I N D E X
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The hidden unknown characteristics of God are the hupostasis (substance) of which the Son, God manifest in the
flesh, is the Express Image. It is well to remember that the Greek of the New Testament is a language used by men
who thought in Hebrew, or at least had been trained in the Jewish school. The LXX therefore becomes of great
service to us, showing us the Hebrew equivalents for these Greek words. In Psalm 139:15 (A.V. numbering) we
read:
`My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of
the earth'.
Verse 13 speaks of the period of birth, but this verse speaks of something far more mysterious. This secret thing,
wrought in the lower parts of the earth, the LXX calls `my hupostasis', and this hupostasis is to birth (13) what the
Substance of Hebrews 1:3 is to the Express Image. While the verse which follows does not contain the same word
in the LXX, it is nevertheless an expansion of the meaning of hupostasis.
`Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them'.
In the earlier verses of the Psalm there is found this same thought of something hidden and unseen except by
God (See verses 2 and 4). Another passage where the word occurs in the LXX, is Psalm 39:5 `Behold, thou hast
made my days as an handbreath; and mine age (hupostasis) is as nothing'. Here the word `age' is in Hebrew cheled,
something that creeps imperceptibly, and so not manifest. `Time slips our notice and unheeded flies'. The Syriac
version used cheled to translate, `to creep in' in 2 Timothy 3:6.
Psalm 69:2 gives us an example of the simpler concept of `standing'. Our own word `understanding' is a faculty
of the mind, a meaning we can very well imagine a would-be expositor ridiculing, who simply used the dissecting
knife and limited himself to the etymology `stand' `under'. In the New Testament we find hupostasis used in the
sense of `confidence', a most natural development of the idea of underlying reality, 2 Corinthians 9:4; 11:17;
Hebrews 3:14.
Hebrews 11:1 reads, `Now faith is the substance of things hoped for', something real, though not seen. The
unseen faith of the worthies that occupy Hebrews 11 was manifested in their lives. Their hupostasis had its express
image in their lives and conduct. One thing was common to them all. They lived, suffered, and died for something
`unseen', or `seen afar off'; they endured as seeing Him Who is invisible. If faith is the substance of things hoped
for, we can use either term with good sense. Instead of the words, `By faith Abel ... Noah, Abraham', we can say,
By the conviction produced by the substance (the deep hidden reality) of things hoped for, Abel, Noah, Abraham did
this or that.
Christ is the charakter of God's hupostasis. No law or set of laws, no fasts, feasts, or sacrifices, no series of
typical men could ever be the Express Image; Christ alone is that. It is this thought that permeates the epistle to the
Hebrews. It is because of this that the title occurs here. It is essential to its true understanding that we remember
that it would not have been employed if the theme of the epistle had not demanded it. Because Christ, and Christ
alone, is the Express Image, He is above angels (Heb. 1), above Moses (Heb. 3), and Joshua (Heb. 4), above the high
priesthood of the order of Aaron (5-8), above all typical sacrifices and offerings (9-10), and above all examples and
patterns (12:1,2). None but Christ in every phase of His charakter can express the glorious hupostasis of the
invisible God.
No prophet, however closely he walked with God, could ever be `The Express Image of the Divine Substance'.
This is the prerogative of Him Who is the Image of the invisible God, originally the Form of God and called in
John's gospel the Logos. As such He must set aside all types and shadows. They were not `the very image' (Heb.
10:1), even as John 1:17 tells us that the law, with its types was given by Moses, but REAL GRACE, the true
antitypical reality, came by Jesus Christ.
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul had spoken of the passing glory that shone in the face of Moses, as contrasted
with the abiding glory seen in the face of Jesus Christ, and in the epistle to the Hebrews in which the writer seeks to
wean these believers from the `Word of the BEGINNING of Christ' and to lead them on to `perfection', he brings
them, in the opening verses of his exhortation, into the presence of Him in Whom dwells `all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily'.