NT Text: Hebrews 1:2
OT Source(s):
Source: Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007); Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Redemptive-Historical Progression + Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Gen 1:1 — In the Beginning
Significance: Hebrews 1:2 declares that God "has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe (tous aiōnas)." The creative act announced in Genesis 1:1 — God making the heavens and the earth — is here predicated of the Son as the agent through whom the Father made all things. This is one of the canon's clearest Christological reassignments of the Genesis 1:1 Creator-role: the "God" who "created the heavens and the earth" in the opening sentence of Scripture acted through the eternal Son, who is therefore not part of the created order but its Maker. Hebrews' high Christology is built on this Genesis substrate; the same Son who "made the universe" is the one who "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Heb 1:3) — both the originating and the sustaining cause of creation. The connection is redemptive-historical and longitudinal rather than typological: the divine action of Genesis 1:1 is unfolded, not foreshadowed, as the work of the Son. The pastoral weight is that the heir "of all things" — the one for whom the cosmos exists — is the same Son who "made purification for sins" (Heb 1:3). The Maker of the universe stooped to cleanse His own image-bearers, so that beholding Christ the Creator is inseparable from beholding Christ the Redeemer, and the One through whom worlds were made is supremely worthy of worship.