It is no doubt the calm, measured, stately, almost rhetorical, style of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that has led many to conceive that it cannot be the work of the great apostle of the Gentiles. They compare the balanced sentences of this Epistle with the rugged and impetuous language so characteristic of the Pauline writings. But even on this ground the argument is by no means convincing. For what can be more measured and stately than the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians or than the eleventh chapter of the same Epistle. The fact is that a great writer adapts his style to his subject-matter, quite apart from the question whether he is inspired or not. As one, J.N.D., has beautifully said, the same divine water, is in every vessel, be it a Paul, a Peter, or a John, but it takes the shape of the vessel through which it flows. And, we may add, the shape may vary in the same writer with the occasion. There is the tumultuous fervor of indignant upbraiding; there is the calm and ordered flow of eloquent exposition. Hence they are evidently right who judge that Paul, and no other (spite of those who ascribe it to the eloquent Apollos), is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. And this opinion is powerfully buttressed by the words of Peter in his Second Epistle (3:15, 16).
Now there is no more majestic statement even in this Epistle, or indeed in the whole of the Bible, than is contained in the wonderfully balanced sentence with which this treatise (for such it strictly is, rather than a letter) opens. For you will see that it really is one sentence only from ver. 1-4 inclusive. And the part of it most emphasized is the main part. “God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.” Other truths, of equal, possibly of greater, moment (one most certainly is so, where the Son is spoken of as being the brightness of God's glory), are grouped around it, adding strikingly to the grandeur of the whole, but yet subservient to the point that the apostle is pressing, viz. that “God has spoken in His Son.” He reminds his readers how God spake of old by the prophets (here no doubt a general term and taking in all the O. T. writers); but that now it was no longer a question of hearing prophets however venerable, lawgivers however sage and discerning, nor psalmists however tuneful. It was imperative to recognize, what was not so obvious to them as Hebrews, as it happily is to us, that the final messenger had come, and that he that is of God would hear Him (John 8:47). Each prophet had contributed his quota to the grand total, and the apostle in no way seeks to weaken the weight of their testimony. Quite the contrary. Just as the Lord Jesus, on a memorable occasion, actually placed Moses' writings as testimony above His own spoken words (John 5:47), so the writer urges that their acceptance of the sublime truths that were now being unfolded would be the proof that the Hebrews really held and understood and believed all that lawgiver and psalmist and prophet had written of old. If they believed that God had spoken in His Son, this would show that theirs was no merely national and patriotic clinging to their ancient oracles. They would own the Crucified as both Lord and Christ.
God had spoken. This is the only book of Holy Scripture that commences with the sacred name, so august, so comprehensive and incomprehensible. How easy to utter it! How often it is taken in vain by profane men! How lightly even Christians may use the word! Everything is wrapped in it, so to speak. It is God, the Son, as we read in this very passage, who upholds all things by the word of His power. And by Him were all things created (Col. 1:16). The mind may proceed to lose itself forthwith in mazes of perplexity, as we contemplate the immensity of creation, and the insignificance physically of this tiny earth, which faith knows, on God's sure warrant, to have been the scene of nothing less stupendous than the Incarnation. For here “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and,” says John, “we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Here the believer rests, while he who trusts to his own keenness of perception is baffled and dismayed. But it is the fool who says in his heart, There is no God. Yet there are but few after all who do not acknowledge His eternal power and divinity (Rom. 1:20.). But how sad if we stop there or, as has been so pathetically described, be as one who could only “beat his ineffectual wings against the void;” or, as another has said, be conscious only of this, that “man is a being with just sufficient conscience to know he is vile, and just sufficient intelligence to know that he is insignificant!” Nay, believers know much more, nor do I mean to insinuate that the clever writer who so described man, meant that that was all, we can know. He was simply referring to what we know apart from revelation. We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding (1 John 5:20). We know that God has spoken unto us in His Son. There are difficulties in the Bible, things that must be left and taken on trust. Not such the knowledge of God's love in Christ, which makes known God's righteousness unto all, and upon all them that believe. This is the true God and eternal life.
R.B.