Missing the Point in Hebrews 2—for many years

I don't know how many times I’ve read the first two chapters of Hebrews, but recently I saw something that I somehow missed for years. Chapter 1 begins without much of a preamble:

In the past God spoke to our fathers at various times and in various ways through the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his nature…

from Hebrews 1:1–3

The author then shows how Jesus is greater than the angels, and ends the chapter with this: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14). And then chapter 2 begins with this:

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the word spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.

Hebrews 2:1-5

I find these verses fascinating. First, we must pay careful attention “to what we have heard”—what’s that? In 1:2 we read that God has spoken by his Son, but for all these years when I read those verses I was focused on the Son and forgot to notice that when God spoke, he had something to say!

Fortunately the author tells us that what God has spoken was “a great salvation” (2:3). What salvation is this about? Well, it was something announced by the Lord (Jesus I think; God and the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the same sentence). What did the Lord announce? A few things come to mind:

• The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe this good news! (Mark 1:15)
• God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16, as you probably already knew.)
• Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (and more: Matthew 5:3-10)
• Truly, truly, I say to you, she who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and is not condemned; she has passed out of death into life (John 5:24)
• And I give eternal life to them, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand (John 10:something)
• I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will never die (John 11: something)

The author of Hebrews does answer one question for us definitively: if we wonder about this salvation—is it about this world, this life only, or [also] about the world to come?

I actually have wondered about this, because I had the impression that first-century Jews and Christians thought of “salvation” as mostly being about life here on earth. Didn't people want to make Jesus king by force? When Jesus healed people, didn't he say “your faith has saved you” (emphasis added)?

But the author of Hebrews is talking about the world to come, as we read in verse 5. And he gets even more explicit after that:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory an honor, because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

Hebrews 2:9–11

Ah—another clue! Jesus suffered death, and by God’s grace he tasted death “for everyone.” Which reminds me of the Christmas carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”—particularly this part:

Mild he lays his glory by
Born that man no more may die

And here's another: God brings many persons to glory, and that too has something to do with salvation and with what Jesus suffered.

That salvation, wherein God brings us to glory and makes us holy, also has to do with becoming a sibling of our Lord Jesus. Come to think of it, that reminds me of Psalm 68:

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy habitation.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Psalm 68:5–6

Indeed, being rescued from loneliness, being adopted into a family where Jesus is my brother—not only for this world, but also for the world to come—that’s sounding pretty good.

Avoiding death

These lines from an old Christmas song came to mind while thinking about Hebrews 2:

Mild he lays his glory by
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

That hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, is one of the earliest songs I remember from church services I attended as a child. The line I remembered from childhood,

God and sinners reconciled!

never made sense to me until I understood, over a decade later, why it was that Jesus came to earth.

But what I want to talk about today is this line: Born that man no more may die. I often translate this mentally to "...no more need die", which I think is what the original wording actually means, viz., that you and I now have the option to skip death.

Here is the part of Hebrews that brought this to mind:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:9

I take "for everyone" here mean "in everyone's place" (that is, everyone who wants that). Otherwise why would this bring "glory and honor" to Jesus? Paul is explicit about this idea:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

...
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,...

from Philippians 2:5,8-10

Now what kind of death is supposedly optional? Church graveyards are full of dead bones, right? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ talked a lot about eternal life, contrasting it with condemnation, for example:

"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."

John 5:24

When Jesus meets Mary outside Bethany and discusses the fate of her brother Lazarus...

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

John 11:25-26

And of course, God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish (i.e., no one need perish) but have eternal life (John 3:16).

So the good news for today is that Jesus tasted death for you and for me and for everyone who believes (according to the Lord's words) and he is now crowned with glory and honor.

Mild he lays his glory by
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!

Drifting away

The lovely Carol gave me a present yesterday morning -- a copy of NurtureShock, where I read about an experiment with "gratitude journals." Apparently, "those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events."

The effect of gratitude journals, as a way of paying attention, came to mind when I thought about this passage from the beginning of Hebrews 2:

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

Hebrews 2:1

Another thing that struck me from this verse was the idea of drifting away. When I think about Mark Sanford, Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer or Bill Clinton for that matter, I don't think any of them woke up one morning thinking, "Today I'll torpedo both my marriage and my career." What I believe happened is that they drifted away; they weren't paying quite enough attention.

For that matter, if we think about the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees who plotted against Jesus, what were they thinking? "Today, instead of following truth and following the Lord, I'll focus on my career and my perqs and maintaining the status quo. Even if my God raises somebody from the dead, I'm bound and determined to put my career first, and God had better not send any pesky prophets to turn me away; I'll just kill them, as my ancestors did"?

I don't think so; I think they drifted away too. How do we avoid their fate? Here's a thought -- by paying careful attention (Hebrews 2:1).

• Though the author of Hebrews wasn't talking about this, the aforementioned gratitude journals are a terrific idea. Every so often, write down some things you're thankful for. Don't do it every day, or it'll be tiring and you'll be tempted to write the same things down all the time.

  Remember to thank the Source, too!

• "...to what we have heard," which refers to salvation and the world to come. To me this means at least two things. First, as Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). What this is about: following and obeying the Lord (that's what "Lord" means). When I head off to work, do I think at all about what the Lord wants me to do? I hope so. Because there are challenges and temptations, among them
  • impatience
  • selfishness
  • envy and greed
  • apathy
  and if I don't pay attention then I might fall (or jump) into them.

  Another aspect of the gospel is our destination in the world to come. If I'm heading for heaven in the future, if my citizenship is in heaven and I remember that... what does that say about who I am and how I should be today? When our family lived in Japan, we were aware that we were Americans, foreigners. We knew we were different, and though we lived there nearly six years, we knew we were coming back someday. We cared about our neighbors and neighborhood, we paid our taxes (to both Japan and the US tax offices, very complicated), but we never became Japanese.

  What's that mean, practically? Should be be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good? On the contrary -- if we're too earthly minded, we won't have any idea of heaven, and "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" won't mean anything to us. As Peter says, since we're heaven-bound, and since we know this earth is only temporary, we ought to live holy and godly lives (2 Peter 3). Mostly I think we know what that means: living lives worthy of our true homeland. Something to keep in mind.

So in the days and weeks ahead, I plan to pay careful attention to these eternal things: God's amazing love, the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, our heavenly homeland and destination.

Now that’s good news!

I've been reading Hebrews chapter 2, which opens with this rhetorical device:

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

Hebrews 2:1-3

Which I might paraphrase as: "You thought the Torah was big? It was, but this is huge!"

As it turns out, I do think the Torah was big. Huge, actually. I was thinking about this the other day, and the beauty and power of Genesis 1 overwhelmed me. I didn't quite start weeping in public, but this story was truly Good News for Modern Man (back when "Modern" meant 12th century BC). I mean, I can't express what good news it must have been to these people to hear the astonishing outrageous truth that God created us by fiat (not by killing some other being), and that he created us to rule with him. I mean he gave us a new name -- regent, not robotic slave. That was amazing good news! It makes me think of 1 John 3:1 -- "Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called children of God." Wow! What could be better than that?

And now the author of Hebrews is telling us that this salvation, whatever it is, is even bigger than all that. It must be huge! And I guess it is. Peter tells us that even angels long to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12), and Paul says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

It makes me think that God was looking forward to blessing humankind, preparing a present for us and anticipating the joy of giving us the great good news, a present even greater than the gift of a new name given to us in Genesis 1. Words fail me, but I can enjoy thinking about His goodness.

About those quotations ...

Earlier I asked how the author of Hebrews knew that certain Old Testament passages referred to Christ. Some of the passages pretty much explain themselves -- since David wrote Psalm 110, according to the Lord Jesus himself:

He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says,

" 'The Lord said to my Lord:
      "Sit at my right hand
   until I put your enemies
      under your feet." '

Matthew 22:43-44

This one seems pretty plain -- who else could David possibly be writing about? Here, "my Lord" would have to be somebody with a position higher than David the King, and "The Lord" (in English Old Testaments this is usually rendered "The Lord said to my Lord") refers to God the covenant-maker and creator. Here "my Lord" pretty much has to be some sort of not-merely-human King.

Similar reasoning applies to Psalm 45:6-7: Although Psalm 45:1 says these verses are addressed to "the king", verses 6-7 are addressed to "God" (so we're not talking about King David or any of the other merely human kings -- not to mention that no merely human throne will last forever). And yet the passage also refers to "your God."

What about those other verses? And the larger question -- how should we read the Old Testament today? I don't have this 100% figured out, but I did find some articles from First Things magazine. One point to consider as we try to understand the Bible is our attitude toward the text. Creighton University Professor R.R. Reno wrote in "The Bible Inside and Out" (April 2008):

Modern scholars want to master the Bible. We can see this in their often smug conclusions. “Well,” we are told, “this or that biblical story is really about sustaining the ideology of the Jerusalem cult.” In contrast, religious readers want to be mastered.

(Professor Reno's article is a review of Professor James L. Kugel's 2007 book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now; I plan to check it out from the local library.)

Indeed we do! It is not wrong to ask what actually happened in some historical setting, but it is also important to ask what a particular passage might mean to us -- which is not limited to what its original readers would have understood it to mean. Thus when Matthew describes the Holy Family's flight to Egypt and quotes Hosea 11:1, or Hebrews 1:5 quotes 2 Samuel 7:14 about Solomon, the New Testament authors aren't simply taking the words of Scripture as they would have been understood in their original (centuries-old) historical context. Rather, they were interpreting them allegorically. But as University of Virginia Professor Robert Louis Wilken writes:

Allegory fell on hard times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the charm of beloved works of English literature such as Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress lies in the imaginative use of allegory, biblical scholars banished the term from their vocabulary.
...

The root meaning of allegory is that there is another sense, another meaning, besides the plain sense. Sarah and Hagar are not simply names of the wives of Abraham; they also signify two covenants, one associated with Sinai and the other with the Jerusalem above. The rock in the desert that Moses struck and from which water flowed is not simply a rock; it is also Christ.

Allegory is not distinctive to Christian exegesis of the Old Testament. It was used by Greek literary scholars in the ancient world to interpret the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and it was employed by Jewish thinkers—for example, Philo of Alexandria—to interpret the Pentateuch.

Christian allegory has similarities to this kind of allegory, but what sets it apart is that it is centered on Christ. Allegory in Christian usage means interpreting the Old Testament as a book about Christ. St. Ambrose wrote: “The Lord Jesus came and what was old was made new.” Everything in the Scriptures is to be related to him. As a medieval commentator put it, “All of divine scripture is one book, and that one book is Christ, because all of divine scripture speaks of Christ, and all of divine scripture is fulfilled in Christ.”

Robert Louis Wilken, "How to Read the Bible"
First Things, March 2008

I hope you'll read the entire article, as it's currently online. Wilken's point is supported by the Apostle Paul: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4).

Allegory, particularly the view that the entire Bible is about Christ, is still having a hard time. Professor Reno, as general editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, sought authors in theologians rather than Biblical scholars. A few remarks have come from these scholars:

In a review, Pauline Viviano denounced the “spurious typologies” in Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 and 2 Kings, ending with the stern admonition that “commentaries on the Bible should be left to biblical scholars.” No trespassing!

Philip Cary’s commentary on Jonah apparently disturbed another biblical scholar, Barbara Green. “The book,” she wrote, “features Jesus on virtually every page.” Shocking, simply shocking. This clearly needs to be brought to the attention of the proper authorities.

R.R. Reno, "Recovering the Bible", First Things Online, February 2009

I don't want to sound overly pietistic, but for Christ's sake (literally!) let's please remember the point: Jesus Christ is the one hope of the world, and the Bible tells us about Him. As the Lord Jesus Christ himself said:

"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.

John 5:39-40, The Message

The Bible's main purpose is to tell us of Christ; it is not Christ's main purpose to tell us of the Bible. So let's seek him first, as he told us to.

To which of the angels did God ever say...?

The theme of Hebrews 1 seems to be that Jesus is greater than the angels, and here the author gives his main argument. It's a pretty good one, too.

The question, "To which of the angels did God ever say...?" appears twice in the chapter, once in verse 5 and again in verse 13, effectively bookending the passage. There are about a half-dozen quotes here; let's categorize them.

	Quotations addressed to...	Quotations simply about...
...the Son	(verse 5) "You are my son" - from Psalm 2:7 (verses 8-9) "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever" - from Psalm 45:6-7 (verses 10-12) "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth" - from Psalm 102:25-27 (verse 13) "Sit at my right hand" - from Psalm 110:1	(verse 5) "I will be his father" - about Solomon, as a foreshadowing of Christ, from 2 Chronicles 7:14 (verse 6) "Let all God's angels worship him" - from Deuteronomy 32:43 (Septuagint version) (about both angels and the Son)
... angels	(none)	(verse 6) "Let all God's angels worship him" - from Deuteronomy 32:43 (Septuagint version) (about both angels and the Son) (verse 7) "He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire" from Psalm 104:4

I find these quotes fascinating. I'm sure I don't understand them 100%, but did you notice that the passages about the Son or addressed to the Son outnumber the quotes about angels? One could argue that the author of Hebrews is selecting quotes to make his point, but really, where in the Bible do you ever have God addressing an angel? We usually just hear about it second-hand.

So "God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth" for example (Luke 1:26). Or we just read, "But the Angel of the Lord called" (Genesis 22:11). True, God did speak directly to Satan (Job 1:7, 2:2-6) but that's not the kind of angel we're talking about here. In any case, the Bible doesn't talk a whole lot about angels, but there is a lot about Messiah, and there's a lot that God says to Messiah too.

Which brings up another point, viz., How does the author of Hebrews know that all these quotations are in fact talking about the Son? That is a huge question, because it underlies not only the book of Hebrews, but a lot of other parts of the New Testament. I'll make the observation for now that to a certain extent, the author of Hebrews reads the Old Testament the way the Lord Jesus Christ read the Old Testament. Consider verse 13, quoting Psalm 110:1. Jesus Christ himself also quotes this verse, identifying the addressee as the Christ (Matthew 22:41-44).

I know that's not an answer, because it just pushes the question one level back (How did Jesus himself identify the addressee as the Christ? Do you have to be God to know what the Old Testament means?) -- but I think it is humanly possible to get a pretty good idea of what these things mean. Not that I have it figured out though! More on this will come in later postings.

Became superior to the angels?

So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. (Hebrews 1:4, emphasis added)

What does that mean, that Jesus became superior to the angels? Was he inferior to them before that?

To answer the second question first: No, the Lord Jesus Christ was never inferior to the angels (or any created thing) in terms of moral excellence for example. But there was a time when the Lord

...made himself nothing,
taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:7-8

Thus he took on a lower position, temporarily. And actually, looking at this passage from Philippians, we see a similar question: does "became obedient" mean that Jesus was disobedient before?

Of course not! But until he actually went through the experience of obeying to the point of death, Paul tells us, we couldn't say he was obedient unto death. After that, Paul says:

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Philippians 2:9-10

So Jesus took a lower position, and then got a higher one, and it says God gave him the name that's above every name. This wasn't a renaming, like Abram → Abraham or Simon → Peter; (note that the text says "at the name of Jesus" -- that didn't change) rather, Jesus acquired something more like a rank or title.

There's more about this later on in the letter, but what does this mean for you and me? Here's something that came to mind: position (or the lack thereof) doesn't necessarily imply any intrinsic superiority (or inferiority). In his Word Studies in the New Testament, Vincent comments (online version) about this word, κρείττων: "It does not indicate here moral excellence, but dignity and power."

So if I don't have a high position, that doesn't mean I'm inferior -- or the reverse for that matter. And so we can be free from anxiety about position. Easier said than done, (for me too). But knowing that Jesus took on a lower position for a few decades -- that helps.

And about that word...

As I mentioned earlier, the author of Hebrews loves to talk about how great Jesus is. In reading Vincent, I noticed his comment that the word translated "better" (viz., κρείττων) appears 13 times in Hebrews.

Interesting, no? Paul uses the word 4 times, and Peter twice, according to the Englishman's Greek Concordance. Out of 19 instances of this word in the entier New Testament, 13 (68%) are here in the book of Hebrews.

Which gives me another slant on the theme of this book: better. More on that later!

Heir, creator, radiance, image, sustainer, priest, regent

I mentioned earlier that the author of Hebrews loves to talk, or write, about how great Jesus is. The author's theme in chapter 1 is about how Jesus is greater than the angels. But take a look at what he says before he even gets started on that:

God... has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high...

from Hebrews 1:1-3
(from memory; NIV here)

Quite a mouthful, I'd say. In at least one version, verse 4 is part of the same sentence as verse 3 -- "sat down at the right hand... ⁴having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs" -- but I'm getting ahead of myself. OK, so let's list 'em up -- before even getting into the angels thing, what does he say about Jesus?

"whom he appointed heir of all things"

The picture I have of "heir" is the one who inherits stuff when the master dies. But since God isn't going to die, how will the son inherit anything? Well, even before the master dies, the son has some authority. And the entire estate knows that the heir will be the master someday, so the servants (angels in this case, but again I'm getting ahead of myself) obey him.

A biological heir (Jesus is that, too, as the only begotten son John 3:16) also inherits the master's hair and eye color and a bunch of other physical and psychological characteristics.

"and through whom he made the universe."

The Bible begins, "In the beginning God created" and this part tells us that the Son, Jesus Christ, was the agent in creation. Paul tells us (Colossians 1:16) that all things were created by and for Jesus.

"the radiance of God's glory"

Some translations say "reflection of God's glory"; I think one says "brightness". The Message has "This Son perfectly mirrors God". Which is correct?

The word translated "radiance" (ἀπαύγασμα) is apparently used only here in the New Testament, so that makes it a little harder to tell. According to Bauer/Arndt/Gingrich (BAG), the word is used in contemporary literature in both the active and passive sense. Probably it's not that important that we know the exact sense, though what I like about the active sense is that it supports a nice illustration of the trinity that I heard from the teenager: if we imagine the sun as being like God the Father in some way, and the sunlight like Jesus Christ, and the warmth we feel (and the photosynthesis that happens, etc.) like the Holy Spirit, we can appreciate that the sun and the light and the warmth are three aspects but one identity.

"and the exact representation of his nature"

Paul reinforces this again, and again in Colossians 1: "He is the image of the invisible God."

By the way, this was never said about anyone else.

"sustaining all things by his powerful word"

I should have combined this with the previous one. Paul in Colossians 1 says: "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

"provided purification for sins"

This shows Jesus as a great high priest (which the author will have a lot more to say later on in the book) -- but wait, he provided purification for sins; he himself is the sacrifice! John tells us a little more:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:1-2

Remember that Christmas song, "We Three Kings"? There's a line in there too:

Glorious now behold him arise; King and God and Sacrifice

"sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven"

We'll see more about this near the end of the chapter.

And that's just the first three verses

What a great introduction to this marvelous book about our glorious Lord!

Jesus: Not Just Another Prophet

I've been wondering about my Bible reading plan for 2010, and thought I'd try doing Hebrews, as I did some years ago.

Why Hebrews? Because the author loves talking about how great the Lord Jesus Christ is. Here's what I mean: Looking at Hebrews 1:1-2, we can see a number of contrasts:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (NIV)

Quite a sentence! Let me translate that into engineer-speak:

When?	God spoke...	whom?
In the past	in various ways through	the prophets
these last days	by	his Son

And besides all that, no prophet was appointed heir of all things, neither was any prophet God's agent in creating the universe!

Now both the NIV and the Message draw a distinction between God's speaking through the prophets vs. by his Son ("directly through" in the Message). Although the Greek preposition is identical ("ἐν" the prophets... "ἐν" his Son), I believe these editors are correct in contrasting the English prepositions, given the phrase "in various ways" (or "at sundry times and in divers manners" in the King James).

That the Son is the message, rather than simply speaking the message, is a theme that John has in John 1, where he refers to Jesus Christ as "the Word" -- and in 1 John 1:1-3:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ... We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul also is quite clear that Jesus is qualitatively different from the usual prophet; he tells us that Jesus "is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15).

In other words, Jesus is not just another prophet, as important as prophets are. He is, rather, the one the Prophets (including John the Baptist) spoke of.

So what? Here's what: as we heard in this weekend's sermon, we can take the regrets we cannot fix to a God who cannot fail; we can take them to Jesus.