`God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in

these last days spoken unto us by His Son' (Heb. 1:1,2).

Many pages have been written in the attempt to express accurately the meaning of `sundry times' and `divers

manners', but so far as we are concerned, all we need to remember is that the Old Testament Scriptures wherein God

spake to the fathers were given over a long period of time through the ministry of many prophets, and that a variety

of means was adopted, law, prophecy and type bulking large. Let it suffice, with Moffatt, that `many were the forms

and fashions' that God employed, or with Weymouth `in many distinct messages and by various methods' or even

with Theodoret (A.D. 386) `in various dispensations, pantodapas oikonomias', God has spoken. What is important is

that in Hebrews 1:2 we are compelled to face a wondrous change and focus our attention on one glorious Person:

`Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son',

the transition being easily visualized as follows:

A In sundry times (i.e. in earlier dispensations).

B Unto the fathers.

C By the prophets.

A In these last days (i.e. in the opening of the New Testament).

B Unto us (The Hebrews).

C By His Son.

It is interesting to see that Theodoret uses the word `dispensation' and the reader may be further interested to

know that Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 192) uses the word at least fifty times in his writings. The way many

believers speak today of `Dispensationalism' one would think that it was some newly invented catch-word of

`In these last days'. When Paul refers to the last days in his epistles to Timothy, he is looking down the centuries

to the closing days of the present dispensation; here in Hebrew 1:2 the closing days of the Jewish dispensation are

intended. The true reading of Hebrews 1:2 suggests the translation `at the end of these days' (see note in The

Companion Bible). The Rabbis divided time into `this age' or `the coming age'. Peter uses the expression in Acts 2

in this sense, `for to take his words in any other sense (as some do for the last days of the world) is to make an

allegation utterly impertinent and monstrous' (Dr. J. Lightfoot). Some see in `these last days' the commencement of

the new dispensation which goes right on unto the Second Coming of Christ. Alford's comment on this is, `It is not

of a beginning, but of an expiring period, the writer is speaking'. The Gospel according to Matthew is most

obviously a continuation of the Old Testament; the new dispensation of the grace of God awaited the resurrection of

the Saviour and the commission of the apostle Paul. The parable puts it like this:

`But last of all (not first of all) He sent unto them His Son, saying, They will reverence My Son' (Matt. 21:37).

The sending of the Son represents therefore a climax. It is evident from the reading of the A.V. that `the Son' is

placed in antithesis with `the prophets', but the reader may wonder why the word his is printed in italics in the A.V.

Usually the italicized words in the A.V. are added by the translators, but when we remove the word `His' it leaves

an unreadable phrase, `by Son'. We discover that the preposition translated `by' is en `in', but still we may feel `in

Son' to be a strange way of speaking. God did not speak through the Son as He had spoken through the prophets or

even as He had spoken in the prophets; at last God became incarnate, no longer using the mouth of an Isaiah, or a

Jeremiah, but partaking of human flesh and blood, God spake `IN SON'. Moses, the greatest of the prophets, we

learn, was after all but a servant, Christ is the Son (Heb. 3:5,6).

God is invisible; Christ is the image of the invisible God. No one hath seen God at any time; in Old Testament

days the Word revealed Him, and in the last of the days, the Word made flesh revealed Him. Theology often

mystifies, and by such unscriptural expressions as `the eternal generation of the Son' has made the Word of God of

none effect. We sometimes read or hear, `The Old Testament reveals the Father. The Gospels the Son, and the

Epistles the Spirit'. This is untrue. Shut up to the Old Testament, what should we know of God as Father? The