Character Assassination (1)

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

Radiance/ exact representation – Okay, first let’s deal with the pronouns: “He” and “His.”  You see that they are capitalized in the NASB (and most other English Bibles).  But, of course, all of the letters in the Greek text are capitals.  So, these particular pronouns are capitalized in English for theological reason, not textual one.  Secondly, since they are pronouns, they refer to the original noun.  What is that original?  The first pronoun, “he,” demarcates the “son,” in other words, Yeshua, the Messiah.  Yeshua is the “radiance” of “His” glory, but clearly the second pronoun does not refer to the “son,” but rather to God.  Accordingly, Yeshua is the radiance of God.  What does that mean?

The Greek term apaúgasma is used by the LXX to speak of wisdom’s relationship to eternal light and to the human connection with God.  Since the author of the letter to the Hebrews certainly employs Hebrew thought forms, it seems unlikely that he would have the later patristic idea in mind, an idea that sees this word as a parallel to God’s glory.  While Christian translations follow the patristic interpretation, it seems to me that we should read this statement from a Jewish/LXX perspective where it would mean that Yeshua is the illumination of God’s wisdom toward men.  

That bring us to the second pronoun and the question, “What is God’s glory?”  Fortunately, God Himself has provided the answer to Moses.  As you recall, Moses asks to see God’s glory.  God responds in the following way:

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth; who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the ^[b]punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Exodus 34:6-7 NASB).

What is God’s glory?  It is His character in relation to men, and that character is described in active terms, in verbs, in what God does!  There is no attempt to describe God’s essence, but only His actions.  Why is this so important?  Because the next part of this verse speaks of the “exact representation” of the “nature” of God, and if you believe that “Jesus” is God, then you will ascribe whatever you discover about the “exact representation” and the “nature” of God to “Jesus.”

apaúgasma is followed by a more familiar Greek term, charaktḗr.  At least it is in English.  But not so in Greek.  In Greek the syntax is a bit different.  Literally the sentence would read:

“and of his glory the apaúgasma [radiance] is he of his nature [hypostasis] the charaktḗr [representation] all things upholds of his power by the word.”

Could this verse be translated: “and of his glory he is the representation of his (God’s) nature and all things are upheld by the power of his word”?  Of course, we will want to know who is the reference of the pronoun in “his word.”  But first let’s look at charaktḗr.  

Notice that the English text adds the word “exact.”  It’s not in the Greek.  The Greek word comes from the idea of a die, a device for minting metal.  Thus, it can be rendered as “image,” “impress,” “coinage,” “money,” “stamp,” “seal,” “sign,” “copy,” and “letter.”^[1]  In the LXX, it is used for family resemblance.  This is the only place in apostolic writing where this term is used.  We can think of this as a parallel to Yeshua’s own statement, ““Have I been with you for so long a time, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9 NASB).  From a Jewish perspective, the author is saying that the Messiah is the image, the seal, the sign of God’s hypostasis (translated “nature”).  The Jewish reading doesn’t mean that “Jesus” is God.  It means that Yeshua is the sign and seal of God, just as an emissary of Caesar would be the sign and seal of the Emperor.  We have the same sense in our adaptation of the Greek term.  For us, character does not mean ontologically identical.  It means resemblance.  “That boy has the same character as his father” doesn’t mean the boy is his father.  This is perfectly understandable . . . until we come to the next noun, hypostasis.  Virtually all Trinitarian theology rides on this word.

Stay tuned.

Topical Index: charaktḗr, sign, seal, apaúgasma, radiance, glory, Exodus 34:6-7, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:9