Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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and
298 Hebrews I. 4.
the Ncio Testament revelation; this appears partly, from the context
the train of thought, inasmuch as it was the business of the
author to demonstrate the pre-eminence of the new dispensation
over the old, partly from the yevofievog " become" (by no means —
wi'),
partly, from the KeKXrjpovonriKev^ has inherited.
The argument for the superior dignity of the organ of the
New Testament revelation is derived from this—that God already
under the old dispensation assigned to the future Messiah whom he
there promised, a name which plainly enough declared, that this
promised future Messiah should be at the same time the eternal
Son of the same nature with the Father. In this light, and from
this point of view, then, are to be understood also the itarticular
proofs adduced from the Old Testament ver. 5-14, and so understood
they present no difficulty. They can only then appear difficult and
obscure when it is supposed that the author meant them to prove,
that a dignity superior to the angels was ascribed in the Old Testament
either to the Logos as such, or to the historical individual
Jesus as such. Nothing of this, however, is said even in the remotest
degree. The author lays down the thesis, that the Son'va.
his quality as organ of the New Testament revelation is exalted
above the angels, and in proof of this he appeals to the fact, that
the Old Testament ascribes to the
IMessiah this dignity, namely his
being the Son of God, in a manner which is not atlirmed of the
angels. As a middle member between that thesis and this proof,
nothing farther needs to be supplied than the presuj}2Wsition that
the Son ver. 1-3 is identical tvith the Messiah projniscd in the Old
Testament. But that the readers of the Epistle did presuppose
this, that by the vlog ver. 1-3 in whom God has revealed himself
"at the end of this time" (consequently in the '• Messianic time ;"
see above) they understood Jesus
Christ, and again that they held
Christ to be the Messiah, will surely not require to be proved here.
KpdTTCjv—the author uses the same expression, in itself quite relative
and indefinite, also in the analogous comparisons chap. vii. 19
and 22, viii. G and ix. 23, x. 34, etc. The Son is superior to the
angels, because (in as far as) "he has obtained as an inheritance a
more distinguished name than they." On the idea of the inheritance
sec the remarks on ver. 2. The act of the inheriting is one
performed in time; nothing is said of the Logos as eternally preexistent.
But neither is it anything that took place in the time of
Jesus that is spoken of ; the author does not refer to those events
recorded in Matth. iii. 17, xvii. 5, in which the voice of the Father
from heaven to Jesus said : This is my beloved Son. The author
could not in consistency with his plan refer to these events ;
for his
object was to prove his particular theses and doctrines from the records
of the Old Testament itself, for the -sake of his readers, who