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Where creation and redemption are concerned, God, conceived of as `invisible', needs Christ as His `Image'
(Col. 1:14-16). God, when expressed by Christ as His `equal', necessitated `the form of God' (Phil. 2:6). God, as
regards His `substance', required the `express image' of His Son to complete His `manifestation' in the realm of the
conditioned and the visible. The reader may wonder why we use the word `substance' as the A.V. of Hebrews 1:3
uses the word `Person'. The A.V., however, translates this same word `substance' in Hebrews 11:1, where the
translation `person' would be impossible. The R.V. reads `The very image of His substance', reading in the margin,
`The impress of His substance'. In the Greek the word is hupostasis. It is a compound of hupo, `under', and
histanai, `to stand'. The Latin equivalent is similar, sub meaning `under' and stare meaning `to stand', hence `to
stand under', `substance'. Philosophers distinguish it from `accidents', i.e., shape, colour, weight, texture, etc., all or
most of which can be removed without altering the hidden reality. A brick is red, but the redness can be removed;
the brick is solid, but it may be reduced to dust, yet the `substance' will remain. This substance, however, underlies
all phenomena, but is itself invisible and intangible. We do not handle or see `matter' itself, we are only conversant
with its many manifestations. So God is invisible and intangible, no one has ever seen Him or heard His voice, but
Christ is the `express Image' of His hidden `substance', bringing the invisible into the realm of the visible; the
intangible into the realm of the ponderable.
It will readily be understood therefore that when conflict and error caused the great Creeds of the church to come
into being, this word hypostasis was used with regard to the being of God, the divine nature or essence, in respect of
which the three Persons of the Trinity are one.
Hypostasis is that which underlies all outward manifestation. The word occurs in the LXX and must be taken
into account:
`My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of
the earth' (Psa. 139:15).
Verse 13 of the Psalm speaks of the period of birth, but verse 15 of something far more mysterious. The secret
thing wrought in the lower parts of the earth the LXX calls `my hypostasis', and this hypostasis is to birth (verse 13)
what the `substance' of Hebrews 1:3 is to the `express Image'.
We return to Hebrews 1 to learn another lesson.
`God in times past spake to the fathers by the prophets' (verse 1).
`God in these last days has spoken to us in Son' (verse 2).
`In Son' does not seem to give good sense: `in His Son' or `in the Son' sounds correct, but `in Son' does not
sound English. The truth is that, not English, but Hebrew, comes to the fore here. In Exodus 6:3 the Hebrew reads
B'el Shaddai, `in God Almighty'. To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob God appeared `in God Almighty': to their New
Testament descendants He speaks `in Son'. Here in Hebrews 1:1 and 2, `the prophets' are contrasted with `the Son'.
The prophets were messengers sent by God, but in the person of the Son, God became incarnate, He came Himself!
After the humiliation and death of the cross, comes the resurrection and the glory. The Saviour ascends up
where He was before (John 6:62); He returns to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was (John
17:5), but, beyond that, as the Redeemer, He receives from the Father added glory; glory which may be seen and
shared by His own (John 17:22-24).
We do not speak of the `divinity' of Christ but of His deity.
`He is not the most eminent and ancient of the creatures, decorated by the necessities of a theological
controversy with That Name which a serious piety can dare to yield to One Being alone. Ascribe to the Christ of
Arius an antiquity as remote as you will from the age of the Incarnation, place him as high as can be conceived,
above the highest archangel; still, what, after all, is this ancient, this super-angelic being but a creature who had a