Hebrews 1:2

2. These last days The English gives accurately the general sense of the peculiar phrase, επ ’ εσχατου των ημερων τουτων , the ultimatum or finality of these days. We take it that επ ’ εσχατου , at the finality, is the true antithesis to time past, or of old; and that of these… days defines the finality as consisting of these Messianic, in contrast to the old prophetic, days. So Delitzsch defines the phrase as signifying “for our author here, as for Peter, (1 Peter 1:20,) that ‘last time’ which he viewed as already begun, and as in process of unfolding itself before his eyes.”

His Son Greek, a son. The old seers were but prophets; this last is no less than a son. But inferentially, as the prophets were his prophets, so the son is no less than his Son. And how lofty a being, how infinitely superior to the prophets of old is this Son, Paul proceeds to unfold. Render the whole sentence thus: In many parts and by many methods God, having spoken to the fathers in the olden time by the prophets, has in the finality, consisting of these days, spoken unto us by a Son. There is in the sentence an elegant antithesis, consisting of a series of neatly adjusted contrastive terms. Compare remarks on Paul’s rhythmical passages in our vol. iii, p. 287, and our note on Romans 1:1. Perhaps there is not another as finely rounded a period in this epistle as this introductory one.

In the sublime three descriptive clauses that follow, the writer goes deeper and deeper at each step, if we may so express it, back into eternity. He traces his predicates regressively. First, the Son’s heirship of all things; preceded by his creation of all things; and that preceded by his inmost emanative identity with the divine Essence. The predicate phrase, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, is based upon, by whom also he made the worlds; and that upon the being and upholding of Hebrews 1:3, all furnishing a description of the infinite superiority of the eternal Son.

And, undoubtedly, we must here avail ourselves of the important distinction between “the order of nature” and “the order of time.” One eternal may, in the order of nature, precede another eternal. An eternal cause eternally precedes an eternal effect, as an eternal Father precedes an eternal Son. God’s eternal nature and person precede in order his foreknowledge, as his foreknowledge precedes his predeterminations. So the heirship of Christ, if eternal, is preceded by his creation of the worlds, which means not merely the production of planets and earths, but the eternal self-revelation of God in production of creature existence. And this creation is preceded by God’s self-expression in the eternal Word; or, as it is otherwise mentally conceived, the generation by the Father of the Son.

We are now prepared to answer the questions here aroused before the commentators, When did the Son become heir of all things? And what are the all things of which he became heir? To the first question the answer has been made by many annotators that his heirship took place at the resurrection and ascension. And undoubtedly it did take place, for the divine-human Son, at that time; but that was only an objectivizing of the eternal heirship of the Logos of John and the Son of our present writer. More erroneous is the answer of some commentators, that it was an heirship in God’s eternal purpose, as if the Logos by whom (John 1:3) every thing became existent which has become, were not eternal Son, and, if Son, then heir. The back-ground of the divine Essence becomes manifest through the Word resulting in creation; which is existence different from the divine Being.

Heir Not simply lord, possessor, (which would be true of the Father,) but derived possessor, as Son of a Father, though a Father that never dies.

All things Not only earth, planets, suns, fixed stars, and nebulae, but all the real universe of which these are but external glimpses perceptible to our little optics. Were we endowed with an additional number of senses, vast additional volumes of God’s created universe would open before our perceptions and our knowledge.

Worlds All the mundane systems of which the universe ever consisted. As between the two terms, cosmos, frame-world, and aeon, time-world, the latter is here used. So that the term worlds, here, first suggests systems successive in time, and then by secondary implication, takes in their space-filling or frame-work character, if such they have. So, also, is the same word used at Hebrews 11:3. That this is the meaning is absolutely proved by ver.