Hebrews 1:3 –
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
As we start Hebrews, the writer gets into some great theological truths very quickly. The first 4 verses create a bridge for Israelites to understand how Jesus fits into their understanding of God. Right away one of the hardest concepts of Jesus and God being the same is just thrown out without much detail. One of the foundational beliefs of many denominations is that God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are all one in the same and this verse solidifies that “doctrine”. For the longest time I could not wrap my head around this concept, until I stopped the “personification” of God.
I talk about this a bunch but it’s a difficult concept to understand, primarily because of the person Jesus. The most common question is about “how can Jesus be God if He will be seated at God’s right hand?” Or how can he be God’s “son” and still be God? Or how can God be Jesus and God at the same time? Interestingly most people have no problem resolving the Holy Spirit since that is God like and seems more like an extension of God. But Jesus is defined as a person distinctly different from God.
So how are these resolved? Easy, go back to Genesis 1 and how man is created in God’s image. That is what messes us up in the first place, because we think God looks like us. But this “meat suit” we live in is not the image, but the “energy” that drives our body is what the image of God IS. Think about the mass of cells we have, what makes them tick? It’s energy in the form of a human, but that energy has a memory and a consciousness of it’s being. THAT is the real image of God, not a body.
Now we get to Jesus and how can HE be God and God’s son at the same time? Well where our energy or “souls” are images of God and replications of God’s image. The “energy” that “drove” Jesus’ body WAS God, not an image. Now all of the energy that IS God did not become Jesus, just a part. That is why Jesus still prayed to God, which was the human side communicating with the “energy” side. The key is removing the “personification” of God since it’s difficult to imagine a “man” being omniscient and omnipresent. If you put God into the energy “box” He becomes in everything, through everything, everywhere and always. The only difference from energy that lights a fire and God is His energy is not random and is “aware!”