Transformed By His Glory – Part 4: In Many Parts and Many Manners

…the most important theme in the Bible is the glory of God…what the Christian life is all about is understanding and experiencing a revelation of the glory of God.  John MacArthur

Like most believers I have a favorite Bible verse, although mine may be a bit unusual. My favorite verse of the Bible is the one that gets it all started, Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Within that simple opening sentence God reveals to us three essential and foundational truths about Himself. When I taught children’s Bible classes I called them the three ‘omni words’ – God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

“In the beginning God…” – reveals to us that in the beginning God was already there. God created time and space. He created the need for time words like ‘beginning’ and ‘was,’ space words like ‘here’ and ‘there.’ I explained it to fourth graders like this: ‘God was before was was, and God was there before there was there.’ As the creator of time and space God subsists outside the limits of the time-space continuum. Hence, He is everywhere all the time. The word for that is omnipresent. God is omnipresent.

“In the beginning God created…”  – the Hebrew word translated ‘created’ means ‘created out of nothing.’ When we humans speak of physically ‘creating’ something it is always in the sense of  creating something out of something else already in existence – a woodworker creating a piece of furniture from a pile of wood, for instance. To create something out of nothing is impossible, unless of course the Creator is the possessor of all power. God spoke all things into existence out of nothingness. The word for that is omnipotent. God is omnipotent.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” – The phrase ‘heavens and the earth’ represents the entire universe of space, time, energy, and matter. In other words, God created everything. The person who is most knowledgeable about a thing that is made is the maker himself. A clockmaker knows everything there is to know about the clocks he makes. An artist knows everything there is to know about the masterpiece he painted. God knows everything there is to know about the things He has made. Because He made everything, we can be assured that He knows everything. The word for that is omniscient. God is omniscient.

And thus begins the written revelation of the glory of God in the Holy Scriptures. These three truths, manifested in creation and established at the very outset in the opening verse of Scripture, provide the authoritative foundation for all that follows. By way of the Old Testament prophets, God has spoken to mankind utilizing His chosen people, the nation Israel, as the conduit for that revelation. The nature of the Old Testament revelation of God’s glory is described for us in Hebrews 1:1.

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,” Hebrews 1:1 NKJV

Most English translations of this verse either begin with the the word ‘God’ or with some form of the phrase ‘long ago’ or ‘in the past.’ In the original Greek the beginning words of the verse are polumeros kai polutropos. It is a little play on words that means ‘in many parts and in many manners.’ Those are the first words of the sentence and of the epistle. In the Greek language the first words of a sentence generally carry the idea which the writer wishes to emphasize. In the case of this opening sentence the emphasis is on the adverbial phrase: ‘in many parts and in many manners.’ I can think of at least two things to reflect upon with regard to this opening word choice:

1) The unidentified writer of Hebrews considers it a settled fact that God has spoken to man. He holds both the existence of God and the revelatory character of God to be self-evident. Whether or not God exists and has spoken is not the issue. The question to be addressed is this: how did He speak? – when and in what manner? The emphasis is on the nature of the message itself, the Word of God.

This is a significant point to note and one which the writer revisits throughout this epistle. As we seek to engage the world in the ministry of reconciliation to which all believers are called, we must be diligent to give primacy to the Word of God and take care to avoid extra-biblical matters of contention. Only the Word of God can transform the hearts and minds of the lost. As believers, we are instructed to be about the business of proclaiming the truth God has revealed and demonstrating the authenticity of that truth by walking in a manner that reflects its transforming power. All else is hubris.

2) The emphatic position of polumeros kai polutropos establishes a definite contrast between the manner of God’s revelation described here in the first verse and the superior manner of revelation we will see described in the second verse. This construction serves an important literary objective, for by the time we finish reading just the first two verses of this epistle we will know the theme of the entire letter – the supremacy of Christ. Whoever it was that wrote the letter to the Hebrews, he certainly knew not to bury the lead.

The word polumeros means ‘in many parts’ and, combined with polutropos, includes the idea of many parts given at different times over an extended interval. God did not speak in the Old Testament once for all but in bits and pieces, parts given at many different times over a period of time – approximately 1000 years from Moses to Malachi. Mankind would not have been able to handle everything all at once. Thus God chose to reveal Himself in a progressive manner with partial revelations building upon previous partial revelations set against the backdrop of unfolding history. Even so, as the Old Testament revelatory period entered its last days, God’s self-disclosure was still incomplete. There was more yet to come.

A recognition of the progressive nature of Old Testament revelation lends itself to a more contemporary understanding regarding the holiest of all the names of God. The Lord revealed Himself to Moses as YHWH or “I am.” The ambiguous name “I am that I am” has been clarified by recent scholarship as meaning “I am who I will show Myself to be as history unfolds.” I find that definition fascinating. The author of Hebrews encapsulates the meaning of the most sacred name of God in a single descriptive word, polumeros, which he uses to begin his entire epistle – an epistle which, more than any other epistle of the New Testament, sets forth Christ as the supreme revelation of YHWH.

Polutropos means ‘in many manners or ways.’ In the Old Testament scriptures God spoke in songs, poems, historical narratives, laws, ordinances, ceremonies, signs, types, prophesies,  pictures, and parables. He spoke in many different ways, yet always with a view to the same purpose, that of revealing some facet of His glory to an estranged human race.

This method of revelation, the ‘many parts and many manners’ revelation, is described next in the Greek word order as a ‘long ago’ revelation. ‘Long ago’ or ‘in time past’ translates the Greek word palai, from palaios, which means old in the sense of old and worn out, ready to be replaced, having been exposed to the wrongs and injuries of time. By using this word as opposed to the perhaps more familiar archaios (archaic, archaeology), which means old in point of time and by extension not worn out but established and venerated, the writer is telling us that the old covenant revelation of God, the polumeros kai polutropos revelation, had served its purpose. It was ready to be succeeded and completed by something new and better.

The writer is not saying that the old revelation is any less true or genuine, just that it was preparatory, incomplete, and had been subjected over time to abuse, neglect, and false interpretation such as that imposed upon it by Pharisaic Judaism. Additionally, because it was incomplete it could not be fully understood. Even the divinely inspired Old Testament writers themselves did not understand all that they were writing, as Peter makes clear in his first epistle.

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into. I Peter 1:10-12 NKJV

The prophets of the Old Testament knew there were things withheld from their view, things not yet revealed. They knew there were pieces of the puzzle missing. As we shall see, all of these issues are brought to a resolution when we get to the completion of the thought in verse 2. The fact is, much of Old Testament revelation is unintelligible without the light of the New Testament. The ‘long ago’ revelatory period approached its end with many unanswered questions. It seemed to play out like a long, majestic musical phrase ending on a dissonant note, unresolved. Yet, resolve it did, with “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” Luke 2:10. 

In Galatians 4:4 Paul tells us: “When the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son.” The phrase ‘fulness of the time’ indicates not only that there was an appointed time for the birth of Christ, but also that there was preparation that had to take place in order to meet the appointed time. Hebrews 1:1 describes that preparation for us.

The idea of a completed, preparatory revelation giving way to a final revelation is brought out by the verb structure of the main clause. Verses 1 and 2 together form a complete subject / predicate clause. The words ‘spoke’ and ‘spoken’ from verses 1 and 2 NKJV are both derived from the same Greek word laleo – to speak. ‘Spoke’ in verse 1 is actually a participle and would be better translated ‘having spoken.’ The finite, or main verb is the word ‘spoken’ in verse 2. Both words are in a Greek verb tense that describes a past completed action. The subject of the main clause is God. It is the ‘speaking’ of God which is being considered here, not in regard to what He spoke but how He spoke.

The verbal idea of the statement, therefore, is this: God, having spoken…spoke. Or, by extension: God, having necessarily spoken in a ‘many parts and many ways’ fashion, and having fulfilled His intended purpose in that preparatory manner of revelation, then spoke once and for all in the final, full, and complete manner described in verse 2, i.e. “When the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son.” Pretty cool, I think.

We know that the ‘many parts and ways’ revelation described in verse 1 is a reference to the Old Testament scriptures because of the phrase ‘to the fathers by the prophets.’ This letter is written to the Hebrews. To a Hebrew ‘the fathers’ were primarily the sons of Jacob, the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, and therefore ‘the fathers’ is a phrase synonymous with the nation Israel. Paul tells us in Romans 3:2 that the ‘oracles of God,’ that is the Old Testament scriptures, were committed to the Jews. Israel was chosen by God to be the conduit of His revelation to man. Regardless of their own disobedience and apostasy as a nation, Israel’s function as the channel of God’s revelation to the world was fulfilled to perfection according to His preordained purpose. God still has a glorious future planned for them.

‘By the prophets’ would be translated literally ‘in the prophets.’  The word ‘prophet’ means ‘out-speaker.’ The primary function of a prophet is not fore-telling but out-speaking, or speaking out as a mouthpiece of God. God did not speak directly to mankind in the Old Testament scriptures. Rather, He spoke ‘in the out-speakers.’ The words of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures are God’s words as spoken and written down by His messengers, the writers of the 39 books of the Old Testament. They are His words but not His voice. They are words spoken to the people by the king’s heralds, but not by the king himself. Such a manner of personal and intimate communication between God and man had not as yet been realized at the time of the completion of the Old Testament canon.

There still remained another 400 years of human history to be unfolded according to God’s design and purpose, before His own true voice would burst upon the world, not in a shout as one might expect, but in a whisper – a still, small voice, speaking in the person of a child born in a stable in Bethlehem.