Hebrews 1:1-2 — In these last days God has spoken to us by his Son
Hebrews 1:1-2 opens the letter with a salvation-historical vision: God, who previously spoke “at many times and in many ways” through the prophets, has “in these last days” (ep’ eschatôn tôn hêmerôn toutôn) spoken to us by his Son, whom he “appointed heir of all things” (ethêken klêronomon pantôn) and “through whom he also made the ages” (di’ hou kai epoiêsen tous aiônas). For the Socinians this is a sending-and-appointment statement, not proof of an eternally personally pre-existent second divine person. The Racovian Catechism reads the passage expressly as a predicate about the historical Christ: God spoke through him because he is the “interpreter and executor of the divine will”; and Sozzini himself shows in On Jesus Christ the Saviour (Book I, §3) that the “ages”, whose making v. 2 ascribes to the Son, are referred to him only after his appointment as heir — which is to say: only after his resurrection. Whoever turns Hebrews 1:1-2 against John 17:3 and 1 Timothy 2:5 into a locus classicus of eternal pre-existence ignores the wording, the syntax, and the very argumentative line of the Letter to the Hebrews.
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the ages.”
Hebrews 1:1-2
Context: the Letter to the Hebrews as an admonition to persecuted Jewish Christians
The Letter to the Hebrews belongs to the theologically densest writings of the New Testament. It was written, according to the prevailing scholarly view, between AD 60 and 70 to a predominantly Jewish-Christian community in distress: on the one hand under persecution (cf. Hebrews 10:32-34), on the other under an inner temptation to fall back into the synagogal Temple cult (Hebrews 6:4-6; 10:26-31). The author — not Paul, but, as Origen aptly remarked, “only God knows who” — answers this peril with a sustained comparison: the new surpasses the old; Christ is greater than the angels (Hebrews 1-2), greater than Moses (Hebrews 3-4), greater than the Levitical high priest (Hebrews 5-10).
It is precisely in this line of surpassing that the opening Hebrews 1:1-4 stands. It is an exordium, a solemn opening sentence, artfully constructed: God’s speaking in the past is contrasted with God’s speaking “in these last days”; seven predicates concerning the Son follow one another (vv. 2-3): he is appointed heir of all things, through him the ages are made, he is the radiance of glory, the imprint of the substance, he upholds all things by his powerful word, he has accomplished the purification of sins, he has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty. The whole catalogue culminates in the sitting at the right hand of God — an exaltation-and-appointment title from Psalm 110:1 which structures the entire letter.
Structurally v. 1 is set off from v. 2 by the adverb palai (“long ago”) and the prepositional phrase ep’ eschatôn tôn hêmerôn toutôn (“at the end of these days”). Both temporal expressions anchor God’s speaking in history, not in a timeless eternity. The temporal dimension is not an incidental feature of the verse but its principal dimension: God has spoken — then through prophets, now through the Son. This historical placement shapes the entire Socinian interpretation.
The patristic tradition, especially after Nicaea (325) and the post-Nicene consolidation of trinitarian language, read the seven predicates of vv. 2-3 predominantly ontologically: the “Son” is the second divine hypostasis, consubstantial with the Father, through whom the Father has from eternity created the world and revealed himself in time. Hebrews 1:1-2 thereby became the key text of a christological pre-existence doctrine which was dogmatically cemented in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Socinian reception. The Polish Brethren read the opening of Hebrews in exactly the opposite direction. The Racovian Catechism (1605) expressly cites Hebrews 1:2 as evidence that God “has spoken to us in these last times through his Son” — and that this is no proof of a divine double-nature but a predicate about Christ’s salvation-historical function as the “interpreter and executor of the divine will.” Fausto Sozzini, for his part, discusses the passage in De Iesu Christo Servatore (Book I, §3) and shows that the syntactic structure of v. 2 itself refutes the eternally pre-existent reading: the “ages” are referred to the Son in the very moment when he had already been appointed heir of all things — a condition that begins only after the resurrection. Three lines mark the Socinian reading: (1) consistent historicality (“in these last days”); (2) appointment-and-sending terminology (ethêken, aorist); (3) reading of the “ages” in the sense of the new salvation-order, not of the protological creation of the world.
Socinian core thesis
Hebrews 1:1-2 does not speak of an eternally pre-existent second God but of God’s last and definitive speaking in history through his Son. The pattern of statement is determined by two poles: God as the subject of every verb (he speaks, he has appointed, he has spoken through the Son), and the Son as medium and recipient of this mission (through him there is speaking; he is appointed; he inherits; through him the ages are framed). Whoever shifts one onto the other misses the elementary syntax of the verse.
For the Socinians, therefore, Hebrews 1:1-2 is read as a great sending-word: the Son is God’s personally constituted herald of the last days, who does not break the prophetic line but brings it to its close. He is not a second God consubstantial with the Father, who now — in a kind of inner-trinitarian division of labour — just happens to be taking his turn at speaking; he is the Son sent and appointed by God, through whom God himself accomplishes his definitive self-communication. The “by” (en hyiôi, instrumental-modal) marks the instrument, not the commissioning agent.
The central statement can be condensed into three words: elalêsen hêmin en hyiôi — “he has spoken to us in (through) the Son.” The Greek en is open to instrumental, modal, local, and medial meanings; at this point it is classically instrumental-medial: through the Son as means and mediator. This presents the Son as God’s instrument in the same linguistic form in which the prophets had previously been designated as instruments — though, to be sure, on a higher, conclusive level.
The Racovian Catechism puts this reading thus: “Since he is the Word of that one God, it is evident that he is not that one God himself” — an observation made primarily on John 1:1, but which recurs in Hebrews 1:1-2: since God speaks through the Son, it is evident that the Son is not the God who speaks through him. God’s speaking through someone linguistically presupposes that someone as another.
The second specification of v. 2 too — ethêken klêronomon pantôn, “he appointed him heir of all things” — is sending-and-appointment language, not an ontological assertion. An heir receives the inheritance from someone else; one who is appointed is appointed by the appointer. Both verbal forms exclude ontological self-subsistence. Here the asymmetry between Father and Son is not a softened embarrassment but a positive doctrinal point: God the Father is origin; the Son is the one appointed and empowered by him.
Sozzini in his own words: “The ages were founded after he had been appointed heir”
The methodologically sharpest engagement with Hebrews 1:2 is found in Sozzini’s De Iesu Christo Servatore (Book I, §3, within his argument that the New Testament statements about Christ’s pre-eminence do not refer to the creation of the world in Genesis 1, but to the new salvation-order constituted by the Gospel).
“That this is not about the literal creation of this world is shown by the circumstance that the same author affirms that through the one whom God appointed heir of all things, the ages too were founded. That this one is none other than that man Jesus is certain. Moreover, the word-order itself indicates that these ages were made after he had been appointed heir of all things — which occurred only after his resurrection, as Holy Scripture teaches in more than one place.”
Fausto Sozzini, On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore), Book I, §3
Sozzini’s argument is of astonishing exegetical acuity. He does not drive a dogmatic stake against the concept of pre-existence; he simply reads the sequence of the Greek sentence: first the Son is appointed heir (ethêken klêronomon), and then “through him” (di’ hou) the ages are framed. If the “making of the ages” were protological — that is, creation of the world in the Genesis 1 sense — it would have had to take place before the appointment as heir, since before the world there was no heir present. The order of the sentence, however, is the reverse: the appointment as heir (which by Old and New Testament usage is an act of exaltation, cf. Psalm 2:7-8; Psalm 110:1; Acts 13:33) is the precondition through which the “ages” receive their order and meaning.
This reading is supported by the Greek aiônes. Aiôn means first of all “age, aeon, world-time” — not primarily the cosmological matter of the world (for which kosmos would stand), but the salvation-historical epochs of God with humankind. The Letter to the Hebrews uses the word in the same sense in Hebrews 9:26 (“at the end of the ages”) and in Hebrews 11:3 likewise. So when v. 2 says that through the Son the aiônes have been made, what is meant is: through him the whole succession of salvation-epochs — up to the eschatological aeon — has been ordered toward its true destiny. This is precisely the work of the exalted Christ, who sits at the right hand of God and upholds all things “by his powerful word” (v. 3).
The Racovian Catechism complements this exegetical finding with a christological refinement. It calls Christ the “most excellent, indeed most outstanding and most divine interpreter and executor of the divine will among all, through whom, as is evident from what follows, God has accomplished the new creation of the world and of all things.” The “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:15; Galatians 6:15) is the biblical technical term for what Hebrews 1:2 expresses with tous aiônas: the order of the salvation-time constituted by Christ’s work, of which he is the head and beginning.
Exegesis: six key terms
Five to six key terms determine the interpretation of Hebrews 1:1-2 philologically and therefore theologically.
polymerôs kai polytropôs — “at many times and in many ways”
The alliteration polymerôs kai polytropôs is a rhetorically beautifully built opening: polymerôs refers to the multiplicity of prophetic voices (from Moses through Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, down to Malachi), polytropôs to the multiplicity of means (visions, dreams, the Sinai theophany, the bath-qol). What matters is the adverbial character of both terms: they qualify God’s speaking in the past, not the personhood of God himself. God was the same; only his mode of speaking was manifold.
This multiplicity is replaced in v. 2 by a single, gathered mode of speech: en hyiôi, “in the Son / through the Son.” Here there is no opposition between two natures (prophetic versus incarnational), but a salvation-historical heightening: God has gathered up his speaking and brought it to completion in a single Son fully his own. The contrast is quantitative-modal, not ontological.
ep’ eschatôn tôn hêmerôn toutôn — “at the end of these days”
The phrase is Semitizing (cf. Hebrew be-acharit ha-jamim) and corresponds in LXX usage to the eschatological time of fulfilment (Genesis 49:1; Numbers 24:14; Deuteronomy 4:30; Isaiah 2:2; Jeremiah 23:20; Hosea 3:5; Daniel 10:14). It denotes not the absolute end of the world but the salvation-historically qualified concluding section of the history of God with his people — the time in which the promises come to fulfilment.
This phrase is the hermeneutical key of the verse. It locates God’s speaking through the Son historically: now, in the time of fulfilment, he speaks this way. The Son is the eschatological speaker, not a timeless second speaker. This is a statement about the oikonomia — the salvation-historical order — not about an eternal self-differentiation of God in two or three persons.
Acts 2:17 cites Joel 3:1 (LXX) with the same phrase (en tais eschatais hêmerais) and applies it to the time of the outpouring of the Spirit — that is, to Pentecost. Peter thus uses exactly the same temporal concept as the Letter to the Hebrews: the last days are the present of the New Testament community, the qualitatively fulfilled time of salvation. Whoever cuts Hebrews 1:1-2 off from this New Testament use of the phrase and reinterprets it into a timeless eternity bursts the semantic evidence.
elalêsen hêmin en hyiôi — “he has spoken to us in (through) the Son”
The Greek construction en hyiôi is anarthrous: not “in the Son” in the sense of “in the Son”, but qualitative-modal: “in the manner of a son”, “in a son-like way”, “through one who is Son.” This construction emphasises the modality of God’s speaking: God speaks in a son-like way. He speaks as a Father who has a Son — and in this Son he speaks himself.
The “in / through the Son” marks not an identifying statement (“the Son is God”), but an instrumental-relational one (“through the Son God speaks”). The one who speaks is God; the one through whom he speaks is the Son. The form of speech thus syntactically excludes any identifying reading. Whoever reads God and Son in v. 2 as the same speaker has to delete the “he has spoken through him.”
The Racovian Catechism states this with great sharpness: “From the fact that Christ is the Word of God, that divine nature in Christ cannot be proved; rather the contrary is concluded therefrom. For since he is the Word of that one God, it is evident that he is not that one God.” The same line of argument applies to Hebrews 1:1-2: because God speaks through the Son, the Son cannot be the God who speaks through him.
ethêken klêronomon pantôn — “he appointed him heir of all things”
Ethêken is the aorist active of tithêmi (“to set, appoint, ordain”). The verbal form is punctually completed: God has (at a particular moment) appointed the Son. It is not an iterative or progressive verb; still less is it an eternally timeless state. The same word is used in the LXX in Psalm 2:7-8 (“I have appointed my king”) and in Psalm 109:1 (Psalm 110:1 LXX: “Sit at my right hand”). Both psalms are cited several times in the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:5; 5:5; 1:13; 5:6; 7:17; 10:12-13). They are appointment-psalms — messianic in the strictest sense: the appointment of the Anointed One as king.
So when v. 2 says that God appointed the Son heir of all things, this is according to Old Testament usage an act of exaltation: he, the Son of David according to the flesh (Hebrews 7:14; Romans 1:3-4), is at a particular moment declared universal heir — through death and resurrection. Acts 13:33 (Paul in Antioch) explicitly cites Psalm 2:7 of Jesus’ resurrection: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” — the “today” is Easter. Hebrews 1:5 cites the same psalm. The Hebrew theology of appointment as son is an Easter event, not a pre-temporal event.
Sozzini sees this movement clearly: “The word-order indicates that these ages were made after he had been appointed heir of all things — which occurred only after his resurrection.” The entire verse is thus interpreted salvation-historically and not ontologically: first Christ dies and rises, then he is appointed as heir, and in this heir’s standing he — as the living and glorified one — shapes the aeons.
di’ hou kai epoiêsen tous aiônas — “through whom he also made the ages”
The Greek plural aiônas is not equivalent to kosmos. Kosmos would be ordered world-matter; aiônes, on the other hand, are ages, aeons, the epochs of God’s history with humankind. The Letter to the Hebrews itself uses the word in 9:26 in this sense (“at the end of the ages he has appeared”) and in 11:3 likewise, very probably salvation-historically.
The prepositional phrase di’ hou (“through whom”) marks the Son as the means through which God shapes the ages. It does not mark him as origin; that would be ex hou (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul makes the strict distinction: from the one God, the Father, are all things — through the one Lord Jesus Christ). Hebrews 1:2 stands in the same line. The Father remains origin; the Son is mediation and heir.
Whoever derives a cosmogonic pre-existence from di’ hou epoiêsen tous aiônas misses the text twice over: he translates aiônas as “worlds / world-matter” (which it does not mean), and he overlooks the syntactic priority of the appointment as heir in the same sentence. Socinianly read, aiônas is the salvation-order of the last days, whose mediator and head is Christ — in the sense of what Paul calls the “new creation” and what the Letter to the Hebrews itself calls the “world to come” (Hebrews 2:5; tên oikoumenên tên mellousan).
apaugasma tês doxês and charactêr tês hypostaseôs (v. 3) — “radiance of glory” and “imprint of the substance”
Although the actual verse section is vv. 1-2, v. 3 belongs to the immediately following syntax and cannot be detached from a developed exposition. The word apaugasma means “radiance, reflection, brightness shining forth”; the parallel term charactêr means “imprint, stamp, die” (as of a seal or coin).
Both terms structurally presuppose the distinction between original and image. A radiance is not the light-source but the light that issues from it; an imprint is not the die but its impression. The very logic of the image rules out an identifying consubstantiality: the Son is not the Father; he is the radiance and imprint of the Father. This is exactly the Socinian reading.
Sozzini himself comments at length on Hebrews 1:3 in De Iesu Christo Servatore. His argument: “That divine author said that Christ is the radiance of glory and the express image of the substance of God, that is, that through Christ God’s glory and so God himself has appeared before our eyes in an outstanding manner, so that it was granted us to behold and contemplate God himself in Christ.” What is at stake is revelation, not consubstantiality: Christ shows God because in him God’s will, God’s goodness, God’s truth have become visible — not because he is “simply” the substance of God himself.
The Racovian Catechism specifies: Christ is the imprint of the substance of God and the radiance of his glory “insofar as in Christ, so long as he walked on earth (for of that time the author is speaking, as many passages teach), God’s highest power, wisdom, and goodness shone forth, and his invisible substance itself was expressed and set before the eyes of men by the most divine properties and works.” This identifies the language of v. 3 as revelation-theological language: it speaks of the earthly Christ who has revealed God, not of an eternally pre-existent part of God’s essence.
“She [wisdom] is a breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty…She is a radiance (apaugasma) of eternal light, an unblemished mirror of God’s working, an image of his goodness.” (Wisdom 7:25-26) — Exactly the same apaugasma-language is here said of personified Wisdom, without her being hypostatised as a second divine person. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews deliberately takes up this Jewish wisdom-and-image language to describe Christ’s revelatory function.
Logical arguments
From Hebrews 1:1-2 the following logical and philological arguments emerge in favour of the Socinian reading and against the eternally pre-existent reading of post-Nicene dogmatics.
The phrase ep’ eschatôn tôn hêmerôn toutôn is Semitizing-eschatological and at home in the New Testament language of the time of fulfilment (cf. Acts 2:17; 1 Peter 1:20). It denotes a period of time — not a timeless state. Whoever reinterprets the verse ontologically has to brush aside this phrase as a meaningless turn of speech — which syntactically and semantically it is not: it is the hermeneutical key of the verse.
The whole sentence is syntactically centred on ho theos as subject: he has spoken (lalêsas), he has spoken to us (elalêsen hêmin), he has appointed (ethêken), through him made (epoiêsen). The Son is addressee and medium — he is not a second, equally-ranked subject of the verbs. The form of speech excludes an identity of essence between speaker and mediator.
The aorist ethêken denotes a punctual act: God has appointed the Son heir. This is the language of Psalm 2:7-8 and Psalm 110:1 — messianic enthronement psalms which are referred several times in the Letter to the Hebrews to Christ’s exaltation. A timeless, eternal appointment would be linguistically a contradiction in terms; the aorist demands a concrete “then.”
In the Greek sentence-structure there stands first the appointment as heir (ethêken klêronomon pantôn), then the “through whom he also made the ages” (di’ hou kai epoiêsen tous aiônas). The “also” (kai) marks an act that follows, not one that precedes. Sozzini therefore reads correctly: the ages are made after the Son is appointed heir — which makes sense only post-Easter.
The Greek term aiôn in the Letter to the Hebrews unambiguously denotes salvation-historical time (cf. Hebrews 9:26: “at the end of the ages”). A reading as “world-matter” would be first lexically false and second inwardly inconsistent. For the Socinians the aiônes are the times of salvation constituted by Christ’s work — the “new creation” in the Pauline sense.
The preposition dia with the genitive is firmly reserved in Pauline usage for mediation, while ek with the genitive marks origin. 1 Corinthians 8:6 makes the distinction programmatic: from the Father all things, through the Son all things. Hebrews 1:2 stands in the same line. The Father remains origin; the Son is mediator.
A radiance is not the light-source; an imprint is not the die. The image-logic of both terms in v. 3 structurally presupposes the distinction between original and image. Whoever reads the Son as consubstantial with the Father bursts the very language-logic of the verse. The wisdom tradition (Wisdom 7:26) uses the same terms of personified, but not hypostatised, divine Wisdom.
The contrast in v. 1 (prophets) with v. 2 (Son) is a heightening of the mode of revelation, not a difference between created and eternal speakers. Moses, Isaiah, and Malachi were human beings; the Son is the most excellent of men, who at the same time spoke with the empowering of God. The comparability of the series is preserved — otherwise the author could not speak of a series at all.
Within the same opening chain v. 9 cites Psalm 45:8: “You have loved righteousness … therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” Even if one takes v. 8 in the traditional reading as an address to the Son, v. 9 still stands: your God. The Son has a God who has anointed him. Whoever reinterprets v. 2 toward consubstantiality has not read v. 9.
Objections and Socinian answers
Objection 1: “Through him he also made the ages” (v. 2) proves Christ’s world-creatorhood before all time
The orthodox reading takes di’ hou epoiêsen tous aiônas as a statement about Christ’s participation in the creation of the world — analogous to John 1:3 (“all things were made through him”) and Colossians 1:16 (“in him all things were created”). This is said to prove the eternal pre-existence of Christ as mediator of creation.
Socinian answer: Sozzini’s main argument is syntactic. The word-order of the verse shows that the aiônes-statement stands after the appointment as heir and refers to it. Since this appointment takes place only after the resurrection (cf. Acts 13:33; Romans 1:4; Philippians 2:9-11), the aiônes-statement cannot target the creation of the world in Genesis 1 but the salvation-order of the last days constituted by Christ’s work. Aiôn moreover does not mean “world-matter”, but “age, aeon” — a meaning which the Letter to the Hebrews itself confirms in 9:26. There is also the Pauline model 1 Corinthians 8:6, where the prepositions are cleanly distinguished: ex hou ta panta (from the Father are all things, origin) versus di’ hou ta panta (through the Lord are all things, mediation). Hebrews 1:2 stands in the same line and says nothing about a personal pre-existence of Christ as creator before all time. Finally: John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 also read Socinianly in salvation-historical terms, not protologically (cf. the corresponding verse entries on John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-17).
Objection 2: “Imprint of his substance” (v. 3) proves consubstantiality with God
The expression charactêr tês hypostaseôs autou (v. 3) is traditionally read as an ontological statement: the Son is the exact image of the divine substance and consequently consubstantial with it.
Socinian answer: First, charactêr is a metaphorical term from coin and seal imagery. An imprint is not the die; the image on the coin is not the coin itself. The logic of the image structurally presupposes the difference between original and image — it thus bursts any identifying reading. Second, hypostasis in the 1st century is not yet the post-Nicene terminology for “person”; it primarily means “substance, reality, actuality” and occasionally “self-subsistence” (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:4; 11:17; Hebrews 3:14; 11:1). The phrase therefore says: Christ is the exact imprint of the divine reality — its precise representation. Third: Sozzini himself comments on the place: “Through Christ God’s glory and so God himself has appeared before our eyes in an outstanding manner” — a statement of revelation, not of essence. Fourth, the parallel text Wisdom 7:26 (apaugasma as predicate of Wisdom, without personal hypostasis) shows that this language is Jewish-sapiential in form and gets along without any ontological pre-existence claim. Fifth: v. 3 does assert Christ’s highest revelatory measure, but immediately after this predicate follows the exaltation verb “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty” (ekathisen) — this too an aorist, a concrete act, not an eternal state.
Objection 3: Hebrews 1:8 expressly calls the Son “God”
In v. 8 the Letter to the Hebrews cites Psalm 45:7: “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.” The Son is thereby, the objection runs, directly addressed as God and so attested as consubstantial God.
Socinian answer: First, the Greek construction in v. 8 is grammatically ambiguous. Ho thronos sou ho theos can be read as “Your throne, O God, …” (vocative), or as “Your throne is God” (predicate nominative), or “God is your throne” (subject-predicate). The Luther Bible 1984, the Einheitsübersetzung, and the NRSV marginal reading all know all three variants; the text itself does not yield an unambiguous translation. Second, the cited psalm Psalm 45 originates in the context of a royal wedding song and is originally addressed to the Davidic king — a human being. Psalm 82:6 also addresses human beings with the title “gods” (elohim); this address is Semitic language of honour, not an ontological predicate. Third, the immediate following v. 9 decides the matter definitively: “You have loved righteousness … therefore God, your God … has anointed you.” Your God — the Son has a God, namely the Father. The ontological consubstantiality drawn from the address in v. 8 is thereby syntactically refuted. Fourth: if v. 8 really taught full ontological equality, it would teach it as an address to one Anointed by a higher God — a logical contradiction.
Objection 4: The angels are to worship him (v. 6) — that belongs to God alone
In v. 6 the Letter to the Hebrews quotes: “Let all God’s angels worship him.” Worship, the objection runs, belongs to God alone; therefore the Son is God.
Socinian answer: First, the Greek proskyneô covers a broad spectrum of meaning from “to bow down, to honour, to do homage” up to “to worship.” In Matthew 18:26 and Acts 10:25 the same verb is used for homage before human beings, without thereby asserting consubstantiality. Second, the context of v. 6 is important: the Son is introduced as prôtotokos (firstborn) into the oikoumenê — and indeed, according to Hebrews 2:5, into the future oikoumenê, the coming salvation-order. The point is therefore the introduction of the exalted Christ into his eschatological kingly rule, not an eternal metaphysical worship. Third: the angels do homage to the Son as the one appointed by God, the heir of all things. That is the acknowledgement of his salvation-historical pre-eminence — on the ground of his empowerment by God, not on the ground of an ontological equality. Fourth: the apostle Paul too worships Christ as kyrios (Philippians 2:9-11), but specifies in the same sentence that this worship takes place “to the glory of God the Father.” The Father remains the highest addressee of all veneration; the exalted Son receives it as the one appointed and empowered by him.
Objection 5: “He upholds all things by his powerful word” (v. 3) teaches cosmic omnipotence
In v. 3 we read: pherôn te ta panta tôi rhêmati tês dynameôs autou — “upholding all things by the word of his power.” The Son is thereby, the objection runs, ascribed a cosmic preservative function which can belong only to an eternally pre-existent God.
Socinian answer: First, the participle pherôn is a present and describes a present, continuing state — the state of the exalted Christ seated at the right hand of God. The upholding takes place after the purification of sins and after the sitting at the right hand — not in a pre-temporal eternity. Sozzini puts it succinctly: “Insofar as Christ guides and rules all things by the power of his command” — this is the post-paschal, exalted standing of Christ. Second, the upholding takes place “by the word of his power” (rhêma dynameôs autou) — this is the language of empowerment, not of consubstantiality. The Risen One upholds all things because to him “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18) has been given. Third: the universal lordship of Christ is according to 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 a lordship handed over to the Son by the Father, which the Son finally returns to the Father, “so that God may be all in all.” An eternal consubstantiality structurally forbids this restoring logic. Fourth: Hebrews 2:8 confirms: “At present, we do not yet see all things subjected to him” — the omnipotence is an eschatological reality which the exalted Christ now exercises and completes, not a pre-temporal metaphysical property.
Biblical cross-references
The following passages are essential for the right understanding of Hebrews 1:1-2:
- John 20:17: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” The risen Christ names his God. This is Christ’s unambiguous self-disclosure concerning his relation to the Father: not equality but a Son-Father relation; not identity of essence but a relation of worship and mission.
- Acts 2:36: “God has made him Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified.” Peter formulates the appointment-language of the opening of Hebrews in Petrine terms: epoiêsen — God has made him. The exaltation-christology of the apostles is the nearest exegetical sister of Hebrews 1:2.
- Philippians 2:6-9: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” Again appointment-language. The universal lordship of Christ is a bestowed state granted through exaltation — not a pre-temporal ontological one.
- Colossians 1:15-17: The parallel hymn about Christ as the “firstborn of all creation.” Read Socinianly, the creation in Colossians 1:16 is the new creation — analogous to the aiônes in Hebrews 1:2. Both texts speak salvation-historically, not protologically.
- Psalm 2:7-8 / Hebrews 1:5: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you; I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” The language of the appointment-psalm which the Letter to the Hebrews itself cites. Acts 13:33 expressly refers the “today” to Christ’s resurrection. Hebrews 1:2 (appointment as heir) stands in the same line.
- 1 Corinthians 8:6: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom (ex hou) are all things …, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom (di’ hou) are all things.” The programmatic Pauline distinction of prepositions: origin versus mediation. Hebrews 1:2 uses precisely the di’ hou-language — it stands in the Pauline school.
- 1 Timothy 2:5: “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of Christ as mediator, not as second divine person. Heis theos (one God) and heis mesitês (one mediator) remain linguistically and materially separate.
- Hebrews 2:9-10: “But we see Jesus … crowned with glory and honour, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone.” A few verses after 1:1-2 the author makes it clear: Jesus’ glorification is a gift “by God’s grace.” The starting operation is gracious-appointed, not eternally-constitutive.
Theological consequences
God’s speaking is salvation-historically ordered: then through the prophets, now — definitively — through the Son. Christ is God’s last word because in him God’s will, goodness, and truth come to speech in incomparable density. Not because he is God in a second person, but because God speaks through him.
Christ is the heir of all things appointed by God, the exalted man at the right hand of God — greater than the angels, greater than Moses, greater than the Levitical high priest. But his “greater-ness” is empowerment, not consubstantiality. He remains the Son of the one who appointed him.
The “last days” are not the end of the world but the qualified time of fulfilment which began with Christ’s first coming. The Church lives in this end-time as the time of completed revelation. The aiônes ordered through Christ are the epochs of salvation of this time of fulfilment.
God has spoken through the Son; we answer through the Son to the Father (cf. Ephesians 2:18). This is the fundamental structure of Christian prayer. Christ is venerated as the one appointed by God; all honour given to him takes place “to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).
Summary
Hebrews 1:1-2 is linguistically, syntactically, and theologically a great word of sending and appointment. It contrasts God’s manifold speaking “long ago” through the prophets with God’s definitive speaking “in these last days” through the Son. God remains the sole subject of the verbs: he has spoken, he has appointed, he has ordered the ages through the Son. The Son is medium, appointed one, and heir — not a second God consubstantial with the Father.
Socinianly, the order of the Greek sentence decides the reading: first the appointment as heir (ethêken klêronomon), then the “through whom he also made the ages.” Sozzini reads this strictly linearly: the aiônes are shaped after the Son has been appointed heir — which by Old Testament appointment-psalm language (Psalm 2; Psalm 110) and by apostolic exaltation-christology (Acts 13:33; Romans 1:4) falls on Easter. Thus aiônes is not the cosmological creation of the world but the salvation-order of the last days constituted by Christ’s work.
The predicates of v. 3 too (apaugasma, charactêr, the upholding of all things, the sitting at the right hand) stay within this frame: they speak of the exalted Christ who has been revealed in history, who represents God incomparably — not of an eternal consubstantiality. The Racovian Catechism puts it succinctly: Christ is the imprint of the substance of God and the radiance of his glory insofar “as in Christ, so long as he walked on earth, God’s highest power, wisdom, and goodness shone forth” — a statement of revelation, not of essence.
Understood Socinianly, Hebrews 1:1-2 is therefore not evidence of an eternally pre-existent second divine person, but a solemn declaration of sending and appointment: God has spoken his last, highest, definitive word — through the man Jesus, whom he has appointed heir of all things and seated at the right hand of his Majesty. This is the high christology of the Polish Brethren: maximal sending and authority, within the one God who remains God.