the right hand of the Father is to the soteriology of Rom and the Captivity Letters. In Eph and Col the ’Christ above’ does become exceedingly important because of his headship of the mystical body. This is an approach to the thought of Heb, though not to be identified with its characteristically sacerdotal outlook. Such a professedly sacerdotal soteriology is certainly a signal addition to the Pauline theology. It can only be outlined very briefly here.

It is, of course, theologically certain that the hypostatic union was a sacerdotal anointing, but it may be doubted whether our author regarded the words: Thou art my Son, as a specific call to priesthood. That call or vocation is, however, certainly conveyed by the great sacerdotal Psalm-oracle: ’Thou art a Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech’, Psalms 109:4; Hebrews 5:6. The justice and peace that belong to Melchisedech’s name and title, his unlimited life and freedom from fleshly limitations, the superiority he exercises over Abraham by tithing and blessing him, are all supremely fulfilled in Christ. The qualities of Christ the Priest were such that he needed nothing but to do his priestly work and have it crowned with perfection, so that the beneficiaries of his Priesthood might recognize that they have as High Priest ’a Son perfected for ever’, 7:28.

The priestly work of Christ is in terms. of the liturgy of Expiation Day. He offered sacrifice for the sins of the people, 7:27; by the sprinkling of his sacrificial blood he cleanses our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God, 9: 14; his one sacrifice was so efficacious that nothing remains except to gather finally those who expect salvation from him, 9:28; it is as limitless as the human generations for whom it is intended, for ’by one oblation he has perfected for ever those who are undergoing sanctification’, 10: 12-14.

His sacrifice was a work of obedience to the will of God decreeing that we should be sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ once for all, 10:10. The main points in this regime of sanctification are that it belongs to a sphere which is not merely terrestrial; it realizes a Covenant which is primarily one of interior enlightenment together with real remission of sin within the human conscience; it supplants the inefficacious sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. The fact that Christ the testator died to establish the New Covenant gives the Covenant itself a testamentary character, 9:15-17. In reading the highly liturgical presentation of all these truths, it is necessary to remember that everything is dependent on the mystery of the Cross. It is in his blood that Christ attains his ’perfection’, entering the Holy of Holies; it is in his blood that we have remission of sins; it is in his blood that we have confidence regarding the efficacy of the entrance-way provided for us into the heavenly sanctuary; in approaching him we approach the Mediator of the New Covenant and a blood of sprinkling that speaks better than Abel; it is by his blood that he sanctifies the people. But Christ shed his blood once for all; we must beware of taking the Epistle to mean that he performs a sacrificial liturgy in heaven. Other details will be found in the commentary.

d. Subjective salvation which is individual justification and sanctification occupies a minor place in Heb. As St Thomas Acquinas noted, the excellence of Christ is the theme of this Epistle and consequently his Person and his work in their objective greatness is what chiefly matters. The scattered elements of the Epistle’s psychological soteriology can, however, be gathered and systematized.

Christ’s sacrifice established a ’better’ Covenant between God and mankind. Its Mediator was folemnly appointed by a sworn oracle, 7:22. To that superior solemnity belongs a superior efficacy. It was not in the power of the Old Covenant to bring about a spiritual approach of the soul to God; but in the better hope now introduced we really do draw near to him, 7:19. The effects of the Mosaic Dispensation were external and its promises temporal; the effects of the New Dispensation are internal and its promises eternal. The New Covenant is, however, not an ordinance of divine unilateral graciousness. In purifying the conscience, it obliges or binds the conscience. In other words, the grace of God requires co-operation. Christ is the cause of salvation for those who obey him, 5:9.

His gift is interior light, and interior remission, and devotion to God’s law—all characteristics of the New Covenant in the Jeremian oracle. Those who obey him enter the ranks of the many sons whom God will bring to glory, 2:10. They are called partakers of a heavenly vocation, 3:1, partakers of Christ, 3:14, partakers of the Holy Ghost, 6:4. This life of participation with Christ and with the Holy Spirit gives a very strong confidence which is called the ’boast of hope’, 3:6. But hope supposes faith, and must not be separated from charity, and actually the great triad of virtues is mentioned twice, 6:9-12; 10:19-25. Divine life must be strengthened by grace not Jewish meats, 13:10, and all must ’pursue holiness without which no one can see the Lord’, 12:14, We thus come to the truth that the life in question is really the effect of grace— obviously what theologians call habitual grace. Those who totally fall away from Christian life ’outrage the Spirit of grace’, 10:29, and those who neglect their salvation ’fall short of the grace of God’, 12:15. In the sentence: ’Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably (well-pleasingly) with reverence and godly fear’, 12:28, grace must be an interior endowment of the soul. Actual grace is also mentioned, for what else can grace for seasonable aid be ? 4:16.

How does this life originate? Supernaturally of course, for nothing is greater than its own cause. When we observe that the state of friendship with God is expressed in Heb by the two verbs p??s???esTa? (to approach) and e?a?etð+?sa? (to please), we can see that the beginning of Christian life must be the act of faith, because ’without faith it is impossible to please, for he who approaches God must believe that he exists, and that for those who seek him, he is a remunerator’, 11:6.

The Council of Trent (VI, 8) uses this text in defining the Catholic doctrine that ’faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification’. Faith in our Epistle occupies a place not at all below that of Rom, but the special character of Heb is the reason why faith appears so much dyed in the colours of hope. The promises are chiefly its object. Charity in Heb retains its Pauline queenship. It is something that God does not forget, 6:10, and on which he particularly smiles, 13:16. The moral virtues recommended must be noted in the text and commentary. Final salvation is attained after death in the vision of God. The heroes of the Great Martyrology, 11, have had to wait for it, but now possess it together with those Christians who have trodden the way of faith. With these they form the company of’ spirits of the just made perfect’, 12:23. The final resurrection is an article of the elementary Catechesis of 6:1-2, and some of the heroes of faith are declared not to have accepted deliverance from death ’that they might obtain a better resurrection’, 11:35, but in the thesis proper of our Epistle it is only the gathering of the elect with Christ that is mentioned as the final act of human salvation, 9:28.

c. The Epistle’s teaching on the Holy Ghost can be dealt with very briefly. He is called ’the Spirit of grace’ as being the Giver of grace, and is a Person whom apostasy outrages, 10:29. That he is the third Person of the Blessed Trinity may be lawfully inferred from 2:3-4. He is called the Holy Spirit and the eternal Spirit, 2:41, etc.; 9:14, There is no clear assertion of the appropriation of the Incarnation to the operation of the Holy Ghost, and the same is true of the other Paulines. In the seven relevant texts of our Epistle four functions are attributed to the Spirit : (1) the inspiration of Scriptures, (2) the sanctipclation of Christ’s soul, (3) the distribution of charismata, and (4) the sanctification of the faithful.

Twice words of David, Ps 94, and once words of Jeremias, 31:33, are set down as words of the Holy Ghost. Similarly, he is the designer of the typological arrangements of Israelite worship, 9:8; Christ offered his sacrifice through the eternal Spirit, 9:14; God has confirmed the Gospel delivered by his Son through the distributions made by the Holy Ghost, 2:1; and the faithful are not only partakers of Christ, but partakers of the Holy Spirit, 6:4. Those who dishonour the blood of the Covenant in which they were sanctified also insult the Holy Spirit, 10:29. Compare St Paul’s: ’Do not sadden the Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption’, Ephesians 4:30. Briefly, then, the Holy Ghost inspired the written word which proclaims Christ, sanctified the soul of Christ and co-operated in his work, confirm Christ’s spoken word, and sanctifies Christ’s faithful.

When closely examined Heb reveals an important ecelesiology. In the first place there is every indication that the New Regime—’the world to come’ of which Christ is the sovereign administrator, 2:5—is no less organic than the Old. In fact the House in which Moses ministered is replaced by the House over which the Son has been placed, and’ his house we are’, 3:6. We have a common heavenly calling, 3:1, recognize the same Lord, Apostle and Pontiff, and hold the same Confession of faith, 3:2. It is, however, not a matter of individual adhesion to Christ. The bond of brotherhood and the unity of aspiration towards the heavenly rest must be socially maintained. The faithful must consider each other in order to stir up charity and good works, 10:24, and aloofness from the community is to be avoided, 10:25. Obedience to superiors is a sacred duty, 13:17. In the last chapter hegoumenoi (superiors or prelates) are mentioned no less than three times.

It is true that the House of God also figures as a city and a kingdom and that in this two-fold imagery emphasis is on the future. We seek the city which is to come, 13:14, and we receive an unshakable kingdom, 12:28. But from the Epistle’s point of view on the mountains of Israel, the future city and the unshakable kingdom is also the Church of the present time. Our fellowship with heaven is a fellowship realized in good measure here on earth. This is shown especially in the contrast between the Hebrew Sinai and the Christian Sion, 12:22-24. The Christian Sion is ’both here and beyond’. If the myriads of angels— a festive assembly—and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect belong especially to the heavenly consummation, on the other hand, Mount Sion and the City of the Living God and the Celestial Jerusalem can designate the whole Church; while the approach to an assembly of firstborn enrolled in heaven and to the Mediator of a New Covenant and to a blood of sprinkling which speaks better than Abel’s refers without ambiguity to those who are still on the way to the final attainment of the promises.

Of the Pauline Epistles Heb could claim to be the one—not even excepting the specially eschatological letters to the Thessalonians—which sets our face most steadily and continually towards the heavenly city. The expectation of the Old Testament is perfected in the aspiration of the New, for Christ at the right hand of God is the goal of our te?eí?s??, and our confident hope is that we shall enter the Sanctuary in the blood of Jesus, 10:19. The presentation of eternal happiness as a sabbatic rest, 4:9, is only very slightly paralleled in the Paulines (2 Thessalonians 1:7 —??es??, Vg requies), but figures in the second (or third) beatitude and, with still closer approximation to the language of Heb, is proclaimed by a voice from heaven in Apoc 14:13. There is great coherence in the way the pilgrim conception of life pervades our Epistle. The Gospel remains an ?pa??e?ía or ’promise’ and the writer goes back to the old tabernacle of Israel’s wanderings for the prefigurative material of his exposition of Christ’s work. The movement out of the camp of Judaism towards the lasting city, 13:13, does not end in the Church Militant, and the unshakable kingdom which we receive, 12:28, is not so much the Messianic era of time as the Messianic stability of unchanging eternity.

The ’last things’ in our Epistle may be summed up as follows: The pilgrimage of human life ends with

death, 9:27. Death is followed by judgement—whether particular or general being left undetermined, although the context favours the latter, 9:27, Judgement here and hereafter is made by the searching light of God’s word, 4: 12, 13, and the final sentence is eternal, 6:2. In order of time this final discernment is preceded by the coming of Christ, who however does not appear as a Judge but a Saviour, 9:28. Judgement is attributed to God, 10:30; 12:23. The wrath of fire, 10:27, or eternal rest, 4:11, stand at the end of the way. The prophetic and Pauline conception of the great final ’day’ is not absent, 10:25, and perhaps the end of Jerusalem is here included in this expression as in our Lord’s eschatological discourse.

It seems that the accompaniments of Christ’s coming are touched upon in the citation, 1:6, that invites all the angels to adore him. A word from the Prophet Aggeus ( 2:6) tells of ’a movement of heaven and earth’ which is to usher in an unchanging kingdom, 12:28. The final consummation shall, according to our author, set all things in subjection to Christ, 2:8, and make his enemies the footstool of his feet, 10:13.

Verses 2-13

Prologue I i-4— The absence of the writer’s name, of personal greeting to the addressees, of any specific epistolary exordium are things which have attracted attention from early times. Reasons suggested for the omission of Paul’s name are: reverence for Christ the Apostle of the Hebrews, Paul’s consciousness that he himself was the special Apostle of the Gentiles, unwillingness to antagonize Hebrews by setting the name of an ’anti-legalist’ at the head of the letter, consideration of the position of the Mother Church at Jerusalem. The omission of the writer’s name almost necessarily entailed absence of greeting and of such compliments or good wishes as were usual in Pauline epistles. Moreover, although a letter, this writing—subsequently to be described as ’a word of exhortation’, 13:22— comes close to the form of a homily. A NT parallel is found in the abrupt beginning of 1 Jn, and many similar examples occur in the papyrus letters of the 1st and 2nd cent., and still more abundantly in the 4th.

Since the central theme of Heb is the superiority of the New Dispensation over the Old, the whole matter is majestically summarized in a preface full of stately grandeur. We should note the weighty dignity of its thoughts, its very remarkable stylistic balance, and the special graces of paronomasia and rhythm. It is, as it were, a nutshell presentation of what is to follow, set in terms of the greatness of Christ. A seven-point portrait of the Incarnate Son very skilfully glides, 4, into the special statement of his superiority over the Angel administrators of the Sinaitic Covenant. 1-2a The Two Revelations— ’God speaking’ is the central idea, the past being contrasted with the present under three aspects. A progressive series of (1) piecemeal and modally diversified revelations, (2) spoken the Hebrew fathers, (3) through the prophets, has given place (1) in this definitive age, to a revelation (2) spoken to us, (3) through ONE who is SON. The Vg actually gives fuller balance than is usually ascribed to the Greek words by making’ last of all ’ the counterpart of ’at sundry times and in divers manners’, while the phrase: in these days ’balances’ in times past’. The ’divers manners’ probably refers to different modes of communication: oracles spoken to the ear, mental illuminations, visions received through the internal or external senses, and not so much to the formal distinctions of prophecy, instruction, commination, legislation, etc. Note, however, that one and the same God speaks in the Old and the New Age.

2b-3 The Characteristics of the Son— This Epistle uses the word SON without the article almost as a proper name of Christ, cf. 3:6; 5:8; 7:28. In the septenary list of his descriptives (numbering them by the letters a-g) the distribution of these descriptives between the divine pre-existent Person and him incarnate is as singularly skilful as the arrangement is remarkable. The first two descriptives (a, b) form a pair referring respectively to Christ’s Manhood and his Godhead; the third and fourth (c, d) form another pair describing, in metaphors of light and image, his divine personality, and to this double description the Greek ’adjunctive’ particle te closely annexes the prerogative of universal and omnipotent Conservatorship (e). This last of a ’divine four’ (b-e) corresponds to the first, namely, to the Creatorship which has figured as the first predicate of his divinity (b). The basic heirship of the hypostatic union (a) is then supplemented by reference to the work of redemption (f)—here called ’a cleansing’ in forecast of future sacerdotal developments—and lastly by the crowning glorification of enthronement in heaven (g). Thus the Incarnation, announced with fourfold emphasis on the Godhead of the Son, is completed by the Passion and Glorification of the Man Christ, cf.Philippians 2:5-11.

a. To be ’appointed heir of all things’ connotes sonship and denotes that the one appointed is man. Heirship includes no notion of succession, but only the assured possession promised in Psalms 2:8. It belongs to sonship, Galatians 4:7; Matthew 21:38, and therefore follows from the hypostatic union. In the divine economy of redemption, however, the actual exercise of ’all power in heaven and earth’ belongs to the ’Christ enthroned’.

b. ’By whom he made the world’: since the act of creation is incommunicably divine, there can be no question of instrumental agency. As in John 1:3, ’by’ or ’through’ only signifies that the one divine power is exercised by the Father, who has it unoriginate, and by the Son who receives it with the divine nature from the Father. The world (in Greek aì?+??e?) is either the successive ages of time and the things that exist in them, or more probably (cf. 11:3) the whole universe of created things.

c. The Son is ’the brightness of’ the Father’s ’glory’. The Gk present participle is significant after the two aorists: ’whom he "appointed" . . . through whom he "made" . . . who being the Radiance’. The term ?pa?+??asµa is, no doubt, borrowed from the one OT passage in which it occurs, Wis 7:26. There Divine Wisdom figures as ’the radiance of light, the mirror of activity, the image of goodness’. This association of of radiance with mirror and image, joined to the fact that the ending -µa denotes a result rather than an action, goes to show that the ?pa??asµa is not merely brightness-adherent but brightness issuing and having issued, in other words, radiance or effulgence reflected as an image of the luminous fountain. Since ’glory’ means the divine nature in the perfection that manifests itself, ’radiance of his glory’ is equivalent to the lumen de lumine of our Nicene Creed.

d. The radiation metaphor might seem to fall short in signifying distinction of person; therefore it is supplemented by the description: ’figure of his substance’. Again the Gk is more expressive than ’figure’. It means an imprinted, ingraven image expressly reproducing the traits of that from which it is made. A statue which was the likeness of its prototype is described in a Gk inscription of Antiochus I of Commagene as ?a?a?t?? µ??Fð+?? ?µð+??, but the stamp of a seal or signet is the most obvious source of the metaphor —the express reproduction of an impress. An image (cf.2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15) which thus originates from and expresses the divine substance, nature, or essence, must be consubstantial, so that the homoousios emerges very distinctly from the combined descriptions of ’radiance’ and ’express image’. That there is question of the pre-existent Christ is evident from the close connexion with the following present participial phrase:

e. ’Upholding (carrying) all things by the word of his power’: the universe is at the order of his imperial will. The Son is, therefore, the Conservator of creation (’all things’, 2:8, 10) the universal, all-provident, allsustaining Governor. Colossians 1:15-17 should be read.

The passage combines with this to form a splendid Christological diptych.

f. The expiatory work of Christ is briefly summed up as a ’cleansing of sins’, in anticipation of the ’liturgical’ section of the Epistle, 8:1-10:18. g. The triumphantly enthroned Christ crowns the septenary. The elevation of the Priest to the place of honour beside the throne of God’s ’Majesty on high’, that is, in heaven, is a keynote of this sacerdotal epistle, cf. 6:1; 10:18; 12:8. The thought is simply that of Ps 109, as solemnly interpreted by Christ himself, Matthew 22:44; Matthew 26:64.

4 Statement of Christ’s Superiority over Angels— It is to the elevation of Christ ’in the glory which was his before the world was’ that his superiority above the Angel ministers of Mosaic revelation is attached. Hence the participle ?e?óµe??: ’having been made’. The distance of his superiority is seen in ’the better name’ which he ’has inherited’, for he is now established in possession of the glory of his Sonship, cf. Philippians 2:11, where ’the name’ is not Son but Kyrios, that is, Yahweh—with no real difference of sense, however.

5-14 Scriptural Proofs— It is important to remember that the Apostle does not intend to prove that Christ is the Son of God and very God. That is supposed as a basic dogma. He simply wishes to give to the dignity of divine Sohship the weight of biblical texts, so as to show its immense superiority over the dignity of angelic ministers. The application is not equally compelling in the case of every citation, but the whole series is an imposing array. The Apostle chooses seven passages, beginning with an oracle from the Psalm of Christ’s sovereign heirship or kingship and ending with the Psalm of his exaltation in glory. Therefore, as in the series of descriptives above, the two poles are Incarpation and Glorification. Only the middle text, that is, the fourth, is concerned exclusively with angels. The following remarks will sufficiently illustrate the series.

5. The first citation (never addressed to any angrl) is from Psalms 2:7— a directly Messianic prophecy of Christ’s kingship founded on his divine filiation. ’My Son’, as determined by the words ’I have begotten Thee’, is an address never used by God in the singular number to any single individual except Christ. That reservation is important, for angels are called sons of God’ in the plural, Job 1:7; Job 2:1; Pss 28:1; 88:7; the collective Israel is called God’s first-born, Exodus 4:22; and Israelites as a body are called sons in the plural number, Deuteronomy 32:19. The metaphorical sense is thus kept distinct from the proper sense of divine filiation and generation. ’To-day’ is understood of the day of the Incarnation or any undetermined subsequent particular day. The ’begetting’ is real not adoptive, and the Gk perfect of LXX well expresses its perfect and permanent reality.

The second text literally refers to Solomon, but typally to Christ, for whom ’the throne of David his father’ is ultimately destined, and who is also God’s Son in the plenary sense of the term.

6. Whether the second ’again’ merely serves to introduce a third citation or should be attached to the verb is doubtful. The adversative particle ?e?óµe??? at the head of the sentence seems to favour the latter view. The provenance of the text is also doubtful. In verbal form it is nearest to Deuteronomy 32:43 (LXX)—a known source of Pauline citation, Romans 15:10 —but the claims of Psalms 96:7 are strong, although the LXX rendering ’angels’ covers ’Elohim’, considered by some to mean pagan divinities. Whichever may be its source, the text literally refers to a judgement Theophany and may apply typally to the Son to whom ’the Father has given all judgement’. The second coming of Christ seems to be what is in the Apostle’s mind, cf. 9:28. The Son is called --- rather in the human sense of Romans 8:29 and Colossians 1:18 than in the divine pre-existential sense of Colossians 1:15. He receives the adoration of Angels (Elohim in Psalms 96:7, Heb).

7. The fourth—the sole text referring exclusively to the Angels—is from Psalms 103:4. There seems no doubt that St Paul and the LXX read ’spirits’ or ’winds’ as a predicate of the verbal object ’Angels’. So did the Targum of the Psalms. Syntactic probability would seem to require this translation, but the context of the Psalm strophe is naturally taken to demand the rendering ’Who makes the winds his angels’, a sense which nearly all modern scholars support. In this case, the Apostle’s argument could stand, but is less natural. However, in spite of the apparent Psalm context, the possibility of a sudden transition from elemental forces to angels is really not unnatural in a Hebrew poet, and there is a fair parallel in Psalms 17:10. We have to reckon very often with rapid changes in the psychological context of oriental poetry.

8. The Apostle then contrasts the Son with those ministering spirits. The contrasting text is supplied by the nuptial Psalm of a royal Prince who is certainly the Messias and most probably the Messias directly and exclusively. It seems that an historical royal wedding cannot have been more than the occasion of the Psalm. The royalty of the Prince is in the forefront, but he is also actually addressed as God: ’Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever’, Psalms 44:7.

10-12. To this divine Person is also applied a Psalm text which addresses Yahweh Himself, the Almighty Restorer of Sion. Cited froni LXX, Psalms 101:26-28, with two unimportant variations, the text strongly pictures the eternal unchangeableness of God.

13. Lastly, in a quotation introduced interrogatively, like the first, and with the perfect tense of the verb ’to say’ the Son is shown enthroned ’at the right hand of majesty on high’, and the final word is said on the inferiority of Angels: ’Are they not all ministering spirits sent to minister on behalf of them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?’ The angels are essentially servants, at the order of God, ’public ministers’ deputed to particular ’service’ on behalf of those on the way of salvation, and thus, in a sense, ’servants of servants’. The doctrine of Guardian Angels in general is implied in this text, but not necessarily the doctrine of a single Guardian Angel for each single Christian. That is a precision derived from other sources.