COVENANTS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES
33
In Colossians 1:15 Christ is said to be `the Image of the invisible God', and it is evident that the word `image' is
placed over against the word `invisible' with intention. The A.V. translators apparently intended us to understand
that a different word was employed in the original of Hebrews 1:3, for there we read not `image' but `express
image'. The R.V. margin reads `impress'. However figurative the usage of such expressions as `express',
`impress', `oppress', `depress' and the like may be, the fundamental idea of `pressure' remains, and when we note
that the word employed in Hebrews 1:3 is the Greek charakter, we realize the reason for the translation given.
The Greek word charakter of course supplies us with the English `character'. The idea of `one's character', i.e.
one's personal qualities, is a secondary one, the primary meaning being a stamp, mark or sign engraved or stamped,
the `mark' of Revelation 13:16, according to Wycliffe's translation. The letters of the alphabet are called
`characters' as also the handwriting of a person.
`I found the letter ... You know the character to be your brother's?' (King Lear).
We no longer use the verb `to character' but in Shakespeare's day this was so:
`O Rosalind! these trees shall be my book
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character'
(As You Like It).
The Greek verb charatto means `to engrave' and is similar in sound to the Hebrew cheret `graving tool' (Exod.
32:4), and charath `to engrave' (Exod. 32:16). Charagma is used by Paul in Acts 17:29, when he said `we ought not
to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device'. Classical usage of
charakter shows that Plutarch employed it for letters engraved or inscribed on waxed tablets; Sextus Empericus for
the impressions or impressed images made by seals; Aristotle for stamping and coining money, literally `putting the
impress on it', giving a coin its `image and superscription'.
Philo, a learned Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, born a few years before Christ, and who in A.D. 40 petitioned
the Emperor Caligula, wrote very fully regarding the Logos, who is variously named The Image of God, the
Firstborn Son, His Shadow. He says in one place that the Logos is designated `the impressed seal of God'. We
found that the `brightness of His glory' looked back to the Tabernacle and its Shekinah, and we shall therefore not
be surprised to find that the figure of something engraven takes us back also to Old Testament imagery. The
apostle refers to the tables of the law as being `written and engraven in stones', while Exodus 28:11 and 36 speaks
of the engraving of the stones of the High Priest's ephod, and of his mitre, engraved with the words `Holiness to the
Lord'.
In Hebrews 1:3 Christ is set forth as `The character of His Person'. The introduction of the word `Person' here is
somewhat of an anachronism; the theological term `person' was not in use until after the first four centuries of the
Christian era, after the Arian controversy. The Greek word thus translated is hupostasis, and in none of its
occurrences elsewhere can the translation `person' be tolerated. Could we possibly say `Now faith is the person of
things hoped for'? (Heb. 11:1). Could we imagine the apostle saying `If we hold the beginning of our person
steadfast unto the end' (Heb. 3:14)? Yet the same Greek word is so translated in 1:3.
The English word `substance' is an exact equivalent of the Greek, but is derived from the Latin. Both hupo and
sub mean under; histanai and the Latin stare have similar meanings, both being capable of the meaning `to stand'.
The first meaning of the English word `substance' is not something physically solid as, for example, a brick, and the
statement that faith is anything but a `substance' is only true if this lower meaning of the word is intended.
A dictionary gives the undermentioned meanings to the word substance in the following order:
`Being; something that exists, something real, not imaginary; something solid, not empty; that which underlies
all outward manifestation; substratum; that which constitutes anything what it is; nature: real or existing essence;
the most important element in any existence; the characteristics of anything; anything that has a material form;
body; matter; estate, property. We call a noun a substantive because it designates something that exists, or some
object of thought, either material or immaterial'.
We have gone to this length of definition because if we merely say that hupostasis means substance, we use a
word of varied meanings. What we mean by substance here is `that which underlies all outward manifestations'.