Hebrews 1:3

He is called "the brightness (the irradiation) of His glory" — the glory of God. The picture is something like the rays of the sun. If there were no rays we would not see the light of the sun, even though the sun might be in the sky… And so the Son of God is like the rays — the shining out of the glory of God. The Son is the same in essence. He is the shining out of that essence, so that it might reach us — so that there would be something to teach us the glory of God.

Notice that this is not something the Son became, or was made, in the course of time. Other glories tied to His work and His offices might have a beginning. But the glory we are speaking of now belongs to Him as Son. It is the essential glory of His Person — true of Him before time began, and true of Him when time will be no more.

He is also called "the express image of His person" (that is, substance). The word "substance" means essential being, or existence… The illustration is that of the impress of a seal. Though you had never seen the seal, I might show you the impress of it, the thing exactly like it, and from that impress you could form a true idea of the seal. So Christ is the "Impress" of the substance of God. He is the One in whom all the thoughts and feelings of God essentially are. This too was true of the Son before all worlds.

He is not merely the outward display of what God is, but He is the very impress, the very character of God's own being. He is therefore one with God. You cannot think of the Son without thinking of God. As our Lord said: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."

In verse 3 we also find the wonderful fact that the Son is the Upholder of all things. All things are upheld and hang together by the word of His power. We sometimes talk about the laws of the universe. We may watch the law of gravity at work, though we do not know the real why and how of it… We know that THE LAW of the universe is the word of His power. This is all that really matters.

No creature could share in this work. That divine and glorious Person undertook the whole work alone, and He would not take His seat on any other terms than as having perfectly finished it… Then, and not before — not until sin had been perfectly put away — did He sit down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So our sins are gone according to the perfection of the place of glory where He is now seated.

Hebrews 10 presses this to its full consequences for us: "But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."

All that glory does not frighten me — and He is in the middle of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself. This wonderful truth comes in: the glory of God is in the face of a man who has put away my sins, and who is there as the proof of it… I could not see Christ in the glory if there were one spot or stain of sin not put away.