God, &c. After the manner of the best writers, the apostle begins this most instructive epistle with proposing the subjects of which he is about to discourse; namely, four important facts, on which the authority of the gospel, as a revelation from God, is built; and which, if well established, should induce unbelievers, whether Jews or Gentiles, to renounce their infidelity and embrace the gospel. Of these facts, the first is, that the same God, who gave the former revelations to the fathers of the Jewish nation, hath in these last days given the gospel to all mankind. This the apostle mentions first of all, to show the agreement of the gospel with the former revelations. For if there were any real opposition between the Jewish and Christian revelations, the authority of one or of both of them would be destroyed; whereas these revelations agreeing in all things, they mutually explain and support each other. Thus in this verse; God, who at sundry times The creation was revealed in the time of Adam; the last judgment in the time of Enoch; the coming of the Messiah in the time of Abraham, and the following patriarchs; the offices he should sustain, and the process he should go through in accomplishing man's redemption, in the time of Moses, of David, of Isaiah, and the other prophets; and so at various times more explicit knowledge was given. But the word πολυμερως rather signifies in sundry parts, parcels, or degrees, in opposition to a complete revelation; or the gradual discovery of the mind and will of God, by communications, one after another, as the church could bear the light of them. Thus to Adam, victory over the grand enemy of mankind by the Seed of the woman, was promised: to Abraham, that all mankind should be blessed in him and his seed: to Jacob, that the promised Seed of the woman and of Abraham should be a peaceful Prince, unto whom the gathering of the people should be: by Moses, that he should be an extraordinary Prophet, the disobeying of whom would be punished with certain destruction: by David, that he should be a Priest of a higher order than that of Aaron, and a King in Zion, whose dominion should extend from sea to sea, yea, to the ends of the earth, Psalms 72:1; Psalms 72:8: by Isaiah, that he should be the Child born, the Son given, and yet the mighty God, of the increase of whose government and peace there should be no end; that he should go through great scenes of suffering, (chap. 53.,) but should expiate sin, and conquer death: by Jeremiah, that he should be the Lord our righteousness: by Ezekiel, the one Shepherd of God's people, Ezekiel 34:23: by Zechariah, that he should build the spiritual temple, bear the glory, and be a Priest upon his throne; from whence, according to Joel, he should pour out his Spirit in an extraordinary measure upon his disciples: by Haggai and Malachi, that he should come to the temple, built after the return from Babylon, and that awful judgments should follow his coming upon such as rejected him. If (says Dr. Owen) we consider the whole progress of divine revelation from the beginning of the world, we shall find that it comprehends four principal parts or degrees, with such as were subservient to them. The first, made to Adam, was the principle of faith and obedience to the antediluvian fathers, and to this were subservient all the consequent particular revelations before the flood. The second, to Noah after the flood, contained the renewal of the covenant, and establishment of the church in his family, whereunto were subservient the revelations made to Melchizedec (Gen 14:19) and others, before the calling of Abraham. The third, to Abraham, implied a peculiar restriction of the promise to his seed, and a fuller illustration of the nature of it confirmed in the revelations made to Isaac, Jacob, and others of their posterity. The fourth, to Moses, comprehended the giving of the law, and erection of the Jewish Church in the wilderness; to which was principally subservient the revelation made to David, which was peculiarly designed to perfect the Old Testament worship. To which we may add the revelations made to Solomon, and the prophets in their respective days; particularly those who, before and during the captivity, pleaded with the people about their defection by scandalous sins and false worship: and Ezra, with the prophets that assisted in the reformation of the church after its return from Babylon, who in an eminent manner excited the people to expect the Messiah. These were the principal parts and degrees of divine revelation, from the foundation of the world to the coming of Christ, at least until his forerunner, John the Baptist. And by thus reminding the Hebrews, that the will of God was not formerly revealed to his church all at once, by Moses or any other, but by several parts and degrees, by new additions of light, as in his infinite wisdom he saw meet, the apostle clearly convinces them of their mistake in obstinately adhering to the Mosaic institutions. It is as if he had said, Consider the way whereby God revealed his will to the church hitherto. Hath it not been by parts and degrees? Hath he at any time shut up the progress of revelation? Hath he not always kept the church in expectation of new discoveries of his will? Did he ever declare that he would add no more to what he had commanded; or make no alteration in what he had instituted? So far from it, that Moses, when he had finished all his work in the Lord's house, told the people God would raise up another prophet like unto him, that is, who should reveal new laws and institutions as he had done, whom they were to hear and obey on the penalty of utter extermination, Deuteronomy 18:15, &c. But in opposition to this gradual revelation, the apostle intimates that now, by Jesus the Messiah, the Lord had begun and finished the whole revelation of his will, according to their own hopes and expectations.
And in divers manners By dreams, visions, audible voices, the appearances of angels, of the Lord in a human form, by Urim and Thummim, and the immediate inspiration of his Spirit, 2Pe 1:21; 1 Peter 1:11. Or, the expression, divers manners, may refer to the different ways in which the prophets communicated the different revelations which they received to the fathers. They did it in types and figures, significant actions, and dark sayings, as well as in plain language: whereas the gospel revelation was spoken by Christ and his apostles in one manner only, namely, in plain language; and to this one entire and perfect revelation the various, partial, imperfect revelations made before are opposed. Spake in time past Παλαι, of old, or anciently. The word, taken absolutely, comprises the whole space of time from the giving of the first promise to the end of the Old Testament revelations. Taken as relating to the Jews, it includes the ages intervening between the giving of the law and the death of the last prophet, Malachi, namely, the space of twenty-one jubilees, or near one thousand one hundred years, after which, as the Jews confess, the Spirit of prophecy was taken from Israel. The word spake is put for every kind of divine communication: unto the fathers The ancestors of the Jewish nation; by the prophets The mention of whom is a virtual declaration that the apostle received the whole Old Testament as of divine authority, and was not about to advance any doctrine in contradiction to it. Indeed, as he was writing to the Hebrews, many of whom were prejudiced against him as a person who departed from Moses and the prophets, it was an instance of great wisdom in him to signify, at the very beginning of his epistle, that he believed the revelations given by them of old. Thus, by removing one great cause of prejudice from those to whom he wrote, he would open the way for their receiving the doctrines contained in his epistle, a summary of which we have in the two next verses.