Footnotes

1. Hebrews 1:1 From the opening words to the final “Amen” (Heb 13:21), readers are to keep their gaze fixed on Christ. In this magisterial sentence, “God . . . has spoken to us through his Son” (Heb 1:2), which is one of the most tightly packed and beautiful of the entire New Testament, the essence of the Letter is expressed.
   God has spoken definitively in Christ, who is his real, living Word. Everything that can be said about the plan of God is made fully real in Christ. Using expressions taken from Alexandrian thought, the author says that the Son, born of the Father, is in every respect equal to him; the glorified Christ is far superior to the world of the angels, and he gives existence and salvation to every creature.
   Thus, seven great theological themes are set forth: (1) Theism: God exists; (2) Revelation: God has revealed himself through the Prophets and through his Son; (3) Incarnation: God became man in Jesus Christ; (4) Creation: God created all things through Christ; (5) Providence: God upholds all things by his almighty word; Redemption: by his mediatorship and his suffering Christ made salvation possible; and Ascension: the Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.
2. Hebrews 1:1 Through the Prophets: this refers not only to the Prophets but to all the writers of the Old Testament, for they constituted the preparation for the coming of Christ.
3. Hebrews 1:3 Perfect expression of his very being: that is, there is an identity of nature (see Wis 7:25-26).
4. Hebrews 1:5 How can God, who is inaccessible and transcendent, communicate with human beings? Are not intermediaries needed to establish the link between the heavenly world and the terrestrial one? This was a question that preoccupied many Jewish circles after the Exile. In reply they insisted on the role and importance of beings who were neither human nor divine: angels. They even imagined that the intervention of the angels was needed to bring the Law to Moses (see Heb 2:2; Gal 3:19). However, if it is necessary to multiply intermediaries between God and humans, does not this mean that humanity remains decisively distant from the Lord? The perspective is completely reversed when one speaks of Christ.

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   No one is like him in intimacy with God, neither is anyone like him in proximity to humans. The link between heaven and earth is established in his very Person. It is the principal aim of the Letter to the Hebrews to hold to these two aspects of Christ: he is united through and through with God, and he is completely one with human beings. In this first part of the Letter, he is presented as Son of God and brother to human beings.

5. Hebrews 1:5 In Christ God has spoken in a definitive way (Heb 1:2), and the author sees this truth already proclaimed in the Old Testament. He cites a series of passages, almost all of which were regarded in the Jewish tradition as announcements of the Messiah. What are angels? Merely subordinates, mediators, and messengers ever being replaced. But the Son is the Firstborn. This is the title of honor reserved for Christ that includes a priority over creatures (see Col 1:15). He receives adoration, is enthroned, and partakes unceasingly in the status of God.
6. Hebrews 1:5 I will be his Father,/and he will be my Son: before the coming of Christ, this text from 2 Sam 7:14 and the text of Ps 2 were acknowledged to be Messianic.