Opening: Past and Future Eternity
In chapter 1 the
author states the most honorable and exalted things that he possibly can about
Jesus. The audience is thus conditioned how to label Jesus or acclaim him. In
the traditional culture of the author, appeal is regularly made to authority,
in this case the most solemn of authorities, the Scriptures. In a chain of
quotations form the Psalms and other biblical writings, the author unmistakably
calls Jesus “God” (1:8; cf. Ps 45:6) and predicates of him divine eternity,
both eternity in the past and imperishability in the future.
Citing Ps 102:25-27,
the author first acclaims Jesus’ eternity in the past. We have already
been told that it is Jesus “through whom God made the world” (1:2b). Of him the
psalm says: “Thou, Lord founded the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are
the work of your hands” (1:10). Thus biblical texts (Psalm 102 in Heb 1:10 and
Psalm 2 in Heb 1:5) speak to Jesus’ past, namely, to his eternity before
creation. The author balances this with further remarks form Psalm 102 about his
eternity in the future.
They will perish, but
you remain,
they will grow old like a garment
(like a mantle) you will roll them up.
And they will be changed.
but you are the same
and your years are without end.
(Heb 1:11-12; cf. Ps 102:26-27)
Unlike the perishable
world, which is subject to change, Jesus is imperishable and will not change.
He “remains” and his “years are without end.”
Eternity in both past
and future would seem to be the plain meaning of Psalm 102. If so, it speaks
unmistakably of Jesus as a true god according to commonplace Hellenistic
characteristics of a true deity. This may be confirmed by noting another
commonplace about a true god that is here predicated of Jesus: he is said to
have the two basic powers of God, creative and executive, a concept discussed
earlier in regard to Romans. As we have seen in Heb 1:2 and 10, Jesus exercises
“creative power,” whereby he caused the world to be.
Likewise 1:8 tells us
that Jesus enjoys “executive power”: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever,
the righteous scepter if the scepter of your kingdom.” The author expresses
this sense of Jesus’ complete sovereignty in other terms, calling him “the heir
of all things” (1:2) who is “seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high”
(1:3).
Yet one quickly notes
that the author of Hebrews seems considerably more interested in Jesus’
imperishability and eternity in the future than he is in his eternity in the
past. Using Psalm 110:4 as another indisputable authority, the author argues
that Jesus’ future existence is proclaimed: “You are a priest forever” (Heb
5:6; 7:3, 17, 21). God’s oath establishes Jesus’ future eternity in the precise
role of a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Yet as this study has
shown, Melchizedek is himself described in the terms used of a true god,
uncreated/ungenerated in the past and imperishable in the future (7:3). (Jerome
H. Neyrey, Render to God: New Testament Understandings of the Divine [Minneapolis,
Minn.: Augsburg Fortress, 2004], 238-39)