Character Assassination (2)

And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,  Hebrews 1:3  NASB

Nature – hypóstasis.  One of the most important Greek words in the Bible.  Before we dive into the theological implications, let’s learn a little about the history of this word.

Stoicism first brings the term into philosophy to denote what has come into being or attained reality. In contrast to ousía, which is eternal being as such, hypóstasis is real being as this is manifested in individual phenomena. Because being is primal matter, its coming into existence may be viewed as a physical process, and thus hypóstasis offers itself as a suitable term for the resultant reality. The distinction from ousía, however, is only a theoretical and not a practical one. ousía exists in its actualization, hypóstasis is ousía in its actuality. hypóstasis is not the real, concrete phenomenon as such but the reality behind it.^[1]

In general usage, however, “Denoting the reality behind appearance, hypóstasis can have such general senses as “plan,” “purpose,” “concern,” or “basic conception.” The fundamental reality of time, which is the “instant,” is also its hypóstasis. In other contexts the term simply means “presence” or “existence.”^[2]

The LXX uses hypostasis in this way.  hypóstasis is the underlying reality behind things, often as a plan or purpose, or as that which, enclosed in God, endures.^[3]

But all of these definitions occur after Hellenism.  Before the influence of Plato and Aristotle, hypostasis meant the foundation, the ground, the steadiness of something.  It is, in fact, constructed of two Greek words; the first meaning “under” or “beneath” (a place), and the second, “appoint, continue, covenant, establish, stand by.”

What have we learned so far.  Both Jewish (LXX) and Greek philosophy use hypostasis to describe what is foundational to reality.  It is the “thing” that supports everything else, the real behind our experience of reality.  But this idea follows a previous notion that hypostasis is the description of the steadfastness of a thing.  In Judaism, this is the will of God.  If we were to translate this verse according to Jewish principles, we might render it like this:

And Yeshua is the light of God’s active interaction and the sign and seal of God’s will (desire) which upholds all things by the power of God’s word.

Once philosophical ideas of “essence” governed this word, its application changed from “what grounds something” to “what is the essential nature of something.”  If we use the original Greek meaning, then we see that this verse is about God’s creative act, His desire to bring the world into being, but it is not about God’s “essence,” His eternal being.

In this translation, the Messiah acts as the perfect symbol of what God does, the One Who brought everything into being through His word.

Consider H. Köster’s comment on this crucial term:

The other three instances of hypóstasis are all in Hebrews. The usage  is simplest in 1:3, where the term is parallel to dóxa and relates to God’s essence. “Transcendent reality” is perhaps closest to what is meant. Christ as Son reflects God’s glory and bears the impress of this reality. In 11:1 the rendering “assurance” has gained much support since Melanchthon commended it to Luther, but this introduces an untenable subjective element. The parallel term élenchos is an objective one that denotes “demonstration” rather than “conviction,” i.e., the proof of things one cannot see. Similarly, hypóstasis is the “reality” of the things hoped for, which have a transcendent quality. The terms define the character of transcendent future things, and the verse boldly equates faith with the reality and demonstration of these things. Only the work of Jesus and faith as participation in this work are not subject to the corruptibility of what is shadowy and prototypical. The statement in 3:14 is along similar lines. The reference is not a subjective one to our first confidence but an objective one to the basic reality on which the faith of believers rests since Christ is the very presence of the reality of God which they now share. Clinging to the first reality as it comes with the preaching of salvation in Christ does, of course, mean having confidence to the end in the reality of God, but hypóstasis itself denotes, not the confidence, but the divine reality that contrasts with everything shadowy and prototypical and that is paradoxically present in Jesus and possessed by the community in faith.^[4]

None of this is in conflict with the Jewish idea of family resemblance and sign or seal.  But things changed when Greek philosophical ideas altered the trajectory of this term.  Now the term means “absolute essence” or “ultimate reality.”  Plato and Aristotle sought what was “behind” it all, and their ideas projected into a biblical context shifted the word from a description of God’s actions with men to God’s essential qualities.  Instead of a description of the ‘olam ha’ba, the word becomes a description of God’s transcendent being, which, of course, no human can comprehend.  Instead of a visible manifestation of God in the world, the term represents God as the “wholly Other,” far beyond any human representation.  And if this text is read with that idea in mind, then “Jesus” becomes the ontological equivalent of God, the “exact representation” of God’s “transcendent being.”  Family resemblance disappears.  Sign and seal are no longer in the picture.  Now we have the embodiment of Trinitarian “person.”  “Jesus” is no longer a Jewish reformer, a Jewish messiah and prophet.  In fact, he isn’t even human.  He’s God’s nature in the flesh.  

Just one little word and the theological separation between Judaism and Christianity is justified.

Topical Index: hypóstasis, nature, transcendence, reality, essence, Hebrews 1:3