These words form the
beginning of a marvelous passage the subject of which is “Christ our
Representative.” That He might become our Representative, the inspired writer
teaches, it was needful that He should identify Himself with us. Therefore it
was that He became man.

Language had been exhausted to exhibit the
divine dignity of our Representative. In contrast with those men of God, the
prophets, in whom God dwelt and through whom God spoke, He is called a Son
through whom the worlds were made and by the word of whose power all things are
upheld; who is the effulgence of God’s glory and the very impression of His
substance. In contrast with the most exalted of the creatures of God, the
angels, He is given the more excellent name of the Son of God, His firstborn,
whom all the angels of God shall worship; nay, He is given the name of the
almighty and righteous God Himself, of the eternal Lord, who in the beginning
laid the foundations of the earth and framed the heavens, and who shall abide
the same when heaven and earth wax old and pass away.