Hebrews
Lesson 11 May
3, 2005
NKJ Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Something
came in my email the other day that I thought related to tonight’s clause in
Hebrews 1:2. This was posted on the
website for Answers in Genesis. A group
called the Answers in Genesis is building a creationist museum near
A National
Embarrassment by Ken Ham
In one of several recent salvos lobed by the
secular media at AIG USA and its future creation museum, a commentary on the
on-line news service of USA Today declared last week (this was in February
2005) that the museum near Cincinnati, Ohio is a national embarrassment. Here is Cantor’s alarmist, scare mongering in
his own words.
Cantor writes, “ If we still had an
Aristotelian view of the world (that is four elements – air, earth, fire, and
water), we would never accept chemistry.
Without chemistry, material science disappears and with it an untold
number of better cars, safer packaging, more fuel efficient airplanes and who
knows what else. If we didn’t accept
quantum mechanics we never would have realized how electrons orbits work or how
those electrons give off photons as they drop from one energy level to
another. So we wouldn’t have lasers, no
CD’s, no DVD’s, no laser surgery and no fiber optics. Thomas Edison couldn’t have made a light bulb
without understanding oxidation”.
Ken Ham comments: It’s a shame that Cantor couldn’t mention the
incredible MRI technology since that was pioneered by the creationist Dr.
Raymond DeMadian. It was actually the creationist
Robert Boyle who fathered modern chemistry and demolished the Aristotelian 4
elements theory. He also funded lectures
to defend Christianity and sponsored missionaries and Bible translation work.
Lasers depend on electromagnetic radiation theory, which was pioneered by
creationist James Maxwell. More specifically
Einstein who first proposed the stimulated emission of radiation that is the
basis of lasers frequently acknowledged his debt to Maxwell. The creationist Wright brothers invented the
airplane after studying God’s design of birds.
Oxidation was discovered by Antoine Levosier who was beheaded under the
rabidly anti Christian French reign of terror on the grounds “that the republic
had no need of scientists.” This is
unambiguous example of the persecution of science by an atheistic, deistic
regime.
And of course, you had better scratch
Creation
isn’t some secondary doctrine. It is not
essential to the gospel. It is not essential
to salvation. But if you are going to
understand the gospel or salvation, you have to understand that there is a
creator God that created everything and to whom all mankind is answerable and
accountable.
That is why
when Paul addressed pagan audiences in Acts 14 and Acts 17, he didn’t start
with the gospel. He didn’t ask them if they wanted to have a meaningful
life. He didn’t give them the four
spiritual laws. He started off with the
fact that there was a God who made the heaven and earth and all that is in
them. The interesting thing is that eventually he did get to the cross and the
gospel. When he was on Mars hill, he
didn’t get to the gospel because he was ridiculed by all of the know-it-all
secular philosophers and scientists of
The King is
Coming is a doctrinally squared away show on TBN.
Creation
specifically relates to our subject in the next clause in Hebrews.
Corrected
translation of Hebrews 1
Vs. 1 After God spoke in a variety of
fragments and in various forms in time past to the fathers by means of the
prophets
Vs. 2 He has in these last days spoken to
us by Son who He has appointed the heir of all things; through whom also He
made the worlds
There is an
embedded understanding in verse one that God operates in a different ways in
history. There was a time past from the
writer’s perspective that He revealed fragments in various forms.
Last time
we looked at these last days. I made the
point that you have to distinguish whether the last days in context are talking
about the last days of the church or the last days of
There are a
lot of comparisons between the study of science and the study of nature and the
Bible. In the study of nature you have
the beauty of nature whether it is the rocks, minerals, trees, birds, or
animals. It is like raw data. It is part of our function as being in the
image and likeness of God and as image bearers to go out a study and categorize
and classify God’s creation. From that
we develop knowledge. That is what
science means. God didn’t give us a
science textbook. He gave us the
creation. We study it and from that we
gain knowledge as we properly apply the principles reason and logic.
The same
thing is true of Scripture. God gave us
Scripture. He specifically chose certain episodes and laid them out down
through history. In the 1500 years in the writing of Scripture and the 4,000
years of the Biblical period from creation up to the death of the last apostle,
you have only a few episodes of everything that could have been put in
there. Think about all the things that
happened in human history over those 4,000 years of time. We have a microcosm. But it is a sovereignly chosen microcosm that
is designed to give us a precise understanding of the plans and purposes of God
and His outworking to reveal His character, and how He interacts with His
creatures. Man learns about God by
taking the historical revelation of God that is encapsulated for us in the
canon of the Scripture. As we study it through the use of our own intellect and
reason that God gave us under the authority of God, we can go in and learn
about God and how we know all about His attributes and we then develop vocabulary
just as Adam developed vocabulary to explain what God has revealed to him. As we develop that technical vocabulary, you
have the origin of words like sovereignty and omniscience. In a concordance,
look up words like trinity, omnipotence, omniscience, etc. You won’t find them. Those words communicate what is in the
Scripture. It is the result of man under
the authority of God and through the leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit
studying all the data that is given here in terms of narrative and history and
then classifying and systematizing it so we come to a more and more profound
understanding of who God is and how He works in history. This is the basis for how we study the
Scriptures.
There is a
latter time and a former time. From these two verses we know from this that
there are at least two dispensations or two periods of history. There are the former times when He spoke to
The Dallas
Seminary catalogue talks about only three dispensations – the Old Testament,
the Church Age and the future kingdom.
These are the three specified in Scripture, but there are more
I pointed
out that Jesus Christ didn’t reveal anything to us in terms of written
Scripture. That was left to the apostles
so that the apostles express what He thought and what He taught under the
teaching of the Holy Spirit. They wrote
down what was communicated from Him and then they go on as the Holy Spirit develops
that doctrine for the Church Age.
We went
through a study on inheritance last time.
This whole word group has as its core meaning the idea of possession or
ownership. This whole idea gets
developed in the second chapter of Hebrews as we understand that Jesus Christ
was made lower than the angels so that He can be elevated above the angels
(which is what happens at the ascension and session) so that He can have
authority over all things not simply as the Second Person of the Trinity in His
deity but as the crown of creation as a human being in hypostatic union as the
God man.
Remember
that the main clause in the first four verses at the beginning of Hebrews is
that God has spoken to us by means of His Son.
The term Son is further defined as the one whom He appointed heir of all
things. And secondly through whom He
also made the worlds. This is the
phrase that we are looking at this evening.
Every
clause in these first four verses says something about a key theme in the
epistle. As we unpack all of this we lay
the groundwork for understanding Hebrews.
This is the
Greek phrase is based on dia plus the genitive indicating an
intermediate agency. God is the one who
is the ultimate source of creation. He
uses Jesus Christ the second person of the trinity as the intermediate agent
for this action. That is the
significance of “through”. It is through
the intermediate agency of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He also
made.
The generic
word for creation follows. The aorist
active indicative of poieo is the Greek verb. It is a culminative aorist indicating a
completed process as finished in time past. The consummative aorist indicates a
completed action. So God the Father made
the worlds through Jesus Christ.
When we get
to the phrase “worlds” we have to do a corrected translation. In our era of science fiction when you think
of making the worlds most people immediately think of all kinds of different
planets and worlds and universes and the Starship Enterprise going from galaxy
to galaxy and discovering all kinds of people who inhabit the universe. That is not what this is talking about. The word here is the Greek noun aionos
meaning ages. It refers to a period of
time in human history. It should be
translated “through whom God made the ages.”
That implies creation. We know
from other passages that Jesus Christ was the intermediate agent through whom
God created all things. But that is not
the word we have here. This does not
specifically talking about the creation ex nihilo, the creation out of
nothing that occurred in Genesis 1:1.
But this is talking about all of human history. It is through Jesus Christ that God the
Father made the ages of history.
Now I want
to step back and talk about something that is important to understand as a
background for Hebrews. That is the
whole Doctrine of Dispensations.
NKJ Acts 1:6 Therefore, when they had come together, they
asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to
The
disciples were gathered together around the Lord Jesus Christ immediately prior
to the ascension and waited for their marching orders and Jesus final commands
to them before He departs to heaven. They came together and asked Him if the
kingdom was going to be established now.
This is a crucial question to understand. Even 40 days after the resurrection they
expected a literal physical kingdom where Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning
on the throne of David to be initiated at any moment.
When they
use the phrase “to
The two key
words used here are the Greek words chronos and chairos. Now these are important to understand. The first word chronos emphasizes the
events in succession. You have one event
after another in terms of history. It
implies that things are moving in a certain direction. Thus history has purpose and meaning. This isn’t a lot of random stuff that fell
out of space and landed in this order.
That is what evolution teaches.
It indicates that time is moving in a direction.
NKJ Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God
sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
It was the
fullness (pleroma, that which is brought to completion) of time (chronos).
This
indicates something. Before Jesus Christ
could be born in approximately 4 BC, God had to set the stage. It couldn’t just happen. In order for it to have the kind of efficacy
that was necessary for mankind to be ready to accept and to receive the
Messiah, the stage had to be set. This is the purpose of everything that
occurred in the Old Testament. The Age
of the Gentiles from Adam to Abraham and the Age of the Jews from Abraham to
Christ (and there were sub periods of time we will see) each had a divine
purpose and it all moved in a direction to prepare the human race for the
coming of the Messiah. So chronos
refers to events in succession.
The second
word that is used there is the word chairos.
It is a word that indicates a broader expanse of time that has
certain definable characteristics. We
would perhaps use the word ages, the same as we do with aionos. There is an overlap between the two words
that we see here - aionos and chairos. This has to do with the concept of age. As we think about this, I want to pull
together a couple of different things on dispensations so that we understand
terminology. Age has to do with a long
periods of time that have certain definable characteristics. They have certain things in common. We are going to say that there is one age
that relates to the Gentiles and that is from Adam to the call of Abraham. Then there is another lengthy period of time
in the Old Testament, the Age of the Jews.
It begins with Abram’s circumcision in Genesis 17 and goes up to the
cross. Then we have the Church Age and
then we will have the Millennial Age or the Kingdom Age. The tribulation is the last 7 years related
to the Age of the Jews. That is age
looking at it in terms of broad expanses of time. We haven’t gotten to dispensations yet. We are starting big and working our way
down.
The other
word we are used to is dispensation. The
word dispensation is derived from the Greek word oikonomos. This is the word that is usually translated
dispensation. This word has the idea of
an administration. It is not a time
factor. The way we use the word we think
of it in terms of time. But, the word
itself doesn’t have anything to do with time.
It has to do with the characteristics of how a period of time is managed
or administered. It doesn’t focus on
time factors. Aionos focuses on
time factors. Oikonomia indicates the characteristics of how a steward
or manager governs or runs that period of time.
The time factor goes into the background.
In Acts 1:6
the disciples in approximately 33 AD asked when the kingdom would come. Jesus says it is not for them to know the
times and the seasons. He tells them
that they aren’t supposed to know this information. But then in 51 AD, almost 20 years later,
Paul writes at the end of his second missionary journey. He sends a letter back to the believers at
Thessalonica.
NKJ 1 Thessalonians 5:1 But concerning the times and the
seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.
These are
the same word as used in Acts 1. Times
is chronos. Seasons is chairos.
They have
no reason to know this. Why? Because I taught you all about the times and
the seasons when I was with you face to face. In 31 AD He told them that it
wasn’t for them to know. At that point
in time that information had not yet been given to the apostles. But by 51 AD that information had been given
to the apostles, primarily through the apostle Paul. It was being communicated by the Apostle Paul
to Church Age believers in preparing them for an understanding of the Church
Age. When you juxtapose Acts 1:6 and I
Thess 5:1 we realize that there is a divine revelation regarding the time and
the seasons. This is what we call a
study of dispensations.
So we have
the word “age” meaning a period of time in human history. Then we have the word dispensation that
translates the word oikonomos that is translated stewardship or
administration. You have those parables
in Luke where Jesus talks about the landowner who leaves and puts his steward
in charge. He is an oikonomos. He
is a steward. He is the one who oversees
and administers the landowner’s property and all of his possessions. So the word oikonomos emphasizes the
responsibility delegated by God to the human race during a period of time. It emphasizes responsibility. It emphasizes the fact that at different
periods of time God manages or administers human history in different
ways.
There are
certain things that are held in common throughout all the ages. Salvation is always by grace through faith.
The purpose of the Mosaic Law was never to provide a way for salvation. The law
was never the means that a Jew gained salvation. The law was designed for sanctification
purposes – that is the ritual part. If
you look at it in terms of overall history of
Dispensation
then is understood as a distinct and identifiable administration in the
development of God’s plan and purposes for human history. That is a nutshell definition of
dispensation.
A few years
ago we were being visited by a friend who grew up in a fairly conservative
denomination. It is known for teaching
the gospel and the Bible. This
individual came from a family that produced a number of missionaries and
preachers. I used this word dispensation
and it was like a blank stare. I could
have been talking about accounting principles.
He just went blank. He had no
idea what a dispensation was. Those of
us who are older and grayer and started with the KJV, the King James translated
this word group with the word oikonomos with the word dispensation. That dropped out in the more modern
versions. The NAS and NKJ prefer to use
a word like administration rather than dispensation. So the word dispensation refers to this
management issue. There are
administration differences between the Old Testament and New Testament. We know that in one sense, anybody who isn’t
going to
This is our
basic working definition of a dispensation.
It is a distinct and identifiable administration in the development of
God’s plan and purposes for human history.
Note that
God has a plan and purpose to history. It is not a random. Things were done in a certain way between
Adam and Noah in order to teach that man cold not function independently of the
creator. They didn’t have a written
canon of Scripture. God was present on
the planet. Other characteristics I
noted as we studied through that. Man
failed. Then you have another change
after the Noahic covenant is given.
Again man fails at the Tower of Babel.
There are identifiable characteristics in each of these dispensations.
It is clear
from all of this that God has a plan and God is working it out. The apostles understood that distinct things
happen in distinct periods of time. Paul
develops that. It affects not only
history but also our understanding of the spiritual life. There are different
characteristics related to the spiritual life. The principle of grace through
faith still operates but you don’t have the Holy Spirit given to each believer
in the Old Testament. You do have the
Holy Spirit given to each believer in the New Testament. There is no baptism of
the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.
You do have the baptism of the Holy Spirit for every believer in the New
Testament. You don’t have the filling of
the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.
You do have the filling of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is the means of living the
Christian life in the New Testament and not in the Old Testament. Doctrine related to God’s plan was clearly
revealed in this dispensation. It had
not been revealed in earlier dispensations.
So Paul
writes.
NKJ 1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our
glory,
Let’s think
about the English word a minute. The
English word comes from the Latin dispensatio. It translates a Greek word meaning to weigh
out or dispense. The main idea is to
deal out or dispense or distribute something.
It comes to refer to the distribution of goods. The Greek word oikonomia sounds like
our word economy. Hear the
similarity? It is where we get our word
economy. It is the distribution of goods
and services. That is economy. It has the same root as dispensation.
According
to Webster’s dictionary the word dispensation means a divine ordering and
administration of worldly affairs.
Notice that it is the first meaning listed in the dictionary. Covenant theologians wake up! Most covenant theologians believe in
dispensations but they don’t believe in dispensationalism. The core issue in dispensationalism is the
distinction between God’s plan for Israel and God’s plan for the church. That is how we are using this word. It is the divine ordering and administration
of worldly affairs. It is where we get
our word ecumenical and economy. It is
the idea of management, regulation, administration and planning.
C. I.
Scofield, a decorated Confederate Civil War veteran, became an alcoholic after
the war. He was a lawyer. Then he was saved and came under the ministry
of a Presbyterian minister in St. Louis who taught him about dispensations. Later on he became a well-known Bible
teacher. He was personally responsible
for mentoring Louis Sperry Chaffer who founded Dallas Seminary. But CI Scofield put dispensationalism on the
map when he published his study Bible.
He defined a dispensation.
A dispensation is a period of time during which
man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will
of God.
I think
that it is a very strong addition that he made.
There is in each of these dispensations revelation from God with a
correlative test. Man always fails the
test. He demonstrates again that man
can’t have any measure of success without being consistently dependent on God
the creator.
Graham
Scroggy defines it as follows:
The word oikonomia bears one
significance and it means an administration whether of a house or property of a
state or a nation or as in the present study, the administration of the human
race or any part of it at any time. Just
as a parent would govern his household in different ways, according to a
varying necessity, yet ever for one good end; so God has at different times
dealt with man in different ways according to the necessity of the case, but
throughout for one great, grand end.
Oikonomos
is a compound word of oikos (house) plus nomos (law). When you were a kid growing up in the house,
you had one set of laws in the house.
When you were three years old, you had another set. You had another set when you were eight. You had another set when you were thirteen
and another set at 18 and another set at 25.
As you went through different stages how your parents dealt with your
responsibilities and responsibilities differed from one stage to another.
Charles
Ryrie wrote a well-known book that I recommend called “Dispensationalism”. He revised it in the 90’s to deal with the
changes since it was originally published.
He defined a dispensation as a distinguishable economy in the outworking
of God’s purposes.
So you see
there is a certain pattern that runs throughout these definitions.
Here is my
definition as written for Tim LaHaye’s Prophecy Study Bible. I merged things together and sought a little
clarification.
A dispensation therefore is a distinct and
identifiable administration (each has certain characteristics that distinguish
it from others) in the development of God’s plan and purposes for human
history. Eph 3:2, Col 1:25-26 A closely connected but not interchangeable word
is age which introduces the time element.
God manages the entirety of human history as a household, moving humanity
through sequential stages of His administration determined by the level of
revelation He has provided up to that time in history. (There is progressive revelation. Abraham
knew more than Noah. Moses knew more
than Abraham. Elijah knew more than
Moses. Isaiah knew more than
Elijah. John the Baptist and the
apostles knew more than Isaiah did. John
the Apostle knew more than John the Baptist.
So there is progressive revelation.)
Each administrative period is characterized by revelation that specifies
responsibilities, a test in relation to those responsibilities, failure to pass
the test (in other words man always fails), and God’s gracious provision of a
solution when failure occurs.
God’s grace
always solves the problem.
In the Old
Testament you have the Age of the Gentiles and the Age of Israel. Those are subdivided. The first dispensation is the dispensation of
perfect environment. CI Scofield called
it innocence. Innocence is a good word
if we think of it in terms of a legal concept.
That is what the Bible is all about – this legal structure. Then it means not guilty. They are not guilty of sin. They are legally innocent. It is a good word but it is often
misunderstood so I use the term “perfect environment”. What moves history through these sequential
stages are the covenants.
God enters
into a contract with man. So we have the initial creation covenant given in
Genesis 1:26-28 and also mentioned in Hosea 6:7. It stipulates the conditions for that initial
period. The responsibility is to fulfill
the covenant and not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But man failed and ate the fruit in Genesis
3. The consequent divine judgment was
instant spiritual death, separation from God, and all of the other consequences
that reverberated through nature and through mankind. So God had to revise the contract.
So we have
a new age, the age of conscience. I am
not real happy with that term but I haven’t found a better one. This is based on the Adamic covenant that is
modification of the original creation covenant.
These stipulations are given in Genesis 3:14-19. The responsibility is to worship God through
animal sacrifice. God stipulates that it
is not on the basis of human works but on the basis of what He provides. Cain tries to impress God with the fruit of
his own work in the harvest. The result
of disobedience during that dispensation is evil and wickedness outlined in
Genesis 6:5-6. So God is now going to
judge the human race through a worldwide flood described in Genesis 6-9.
Then there
is another change. Another covenant is
given. After the flood Noah and his
family get off the ark and sacrifice to God. God enters into a new contract or
covenant with them. This is called the
Noahic covenant. Genesis 9:1-17. The responsibility is to fill the earth. Remember that in the beginning man was to
fill the earth and subdue it. Now he is to fill the earth but there are other
consequences. Now there is warfare. There is tension between the animals and
between men. There are also other
aspects given such as capital punishment given to man. This is all part of that contract. But man failed. Instead of filling the earth he gathered
together to make a name for himself. He
built the
So we see
that what is at the core of a dispensation is this legal contractual revelation
given by God.
There is a
change now and He is going to work through one individual, Abram who we have
been studying in Genesis. So we have the
dispensation of the patriarchs. When God
enters into that covenant it changes from the way He was working before. You can’t postpone the beginning of the Age
of Israel to the time that they become a nation. What is important first and foremost is the
race that is based on the calling of Abraham and then Isaac (the promised seed)
and then Jacob. So the Age of Israel
begins with the patriarchs and the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12:1-3. The formal ceremony is in Genesis 15. The sign of circumcision is in Genesis
17.
As part of
this the descendents of Abraham were to stay a distinct people. They weren’t to intermarry. So when Abraham wants a wife for Isaac he
sends Eliazer back to Horan to find through his relatives a bride for Isaac. Jacob does the same thing. But the sons of Jacob started to intermarry
with the Canaanites. That brought
judgment. They assimilated into the
Canaanite culture. The threat is there
so God punishes them by sending them all down to
God freed
them at the Exodus event and God gives them another covenant – a temporary
covenant called the Mosaic Law or the Old Covenant. This is laid out in Exodus 20-40. The principle there is to obey the law and
you will enjoy the blessings of the land.
If you disobey the law you will be kicked out of the land. But God would bring them back. They disobeyed
according to II Chron 26:14 and they were removed from the land. They could not enjoy the blessings; but it was
still theirs positionally, but not experientially. It is tantamount to the sin unto death in the
spiritual life today. So they are in the
Diaspora as outlined in Deut 28:63-66.
Then we
have a new age that enters in – the Messianic Age. Now not all dispensationalists isolate the
Messianic Age or the period of Christ’s ministry as a separate dispensation.
However there have been several dispensationalists down through the years that
have done that. It is not typical
today, but there have been those who did.
It has been called the Age of the Messiah. It is a distinct revelation. There is a test and a revelation. The revelation was the logos, the
revelation of Christ. The test was to
accept Him as the Messiah. There is the
failure of the test on the part of Israel.
They rejected him as the Messiah.
And there is a judgment. There is
the judgment of the cross and the fifth cycle of discipline in AD 70. You can look at the dispensation of the
Messiah or the hypostatic union and you can see that it has distinguishing
characteristics just as the other dispensations do.
After the
resurrection and ascension of Christ with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the
Day of Pentecost you have the Church Age.
The New Covenant is applied to the Church Age. The responsibility is to trust in Christ as
Savior – faith alone in Christ alone.
Most people will reject Christ as their Messiah in this era. Just think of the billions of people on the
face of the planet who have never heard of Jesus Christ. Most human beings in this age will never hear
the gospel and will never hear the gospel.
Most people reject Christ and the judgment at the end on the earth is
the tribulation. The church of course is
removed at the rapture. We don’t go
through the tribulation.
The
tribulation relates to the last 7 years of Israel’s history. That ends with the Second Coming of Jesus
Christ.
After the
Battle of Armageddon we go into the Millennial Kingdom. The responsibility there is to obey
Christ. There is a failure even in
perfect environment where God is showing that the environment is never the
issue. It is sin. It is volition. At the end of the
The main
thing I want you to get from this chart is that there are ages such as the Age
of the Gentiles, the Age of Israel, the Messianic Age, the Church Age, and then
the Millennial Age. Then there are
subdivisions known as dispensations. In
some cases a dispensation and an age are identical such as the Messianic Age or
the Church Age. But in the Old Testament
the ages are subdivided into dispensations related to these covenants that were
given in the Old Testament.
This is
what the writer of Hebrews is referring to when he says that through Him God
the Father made the ages through Christ.
Jesus Christ controls history.
Jesus Christ also made everything.
He is the intermediate agent for all creation.
NKJ John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
NKJ John 1:3 All things were made through Him,
and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Intermediate
agency again.
God the
Father is the architect who plans everything.
Jesus Christ is the contractor on site through whom everything is made.
NKJ Colossians
He is the
one who continually sustains the universe.
That takes us through Hebrews 1:2.
This focuses on the centrality of Jesus Christ as the creator and the
one who lays out the ages and the one who controls history. You can summarize that last clause in
Hebrews 1:2 as Jesus Christ controls history and moves it to a destiny.