Exact Representation

Day 303: Hebrews 1:1-14

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” - Hebrews 1:3 ESV

Who was Jesus of Nazareth, the man who lived in northern Israel at the beginning of the first century? Was He a mere philanthropist with insightful teaching that was ahead of its time? Was He not really human, but just appeared to be? Was He merely (as Islam and Judaism assert today) a renowned prophet?

People have been trying to answer these questions ever since Jesus died thirty-three years into his earthly life. He literally marked time with his birth, and his teachings have led to more social reform than we can mention here.

Yet the writer of Hebrews comes at it from a different angle. He uses words like radiance and imprint when he describes who Jesus was (and is).

Jesus was begotten, not made, of God. Jesus was not a creation of God; He came from God Himself.

C.S. Lewis says it a lot better than I can when he wrote, "We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set--or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue." (Mere Christianity, pg 157)

This is all still hard to grasp, but it helps us think more rightly about who Jesus was (and still is today).

Jesus is worthy of our worship because by Him God made everything (1:2) and He now sustains everything by His word.