 |  |
verb ginomai "to become". This is no mere academic distinction, it is vital to the true
understanding of these momentous verses. This distinction is observed in John 1: 1 & 3:
"In the beginning was (eimi to be) the Word."
"All things were made (ginomai to become) by Him."
Or in John 8: 58:
"Before Abraham was (ginomai), I am (eimi)."
The glory of Heb. 1: 3 is the glory which the Saviour had as The Word, The Image,
the Form of God, before the creation of the world, before the beginning. The glory of
Heb. 1: 4 is the glory which has been given to the Saviour as a consequence of His
work of Redeeming Love. In the one glory none can share, it is "unapproachable"
(I Tim. 6: 16); in the other glory, the redeemed will share (John 17: 22).
We must not translate the word "brightness" as though it were a reflection:
"The Son of God is, in this His essential majesty, the expression and the sole
expression of the Divine light--not, as in His incarnation, its reflection" (Alford).
Apaugasma, "brightness", does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament. Augazo
the lesser form of the word occurs in II Cor. 4: 4 where it is translated "shine". Other
variants found in the New Testament are auge "break of day" (Acts 20: 11); diaugazo
"dawn" (II Pet. 1: 19) and where the Received Text reads diaphanes "transparent", some
critical texts read diauges in Rev. 21: 21. Both Paul, and the Hebrews to whom he
wrote, were familiar with the writings of the Apocrypha, and so would be reminded by
his words of the passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, where speaking of Wisdom it says:
"She is the breath of the power of God . . . . . she is the brightness of the everlasting
light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God and the image of His goodness."
Here, the word "brightness" is the Greek apaugasma, and standing alone in the
Apocrypha, cannot but have some bearing upon the apostle's intention in Hebrews. Most
readers have a passing acquaintance with the findings of science, even though none of us
would venture to express opinions in a domain so far removed from our personal
experiences. But most, if not all of our readers, will know that light is itself INVISIBLE.
Should any doubt this, a few experiments would help. For example, I see the paper on
which these words are being written, because the light which is coming through the
window, and which falls upon the sheet of white paper before me, is reflected by the
surface of the paper to my eye, but I do not see the light that is reflected as a visible
beam. Again, when I see a beam of sunlight tracing its gleaming path along a passage, it
would be excusable perhaps to say "that shows that light is visible, you can see the
beam". Strictly speaking, you see thousands of gleaming motes of dust floating in the
path of the light. If a red hot wire be introduced into the beam of light, a dark patch will
surround the wire, simply because the dust reflectors are destroyed but the light itself
goes on. Again, we are all familiar with the term "infra red" and "ultra violet" rays.
These are rays of light that lie on either side of the spectrum (the rainbow colours); they
are powerful in their action, but invisible to the eye. One can therefore assume that God