More significant, however, is the way in which the author highlights the radical discontinuity between this diverse way of God revealing himself and the now climactic revelation that has come in Christ. The revelation that has come in the Son has come “in these last days.” But just exactly why are these days “the last?”

The answer to that question points us again to God’s revelation. The reason these days are the last days, is because God’s last revelation has been given. The “days” of God’s calendar are, in other words, defined not first of all by their length or their number on a calendar. The days of God are defined by the kind or category of revelation that he gives at a particular time in history.

To put the matter another way, if these days were not the last, then there would necessarily be another, and more, revelation that God would give in history. Not only so, but the clear implication would be, from what the author says, that the revelation given “in a Son” was itself insufficient and incomplete; more, better, and clearer revelation would still be needed.

But the logic of the author’s argument in these first few, magnificently rich verses is striking in its opposition to such an idea. This Son, in whom God has now lastly spoken, is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” It would be difficult to find a more exalted description of Christ. The two phrases, “the radiance of the glory of God” and “the exact imprint of his nature,” are meant to say virtually the same thing in two different ways.

Students of the Bible will readily recognize echoes of the beginning of the Gospel of John in our passage. This should not be surprising, since, in spite of the different contexts and concerns of the author to the Hebrews and the apostle John, God authored both books. So, after John clearly sets forth the fact that the second person of the Trinity, the Word, is himself God (John 1:1), lest there be any mistake, he asserts, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

This Word, who is God, came down to dwell among us. And this One who came was not only the Word, he was the Son. John then recalls the time when he, with Peter and James, was given the opportunity, on the mountain, to see this Son in his eternal glory (Matt. 17:1–13, Mark 9:1–8). He recounts this event in the context of his declaration that the Word dwelt among us to emphasize that the dwelling with us in no way eliminated the great truth that this Word was God. His glory was “as of the only Son from the Father.” The glory that John saw was “the radiance of the glory of God.” It pointed to the fact that this Word, this Son, remained, even as he dwelt among us, “the exact imprint” of God’s very nature.

These Hebrew Christians would have understood that the glory of which the author spoke was the very glory of God—his shekinah presence with his people (see Ex. 24:15–18) that was now revealed in the Son.

Is it any wonder, then, that the revelation that has now been given in the Son is the final and completed revelation from God? If that revelation was not only “in the Son” but was, in fact, God himself revealing himself, is it even possible that there might be more, better, or clearer revelation to come in history? How could there be an expectation of “more” or “better” when the highest and exalted One himself has condescended to reveal himself to us? Wouldn’t any other revelation pale in comparison to the revelation that we have in the very Son of God himself, especially since this Son is the radiance of Yahweh’s glory and the exact imprint of his nature?

But notice that the author of Hebrews is not only concerned that we understand clearly who this Son is. That is crucial. But just as crucial is that we understand that the revelation that has come to us in the Son has not come simply and only in his person, but (and this is all-important for our purposes) God has spoken to us in this Son. The author is not concerned simply with Christ as personal revelation, but he is primarily concerned (in this passage) to emphasize that God has spoken to us in this One who is “true God of true God.”

In other words, it is the Person of the Word of God as he gives to his church the written Word of God that is paramount in the author’s mind. The point his readers need to see, as do we, is that God has spoken through this final and complete revelation of himself in his Son.

This Son, through whom God has finally and lastly spoken, is the one who, having made purification of sins, “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” There is no more exalted view of the authority of God to a Hebrew mind than this. To sit at God’s right hand is to have all the authority of God himself.  It is to be God himself in his sovereign capacity to reign (Pss. 60:5; 63:8; Matt. 26:64; Acts 2:33–34; 7:55; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Rev. 5:1, 7). So important is this to the author that he places the thought at strategic places in his letter (see Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). He wants his readers to understand that this Son who has spoken has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18).

The “truth” question and the “authority” question are all summed up in the Person. That much is clear. But for the church in “these last days,” the issues of truth and authority are summed up in the written Word of the Son in Holy Scripture. The truth of God and the authority of God are summed up in what God has spoken in his Son.

Has God Said?

But questions linger—questions that relate specifically to our current predicament. If God has spoken, how can we know such a thing? Don’t we need the foundation of our senses, or our mental faculties, or both, to know that God has spoken? And if our senses and mental faculties are subject to so many variables, how can they be trusted to give us anything but probability?

In Charles Dickens’s classic tale, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge meets the spirit of his old business partner, Jacob Marley, for the first time, seven years after Marley’s death. But Scrooge is initially skeptical:

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost. “I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that
of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight
disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an
undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a
fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than
of grave about you, whatever you are!”