essage be sent to men except in Jesus Christ.
God, Who spake unto the fathers in divers manners, speaks to us in Him,
Whose Sonship constitutes Him the effulgence of God's glory, the image
of His substance, the Upholder of the universe, and, lastly, the eternal
Redeemer and King.

1. He is the effulgence of God's glory. Many expositors prefer another
rendering: "the reflection of His glory." This would mean that God's
self-manifestation, shining on an external substance, is reflected, as
from a mirror, and that this reflection is the Son of God. But such an
expression does not convey a consistent idea. For the Son must be the
substance from which the light is reflected. What truth there is in this
rendering is more correctly expressed in the next clause: "the image of
His substance." It is, therefore, much better to accept the rendering
adopted in the Revised Version: "the effulgence of His glory." God's
glory is the self-manifestation of His attributes, or, in other words,
the consciousness which God has of His own infinite perfections. This
implies the triune personality of God. But it does not imply a
revelation of God to His creatures. The Son participates in that
consciousness of the Divine perfections. But He also reveals God to men,
not merely in deeds and in words, but in His person. He _is_ the
revelation. To declare this seems to be the Apostle's purpose in using
the word "effulgence." It expresses "the essentially ministrative
character of the person of the Son."[2] If a revelation will be given at
all, His Sonship points Him out as the Interpreter of God's nature and
purposes, inasmuch as He is essentially, because He is Son, the
emanation or radiance of His glory.

2. He is the image of His substance. A solar ray reveals the light, but
not completely, unless indeed it guides the eye back along its pencilled
line to the orb of day. If the Son of God were only an effulgence,
Christ could still say that He Himself is the way to the Father, but He
could not add, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."[3] That the
revelation may be complete, the Son must be, in one sense, distinct from
God, as well as one with Him. Apparently this is the notion conveyed in
the metaphor of the "image." Both truths are stated together in the
words of Christ: "As the Father hath life in Himself, so _hath He given_
to the Son to have life _in Himself_."[4] If the Son is more than an
effulgence, if He is "the very image" of God