Heb. 1: 2 the closing days of the Jewish dispensation are intended. The true reading of

Heb. 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:

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 allusions to God as a Father may be counted

upon the fingers; this is true also of the Son. Sonship and Fatherhood commence

together; a man is not a father until his child is born. This in no wise touches either the

Deity or the pre-existence of Christ, for as the Word He was in the beginning, and was

When the Word became flesh, then His glory, as the only begotten of the Father, could

be seen. Christ was not man when "in the form of God", but when He took upon Him

"the form of a servant" He was "made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2: 6, 7). There is

need for more care than has been used among us with regard to the titles of God; how

many have used the argument to belittle Christ that the Father is greater than the Son.

This has power only upon the mind if the word Father and God are considered

synonymous. What we need to realize more is that the invisible God has manifested

Himself to us in the Person of the Father as well as in the Person of the Son, and that