The Epistle to the Hebrews

^

THE

MOT 3 1928

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

THOMAS CHARLES EDWARDS, D.D.,

PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH.

NEW YORK:

A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON,

714 BROADWAY.

PREFACE,

T N this volume the sole aim of the writer has been
to trace the unity of thought in one of the
greatest and most difficult books of the New Testa-
ment. He has endeavoured to picture his reader
as a member of what is known in the Sunday-schools
of Wales as ''the teachers' class," a thoughtful
Christian layman, who has no Greek, and desires
only to be assisted in his efforts to come at the real
bearing and force of words and to understand the
connection of the sacred author's ideas. It may not
be unnecessary to add that this design by no means
implies less labour or thought on the part of the
writer. But it does imply that the labour is veiled.
Criticism is rigidly excluded.

The writer has purposely refrained from discussing
the question of the authorship of the Epistle, simply

PREFACE,

because he has no new hght to throw on this standing
enigma of the Church. He is convinced that St. Paul
is neither the actual author nor the originator of the
treatise.

In case theological students may wish to consult
the volume when they study the Epistle to the
Hebrews, they will find the Greek given at the foot
of the page, to serve as a catch-word, whenever any
point of criticism or of interpretation seems to the
writer to deserve their attention.

T. C. E.

Aberystwyth, April i2tA, 1888,

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

THE REVELATION IN A SON -------3

CHAPTER n.

THE SON AND THE ANGELS - - - - - • . 21

CHAPTER HI.

FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS- - "51

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST^j __----- 69

CHAPTER V.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL- ----- 83

CHAPTER VI.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE ------ 99

viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

PAGE

THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK- - - - - " ^S

CHAPTER VIII.
THE (NEW COVENANT - - - - -- - -133

CHAPTER IX.

AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION - - • - - 1 83

CHAPTER X.
FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF - - - - - 199

CHAPTER XI.
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM - - - - - - -213

CHAPTER XII.

THE FAITH OF MOSES - - - - • - - - 233

CHAPTER XIII.

A CLOUD OF WITNESSES - - - - - - -259

CHAPTER XIV.
CONFLICT ---------- 273

CHAPTER XV.

MOUNT ZION --------- 293

CHAPTER XVI.
SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS - - - - • - '315

INDEX ------ 331

SUMMARY.

I. The Revelation in a Son : i. 1-3.

1. The previous revelation was in portions; this in a
Son, Who is the Heir and the Creator.

2. The previous revelation was in divers manners ; this in
a Son, Who is (i) the effulgence of God's glory; (2) the
image of His substance ; (3) the Sustainer ol all things ;
(4) the eternal Priest-King.

II. The Son and the Angels: i. 4-ii. 18.

1. The Revealer of God Son of God : i. 4-ii. 4.

2. The Son the Representative of man: ii. 5-18. (i) He
is crowned with glory as Son, that His propitiation may
prove effectual, and His humiliation involves a propitiatory
death. (2) His glory consists in being Leader of His
people, and His humiliation fitted Him for leadership.

(3) His glory consists in power to consecrate men to
God, and His humiliation endowed Him with this power.

(4) His glory consists in the destruction of Satan, and Satan
is destroyed through the Son's humiliation.

in. Fundamental Oneness of the Dispensations: iii. i-
iv. 13.

1. Moses and Christ are equally God's stewards.

2. The threatenings of God under the Old Testament are
in force in reference to apostasy from Christ.

3. The promises of God are still in force.

SUMMARY.

IV. The Great High-priest: iv./4-v. 10.

1. His sympathy.

2. His authority.

V. (A Digression ) The Impossibility of Renewal in
THE Case of Scoffers: v. ii-vi. 8.

Their renewal is impossible (i) because the doctrine of
Christianity is practical, and (2) because God's punishment
of cynicism is the destruction of the spiritual faculty.

VI. (Continuation of the Digression.) The Impossibility
of Failure: vi. 9-20.

VII. The Allegory of Melchizedek : vii. 1-28.

1. Melchizedek foreshadows the kingship of Christ.

2. Melchizedek foreshadows the personal greatness of
Christ.

3. The allegory teaches the existence of a priesthood
other than that of Aaron, viz., the priesthood founded on an
oath.

4. The allegory sets forth the eternal duration of Christ's
priesthood.

VIII. The New Covenant: viii. r. — , X» ^ ^

1. A new covenant promised through Jeremiah: viii. 1-13.
The new covenant would excel (i) in respect of the moral
law ; (2) in respect of knowledge of God ; (3) in respect
of forgiveness of sins.

2. A new covenant symbolized in the tabernacle: ix,
I-14.

3. A new covenant ratified in the death of Christ : ix. 15-
X. 18.

IX. An Advance in the Exhortation: x. 19-39.

X. Faith an Assurance and a Proof: xi. 1-3.

XI. The Faith of Abraham: xi. 8-19.

1. His faith compared with the faith of Noah.

2. His faith compared with the faith of Enoch.

3. His faith compared with the faith of Abel,

SUMMARY.

XII. The Faith of Moses: xi. 23-28.

1. Faith groping for the work of life

2. Faith chooses the work of Hfe.

3. Faith a disciphne for the work of life.

4. Faith renders the man's life and work sacramental.

XIII. A Cloud of Witnesses: xi. 29-xii. i.

XIV. Conflict: xii. 2-17. Faith as a hope of the future
endures the present conflict against men.

1. The preparatory training for the conflict consists in
putting away (i) our own grossness ; (2) the sin that besets
us.

2. The contest is successfully maintained if we look unto
Jesus (i) as Leader and Perfecter of our faith; (2) as an
example of faith.

3. The contest is necessary as a discipline in dealing
with (i) the weaker brethren, (2) the enemy at the gate,
and (3) the secular spirit.

XV. Mount Zion : xii. 18-29. The revelation on Sinai
preceded the sacrifices of the taDernacle ; the revelation on Zioa
follows the sacrifice of the Cross. Hence —

1. Sinai revealed the terrible side of God's character, Zion
the peaceful tenderness of His love.

2. The revelation on Sinai was earthly ; that on Zion is
spiritual.

XVI. Sundry Exhortations: xiii. 1-25.

THE REVELATION IN A SON,

•*God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by
divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in His Son, Whom He appointed Heir of all things,
through Whom also He made the worlds ; Who being the effulgence of
His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things
by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." — Heb. i. i — 3 (R.V.).

CHAPTER I.

THE REVELATION IN A SON.

" /^^ OD hath spoken." The eternal silence has
^-"^ been broken. We have a revelation. That
God has spoken unto men is the ground of all religion.
Theologians often distinguish between natural religion
and revealed. We may fairly question if all worship
is not based on some revelation of God. Prayer is the
echo in man's spirit of God's own voice. Men learn to
speak to the Father Who is in heaven as children come
to utter words : by hearing their parent speak. It is the
deaf who are also dumb. God speaks first, and prayer
answers as well as asks. Men reveal themselves to the
God Who has revealed Himself to them.

The Apostle is, however, silent about the revelations
of God in nature and in conscience. He passes them
by because we, sinful men, have lost the key to the
language of creation and of our own moral nature.
We know that He speaks through them, but we do not
know what He says. If we were holy, it would be
Otherwise. All nature would be vocal *' like some

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

sweet beguiling melody." But to us the universe is a
hieroglyphic which we cannot decipher, until we dis-
cover in another revelation the key that will make all
plain.

More strange than this is the Apostle's omission to
speak of the Mosaic dispensation as a revelation of
God. We should have expected the verse to run on
this wise : ^' God, having spoken unto the fathers in the
sacrifices and in the prophets, institutions, and inspired
words," etc. But the author says nothing about rites,
institutions, dispensations, and laws. The reason
apparently is that he wishes to compare with the
revelation in Christ the highest, purest, and fullest
revelation given before ; and the most complete revela-
tion vouchsafed to men, before the Son came to declare
the Father, is to be found, not in sacrifices, but in the
words of promise, not in the institutions, but in holy
men, who were sent, time after time, to quicken the
institutions into new life or to preach new truths. The
prophets were seers and poets. Nature's highest gift is
imagination, whether it ^' makes " a world that tran-
scends nature or " sees " what in nature is hidden from
the eyes of ordinary men. This faculty of the true
poet, elevated, purified, taken possession of by God's
Holy Spirit, became the best instrument of revelation,
until the word of prophecy was made more sure
through the still better gift of the Son.

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION IN A SON. 5

But it would appear from the Apostle's language that
even the lamp of prophecy, shining in a dark place,
was in two respects defective. "God spake in the
prophets by divers portions and in divers manners."
He spake in divers portions; that is, the revelation
was broken, as the light was scattered before it was
gathered into one source. Again, He spake in divers
manners. Not only the revelation was fragmentary,
but the separate portions were not of the same kind.
The two defects were that the revelation lacked unity
and was not homogeneous.

In contrast to the fragmentary character of the
revelation, the Apostle speaks of the Son, in the second
verse, as the centre of unity. He is the Heir and the
Creator of all things. With the heterogeneous revela-
tion in the prophets he contrasts, in the third verse,
the revelation that takes its foi*m from the peculiar
nature of Christ's Sonship. He is the effulgence of
God's glory, the very image of His substance ; He up-
holds all things by the word of His power ; and, having
made purification of sins, He took His seat on the right
hand of the Majesty on high.

Let us examine a little more closely the double com-
parison made by the Apostle between the revelation
given to the fathers and that which we have received.

First J the previous revelation was in portions. The
Old Testament has no centre, from which all its

6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

wonderful and varied lights radiate, till we find its
unity in the New Testament and read Jesus Christ into
it. God scattered the revelations over many centuries,
line upon line, precept after precept, here a little and
there a little. He spread the knowledge of Himself
over the ages of a nation's history, and made the i
development of one people the medium whereby to
communicate truth. This of itself, if nothing more had
been told us, is a magnificent conception. A nation's
early struggles, bitter failures, ultimate triumph, the
appearance within it of warriors, prophets, poets, saints,
used by the Spirit of God to reveal the invisible !
Sometimes revelation would make but one advance in
an age. We might almost imagine that God's truth
from the lips of His prophets was found at times too
overpowering. It was crushing frail humanity. The
Revealer must withdraw into silence behind the thick
veil, to give human nature time to breathe and recover
self-possession. The occasional message of prophecy
resembles the suddenness of Elijah's appearances and
departures^ and forms a strange contrast to the cease-
less stream of preaching in the Christian Church.

Still more strikingly does it contrast with the New
Testament, the greater book, yea the greatest of all
books. Only two classes of men deny its supremacy.
They are those who do not know what real greatness
is, and those who disparage it as a literature that they

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION m A SON. 7

may be the better able to seduce foolish and shallow
youths to reject it as a revelation. But honest and
profound thinkers, even when they do not admit that it
is the word of God, acknowledge it to be the greatest
among the books of men.

Yet the New Testament was all produced — if we are
forbidden to say *' given" — in one age, not fifteen
centuries. Neither was this one of the great ages of
history, when genius seems to be almost contagious.
Even Greece had at this time no original thinkers.
Its two centuries of intellectual supremacy had passed
away. It was the age of literary imitations and
counterfeits. Yet it is in this age that the book which
has most profoundly influenced the thought of all sub-
sequent times made its appearance. How shall we
account for the fact ? The explanation is not that its
writers were great men. However insignificant the
writers, the mysterious greatness of the book pervades
it all, and their lips are touched as with a live coal from
the altar. Nothing will account for the New Testament
but the other fact that Jesus of Nazareth had appeared
among men, and that He was so great, so universal, so
human, so Divine, that He contained in His own person
all the truth that will ever be discovered in the book.
Deny the incarnation of the Son of God, and you make
the New Testament an insoluble enigma. Admit that
Jesus is the Word, and that the Word is God, and the

THE EFISILE 7 0 THE HEBREWS,

book becomes nothing more, nothing less, than the
natural and befitting outcome of what He said and did
and suffered. The mystery of the book is lost in the
greater mystery of His person.

Here the second verse comes in, to tell us of this
great Person, and how He unites in Himself the whole
of God's revelation. He is appointed Heir of all things,
and through Him God made the ages. He is the
Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, He which
is, and which was, and which is to come, — the spring
from which all the streams of time have risen and the
sea into which they flow. But these are the two sides
of all real knowledge; and revelation is nothing else
than knowledge given by God. All the infinite variety
of questions with which men interrogate nature may be
reduced to two : Whence ? and whither ? As to the
latter question, the investigation has not been in vain.
We do know that, whatever the end will be, the
whole universe rises from lower to higher forms. If
one life perishes, it reappears in a higher life. It is
the ultimate purpose of all which still remains
unknown. But the Apostles declare that this in-
terrogation is answered in Jesus Christ. Only that
they speak, not of '^ultimate purpose," but of "the
appointed Heir." He is more than the goal of a
development. He is the Son of the living God, and
therefore the Heir of all the works and purposes of His

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION IN A SON, 9

Father. He holds His position by right of sonship,
and has it confirmed to Him as the reward of filial
service.

The word "Heir" is an allusion to the promise made
to Abraham. The reference, therefore, is not to the
eternal relation between the Son and God, not to any
lordship which the Son acquires apart from His
assumption of humanity and atoning death. The idea
conveyed by the word " Heir " will come again to the
surface, more than once, in the Epistle. But every-
where the reference is to the Son's final glory as
Redeemer. At the same time, the act of appointing
Him Heir may have taken place before the world was.
We must, accordingly, understand the revelation here
spoken of to mean more especially the manifestation
of God in the work of redemption. Of this work also
Christ is the ultimate purpose. He is the Heir, to
Whom the promised inheritance originally and ulti-
mately belongs. It is this that befits Him to become
the full and complete Revealer of God. He is the
answer to the question. Whither ? in reference to the
entire range of redemptive thought and action.

Again, He, too, is the Creator. Many seek to dis-
cover the origin of all things by analysis. They trace
the more complex to the less complex, the compound
to its elements, and the higher developments of life to
lower types. But to the theologian the real difficulty

lo THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

does not lie here. What matter whence, if we are still
the same ? We know what we are. We are men.
We are capable of thinking, of sinning, of hating or
loving God. The problem is to account for these facts
of our spirit. What is the evolution of holiness?
Whence came prayer, repentance, and faith ? But even
these questions Christianity professes to answer. It
answers them by solving still harder problems than
these. Do we ask who created the human spirit ?
The Gospel tells us who can sanctify man's inmost
being. Do we seek to know who made conscience ?
The New Testament proclaims One Who can purify
conscience and forgive the sin. To create is but a
small matter to Him Who can save. Jesus Christ is
that Saviour. He, therefore, is that Creator. In being
these things. He is the complete and final revelation
of God.

Second, previous revelations were given in divers
manners. God used many different means to reveal
Himself, as if He found them one after another inade-
quate. And how can a visible, material creation
sufficiently reveal the spiritual ? How can institutions
and systems reveal the personal, living God ? How
can human language even express spiritual ideas?
Sometimes the means adopted appear utterly incon-
gruous. Will the great Spirit, the holy and good God,
speak to a prophet in the dreams of night ? Shall we

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION m A SON. ii

say that the man of God sees real visions when he
dreams an unreal dream ? Or will an apparition of the
day more befittingly reveal God? Has every substance
been possessed by the spirit of falsehood, so that the
Being of beings can only reveal His presence in un-
substantial phantoms ? Has the waking life of intellect
become so entirely false to its glorious mission of
discovering truth that the God of truth cannot reveal
Himself to man, except in dreams and spectres ? Yet
there was a time when it might be well for us to recall
our dreams, and wise to believe in spiritualism. For a
dream might bring a real message from God, and
ecstasy might be the birth-throes of a new revelation.
Some of the good words of Scripture were at first a
dream. In the midst of the confused fancies of the
brain, when reason is for a time dethroned, a truth
descends from heaven upon the prophet's spirit. This
has been, but will never again take place. The oracles
are dumb, and we shall not regret them. We consult
no interpreter of dreams. We seek not the seances of
necromancers. Let the peaceful spirits of the dead
rest in God ! They had their trials and sorrows on
earth. Rest, hallowed souls ! We do not ask you
to break the deep silence of heaven. For God has
spoken unto us in a Son, Who has been made higher
than the heavens, and is as great as God. Even the
Son need not, must not, come to earth a second time

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

to reveal the Father in mighty deeds and a mightier
self-sacrifice. The revelation given is enough. ^^ We
will not say in our hearts, Who shall ascend into
heaven ? (that is, to bring Christ down :) or, Who shall
descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from
the dead.) The word is nigh us, in our mouth, and
in our heart : that is, the word of faith, which we
preach." *

The final form of God's revelation of Himself is,
therefore, perfectly homogeneous. The third verse
explains that it is a revelation, not only in a Son, but
in His Sonship. We learn what kind of Sonship is
His, and how its glorious attributes qualify Him to be
the perfect Revealer of God. Nevermore will a message
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.

I. He is the effulgence of God's glory. Many ex-
positors prefer another rendering : '' the reflection of
His glory." This would mean that God's self-manifes-
tation, shining on an external substance, is reflected, as
from a mirror, and that this reflection is the Son of

* Rom. X. 6—8.

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION IN A SON, 13

God. But such an expression does not convey a
consistent idea. For the Son must be the substance
from which the Hght 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 partici-
pates 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 essen-
tially ministrative character of the person of the Son." *
If a revelation will be given at all, His Sonship points
Him out as the Interpreter of God's nature and pur-
poses, 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

* Newman, Arians, p. 182 (ed. 1833).

l^ THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

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."* That the revelation
may be complete, the Son must be, in one sense, dis-
tinct 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 y\
If the Son is more than an effulgence, if He is " the
very image" of God's essence, nothing in God will
remain unrevealed. Every feature of His moral nature
will be delineated in the Son. If the Son is the exact
likeness of God and has a distinct mode of subsisting
He is capable of all the modifications in His form of
subsisting which may be necessary, in order to make
a complete revelation of God intelligible to men. It
is possible for Him to become man Himself. He is
capable of obedience, even of learning obedience by
suffering, and of acquiring power to succour by being
tempted. He can taste death. We might add, if we
were studying one of St. Paul's Epistles (which we are
not at present doing), that this distinction from God,
involved in His very Sonship, made Him capable of

* John xiv. 6, 9. f John v. 26.

i. 1-3.] THE REVELATION IN A SON. 15

emptying Himself of the Divine form of subsisting
and taking upon Him instead of it the form of a
servant. This power of meeting man's actual condition
confers upon the Son the prerogative of being the
complete and final revelation of God.

3. He upholds all things by the word of His power.
This must be closely connected with the previous state-
ment. If the Son is the effulgence of God's glory and
the express image of His essence, He is not a creature,
but is the Creator. The Son is so from God that He
is God. He so emanates from Him that He is a
perfect and complete representation of His being. He
is not in such a manner an effulgence as to be only
a manifestation of God, nor in such a manner an
image as to be a creature of God. But, in fellowship
of nature, the essence of God is communicated to
the Son in the distinctness of His mode of subsist-
ing. The Apostle's words fully justify — perhaps they
suggested — the expressions in the Nicene and still
earlier creeds, '' God of God, Light of Light, very God
of v^ry God." If this is His relation to God, it deter-
mines His relation to the universe, and the relation of
the universe to God. Philo had described the Word as
an effulgence, and spoken also of Him as distinct from
God. But in Philo these two statements are inconsis-
tent. For the former means that the Word is an attri-
bute of God, and the latter means that He is a creature.

l6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that the
Word is not an attribute, but a perfect representation
of God's essence. He says also that He is not a
creature, but the Sustainer of all things. These state-
ments are consistent. The one, in fact, implies the
other ; and both together express the same conception
which we find in St. John's Gospel : " In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. All things were made by Him ; and
without Him was not anything made that hath been
made."* It is also the teaching of St. Paul : " In Him
were all things created, in the heavens and upon the
earth, things visible and things invisible, whether
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : all
things have been created through Him, and unto Him ;
and in Him all things consist." t

But the Apostle has a further motive in referring to
the Son as Upholder of all things. As Creator and
Sustainer He reveals God. He upholds all things by
the word of His power. " The invisible things of God
are perceived through the things which are made, even
His everlasting power and Divinity." % There is a re-
velation of God prior even to that given in the prophets.

4. Having made purification of sins. He took His
seat on the right hand of the Majesty on high. We

♦ John i. I, 3. t Col. i. 16, 17. J Rom. i. 20.

1.1-3.] THE REVELATION IN A SON. 17

come now, at last, to the special revelation of God
which forms the subject of the Epistle. The Apostle
here states his central truth on its two sides. The
one side is Christ's priestly offering ; the other is His
kingly exaltation. We shall see as we proceed that
the entire structure of the Epistle rests on this great
conception, — the Son of God, the eternal Priest-King.
By introducing it at this early stage, the author gives
his readers the clue to what will very soon prove a
labyrinth. We must hold the thread firmly, if we
wish not to be lost in the maze. The subject of the
treatise is here given us. It is ^^ The Son as Priest-
King the Revealer of God." The revelation is not in
words only, nor in external acts only, but in love, in
redemption, in opening heaven to all believers. It is
well termed a revelation. For the Priest-King has rent
the thick veil and opened the way to men to enter into
the true holiest place, so that they know God by
prayer and communion.

THE SON AND THE ANGELS,

Hebrews i. 4 — ii. 18.

CHAPTER II.

THE SON AND THE ANGELS.

*' I ^HE most dangerous and persistent error against
-*- which the theologians of the New Testament
had to contend was the doctrine of emanations. The
persistence of this error lay in its affinity with the
Christian conception of mediation between God and
men; its danger sprang from its complete inconsis-
tency with the Christian idea of the person and work
of the Mediator. For the Hebrew conception of God,
as the " I AM," tended more and more in the lapse
of ages to sever Him from all immediate contact with
created beings. It would be the natural boast of the
Jews that Jehovah dwelt in unapproachable light.
They would point to the contrast between Him and
the human gods of the Greeks. An ever-deepening
consciousness of sin and spiritual gloom would
strengthen the conviction that the Lord abode behind
the veil, and their conception of God would of neces-
sity react on their consciousness of sin. If, therefore,
God is the absolute Being — so argued the Gnostics of

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

the day — He cannot be the actual Creator of the world.
We must suppose the existence of an emanation or
a series of emanations from God, every additional link
in the chain being less Divine, until we arrive at the
material universe, where the element of Divinity is
entirely lost. These emanations are the angels, the
only possible mediators between God and men. Some
theories came to a stand at this point ; others took
a further step, and worshipped the angels, as the
mediators also between men and God. Thus the
angels were regarded as messengers or apostles from
God and reconcilers or priests for men. St. Paul has
already rejected these notions in his Epistle to the
Colossians. He teaches that the Son of God's love
is the visible image of the invisible God, prior to all
creation and by right of primogeniture Heir of all.
Creator of the highest angels, Himself being before
they came into existence. Such He is before His
assumption of humanity. But it pleased God that in
Him, also as God-Man, all the plenitude of the Divine
attributes should dwell ; so that the Mediator is not an
emanation, neither human nor Divine, but is Himself
God and Man.*

Recent expositors have sufficiently proved that there
was a Judaic element in the Colossian heresy. We

* Col. i. 15, 19.

THE SON AND THE ANGELS, 23

need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that the Epistle
to the Hebrews contains references to the same error.
Oar author acknowledges the existence of angels. He
declares that the Law was given through angels, which
is a point not touched upon more than once in the
Old Testament, but seemingly taken for granted, rather
than expressly announced, in the New. Stephen
reproaches the Jews, who had received the Law as
the ordinances of angels, with having betrayed and
murdered the Righteous One, of Whom the Law and
the prophets spake.* St. Paul, like the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, argues that the Law differs
from the promise in having been ordained through
angels, as mediators between the Lord and His people
Israel, whereas the promise was given by God, not
as a compact between two parties, but as the free act
of Him Who is one.f The main purpose of the first
and second chapters of our Epistle is to maintain the
superiority of the Son to the angels, of Him in Whom
God has spoken unto us to the mediators through
whom He gave the Law.

The defect of the doctrine of emanations was two-
fold. They are supposed to consist of a long chain of
intermediate beings. But the chain does not connect
at either end. God is still absolutely unapproachable

* Acts vii. 53 t Gal. iii. 19.

24 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

by man; man is still inaccessible to God. It is in
vain new links are forged. The chain does not, and
never will, bring man and God together. The only
solution of the problem must be found in One Who is
God and Man ; and this is precisely the doctrine of
our author, on the one hand, that the Revealer of God
is Son of God ; and, on the other hand, that the Son
of God is our brother-man. The former statement is
proved, and a practical warning based upon it, in the
section that extends from chap. i. 4 to chap. ii. 4.
The latter is the subject of the section from chap,
ii. 5 to chap. ii. 18.

I. The Revealer of God Son of God.

*' Having become by so much better than the angels, as He hath
inherited a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the
angels said He at any time,

Thou art my Son,

This day have I begotten Thee?

and again,

I will be to Him a Father,
And He shall be to Me a Son ?

And when He again bringeth in the Firstborn into the world He saith,
And let all the angels of God worship Him. And of the angels He
saith

Who maketh His angels winds,
And His ministers a flame of fire :
but of the Son He ^aithy

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ;

And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom.

i.4-ii.4] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 25

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
Therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee
With the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.

And,

Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are the works of Thy hands :

They sh?ll perish ; but Thou continuest :

And they all shall wax old as doth a garment j

And as a mantle shalt Thou roll them up,

As a garment, and they shall be changed ;

But Thou art the same,

And Thy years shall not fail.

But of which of the angels hath He said at any time,

Sit Thou on My right hand^

Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet ?

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the
sake of them that shall inherit salvation ?

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that
were heard, lest haply we drift away from them. For if the word
spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and
disobedience received a just recompense of reward ; how shall we
escape, if we neglect so great salvation? which having at the first
been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that
heard ; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders,
and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to
Jlis own will " (Heb. i. 4 — ii. 4, R.V.).

Christ is Son of God, not in the sense in which
angels, as a class of beings, are designated by this
name, but as He Who has taken His seat on the right
hand of the Majesty on high. The greatness of His
position is proportionate to the excellency of the name

26 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

of Son. This name He has not obtained by favour nor
attained by effort, but inherited by indefeasible right.
Josephus says that the Essenes forbade their disciples
to divulge the names of the angels. But He Who has
revealed God has been revealed Himself. He is Son.
Which of the angels was ever so addressed ? To speak
of the angels as sons and yet say that not one of them
individually is a son may be self-contradictory in
words, but the thought is consistent and true.

From the pre-existent Son, regarded as the idealised
theocratic King, the Apostle passes to the incarnate
Christ, returning to the world which He has redeemed,
and out of which He brings * many sons of God unto
glory. God brings Him also in as the First-begotten
among these many brethren. But our Lord Himself
describes His coming. *' The Son of man shall come
in His glory, and all the angels with Him." f In
allusion to this saying of Christ, the Apostle applies to
His second advent the words which in the Septuagint
Version of the Old Testament are a summons to all
the angels to worship Jehovah. They are the Son's
ministers. Like swift winds, they convey His
messages ; or they carry destruction at His bidding,
like a flame of fire, But the Son is enthroned God
for ever. The sceptre of righteousness, by whomso-

* orjaribvTH. f Matt. xxv. 31,

i. 4-ii. 4-] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 27

ever borne, is the sceptre of His kingdom ; all thrones
and powers, human and angeHc, hold sway under Him.
They are His fellows, and participate only in His
ro3^al gladness, Whose joy surpasses theirs.

The author reverts to the Son's pre-incarnate exist-
ence. The Son created earth and heaven, and, for that
reason, He remains when the works of His hand wax
old, as a garment. Creation is the vesture of the Son.
In all the changes of nature the Son puts off a
garment, while He remains unchanged Himself.

Finally, our author glances at the triumphant con-
summation, when God will do for His Son what He
will not do for the angels. For He will make His
enemies the footstool of His feet, as the reward of
His redemptive work. The angels have no enemy to
conquer. Neither are they the authors of our redemp-
tion. Yea, they are not even the redeemed. The
Son is the Heir of the throne. Men are the heirs of
salvation. Must we, then, quite exclude the angels
from all present activity in the kingdom of the Son ?
Do they altogether belong to a past epoch in the
development of God's revelation ? Must we say of
them, as astronomers speak of the moon, that they are
dead worlds ? Shall we not rather find a place for
them in the spirit-world corresponding to the office
filled in the sphere of nature by the works of God's
hands ? God has His earthly ministers. Are not the

28 THE EFISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

angels ministering spirits ? The Apostle puts the
question tentatively. But the pious instinct of the
Church and of good men has answered, Yes. For salva-
tion has created a nev^r form of service for which nature
is not fitted. The narrative of the Son's own life on
earth suggests the same reply. For an angel appeared
unto Him in Gethsemane and strengthened Him.* It
is true that the Son Himself is the Minister of the
sanctuary. He alone serves in the holiest place. But
may not the angels be sent forth to minister ? Salva-
tion is the work of the Son. But shall we not say that
the angels perform a service for the Son, which is
possible only because of m.en who are now on the eve
of inheriting that salvation ?

We must beware of minimising the significance of
the Apostle's words. If he means by '' Son " merely
an official designation, where is the difference between
the Son and the angels ? The only definition of
*' Son " that will satisfy the argument is ^' God the
Revealer of God." SabeUius said, ^'The Word is not
the Son." The contrary doctrine is necessary to give
any value to the reasoning of our Epistle. The
Revealer is Son ; and the Son, in order to be the full
Revealer, must be " of the essence of the Father,"
inasmuch as God only can perfectly reveal God. This

* Luke xxii. 43. The genuineness of the verse is somewhat doubtful.

i.4-ii.4] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 29

is SO vital to the Apostle's argument that he need not
hesitate to use a term in refeience to the Son which
in another connection might be liable to be misunder-
stood, as if it expressed the theory of emanation.
The Son is " the effulgence " of the Father's glory,
or, in the words of the Nicene Creed, He is " Light
out of Light." It is safe to use such words when our
very argument demands that He should also be "the
distinct impress of His substance," — " very God out
of very God."

The Apostle has now laid the foundation of his
great argument. He has shown us the Son as the
Revealer of God. This done, he at once introduces
his first practical warning. It is his manner. He
does not, like St. Paul, first conclude the argumentative
portion of his Epistle, and afterwards heap precept on
precept in words of warning, sympathy, or encourage-
ment. Our author alternates argument with exhorta-
tion. The Epistle wears to a superficial reader the
appearance of a mosaic. The truth is that no book in
the New Testament is more thoroughly or more skil-
fully welded into one piece from beginning to end.
But the danger was imminent, and urgent warning
was needed at every step. One truth was better fitted
to drive home one lesson, and another argument to
enforce another.

The first danger of the Hebrew Christians would

30 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

— w ~~~

arise from indifference. The first warning of the
Apostle is, Take care that you do not drift.* In the
Son as the Revealer of God we have a sure anchorage.
Let us fasten the vessel to its moorings. That the
Son has revealed God is beyond question. The fact
is well assured. For the message of salvation has
been proclaimed by the Lord Jesus Himself. It has
run its course down to the writer of the Epistle and
his readers through the testimony of eye-witnesses
and ear-witnesses. God Himself has borne witness
with these faithful men by signs and wonders and
divers manifestations of power, yea by giving the
Holy Ghost to each one severally according to His
own will. The last words are not to be neglected.
The apparent arbitrariness of His sovereign will in the
distribution of the Spirit lends force to the proof, by
pointing to the direct, personal action of God in this
great concern.

But the warning is based, not simply on the fact
of a revelation, but on the greatness of the Revealer.
The Law was given through angels, and the Law was
not transgressed with impunity. How, then, shall we
escape God's anger if we contemptuously neglect a
salvation so great that no one less than the Son could
have wrought or revealed it?

* /uy) iTapapvQ)ix€v (ii. i).

i. 4-ii. 4.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 31

Observe the emphatic notions. Salvation is contrasted
with \2iW. It is a greater sin to despise God's free,
merciful offer of eternal hfe than to transgress the
commandments of His justice. There may be emphasis
also on the certainty of the proof. The word spoken
by angels was firmly assured, and, because no man could
shelter under the plea that the heavenly authority of the
message was doubtful, disobedience met with unspar-
ing retribution. But the Gospel is proved to be of
God by still more abundant evidence, — the personal
testimony of the Lord Jesus, the witness of those who
heard Him, and the cumulative argument of gifts and
miracles. . While these truths are emphatic, more
important than all is the fact that the Son is the Giver
of this salvation. The thought seems to be that God
is jealous for the honour of His Son. Our Lord Him-
self teaches this, and the form which it assumes in
His parable implies that He speaks, not as a specula-
tive moralist, but as One Who knows God's heart:
"Last of all he sent unto them his son, saying,
They will reverence my son." But when Christ asks
His hearers what the lord of the vineyard will do
unto those wicked husbandmen, the mianner of their
reply shows that they only half understand His mean-
ing or else pretend not to see the point of His question.
They acknowledge the husbandmen's wickedness, but
profess that it consists largely in not rendering to the

32 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

owner the fruits in their season, as if, forsooth, their
wickedness in killing their master's son had not thrust
their dishonesty quite out of sight.* The Apostle,
too, appeals to his readers,! evidently in the belief
that they would at once feel the force of his argument,
whether trampling under foot the Son of God did not
deserve sorer punishment than despising the law of
Moses, Christ and the Apostle speak in the spirit
of the second Psalm : " Thou art My Son. Ask of Me,
and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy posses-
sion. . . . Kiss the Son ! " Now, if Christ adopts this
language, it is not mere metaphor, but is a truth con-
cerning God's moral nature. Resentment must, in
some sense or other, belong to God's Fatherhood. The
doctrine of the Trinity implies the necessary and
eternal altruism of the Divine nature. It would not
be true to say that the God of the Christians was less
jealous than the God of the Hebrews. He is still the
living God. It is a fearful thing to fall into His hands.
He will still vindicate the majesty of His law. But
now He has spoken unto us in One Who is Son. The
Judge of all is not a mere official Administrator, but
a Father. The place occupied in the Old Testament
by the Law is now filled by the Son.

* Matt, xxi, 33, sqq. f Heb. x. 29.

ii.5-i8.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 33

II. The Son the Representative of Man.

**For not unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we
speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying,

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ;
Thou crownedst him with glory and honour.
And didst set him over the works of Thy hands :
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.

For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is
not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to
him. But we behold Him Who hath been made a little lower than the
angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory
and honour, that by the grace of God He should taste death for every
man. For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and through
Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He
that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one : for which
cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,

I will declare Thy name unto My brethren,

In the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise

And again, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the
children which God hath given Me. Since then the children are
sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of
the same ; that through death He might bring to nought him that had
the power of death, that is, the devil ; and might deliver all them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For
verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh hold of the seed
of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like
unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-priest
in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the
people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted. He is
able to succour them that are tempted " (Heb. ii. 51—8, R. V.).

3

34 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The Son is better than the angels, not only because
He is the Revealer of God, but also because He repre-
sents man. We have to do with more than spoken
promises. The salvation through Christ raises man to
a new dignity, and bestows upon him a new authority.
God calls into existence a " world to come," and puts
that world in subjection, not to angels, but to man.

The passage on the consideration of which we now
enter is difficult, because the interpretation offered by
some of the best expositors, though at first sight it has
the appearance of simplicity, really introduces confusion
into the argument. They think the words of the
Psalmist,* as applied by the Apostle, refer to Christ
only. But the Psalmist evidently contrasts the frailty
of man with the authority bestowed upon him by
Jehovah. Mortal man has been set over the works -of
God's hand. Man is for a little inferior to the angels;
yet he is crowned with glory and honour. The very
contrast between his frailty and his dignity exalts the
name of his Creator, Who judges not as we judge.
For He confronts His blasphemers with the lisping of
children, and weak man He crowns king of creation, in
order to put to shame the wisdom of the world.f

We cannot suppose that this is said of Christ, the
Son of God. But there are two expressions in the

♦ Ps. viii. 4, \ Ps. viii. 2.

ii. 5-18.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS, 35

Psalm that suggested to St. Paul * and the author of this
Epistle a Messianic reference. The one is the name
^' Son of man ; " the other is the action ascribed to
God : ^' Thou hast made him lower than the angels."
The word f used by the Seventy, whose translation the
Apostle here and elsewhere adopts, means, not, as the
Hebrew, *'to create lower," but " to bring from a more
exalted to a humbler condition." Christ appropriated
to Himself the title of " Son of man ; " and " to lower
from a higher to a less exalted position " applies only
to the Son of God, Whose pre-existence is taught by
the Apostle in chap. i. The point of the Apostle's
application of the Psalm must, therefore, be that in
Christ alone have the Psalmist's words been fulfilled.
The Psalmist was a prophet, and testified.J In addition
to the witnesses previously mentioned, § the Apostle
cites the evidence from prophecy. An inspired seer,
"seeing this beforehand, spake of Christ," not primarily,
but in a mystery now explained in the New Testament.
The distinction also between crowning with glory and
putting all things under his feet holds true only of
Christ. The Psalmist, we admit, appears to identify
them. But the relevancy of the Apostle's use of the
Psalm lies in the distinction between these two things.

* I Cor. XV. 27, + Cf. Acts ii. 30.

f •^XdrToxra?. § Chap. ii. 4.

36 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The creature man may be said to be crowned with
glory and honour by receiving universal dominion and
by the subjection of all things under his feet. " But
we see not yet all things put under him ; " and,
consequently, we see not man crowned with glory and
honour. The words of the Psalmist have apparently
failed of fulfilment or were at best only poetical
exaggeration. But Him Who was actually translated
from a higher to a lower place than that of angels, from
heaven to earth — that is to say, Jesus, the meek and
lowly Man of Nazareth — we see crowned with glory
and honour. He has ascended to heaven and sat down
on the right hand of the Majesty on high. So far the
prophecy has come true, but only so far. All things
have not yet been put under Him. He is still waiting
till He has put all enemies, even the last enemy, which
is death, under His feet. As, then, the glory and
honour are bestowed on man through his Representative,
Jesus, so also dominion is given him only through
Jesus ; and the glory comes only with the dominion.
Every honour that falls to man's share is won for him
by the victory of Christ over an enemy. This is the
nearest approach in our Epistle to the Pauline conception
of Christ as the second Adam.

But is there any connection between Christ's victory
and His being made lower than the angels ? When the
Psalmist describes the great dignity conferred on frail

ii. 5.18.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 37

man, he sees only the contrast between the dignity and
the frailty. He can only wonder and worship in
observing the incomprehensible paradox of God's deal-
ings with man. The Apostle, on the other hand,
fathoms this mystery. He gives the reasons for the
strange connection of power and feebleness, not indeed
in reference to man as a creature, but in reference to
the Man Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ the problem
that struck the Psalmist with awe remains unsolved.
But in Christ's incarnation we see why man's glory and
dominion rest on humiliation.

I. Christ's humiliation involved a propitiatory death
for every man, and He is crowned with glory and
honour that His propitiation may prove effectual : "that
He may have tasted * death for every man." By His
glory we must mean the self-manifestation of His
person. Honour is the authority bestowed upon Him
by God. Both are the result of His suffering death,
or rather the suffering of His death. He is glorified,
not simply because He suffered, but because His suffer-
ing was of a certain kind and quality. It was a pro-
pitiatory suffering. Christ Himself prayed His Father
to glorify Him with His own self with the glory He
had with the Father before the world was.f This
glory was His by right of Sonship. But He receives

♦ 7ei;(r?jTat (ii. 9). t Joh'^ ^vii. 5.

38 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

from His Father another glory, not by right, but by
God's grace.* It consists in having His death ac-
cepted and acknowledged as an adequate propitiation
for the sins of men. In this verse the great conception
of atonement, which hereafter will fill so large a place
in the Epistle, is introduced, not at present for its own
sake, but in order to show the superiority of Christ to
the angels. He is greater than they because He is the
representative Man, to Whom, and not to the angels,
the w^orld to come has been put in subjection. But
the Psalmist has taught us that man's greatness is
connected with humiliation. This connection is realised
In Christ, Whose exaltation is the Divine acceptance
of the propitiation wrought in the days of His humilia-
tion, and the means of giving it effect.

2. Christ's glory consists in being Leader f of His
people, and for such leadership He was fitted by the
discipline of humiliation. There is no incongruity in
the works of God because He is Himself the ground of
their being J and the instrument of His own action. §
Every adaptation of means to an end would not become
God, though it might befit man. But this became Him
for Whom and through Whom are all things. When He
crowns man with glory and honour, He does this, not
by an external ordinance merely, but by an inward

* x<^pt^t' t o,pXVyov (ii. lo). J Si 6v. § di o5.

ii. 5- 1 8.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS.

39

fitness. He deals, not with an abstraction, but with
individual men, whom He makes His sons and prepares
for their glory and honour by the discipline of sons.
*' For what son is there whom his father does not disci-
pline?" * Thus it is more true to say that God leads His
sons to glory than to say that He bestows glory upon
them. It follows that the representative Man, through
Whom these many sons are glorified, must Himself pass
through like discipline, that, on behalf of God, He may
become their Leader and the Captain of their salvation.
It became God to endow the Son, in Whose Sonship
men are adopted as sons of God, with inward fitness,
through sufferings, to lead them on to their destined
glory. Perhaps the verse contains an allusion to Moses
or Joshua, the leaders of the Lord's redeemed to the
rich land and large. If so, the author is preparing his
readers for what he has yet to say.

3. Christ's glory consists in power to consecrate f
men to God, and this power springs from His conscious-
ness of brotherhood with them. But, first of all, the
author thinks it necessary to prove that Christ has a
deep consciousness of brotherhood with men. He cites
Christ's own words from prophetic Scripture. f For
Christ has vowed unto the Lord, Who has delivered
Him, that He will declare God's name unto His

* Chap. xii. 7. f b iyia'^wv (ii. Ii). % ^^- x^"- 22.

40 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

brethren. Here the pith of the argument is quite as
much in the vow to reveal God to them as in His giving
them the name of brethren. He is so drawn in love to
them that He is impelled to speak to them about the
Father. Yea, in the midst of the Church, as if He
were one of the congregation, He will praise God.
They praise God for His Son ; the Son joins in the
praise, as being thankful for the privilege of being their
Saviour, while they offer their thanks for the joy of
being saved. That is not all. Christ puts His trust
in God. So human is He that, conscious of utter
weakness, He leans on God, as the feeblest of His
brethren. Finally, His triumphant joy at the safety
of His redeemed ones arises from this consciousness
of brotherhood. ^' Behold, I and the children " (of
God) "which God hath given Me."* The Apostle
does not fear to apply to Christ what Isaiah f spoke in
reference to himself and his disciples, the children of
the prophet. Christ's brotherhood with men assumes
the form of identifying Himself with His prophetic
servants. Evidently He is not ashamed of His
brethren, though, like Joseph, He has reason to be
ashamed of them for their sin. The expression means
that He glories in them, because His assumption oi
humanity has consecrated them. For this consecration

♦ Chap. ii. 13. f Isa. viii. i8.

ii.S-i8.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS, \l

springs from union. We do not, for our part, under-
stand this as a general proposition, of which the
sanctifying power of Christ is an illustration. No othei
instance of such a thing exists. Yet the Apostle does
not prove the statement. He appeals to the intelligence
and conscience of his readers to acknowledge its truth.
Whether we understand the word " sanctification " in
the sense of moral consecration through an atonement
or in the sense of holy character, it springs from union.
Christ cannot sanctify by a creative word or by an act
of power. Neither can His power to sanctify be trans-
mitted by God to the Son externally, in the same way
in which the Creator bestows on nature its vital, fer-
tilising energy. Christ must derive His power to
sanctify through His Sonship, and men must become
sons of God that they may be sanctified through the
Son. Our passage adds Christ's brotherhood. He
that consecrates, therefore, and they that are conse-
crated are united together, first, by being born of the
same Divine Father, and, second, by having the same
human nature. Here, again, the chain connects at
both ends : on the side of God and on the side of man.
Now to have dwelling in Him the power of consecrating
men to God is so great an endowment that Christ may
dare even to glory in the brotherhood that brings with
it such a gift.

4. Christ's glory manifests itself in the destruction of

42 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

Satan, who had the power of death, and his destruction
is accompHshed through death.* The children of God
have every one his share of blood and flesh, which
means vital, mortal humanity. Blood signifies life, and
flesh the mortality of that life. They are, therefore,
subject to disease and death. But to the Hebrews
disease and death involved vastly more than physical
suffering and the termination of man's earthly existence.
They had their angel, by which is meant that they
had a moral significance. They were spiritual forces,
wielded by a messenger of God. This angel was
Satan. But, following the lead of the later Jewish
theology, our author explains who Satan really is. He
identifies him with the evil spirit, who from envy, says
the Book of Wisdom, brought death into the world.
To make clear this identification, he adds the words,
that is, the devil." The reference to Satan is sufii-
cient to show that the writer of the Epistle means by
" the power of death " power to inflict it and keep men
in its terrible grasp. But the difficulty is to under-
stand how the devil is destroyed through death.
Evidently the death of Christ is meant; we may
paraphrase the Apostle's expression by rendering,
'* through His death." At first glance, the words,
taken in connection with the reference to Christ's

♦Chap. ii. 14.

ii. 5-18.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS. 43

humanity, seem to favour the doctrine, propounded by
many writers in the early ages of the Church, that God
delivered His Son to Satan as the price of man's
release from his rightful possession. Such a notion is
utterly inconsistent with the dominant idea of the
Epistle : the priestly character of Christ's death. A
Hebrew Christian could not conceive the high-priest
entering the holiest place to offer a redemptive sacrifice
to the spirit of evil. Indeed, the advocates of this
strange theory of the Atonement admitted as much
when they described Christ as outwitting the devil or
escaping from his hands by persuasion. But the
doctrine is quite as inconsistent with the passage before
us, which represents the death of Christ as the destruc-
tion of the Evil One. Power faces power. Christ is
the Captain of salvation. His leadership of men im-
plies conflict with their enemy and ultimate victory.
Death was a spiritual conception. Here lay its power.
Deliverance from the crushing bondage of its fear could
come only through the great High-priest. Priesthood
was the basis of Christ's power. We shall soon see
that Christ is the Priest-King. The Apostle even now
anticipates what he has hereafter to say on the relation
of the priesthood to the kingly power. For as Priest
Christ delivers men from guilt of conscience and, by so
doing, delivers them from their fear of death ; as King
He destroys him who had the power to destroy. He is

44 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

'Meath of death and hell's destruction." It has been
well said that the two terrors from which none but
Christ can deliver men are guilt of sin and fear of
death. The latter is the offspring of the former.
When the conscience of sin is no more^ dread of death
yields to peace and joy.

In these four ways is the glory of Christ connected
with humiliation, and thus will the prophecy of the
Psalmist find its fulfilment in the representative Man,
Jesus. His humiliation implied propitiation, moral
discipline, conscious brotherhood, and subjection to
him who had the power of death. His glory consisted
in the effectiveness of the propitiation, in leadership of
His people, in consecration of His brethren, in the
destruction of the devil.

But an interesting view of the passage has been
proposed by Hofmann, and accepted by at least one
thoughtful theologian of our country. They consider
that the Apostle identifies the humiliation and the glory.
In the words of Dr. Bruce,* " Christ's whole state of
exinanition was not only worthy to be rewarded by a
subsequent state of exaltation, but was in itself invested
with moral sublimity and dignity." The idea has con-
siderable fascination. We cannot set it aside by
saying that it is modern, seeing that the Apostle himself

* Humiliation of Christ, p. 46.

ii. 5-18.] THE SON AND THE ANGELS, 45

speaks of the office of high-priest as an honour and a
glory.* Yet we are compelled to reject it as an
explanation of the passage. The Apostle is showing
that the Psalmist's statement respecting man is realised
only in the Man Christ Jesus. The difficulty was to
connect man's low estate and man's glory and dominion.
But if the Apostle means that voluntary humiliation
for the sake of others is the glory, some men besides
Jesus Christ might have been mentioned in whom the
words of the Psalm find their accomplishrnent. The
difference between Jesus and other good men would
only be a difference of degree. Such a conclusion
would very seriously weaken the force of the Apostle's
reasoning.

In bringing his most skilful and original argument
to a close, the Apostle recapitulates. He has said that
the world to^ come, — the world of conscience and of
spirit, — has been put in subjection to man, not to
angels, and that this implies the incarnation of the Son
of God. This thought the Apostle repeats in another,
but very striking, form : " For verily He taketh not
hold of angels, but He taketh hold of the seed of
Abraham." Though the old versions were incorrect in
so rendering the words as to make them express the
fact of the Incarnation, the verse is a reference to the

* Chap. V. 4, 5.

46 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Incarnation, described, however, as Christ's strong
grasp * of man. By becoming man He takes hold of
humanity, as with a mighty hand, and that part by
which He grasps humanity is the seed of Abraham, to
whom the promise was made.

Four points of connection between the glory of
Christ and His humiliation have been mentioned. In
his recapitulation, the Apostle sums all up in two.
The one is that Christ is Priest ; the other is that He
succours them that are tempted. His propitiatory
death and His bringing to nought the power of Satan
are included in the notion of priesthood. The moral
discipline that made Him our Leader and the sense of
brotherhood that made Him Sanctifier render Him able
to succour the tempted. Even this also, as will be
fully shown by the Apostle in a subsequent chapter, is
contained in His priesthood. For He only can make
propitiation. Whose heart is full of tender pity and
steeled only against pity for Himself by reason of His
dauntless fidelity to others.

Thus is the Son better than the angels.

* iTriXafipdverai (ii. 1 6).

FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS,

Hebrews iii. i — iv. 13 (R.V.).

** Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, con-
sider the Apostle and High-priest of our confession, even Jesus ; who
was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also was Moses in all his
house. For He hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses,
by so much as he that built the house hath more honour than the
house. For every house is builded by some one ; but He that built all
things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a
servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be
spoken ; but Christ as a Son, over His house ; Whose house are we, if
we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the
end. Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost saith,

To-day if ye shall hear His voice.
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation,
Like as in the day of the temptation in the wilderness,
Wherewith your fathers tempted Me by proving Me^
And saw My works forty years-
Wherefore I was displeased with this generation,
And said. They do alway err in their heart ;
But they did not know My ways ;
As 1 svvare in My wrath,
They shall not enter into My rest.

Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil
heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God : but exhort one
another day by day, so long as it is called to-day ; lest any one of you
be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin : for we are become partakers
of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the
end : while it is said.

To-day if ye shall hear His voice,

Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

For who, when they heard, did provoke ? nay, did not all they that

4

came out of Egypt by Moses? And with whom was He displeased
forty years ? was it not with them that sinned, whose carcases fell in
the wilderness ? And to whom sware He that they should not enter
into His rest, but to them that were disobedient ? And we see that
they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.

Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into
His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For
indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they :
but the word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not
united by faith with them that heard. For we which have believed do
enter into that rest ; even as He hath said,

As I sware in My wrath,

They shall not enter into My rest :
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For He hath said somewhere of the seventh day on this wise, And God
rested on the seventh day from all His works ; and in this place again.

They shall not enter into My rest.
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and
they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in
because of disobedience. He again defineth a certain day, saying in
David, after so long a time, To-day, as it hath been before said,

To-day if ye shall hear His voice,

Harden not your hearts.
For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward
of another day. There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the
people of God. For he that is entered into his rest ha^h himself also
rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore give
diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same
example of disobedience. For the word of God is living, and active,
and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the
dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to
discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature
that is not manifest in His sight : but all things are naked and laid
open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do."

CHAPTER III.

FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS.

' I ^HE broad foundation of Christianity has now
"■- been laid in the person of the Son, God-Man.
In the subsequent chapters of the Epistle this doctrine
is made to throw light on the mutual relations of the
two dispensations.

The first deduction is that the Mosaic dispensation
was itself created by Christ; that the threats and
promises of the Old Testament live on into the New ;
that the central idea of the Hebrew religion, the idea
of the Sabbath rest, is realised in its inmost meaning
in Christ only ; that the word of God is ever full of
living energy. Hereafter the Apostle will not be slow
to expose the wide difference between the two dispen-
sations. But it is equally true and not less important
that the old covenant was the vesture of truths which
remain when the garment has been changed.

At the outset the writer's tone is influenced by this
doctrine. He turns his treatise unconsciously into an
epistle. He addresses his readers as brethren, holy

52 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

indeed, but not hoi}/ after the pattern of their former
exclusiveness ; for their hoHness is inseparably linkep i.
with their common brotherhood. They are partakers
with the Gentile Churches in a heavenly call. Startling
words ! Hebrews holy in virtue of their sharing
with Greeks and barbarians, bond and free, in a
common call from high Heaven, which sees all earth
as a level plain beneath ! The middle wall of partition
has been broken down to the ground. Yet soothing
words, and full of encouragement ! The Apostle and
his readers were standing near the end of the Apostolic
age, when the Hebrew Christians were despondent,
weak, and despised, both by reason of national
calamities and because of their inferiority to their
sister Churches among the Gentiles. The Apostle does
not bluntly assure them of their equality, but gently
addresses them as partakers of a heavenly call. His
words are the reverse of St. Paul's language to the
Ephesians, who are reminded that the Gentiles are
partakers in the privileges of Israel. Those who some-
time were far off have been made nigh ; the strangers
and sojourners are henceforth fellow-citizens with the
saints and of the household of God. Here, on the
contrary, Hebrew Christians are encouraged with the
assurance that they partake in the privileges of all
believers. If the wild olive tree has been grafted in
among the branches and made partaker of the root,

iii. i-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATiO.VS. 53

the branches, broken off that the wild oUve might be
grafted in, are themselves in consequence grafted into
their own olive tree. Through God's mercy to the
Gentiles, Israel also has obtained mercy.

The Apostle addresses them with affection. But
his behest is sharp and urgent : " Consider the Apostle
and High-priest of our profession, Jesus." Consider
intently, or, to borrow a modern word that has some-
times been abused, Realise Jesus. Dwell not with
abstractions and theories. Fear not imaginary dangers.
Make Jesus Christ a reality before the eyes of your
mind. To do this well will be more convincing than
external evidences. To behold the glory of the temple,
linger not to admire the strong buttresses without, but
enter. Realisation of Christ may be said to be the
gist of the whole Epistle.

This spiritual vision is not ecstasy. We realise
Christ as Apostle and as High-priest. We behold
Him when His words are a message to us from God,
and when He carries our supplications to God. Revela-
tion and prayer are the two opposite poles of com-
munion with the Father. The dispensation of Moses
rested on these two pillars, — apostleship and priest-
hood. But the fundamental conceptions of the Old
Testament centre in Jesus. Though our author has
distinguished between God's revelation in the prophets
and His revelation in a Son, he teaches also that even

54 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

the prophets received their message through, the Son.
Though he contrasts in what follows of the Epistle the
high-priesthood of Aaron with Christ's, still he regards
Aaron's office as utterly meaningless apart from Christ.
The words "Apostle and High-priest" pave the way,
therefore, to the most prominent truth in this section
of the Epistle : that whatever is best in the Old Testa-
ment has been assimilated and inspired with new
energy by the Gospel.

I. To begin, we must understand the actual position
of the founders of the two dispensations. Neither
Moses nor Christ set about originating, designing, con-
structing, from his own impulse and for his own
purposes. Both acted for God, and were consciously
under His directing eye.* " It is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful." f They have but to
obey, and leave the unity and harmony of the plan to
another. To use an illustration, every house is built
by some one or other.J The design has been con-
ceived in the brain of the architect. He is the real
builder, though he employs masons and joiners to put
the materials together according to his plan. This
applies to the subject in hand ; for God is the
Architect of all things. He realises His own ideas
as well through the seeming originality of thinkers as

* Chap. iii. 2. f i Cor. iv. 2. X Chap. iii. 4.

iii. i-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 55

through the willing obedience of workers. Now, the
dispensation of the old covenant was one part of God's
design. To build this portion of the house He found
a faithful servant in Moses. The dispensation of the
new covenant is but another, though more excellent,
part of the same design ; and Jesus was not less faith-
ful to finish the structure. The unity of the design
was in the mind of God.

Moses was faithful when he refused the treasures of
Egypt, and chose affliction with the people of God
and the reproach of His Christ. He was faithful when
he chid the people in the wilderness for their unbe-
lief, and when he interceded for them again with God.
Christ also was faithful to His God when He despised
the shame and endured the Cross.

Yet we must acknowledge a difference. God has
accounted Jesus worthy of greater honour than Moses,
inasmuch as Moses was part of the house, and that
part the pre-existent Christ erected. Moses was
^* made " all that he became by Christ, but Christ was
" made " * all that He became — God-Man — by God.
Moreover, though Moses was greater than all the other
servants of God before Christ, because they were
placed in subordinate positions, while he was faithful
in the whole house, yet even he was but a servant,

* TTOl-flCaVTU

56 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

whereas Christ was Son. Moses was in the house, it
is true ; but the Son was placed over the house. The
work which Moses had to do was to uphold the
authority of the Son, to witness, that is, to the things
which would afterwards be spoken unto us by God in
His Son, Jesus Christ.*

The Apostle seems to delight in his illustration of
the house, and continues to use it with a fresh meaning.
This house, or, if you please, this household, are we
Christians. We are the house in which Moses showed
the utmost faithfulness as servant. We are the cir-
cumcision, we the true Israel of God. If, then, we
turn away from Christ to Moses, that faithful servant
himself will have none of us. That we may be God's
house, we must lay fast hold of our Christian confidence
and the boasting of our hope out-and-out to the end.

2. Again, the threatenings of the Old Testament for
disobedience to God apply with full force to apostasy
from Christ. They are the authoritative voice of the
Holy Spirit. The Apostle is reminded by the words
which he has just used, " We are God's house," of the
Psalmist's joyful exclamation, "He is our God, and we
are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His
hand." t Then follows in the Psalm a warning, which
the Apostle considers it equally necessary to address to

* Chap. iii. 5, f Ps. xcv. 7, sqq.

iii. l-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSA TIONS. 57

the Hebrew Christians : " To-day, if indeed you still
hear His voice (for it is possible He may no longer
speak), harden not your hearts, as you did in Meribah,
rightly called, — the place of contention. Your fathers,
far from trusting Me when I put them to the test,
turned upon Me and put Me to the test, and that
although they saw My works during forty years."
Forty years, — ominous number ! The readers would
at once call to mind that forty years within a little had
now passed since their Lord had gone through the
heavens to the right hand of the Father. What if,
after all, the old belief proves true that He returns to
judgment after waiting for precisely the same period
for which He had patiently endured their fathers'
unbelief in the wilderness ! God is still living, and He
is the same God. He Who sware in His wrath that
the fathers should not enter into the rest of Canaan is
the same in His anger, the same in His mercy. Exhort
one another. In the wilderness God dealt with in-
dividuals. He does so still. See that there be no evil
heart, which is unbelief, in any one of you at any time
while the call, '* To-day ! " is sounded in your ears.
For sin weakens the sense of individual guilt, and thus
deceives men by hardening their hearts.* All that
came out of Egypt provoked God to anger. But they

* Chap. ii. 13.

58 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

provoked Him, not in the mass, but one by one, and
one by one, with palsied limbs, f they fell in the wilder-
ness, as men fall exhausted on the march. Thus, for
their persistent unbelief, God sware they should not
enter into His rest — " His," for He kept the key still
in His own hand. But persistent unbelief made them
incapable of entering. If God were still willing to cut
off for them the waters of Jordan, they could not *
enter in because of unbelief.

3. Similarly, the promises of God are still in force.
Indeed, the steadfastness of the threatenings involves
the continuance of the promises, and the rejection of
the promises ensures the fulfilment of every threaten-
ing. As much as this is expressed in the opening
words of chap. iv. : " A promise being left to us, let us
therefore fear."

To prove the identity of the promises under the two
dispensations, the Apostle singles out one promise,
which may be considered most significant of the
national no less than the religious life of Israel. The
Greek mind was ever on the alert for something new.
Its character was movement. But the ideal of the Old
Testament is rest. Christ came into touch w^ith the
people at once when He began His public ministry with
an invitation to the weary and heavy-laden to come

* ovK i\hvvy\dy\(ja.v (iii. 19), f rb. KuXa. Cf. chap. xii. 12.

iii. i-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 59

unto Him, and with the promise that He would give
them rest. Near the close of His ministry He explained
and fulfilled the promise by gi\'ing to His disciples
peace. The object of our author, in the difficult
chapter now under consideration, is to show that the
idea most characteristic of the old covenant finds its
true and highest realisation in Christ. After the
manner of St. Paul, who, in more than one passage,
teaches that through the fall of Israel salvation is come
unto the Gentiles, the writer of this Epistle also argues
that the promise of rest still remains, because it was
not fulfilled under the Old Testament in consequence of
Israel's unbelief. The word of promise was a gospel *
to them, as it is to us. But it did not profit them,
because they did not assimilate f the promise by faith.
Their history from the beginning consists of continued
renewals of the promise on the part of God and
persistent rejections on the part of Israel, ending in
the hardening of their hearts. Every time the promise
is renewed, it is presented in a higher and more
spiritual form. Every rejection inevitably leads to
grosser views and more hopeless unbelief. So entirely
false is the fable of the Sibyl ! God does not burn
some of the leaves when His promises have been
rejected, and come back with fewer offers at a higher

* evriyy€\i,(Tixivot, (iv. 2). f Reading ervPKeKepaafiiuos.

6o THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

price. His method is to offer more and better on the
same conditions. But it is the nature of unbelief to
cause the heart to wax gross, to blind the spiritual
vision, until in the end the rich, spiritual promises of
God and the earthly, dark unbelief of the sinner stand
in extremest contrast.

At first the promise is presented in the negative form
of rest from labour. Even the Creator condescended
thus to rest. But what such rest can be to God it
were vain for man to try to conceive. We know that,
as soon as the foundations of the world were laid and
the work of creation was ended, God ceased from this
form of activity. But when this negative rest had been
attained, it was far from realising God's idea of rest
either for Himself or for man. For, though these
works of God, the material universe, were finished
from the laying of the world's foundations to the
crowning of the edifice,* God still speaks of another
rest, and threatens to shut some men out for their un-
belief. Our Lord told the Pharisees, whose notion of
the Sabbath was the negative one, that He desired His
Sabbath rest to be like that of His Father, Who
**worketh hitherto." The Jewish Sabbath, it appears,
therefore, is the most crude and elementary form of
God's promised rest.

* Chap. iv. 3.

iii. i-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 61

The promise is next presented as the rest of Canaan.*
This is a stage in advance in the development of the
idea. It is not mere abstention from secular labour,
and the consecration of inactivity. The rest now con-
sists in the enjoyment of material prosperity, the proud
consciousness of national power, the growth of a
peculiar civilization, the rise of great men and eminent
saints, and all this won by Israel under the leadership
of their Jesus, who was in this respect a type of ours.
But even in this second garden of Eden Israel did not
attain unto God's rest. Worldliness became their
snare.

But God still called to them by the mouth of the
Psalmist, long after they had entered on the possession
of Canaan. This only proves that the true rest was still
unattained, and God's promise not yet fulfilled. The
form which the rest of God now assumed is not ex-
pressly stated in our passage. But we have not far
to go in search of it. The first Psalm, which is the
introduction to all the Psalms, declares the blessedness
of contemplation. The Sabbath is seldom mentioned
by the Psalmist. Its place is taken by the sanctuary,
in which rest of soul is found in meditating on God's
law and beholding the Lord's beauty, t The call is at
last urgent. " To-day ! " It is the last invitation. It

* Chap. iv. 8. t Ps. xxvii. 4.

62 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

lingers in the ears in ever fainter voice of prophet
after prophet, until the prophet's face turns towards
the east to announce the break of dawn and the coming
of the perfect rest in Jesus Christ. God's promise
was never fulfilled to Israel, because of their unbehef.
But shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God
of none effect ? God forbid. The gifts and calling of
God are without repentance. The promise that has
failed of fulfilment in the lower form must find its
accomplishment in the higher. Even a prayer is the
more heard for every delay. God's mill grinds slowly,
but for that reason grinds small. What is the in-
ference ? Surely it is that the Sabbath rest still
remains for the true people of God. This Sabbath
rest St. Paul prayed that the true Israel, who glory,
not in their circumcision, but in the Cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, might receive : " Peace be upon them,
and mercy, and upon the Israel of God."*

The faithfulness of God to fulfil His promise in its
higher form is proved by His having accomplished it
in its more elementary forms to every one that be-
lieved. " For he that entered into God's rest did
actually rest from his works " f — that is to say, received
the blessings of the Sabbath — as truly as God rested
from the work of creation. The Apostle's practical

* GaL vi. i6. t Chap. iv. lo.

iii. i-iv. 13.] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 63

inference is couched in language almost paradoxical :
" Let us strive to enter into God's rest " — not indeed
into the rest of the Old Testament, but into the better
rest which God now offers in His Son.

The oneness of the dispensations has been proved.
They are one in their design, in their threatenings, in
their promises. If we seek the fundamental ground of
this threefold unity, we shall find it in the fact that
both dispensations are parts of a Divine revelation.
God has spoken, and the word of God does not pass
away. " Think not," said our Lord, '' that I came to
destroy the Law or the prophets ; I came not to destroy,
but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven
and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass away from the Law till all things be accom-
plished." * On another occasion He says, '' Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass
away." f These passages teach us that the words of
God through Moses and in the Son are equally im-
mutable. Many features of the old covenant may be
transient ; but, if it is a word of God, it abides in its
essential nature through all changes. For "the word
of God is living," % because He Who speaks the word
is the living God. It acts with mighty energy, § like

* Matt. V. 17, 18. X Chap. iv. 12

t Matt, xxiv, 35. § ivepy-qs.

64 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

the silent laws of nature, which destroy or save alive
according as men obey or disobey them. It cuts like
a sword whetted on each side of the blade, piercing
through to the place where the natural life of the soul
divides * from, or passes into, the supernatural life of
the spirit. For it is revelation that has made known
to man his possession of the spiritual faculty. The
word '^ spirit " is used by heathen writers. But in
their books it means only the air we breathe. The
very conception of the spiritual is enshrined in the
bosom of God's word. Revelation has separated
between the life of heathenism and the life of the
Church, between the natural man and the spiritual,
between the darkness that comprehended it not and the
children of the light who received it and thus became
children of God. Further, the word of God pierces to
the joints that connect the natural and the super-
natural.! It does not ignore the former. On the
contrary, it addresses itself to man's reason and con-
science, in order to erect the supernatural upon nature.
Where reason stops short, the word of God appeals to
the supernatural faculty of faith ; and when conscience
grows blunt, the word makes conscience, like itself,
sharper than any two-edged sword. Once more, the
word of God pierces to the marrow.J It reveals to

iii. i-iv. 13-] ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS. 65

man the innermost meaning of his own nature and of
the supernatural planted within him. The truest
morality and the highest spirituality are both the direct
product of God's revelation.

But all this is true in its practical application to
every man individually. The power of the word ot
God to create distinct dispensations and yet maintain
their fundamental unity, to distinguish between masses
of men and yet cause all the separate threads of human
history to converge and at last meet, is the same power
which judges the inmost thoughts and inmost purposes
of the heart. These it surveys with critical judgment.*
If Its eye is keen, its range of vision is also wide.
No created thing but is seen and manifest. The sur-
face is bared, and the depth within is opened up before
it. As the upturned neck of the sacrificial beast lay
bare to the eye of God,t so are we exposed to the eye
of Him to Whom we have to give our account.!

* KpiTiKos, f T€Tp9,x'r)^i'<rfji'^ya (iv, 1 3), J 6 Xdjos,

THE GREAT HIGH-PRIRST.

" Having then a great High-priest, Who hath passed through the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we
have not a high-priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities ; but One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are
yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the
throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help
us in time of need. For every high-priest, being taken from among
men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may
offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins : who can bear gently with the
ignorant and erring, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity ;
and by reason thereof is bound, as for the people, so also for himself,
to offer for sins. And no man taketh the honour unto himself, but
when he is called of God, even as was Aaron. So Christ also glorified
not Himself to be made a High-priest, but He that spake unto Him,

Thou art My Son,

This day have I begotten Thee :

as He saith also in another place,

Thou art a Priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.

Who in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplica-
tions with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him
from death, and having been heard for His godly fear, though He was a
Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered ; and having
been made perfect. He became unto all them that obey Him the
Author of eternal salvation ; named of God a High-priest after the
order of Melchizedek." — Heb. iv. 14 — v. 10 (R.V.).

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST.

'THHE results already gained are such as these : that
-*- the Son, through Whom God has spoken unto
us, is a greater Person than the angels ; that Jesus,
Whom the Apostle and the Hebrew Christians acknow-
ledge to be Son of God, is the representative Man,
endowed, as such, with kingly authority ; that the Son
of God became man in order that He might be consti-
tuted High-priest to make reconciliation for sin ; and,
finally, that all the purposes of God revealed in the
Old Testament, though they have hitherto been accom-
plished but partially, will not fall to the ground, and
will remain in higher forms under the Gospel.

The writer gathers these threads to a head in chap,
iv. 14. The high-priest still remains. If we have the
high-priest, we have all that is of lasting worth in the ;
old covenant. For the idea of the covenant is reconcilia-|
tion with God, and this is embodied and symbolised in
the high-priest, inasmuch as he alone entered within i
the veil on the day of atonement. Having the high-

70 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

priest in a greater Person, we have all the blessings of
the covenant restored to us in a better form. The
Epistle to the Hebrews is intended to encourage and
comfort men who have lost their all. Judaism was in
its death-throes. National independence had already
ceased. When the Apostle was writing, the eagles
were gathering around the carcase. But when all is
lost, all is regained if we " have " the High-priest.

The secret of His abiding for ever is His own great-
ness. He is agreal High-priest; for He has entered into
the immediate presence of God, not through the Temple
veil, but through the very heavens. In chap. viii. i
the Apostle declares this to be the head and front of all
he has said : " We have such an High-priest " as He
must be " Who is set on the right hand of the throne
of the Majesty in the heavens." He is a great High-
priest because He is a Priest on a throne. As the
representative Man, Jesus is crowned. His glory is
kingly. But the glory bestowed on the Man as King
has brought Him into the audience-chamber of God
as High-priest. The kingship of Jesus, to Whom all
creation is subjected, and Who sits above all creation,
has made His priestly service effectual. His exaltation
is much more than a reward for His redemptive suffer-
ings. He entered the heaven of God as the sanctuary
of which He is Minister. For if He were on earth. He
would not be a Priest at all, seeing that He is not of

iv,i4-v. 10.] THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST, 71

the order of Aaron, to which the earthly priesthood
belongs according to the Law.* But Christ is not
entered into the holy place made with hands, but into
the very heaven, now to be manifested before the face
of God for us.t The Apostle has said that Christ is
Son over the house of God. He is also High-priest
over the house of God, having authority over it
in virtue of His priesthood for it, and administering
His priestly functions effectually through His king-
ship4

The entire structure of the Apostle's inferences rests
on the twofold argument of the first two chapters.
Jesus Christ is a great High-priest ; that is. King and
High-priest in one, because He unites in His own
person Son of God and Son of man.

One is tempted to find an intentional antithesis
between the awe-inspiring description of the word of
God in the previous verse and the tender language of
the verse that follows. Is the word a living, ener-
gising power ? The High-priest too is living and
powerful, great and dwelling above the heavens. Does
the word pierce to our innermost being ? The High-
priest sympathises with our weaknesses, or, in the beau-
tiful paraphrase of the English Version, " is touched
with a feeling of our infirmities." Does the word

* Chap. viii. 4. -j: Chap. ix. 24 % Cf. chap. x. 21.

72 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

judge ? The High-priest can be equitable, inasmuch
as He has been tempted like as we are tempted, and
that without sin.*

On the last-mentioned point much might be said.
He was tempted to sin, but withstood the temptation.
He had true and complete humanity, and human
nature, as such and alone, is capable of sin. Shall we,
therefore, admit that Jesus was capable of sin ? But
He was Son of God. Christ was Man, but not a
human Person. He was a Divine Person, and there-
fore absolutely and eternally incapable of sin ; for sin
is the act and property of a person, not of a mere
nature apart from the persons who have that nature.
Having assumed humanity, the Divine person of the
Son of God was truly tempted, Hke as we are. He felt
the power of the temptation, which appealed in every
case, not to a sinful lust, but to a sinless want and
natural desire. But to have yielded to Satan and
satisfied a sinless appetite at his suggestion would
have been a sin. It would argue want of faith in God.
Moreover, He strove against the tempter with the
weapons of prayer and the word of God. He con-
quered by His faith. Far from lessening the force of
the trial. His being Son of God rendered His humanity
capable of being tempted to the very utmost limit of

* Chap. iv. 15. .

IV. I4-V. 10.] THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST. 73

all temptation. We dare not say that mere man would
certainly have yielded to the sore trials that beset Jesus.
But we do say that mere man would never have felt
the temptation so keenly. Neither did His Divine
greatness lessen His sympathy. Holy men have a
wellspring of pity in their hearts, to which ordinary
men are total strangers. The infinitely holy Son of
God had infinite pity. These are the sources of His
power to succour the tempted, — the reality of His
temptations as He was Son of man, the intensity of
them as He was Son of God, and the compassion of
One Who was both Son of God and Son of man.

Our author is wont to break off suddenly and inter-
sperse his arguments with affectionate words of exhor-
tation. He does so here. It is still the same urgent
command : Do not let go the anchor. Hold fast your
profession of Christ as Son of God and Son of man,
as Priest and King. Let us draw nearer, and that
boldly, unto this great High-priest, Who is enthroned
on the mercy-seat, that we may obtain the pity which,
in our sense of utter helplessness, we seek, and find
more than we seek or hope for, even His grace to help
us. Only linger not till it be too late. His aid must
be sought in time.* " To-day " is still the call.

Pity and helping grace, sympathy and authority —

• eijKaipov (iv. 16}.

J4 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

in these two excellences all the qualifications of a
high-priest are comprised. It was so under the old
covenant. Every high-priest was taken from among
men that he might sympathise, and was appointed by
God that he might have authority to act on behalf
of men.

I. The high-priest under the Law is himself beset
by the infirmities of sinful human nature, the in-
firmities at least for which alone the Law provides
a sacrifice, sins of ignorance and inadvertence. "^
Thus only can he form a fair and equitable judg-
ment t when men go astray. The thought wears the
appearance of novelty. No use is apparently made of
it in the Old Testament. The notion of the high-
priest's Divine appointment overshadowed that of his
human sympathy. His sinfulness is acknowledged,
and Aaron is commanded to offer sacrifice for himself
and for the sins of the people.^ But the author of
this Epistle states the reason why a sinful man v/as
made high-priest. He has told us that the Law was
given through angels. But no angel interposed as
high-priest between the sinner and God. Sympathy
would be wanting to the angel. But the very infirmity
that gave the high-priest his power of sympathy made
sacrifice necessary for the high-priest himself. This

* Chap. V. I, 3, f ixeTpioira.Oelv. % Lev. xvi. 6.

iv.i4-v. 10.] THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST. 75

was the fatal defect. How can he bestow forgiveness
who must seek the Hke forgiveness ?

In the case of the great High-priest, Jesus the Son
of God, the end must be sought in another way. He is
not so taken from the stock of humanity as to be stained
with sin. He is not one of many men, any one of whom
might have been chosen. On the contrary, He is holy,
innocent, stainless, separated in character and position
before God from the sinners around Him.* He has
no need to offer sacrifice for any sin of His own, but
only for the sins of the people ; and this He did once
for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law
makes mere men, beset with sinful infirmity, priests ;
but the word of the oath makes the Son Priest, Who
has been perfected for His office for ever.f In this
respect He bears no resemblance to Aaron. Yet God
did not leave His people without a type of Jesus in
this complete separateness. The Psalmist speaks of
Him as a Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and
concerning Christ as the Melchizedek Priest the Apostle
has more to say hereafter. |

The question returns. How, then, can the Son of
God sympathise with sinful man ? He can sympathise
with our sinless infirmities because He is true Man.
But that He, the sinless One, may be able to sympa-

♦ Chap. vii. 26. f Chap. vii. 28. | Chap. v. 10, ii.

76 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

thise with sinful infirmities, He must be made sin
for us and face death as a sin-offering. The High-
priest Himself becomes the sacrifice which He offers.
Special trials beset Him. His Hfe on earth is pre-
eminently " days of the flesh/' * so despised is He,
a very Man of sorrows. When He could not
acquire the power of sympathy by offering atonement
for Himself, because He needed it not, He offered
prayers and supplications with a strong cry and
tears to Him Who was able to save Him out of
death. But why the strong cries and bitter weeping ?
Can we suppose for a moment that He was only afraid
of physical pain ? Or did He dread the shame of the
Cross? Our author elsewhere says that He despised it.
Shall we say that Jesus Christ had less moral courage
than Socrates or His own martyr-servant, St. Ignatius ?
At the same time, let us confine ourselves strictly to
the words of Scripture, lest by any gloss of our own
we ascribe to Christ's death what is required by the
exigencies of a ready-made theory. " Being in an
agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat
became as it were great drops of blood falling down
upon the ground." f Is this the attitude of a martyr ?
The Apostle himself explains it. ''Though He was

* Chap. V. 7.

t Luke xxii. 44. The genuineness of the verse is not quite certain.

iv.i4-v. 10.] THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST, 77

a Son/' to Whom obedience to His Father's command
that He should lay down His life was natural and
joyful, yet He learned His obedience, special and
peculiar as it was, by the things which He suffered.*
He was perfecting Himself to be our High-priest. By
these acts of priestly offering He was rendering Him-
self fit to be the sacrifice offered. Because there was
in His prayers and supplications, in His crying and
weeping, this element of entire self-surrender to His
Father's will, which is the truest piety, f His prayers
were heard. He prayed to be delivered out of His
death. He prayed for the glory which He had with
His Father before the world was. At the same time
He piously resigned Himself to die as a sacrifice, and
left it to God to decide whether He would raise Him
from death or leave His soul in Hades. Because of
this perfect self-abnegation, His sacrifice was complete ;
and, on the other hand, because of the same entire
self-denial, God did deliver Him out of death and made
Him an eternal Priest. His prayers were not only
heard, but became the foundation and beginning of His
priestly intercession on behalf of others.

2. The second essential qualification of a high-
priest was authority to act for men in things pertaining
to God, and in His name to absolve the penitent

* Cf. John X. 18. f dTTo TTjs €v\a/3eias (v. 7).

78 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

sinner. Prayer was free to all God's people and even
to the stranger that came out of a far country for the
sake of the God of Israel's name. But guilt, by its
very nature, involves the need, not merely of reconcil-
ing the sinner^ but primarily of reconciling God. Hence
the necessity of a Divine appointment. For how can
man bring his sacrifice to God or know that God has
accepted it unless God Himself appoints the mediator
and through him pronounces the sinner absolved ?
It is true, if man only is to be reconciled, a Divinely
appointed prophet will be enough, who will declare
God's fatherly love and so remove the sinner's unbelief
and slay his enmity. But the Epistle to the Hebrews
teaches that Gcd appoints a high-priest. This of
itself is fatal to the theory that God needs not to be
reconciled. In the sense of having this Divine authori-
zation, the priestly office is here said to be an honour,
which no man takes upon himself, but accepts when
called thereunto by God.*

How dees this apply to the great High-priest Who
has passed through the heavens ? He also glorified
net Himself to teccme High-priest. The Apostle has
changed the word.f To Aaron it was an honour to be
high-priest. He was authorized to act for Gcd and for
men. But to Christ it was m.ore than an honour, more

* Cl^f p. V. 4. f T(/ui> (v. 4) ; idc^aaev (v. 5).

iv.i4-v.io.] THE GREAl HIGH-PRIEST. 79

than an external authority conferred upon Him. It
was part of the glory inseparable from His Sonship.
He Who said to Him, '* Thou art My Son," made Him
thereby potentially High-priest. His office springs
from His personality, and is not, as in the case of
Aaron, a prerogative superadded. The author has
cited the second Psalm in a previous passage * to prove
the kingly greatness of the Son, and here again he
cites the same words to describe His priestly character.
His priesthood is not " from men," and, therefore, does
not pass away from Him to others ; and this eternal,
independent priesthood of Christ is typified in the king-
priest Melchizedek. Before He began to act in His
priestly office God said to Him, " Thou art a Priest for
ever after the order of Melchizedek." When He has
been perfected and learned His obedience t by the
things which He suffered, God still addresses Him as
a High-priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

* Chap. i. 5. f rriv vwaKo-qv (v. 8).

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL,

" Of Whom we have many things to say, and hard of interpretation,
seeing ye are become dull of hearing. For when by reason of the time
ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you
the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God ; and are
become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every
one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of right-
eousness ; for he is a babe. But solid food is for full-grown men, even
those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good
and evil. Wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles ot
Christ, and press on unto perfection ; not laying again a foundation of
repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching
of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead,
and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit. For as
touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly
gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the good
word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it
is impossible to renew them again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify
to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.
For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and
bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled,
receiveth blessing from God : but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is
rejected and nigh unto a curse ; whose end is to be burned." — Heb. v.
ii_vi. 8(R.V.).

r-^

CHAPTER V.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL,

T N one of the greatest and most strange of human
-*- books the argument is sometimes said ^'to veil
itself," and the sustained image of a man battling with
the waves betrays the writer's hesitancy. When he
has surmounted the first wave, he dreads the second.
When he has escaped out of the second, he fears to
take another step, lest the third wave may overwhelm
him. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has
proved that Christ is Priest-King. But before he starts
anew, he warns his readers that whoever will venture
on must be prepared to hear a hard saying, which he
himself will find difficult to interpret and few will
receive. Hitherto he has only shown that whatever
of lasting worth was contained in the old covenant
remains and is exalted in Christ. Even this truth is
an advance on the mere rudiments of Christian doctrine.
But what if he attempts to prove that the covenant
which God made with their fathers has waxed old and
must vanish away to make room for a new and better

84 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

one ? For his part, he is eager to ascend to these
higher truths. He has yet much to teach about Christ
in the power of His heavenly life.* But his readers are
dull of hearing and inexperienced in the word of right-
eousness.

The commentators are much divided and exercised
on the question whether the Apostle means that the
argument should advance or that his readers ought to
make progress in spiritual character.! In a way he
surely means both. What gives point to the whole
section now to be considered is the connection between
development of doctrine and a corresponding develop-
ment of the moral nature. '^ For the time ye ought to
be teachers." % They ought to have been teachers of
the elementary truths, in consequence of having dis-
covered the higher truths for themselves, under the
guidance of God's Spirit. It ought to have been
unnecessary for the Apostle to explain them. At this
time the " teachers " in the Church had probably con-
solidated into a class formally set apart, but had not
yet fallen to the second place, as compared with the
** prophets," which they occupy in the " Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles." A long time had elapsed since the
Church of Jerusalem, with the Apostles and elders, had
sat in judgment on the question submitted to their

* Chap. V. II. t Chap. vi. i. % Chap. v. 12.

V. ii-vi.8.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL. 8$

decision by such men as Peter, Barnabas, Paul, and
James.* Since then the Hebrew Christians had de-
generated, and now needed somebody — it mattered
Httle who it might be f — to teach them the alphabet %
of Christian doctrine.

Philo had already emphasised^ the distinction between
the child in knowledge and the man of full age and
mature judgment. St. Paul had said more than once
that such a distinction holds among Christians. Many
are carnal; some are spiritual. In his writings the
difference is not an external one, nor is the Hne between
the two classes broad and clear. The one shades into
the other. But, though we may not be able to deter-
mine where the one begins and the other ends, both
are tendencies, and move in opposite directions. In
the Epistle to the Hebrews the distinction resembles
the old doctrine of habit taught by Aristotle. Our
organs of sense are trained by use to distinguish forms
and colours. In like manner, there are inner organs
of the spirit, § which distinguish good from evil, not
by mathematical demonstration, but by long-continued
exercise || in hating evil and in loving holiness. The
growth of this spiritual sense is connected by our
author with the power to understand the higher doc-
trine. He only who discerns, by force of spiritual

* Acts XV. t Tiva. (v. 12). X <TToix^7a. § ah6r]Tr,pia,

II yeyv/xpaa-ixiva.

86 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

insight, what is good and what is evil, can also under-
stand spiritual truths. The difference between good
and evil is not identical with *' the word of righteous-
ness." But the moral elevation of character that
clearly discerns the former is the condition of under-
standing also the latter.

*' Wherefore " — that is, inasmuch as solid food is for
full-grown men — ^' let us have done * with the element-
ary doctrines, and permit ourselves to be borne
strongly onwards t towards full growth of spiritual
character." J The Apostle has just said that his readers
needed some one to teach them the rudiments. We
should have expected him, therefore, to take it in hand.
But he reminds them that the defect lies deeper than
intellectual error. The remedy is not mere teaching,
but spiritual growth. Apart from moral progress there
can be no revelation of new truths. Ever-recurring
efforts to lay the foundation of individual piety will
result only in an apprehension of what we may de-
signate personal and subjective doctrines.

The Apostle particularises. Repentance towards
God and faith in God are the initial graces. § For
without sorrow for sin and trust in God's mercy God's
revelation of Himself in His Son will not be deemed
worthy of all acceptation. If this is so, the doctrines

d<p^VTes (vi. l). f <f>€p(lj/j.€6a. J TeXeidrrjTa. § 6e/j,4\iov,

v.ii.vi.8.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL. 87

suitable to the initial stage of the Christian life will be —
(l) the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands,
and (2) the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead
and of eternal judgment. Repentance and faith accept
the gospel of forgiveness, which is symbolised in
baptism, and of absolution, symbolised in the laying on
of hands. Again, repentance and faith realise the
future life and the final award ; the beginning of piety
reaching forth a hand, as runners do, as if to grasp the
furthest goal before it touches the intermediate points.
Yet every intermediate truth, when apprehended,
throws new light on the soul's eschatology. In like
manner civilization began with contemplation of the
stars, long before it descended to chemical analysis,
but at last it applies its chemistry to make discoveries
in the stars.

This, then, is the initial stage in the Christian
character, — repentance and faith ; and these are the
initial doctrines, — baptism, absolution, resurrection,
and judgment. How may they be described ? They all
centre in the individual believer. They have all to do
with the fact of his sin. One question, and one only,
presses for an answer. It is, "What must I do to be
saved ? " One result, and one only, flows from the
salvation obtained. It is the final acquittal of the
sinner at the last day. God is known only as the
merciful Saviour and the holy Judge. The whole of

88 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

the believer's personal existence hovers in mid-air
between two points : repentance at some moment in the
past and judgment at the end of the world. Works
are " dead/' and the reason why is that they have no
saving power. There is here no thought of life as a
complete thing or as a series of possibilities that ever
spring into actuality, no thought of the individual as
being part of a greater whole. The Church exists for
the sake of the believer, not the believer for the sake
of the Church. Even Christ Himself is nothing more
to him than his Saviour, Who by an atoning death
paid his debt. The Apostle would rise to higher truths
concerning Christ in the power of His heavenly life.
This is the truth which the story of Melchizedek will
teach to such as are sufficiently advanced in spirituality
to understand its meaning.

But, before he faces the rolling wave, the Apostle
tells his readers why it is that, in reference to Christian
doctrine, character is the necessary condition of intelli-
gence. It is so for two reasons.

First, the word spoken by God in His Son has for
its primary object, not speculation, but *' righteous-
ness." * Theology is essentially a practical, not a
merely theoretical, science. Its purpose is to create
righteous men ; that is, to produce a certain character.

♦ Chap. V. 13.

V. il-vi.8.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL 89

When produced, this lofty character is sustained by
the truths of the Gospel as by a spiritual " food," milk
or strong meat. Christianity is the art of holy living,
and the art is mastered only as every other art is
learned : by practice or experience. But experience
will suggest rules, and rules will lead to principles.
The art itself creates a faculty to transform it into a
science. Religion will produce a theology. The doc-
trine will be understood only by the possessor of that
goodness to which it has itself given birth.

Second, the Apostle introduces the personal action of
God into the question. Understanding of the higher
truths is God's blessing on goodness,* and destruction
of the faculty of spiritual discernment is His way of
punishing moral depravity, f This is the general sense
and purport of an extremely difBcult passage. The
threatened billow is still far away. But before it rolls
over us, we seem to be already submerged under the
waves. Our only hope lies in the Apostle's illustration
of the earth that bears here thorns and there good
grain.

Expositors go quite astray when they explain the
simile as if it were intended to describe the effect on
moral character of rightly or wrongly using our faculty
of knowledge. The meaning is the reverse. The

Chap. vi. 7. t Chap, v 8.

90 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Apostle is showing the effect of character on our power
to understand truth. Neither soil is barren. Both
lands drink in the rain that often comes upon them.
But the fatness of the one field brings forth thorns and
thistles, and this can only mean that the man's vigour
of soul is itself an occasion of moral evil. The richness
of the other land produces plants fit for use by men,
who are the sole reason for its tillage.* This, again,
must mean that, in the case of some men, God blesses
that natural strength which itself is neither good nor
evil, and it becomes a source of goodness. We come
now to the result in each case. The soil that brings
forth useful herbs has its share of the Creator's first
blessing. What the blessing consists in we are not
here told, and it is not necessary to pursue this side of
the illustration further. But the other soil, which gives
its natural strength to the production of noxious weeds,
falls under the Creator's primal curse and is nigh
unto burning. The point of the parable evidently is
that God blesses the one, that Gcd destroys the other.
In both cases the Apostle recognises the Divine action,
carrying into effect a Divine threat and a Divine
promise.

Let us see how the simile is appHed. The terrible
word " impossible " might indeed have been pronounced,

* 5t' 0U5.

v.ii-vi.8.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL, 91

with some qualification, over a man who had fallen
under the power of evil habits. For God sets His seal
to the verdict of our moral nature. To such a man the
only escape is through the strait gate of repentance.
But here we have much more than the ordinary evil
habits of men, such as covetousness, hypocrisy, carnal
imaginations, cruelty. The Apostle is thinking through-
out of God's revelation in His Son. He refers to the
righteous anger of God against those who persistently
despise the Son. In the second chapter* he has asked
how men who neglect the salvation spoken through the
Lord can hope to shun God's anger. Here he declares
the same truth in a stronger form. How shall they
escape His wrath who crucify afresh the Son and put
Him to an open shame ? Such men God will punish
by hardening their hearts, so that they cannot even
repent. The initial grace becomes impossible.

The four parts of the simile and of the application
correspond.

Firsty drinking in the rain that often comes upon
the land corresponds to being once enlightened, tasting
of the heavenly gift, being made partakers of the
Holy Ghost, and tasting the good word of God and
the powers of the world to come. The rain descends
on all the land and gives it its natural richness. The

* Chap. ii. 3.

92 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

question whether the Apostle speaks of converted or
unconverted men is entirely beside the purpose, and
may safely be relegated to the limbo of misapplied
interpretations. No doubt the controversy between
Calvinists and Arminians concerning final perseverance
and the possibility of a fall from a state of grace is
itself vastly important. But tne question whether the
gifts mentioned are bestowed on an unconverted man
is of no importance to the right apprehension of the
Apostle's meaning. We must be forgiven for thinking
he had it not in his mind. It is more to the purpose
to remind ourselves that all these excellences are
regarded by the Apostle as gifts of God, like the oft-
descending rain, not as moral qualities in men. He
mentions the one enlightenment produced by the one
revelation of God in His Son. It may be compared to
the opening of blind eyes or the startled waking of the
soul by a great idea. To taste the heavenly gift is to
make trial of the new truth. To be made partakers of
the Holy Ghost is to be moved by a supernatural en- ,
lightening influence. To taste the good word of God ;
is to discern the moral beauty of the revelation. To
taste the powers of the world to come is to participate
in the gifts of power which the Spirit divides to each
one severally even as He will. All these things have
an intellectual quality. Faith in Christ and love to
God are purposely excluded. The Apostle brings

v.£i-vi.8. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL. 93

together various phases of our spiritual inteUigence, —
the gift of illumination, which we sometimes call genius,
sometimes culture, sometimes insight, the faculty that
ought to apprehend Christ and welcome the revelation
in the Son. If these high gifts are used to scoff at the
Son of God, and that with the persistence that can
spring only from the pride and ■ self-righteousness of
unbelief, renewal is impossible.

Second, the negative result of not bringing forth any
useful herbs corresponds to falling away.* God has
bestowed His gift of enlightenment, but there is no
response of heart and will. The soul does not lay
hold, but drifts away.

Thirdy the positive result of bearing thorns and
thistles corresponds to crucifying to themselves the Son
of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame.
The gifts of God have been abused, and the contrary
of what He, in His care for men, intended the earth
to produce, is the result. The Divine gift of spiritual
enlightenment has been itself turned into a very genius
of cynical mockery. The Son of God has already
been once crucified amid the awful scenes of Geth-
semane and Calvary. The agony and bloody sweat,
the cry of infinite loneliness on the Cross, the tender
compassion of the dying Jesus, the power of His resur-

♦ irapaireadvTas (vi. 5). Cf. wapapvufxep (ii. l).

94 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

rection — all this is past. One bitterness yet remains.
Men use God's own gift of spiritual" illumination to
crucify the Son afresh. But they crucify Him only
for themselves.* When the sneer has died away on
the scoffer's lips, nothing is left. No result has been
achieved in the moral world. When Christ was
crucified on Calvary, His death changed for ever the
relations of God and men. When He is crucified in
the reproach of His enemies, nothing has been accom-
plished outside the scoffer's little world of vanity and
pride.

Fourthy to be nigh unto a curse and to be given in
the end to be burned corresponds to the impossibility
of renewal. The illustration requires us to distinguish
between '^ falling away " and ^' crucifying the Son of
God afresh and putting Him to an open shame." f The
land is doomed to be burned because it bears thorns
and thistles. God renders men incapable of repent-
ance, not because they have fallen away once or more
than once, but because they scoff at the Son, through
Whom God has spoken unto us. The terrible impos-

* iavToh.

f Apart from the exigencies of the illustration, the change from the
aorist participle to the present participles tells in the same way. It
is extreirely harsh to consider dpaaravpovvrai and irapadeiyfiari^ovTas
to be explanatory of irapairecovTat. The former must be rendered
hypothetically : "They cannot be renewed after falling away if they
persist in crucifying,' etc.

V. ii-vi.8.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL 95

sibility of renewal here threatened applies, not to
apostasy (as the early Church maintained) nor to the
lapsed (as the Novatianists held),* but to apostasy
combined with a cynical, scoffing temper that persists
in treading the Son of God under foot. Apostasy
resembles the sin against the Son of man; cynicism
in reference to the Son of man comes very near the sin
against the Holy Ghost. This sin is not forgiven,
because it hardens the heart and makes repentance
impossible. It hardens the heart, because God is
jealous of His Son's honour, and punishes the scoffer
with the utter destruction of the spiritual faculty and
with absolute inability to recover it. This is not the
mere force of habit. It is God's retribution, and the
Apostle mentions it here because the text of the whole
Epistle is that God has spoken unto us in His Son.

But the Hebrew Christians have not come to this.f
The Apostle is persuaded better things of them, and
things that are nigh, not unto a curse, but unto
ultimate salvation. Yet they are not free from the
danger. If we may appropriate the language of an
eminent historian, ''the worship of wealth, grandeur,

* The apostates, or deserters, were not identical with the lapsed, who
fell away from fear of martyrdom. Novatian refused to restore either
to Church privileges. The Church restored the latter, but not the
former. Cf. Cyprian, Ep. Iv. ad fin,

f Chap. vi. 9.

96 ^ THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

and dominion blinded the Jews to the form of spiritual
godliness ; the rejection of the Saviour and the
deification of Herod were parallel manifestations of
the same engrossing delusion."* That the Christian
Hebrews may not fall under the curse impending over
their race, the Apostle urges them to press on unto full
growth of character. And this he and they wall do —
he ranks himself among them, and ventures to make
reply in their name. But He must add an "if God
permit." For there are men whom God will not
permit to advance a jot higher. Because they have
abused His great gift of illumination to scoff at the
greater gift of the Son, they are doomed to forfeit
possession of both. The only doomed man is the
cynic.

♦ Dean Merivale, Ro77ians under the Empire, chap. lix.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE,

" But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things
that accompany salvation, though we thus speak : for God is not
unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye showed toward
His name, in that ye ministered unto the saints, and still do minister.
And we desire that each one of you may show the same d ligence unto the
fulness of hope even to the end : that ye be not sluggish, but imitators
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For
when God made promise to Abraham, since He could swear by none
greater. He sware by Himself, saying. Surely blessing I will bless thee,
and multiplying I will multiply thee. And thus, having patiently
endured, he obtained the promise. For men swear by the greater :
and in every dispute of theirs the oath is final for confirmation.
Wherein God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of
the promise the immutability of His counsel, interposed with an oath :
that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay
hold of the hope set before us ; which we have as an anchor of the soul,
a hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the
veil ; whither as a Forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a
High-priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. " — Heb. vi. 9—20
(R.V.).

CHAPTER VI.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE.

OOLEMN warning is followed by words of affec-
*^^ tionate encouragement. Impossibility of renewal
is not the only impossibility within the compass of the
Gospel.* Over against the descent to perdition, hope
of the better things grasps salvation with the one hand
and the climbing pilgrim with the other, and makes his
failure to reach the summit impossible. Both impossi-
bilities have their source in God's justice. He is not
unjust to forget the deed of love shown towards His
name, when the only-begotten Son ministered to men
and still ministers. Contempt of this love God will
punish. Neither is He unjust to forget the love that
ministered to His poor saints in days of persecution,
when the Hebrew Christians became partakers with
their fellow-believers in their reproaches and tribula-
tions, showed pity towards their brethren in prisons,
and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. t The
stream of brotherly kindness was still flowing. This

♦ Compare chap. vi. 4 and cliap. vi. 18. f Chap. x. 34.

100 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

love God rewards. But the Apostle desires them to
shoW; not only faithfulness in ministering to the saints,
but also Christian earnestness generally,* until they
attain the full assurance of hope. The older expositors
understand the words to express the Apostle's wish
that his readers should continue to minister to the
saints. But Calvin's view has, especially since the time
of Bengel, been generally accepted : that the Apostle
urges his readers to be as diligent in seeking the full
assurance of hope as they are in ministering to the
poor. This is most probably the meaning, but with
the addition that he speaks of "earnestness" generally,
not merely of active diligence. Their religion was too
narrow in range. Care for the poor has sometimes
been the piety of sluggish despondency and bigotry.
But spiritual earnestness is the moral discipline that
works hope, a hope that makes not ashamed, but leads
men on to an assured confidence that the promise of
God will be fulfilled, though now black clouds over-
spread their sky.

An incentive to faith and endurance will be found in
the example of all inheritors of God's promise.f The
Apostle is on the verge of anticipating the splendid
record of the eleventh chapter. But he arrests himself,
partly because, at the present stage of his argument,

* otfov^-^v {v\. II). t Chap, vi. 13.

vi.9-2o.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE. loi

he can speak of faith only as the deep fountain of
endurance. He cannot now describe it as the reahsa-
tion and the proof of things unseen.* He wishes,
moreover, to dwell on the oath made by God to
Abraham. Even this, if not an anticipation of what is
still to come, is at least a preparation of the reader for
the distinction hereafter effectively handled between
the high-priest made without an oath and the High-
priest made with an oath. But, in the present section,
the emphatic notion is that the promise made to
Abraham is the same promise which the Apostle and
his brethren wait to see fulfilled, and that the confirma-
tion of the promise by oath to Abraham is still in force
for their strong encouragement. It is true that
Abraham received the fulfilment of the promise in his
lifetime, but only in a lower form. The promise, Hke
the Sabbath rest, has become more and still more
elevated, profound, spiritual, with the long delay of
God to make it good. It is equally true that the saints
under the Old Testament received not the fulfilment
of the promise in its highest meaning, and were not
perfected apart from believers of after-ages, f God's
words never grow obsolete. They are never left
behind by the Church. If they seem to pass away, they
return laden with still choicer fruit. The coursing moon

* Chap. xi. I. f Chap. xi. 40.

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

in the high heavens is never outstripped by the belated
traveller. The hope of the Gospel is ever set before
us. God swears to Abraham in the spring-time of the
world that we^ on whom the ends of the ages have
come, may have a strong incentive to press onwards.

But, if the oath of God to Abraham is to inspire us
with new courage, we must resemble Abraham in the
eager earnestness and calm endurance of his faith.
The passage has often been treated as if the oath had
been intended to meet the weakness of faith. But
unbelief is logician enough to argue that God's word is
as good as His bond ; yea, that we have no knowledge
of His oath except from His word. The Apostle
refers to the greatest instance of faith ever shown even
by Abraham, when he withheld not his son, his
beloved son, on Moriah. The oath was made to him
by God, not before he gave up Isaac, in order to
encourage his weakness, but when he had done it, as
a reward of his strength. Philo's fine sentence, which
indeed the sacred w'riter partly borrows, is intended to
teach the same lesson : that, while disappointments are
heaped on sense, an endless abundance of good things
has been given to the earnest soul and the perfect
man.* It is to Abraham when he has achieved his
supreme victory of faith that God vouchsafes to make

* SS. Legg. Alleg., iii., p. 98 (vol. i., p. 127, Mang.). With Philo's
T^ atrovhaLq. ^ixv compare the Apostle's awovdrjv (chap. v. ii).

vi.9-20.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE. 103

oath that He will fulfil His promise. This gives us
the clue to the purport of the words. Up to this final
test of Abraham's faith God's promise is, so to speak,
conditional. It will be fulfilled if Abraham will believe.
Now at length the promise is given unconditionally.
Abraham has gone triumphantly through every trial.
He has not withheld his son. So great is his faith
that God can now confirm His promise with a positive
declaration, which transforms a promise made to a man
into a prediction that binds Himself. Or shall we
retract the expression that the promise is now given
unconditionally ? The condition is transferred from
the faith of Abraham to the faithfulness of God. In
this Hes the oath. God pledges His own existence on
the fulfilment of His promise. He says no longer, " If
thou canst believe," but " As true as I live." Speaking
humanly, unbelief on the part of Abraham would have
made the promise of God of none effect; for it was
conditional on Abraham's faith. But the oath has
raised the promise above being affected by the unbelief
of some, and itself includes the faith of some. St. Paul
can now ask, " What if some did not believe ? Shall
their unbehef make the faith" (no longer merely the-
promise) ^' of God without effect ? " * Our author also
can speak of two immutable things, in which it was

* Rom. iii. 3.

104 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

impossible for God to lie. The one is the promise, the
immutabiUty of which means only that God, on His
part, does not retract, but casts on men the blame if
the promise is not fulfilled. The other is the oath, in
which God takes the matter into His own hands and
puts the certainty of His fulfilling the promise to rest
on His own eternal being.

The Apostle is careful to point out the wide and
essential difference between the oath of God and the
oaths of men. " For men swear by the greater ; " that
is, they call upon God, as the Almighty, to destroy
them if they are uttering what is false. They imprecate
a curse upon themselves. If they have sworn to a
falsehood, and if the imprecation falls on their heads,
they perish, and the matter ends. And yet an oath
decides all disputes between man and man.* Though
they appeal to an Omnipotence that often turns a deaf
ear to their prayer against themselves ; though, if the
Almighty were to fling retribution on them, the wheels
of nature would whirl as merrily as before; though,
if their false swearing were to cause the heavens to
fall, the men would still exist and continue to be men ;
— yet, for all this, they accept an oath as final settle-
ment. They are compelled to come to terms ; for they
are at their wits' end. But it is very different with the

* Chap. vi. 1 6,

vi.9-20.] THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE. 105

oath of God. When He swears by Himself, He appeals,
not to His omnipotence, but to His truthfulness. If any
jot or tittle of God's promise fails to the feeblest child
that trusts Him, God ceases to be. He has been
annihilated, not by an act of power, but by a lie.

We have said that the oath met, not the weakness,
but the strength, of Abraham's faith. If so, why was it
given him ?

First^ it simplified his faith. It removed all tendency
to morbid introspection and filled his spirit with a
peaceful reliance on God's faithfulness. He had no
more need to try himself whether he was in the faith.
Anxious effort and painful struggle were over. Faith
was now the very life of his soul. He could leave his
concerns to God, and wait. This is the thought ex-
pressed in the word "enduring."

Second, it was a new revelation of God to him, and
thus elevated his spiritual nature. The moral
character of the Most High, rather than His natural
attribute of omnipotence, became the resting-place of
his spirit. Even the joy of God's heart was made
known and communicated to his. God was pleased
with Abraham's final victory over unbelief, and. wished
to show him more abundantly * His counsel and the
immutabiUty of it. " The secret of the Lord is with

♦ vepiffffdrepovt

io6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

them that fear Him, and He will show them His
covenant." *

Thirdy it was intended also for our encouragement.
It is strange, but true, that the promises of God are
confirmed to us by the victorious faith of a nomad chief
from Ur of the Chaldees, who, in the morning of the
world's history, withheld not his son. After all, we are
not disconnected units. God only can trace the count-
less threads of influence. Abraham's strong faith
evoked the oath that now sustains the weakness of
ours. Because he believed so well, the promise comes
to us with all the sanction of God's own truth and
unchangeableness. The oath made to Abraham was
linked with a still more ancient, even an eternal, oath,
made to the Son, constituting Him Priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek. The priesthood of
Melchizedek is said by the Apostle to be a type of
the priesthood founded on an oath. It was becoming
that the man who acknowledged the priesthood of
Melchizedek and received its blessing should have that
blessing fulfilled to him in the confirmation by oath of
God's promise. Thus the promises that have been
fulfilled through the eternal priesthood of the true
Melchizedek are confirmed to us by an oath made to
him who acknowledged that priesthood in the typical
Melchizedek.

* Ps. xxiv. 14,

vi.9-20. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE. 107

Yet, notwithstanding these vital points of contact,
Abraham and the Hebrew Christians are in some
respects very unlike. They have left his serene and
contemplative life far behind. The souls of men are
stirred with dread of the threatened end of all things.
Abraham had no need to flee for refuge from an im-
pending wrath. His religion even was not a fleeing
from any wrath to come, but a yearning for a better
fatherland. He never heard the midnight cry of
Maranatha, but longed to be gathered to his fathers.
If any simihtude to the Christian's fleeing from the
wrath to come must be sought in ancient days, it
will be found in the history of Lot, not of Abraham.
Whether the Apostle's thoughts rested for a moment
on Lot's flight from Sodom, it is impossible to say.
His mind is moving so rapidly that one illustration
after another flits before his eye. The notion of
Abraham's strong faith, reaching out a hand to the
strong grasp of God's oath, reminds him of men fleeing
for refuge, perhaps into a sanctuary, and laying hold
of the horns of the altar, with a reminiscence of the
Baptist's taunting question, "Who warned you to flee
from the wrath to come ? " and a side glance at the
approaching destruction of the holy city, if indeed
the catastrophe had not already befallen the doomed
people. The thought suggests another illustration.
Our hope is an anchor cast into the deep sea. The

io8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

anchor is sure and steadfast — '' sure," for, like Abra-
ham's faith, it will neither break nor bend ; '' stead-
fast," for, like Abraham's faith again, it bites the
eternal rock of the oath. Still another metaphor lends
itself. The deep sea is above all heavens in the
sanctuary within the veil, and the rock is Jesus, Who
has entered into the holiest place as our High-priest.
Yet another thought. Jesus is not only High-priest,
but also Captain, of the redeemed host, leading us on,
and opening the way for us to enter after Him into
the sanctuary of the promised land.

Thus, with the help of metaphor heaped on meta-
phor in the fearless confusion delightful to conscious
strength and gladness, the Apostle has at last come
to the great conception of Christ in the sanctuary of
heaven. He has hesitated long to plunge into the
wave ; and even now he will not at once lift the veil
from the argument. The allegory of Melchizedek must
prepare us for it.

THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK,

Hebrews vii. 1—28 (R.V.).

* For this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of God Most High, who
met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed
him, to whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being first, by
interpretation, King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which
is. King of peace ; without father, without mother, without genealogy,
having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the
Son of God), abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this
man was, unto whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth out of the
chief spoils. And they indeed of the sons of Levi that receive the priest's
office have commandment to take tithes of the people according to the
law, that is, of their brethren, though these have come out of the loins
of Abraham : but he whose genealogy is not counted from them hath
taken tithes of Abraham, and hath blessed him that hath the promises.
But without any dispute the less is blessed of the better. And here
men that die receive tithes ; but there one, of whom it is witnessed
that he liveth. And, so to say, through Abraham even Levi, who
receiveth tithes, hath paid tithes ; for he was yet in the loins of his
father, when Melchizedek met him. Now if there was perfection
through the Levitical priesthood (for under it hath the people received
the Law), what further need was there that another Priest should arise
after the order of Melchizedek, and not be reckoned after the order of
Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity
a change also of the law. For He of Whom these things are said
belongeth to another tribe, from which no man hath given attendance
at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord hath sprung out of Judah ;
as to which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priests. And what we
say is yet more abundantly evident, if after the likeness of Melchizedek
there ariseth another Priest, Who hath been made, not after the law

of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life
it is witnessed of Him,

Thou art a Priest for ever
After the order of Melchizedek.
For there is a disannulling oi a foregoing commandment because of its
weakness and unprofitableness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and
a bringing in thereupon of a better hope, through which we draw nigh
unto God. And inasmuch as it is not without the taking of an oath
(for they indeed have been made priests without an oath; but He with
an oath by Him that saith of Him,

The Lord sware and will not repent Himself,

Thou art a Priest for ever) ;
by so much also hath Jesus become the Surety of a better covenant.
And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that
by death they are hindered from continuing : but He, because He
abideth for ever, hath His priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also
He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God
through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. For
such a High-priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from
sinners, and made higher than the heavens ; Who needeth not daily, like
those high-priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then
for the sins of the people : for this He did once for all, when He offered
up Himself. For the Law appointeth men high-priests, having infir-
mity ; but the word of the oath, which was after the Law, appointeth
a Son, perfected for evermore."

CHAPTER VII.

THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHLZEDEK.

JESUS has entered heaven as our Forerunner, in
virtue of His eternal priesthood. The endless
duration and heavenly power of His priesthood is the
" hard saying " which the Hebrew Christians would
not easily receive, inasmuch as it involves the setting
aside of the old covenant. But it rests on the words
of the inspired Psalmist. Once already an inference
has been drawn from the Psalmist's prophecy. The
meaning of the Sabbath rest has not been exhausted
in the Sabbath of Judaism ; for David, so long after
the time of Moses, speaks of another and better day.
Similarly in the seventh chapter the Apostle finds an
argument in the mysterious words of the Psalm,
"The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent. Thou
art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." *

The words are remarkable because they imply that
'n the heart of Judaism there lurked a yearning for

* Ps. ex. 4.

114 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

another and different kind of priesthood from that
of Aaron's order. It may be compared to the strange
intrusion now and again of other gods than the deities
of Olympus into the rehgion of the Greeks, either
by the introduction of a new deity or by way of return
to a condition of things that existed before the young
gods of the court of Zeus began to hold sway. But,
to add to the mysterious character of the Psalm, it
gives utterance to a desire for another King also, Who
should be greater than a mere son of David : '' The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand,
until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." Yet the
Psalmist is David himself, and Christ silenced the
Pharisees by asking them to explain the paradox :
'' If David then call Him Lord, how is He his Son ? " *
Delitzsch observes ^'that in no other psalm does
David distinguish between himself and Messiah;**
that is, in all his other predictions Messiah is David
himself idealised, but in this Psalm He is David's Lord
as well as his Son. The Psalmist desires a better
priesthood and a better kingship.

These aspirations are alien to the nature of Judaism.
The Mosaic dispensation pointed indeed to a coming
priest, and the Jews might expect Messiah to be a
King. But the Priest would be the antitype of Aaron,

* Matt. xxii. 45.

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHLZEDEK. 115

and the King would be only the Son of David. The
Psalm speaks of a Priest after the order, not of Aaron,
but of Melchizedek, and of a King Who would be
David's Lord. To increase the difficulty, the Priest
and the King would be one and the same Person.

Yet the Psalmist's mysterious conception comes to
the surface now and again. In the Book of Zechariah
the Lord commands the prophet to set crowns upon
the head of Joshua the high-priest, and proclamation
is made *'that he shall be a priest upon his throne."*
The Maccabsean princes are invested with priestly
garments. Philo f has actually anticipated the Apostle
in his reference to the union of the priesthood and
kingship in the person of Melchizedek. We need
not hesitate to say that the Apostle borrows his
allegory from Philo, and finds his conception of the
Priest-King in the religious insight of the profounder
men, or at least in their earnest groping for better
things. All this notwithstanding, his use of the
allegory is original and most felicitous. He adds an
idea fraught with consequences to his argument. For
the central thought of the passage is the endless
duration of the priesthood of Melchizedek. The Priest-
King is Priest for ever.

We have spoken of Melchizedek's story as an alle-

* Zech. vi., II 13. t i'6'. Legg. Alleg., iii. (vol. i., p. 103, Mang.).

ii6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

gory, not to insinuate doubt of its historical truth, but
because it cannot be intended by the Apostle to have
direct inferential force. It is an instance of the
allegorical interpretation of Old Testament events,
similar to what we constantly find in Philo, and
once at least in St. Paul. Allegorical use of history
has just as much force as a parable drawn from
nature, and comes just as near a demonstration as the
types, if it is so used by an inspired prophet in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament. This is precisely
the difference between our author and Philo. The
latter invents allegories and lets his fancy run wild in
weaving new coincidences, which Scripture does not
even suggest. But the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews keeps strictly within the lines of the Psalm.
We must also bear in mind that the story of Melchi-
zedek sets forth a feature of Christ's priesthood which
cannot be figured by a type of the ordinary form. Philo
infers from the history of Melchizedek the sovereignty
of God. The Psalmist and the Apostle teach from it the
eternal duration of Christ's priesthood. But how can
any type represent such a truth ? How can the fleeting
shadow symbolise the notion of abiding substance ?
The type by its very nature is transitory. That Christ
is Priest for ever can be symbolically taught only by
negations, by the absence of a beginning and of an
end, in some such way as the hieroglyphics represent

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 117

eternity by a line turning back upon itself. In this
negative fashion, Melchizedek has been assimilated
to the Son of God. His history was intentionally so
related by God's Spirit that the sacred writer's silence
even is significant. For Melchizedek suddenly appears
on the scene, and as suddenly vanishes, never to return.
Hitherto in the Bible story every man's descent is
carefully noted, from the sons of Adam to Noah, from
Noah down to Abraham. Now, however, for the first
time, a man stands before us of whose genealogy and
birth nothing is said. Even his death is not men-
tioned. What is known of him wonderfully helps the
allegorical significance of the intentional silence of
Scripture. He is king and priest, and the one act of
his life is to bestow his priestly benediction on the heir
of the promises. No more appropriate or more striking
symbol of Christ's priesthood can be imagined.

His name even is symbolical. He is '' King of
righteousness." By a happy coincidence, the name
of his city is no less expressive of the truth to be
represented. He is King of Salem, which means
" King of peace." The two notions of righteousness
and peace combined make up the idea of priesthood.
Righteousness without peace punishes the transgressor.
Peace without righteousness condones the transgression.
The kingship of Melchizedek, it appears, involves that
he is priest.

Ii8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

This king-priest is a monotheist, though he is not
of the family of Abraham. He is even priest of the
Most High God; though he is outside the pale of the
priesthood afterwards founded in the line of Aaron.
Judaism, therefore, enjoys no monopoly of truth. As
St. Paul argues that the promise is independent of the
Law, because it was given four hundred years before, so
our author hints at the existence of a priesthood dis-
tinct from the Levitical. What existed before Aaron
may also survive him.

Further, these two men, Melchizedek and Abraham,
were mutually drawn each to the other by the force of
their common piety. Melchizedek went out to meet
Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the kings,
apparently not because he was indebted to him for his
life and the safety of his city (for the kings had gone
their way as far as Dan after pillaging the Cities of the
Plain), but because he felt a strong impulse to bestow
his blessing on the man of faith. He met him, not as
king, but as priest. Would it be too fanciful to con-
jecture that Abraham had that mysterious power, which
some men possess and some do not, of attracting to
himself and becoming a centre, around which others
almost unconsciously gather ? It is suggested by his
entire history. Whether it was so or not, Melchizedek
blessed him, and Abraham accepted the blessing, and
acknowledged its priestly character by giving him the

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEIC. 119

priest's portion, the tenth of the best spoils. How
great must this man have been, who blessed even
Abraham, and to whom Abraham, the patriarch, paid
even the tenth ! But the less is blessed of the greater.
In Abraham the Levitical priesthood itself may be said
to acknowledge the superiority of Melchizedek.*

Wherein lay his greatness ? He was not in the
priestly line. Neither do we read that he was appointed
of God. Yet no man taketh this honour unto himself.
God had made him king and priest by conferring upon
him the gift of innate spiritual greatness. He was one
of nature's kings, born to rule, not because he was his
father's son, but because he had a great soul. It is
not in record that he bequeathed to his race a great
idea. He created no school, and had no following. So
seldom is mention made of him in the Old Testament,
that the Psalmist's passing reference to his name
attracts the Apostle's special notice. He became a
priest in virtue of what he was as man. His authority
as king sprang from character.

Such men appear on earth now and again. But
they are never accounted for. All we can say of them
is that they have neither father nor mother nor genea-
logy. They resemble those who are born of the Spirit,
of whom we know neither whence they come nor

* Chap. vii. 6—10.

120 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

whither they go. It is only from the greatest one
among these kings and priests of men that the veil is
lifted. In Him we see the Son of God. In Christ we
recognise the ideal greatness of sheer personality, and
we at once say of all the others, as the Apostle says of
Melchizedek, that they have been "made like," not
unto ancestors or predecessors, but unto Him Who is
Himself like His Divine Father.

Such priests remain priests for ever. They live on
by the vitality of their priesthood. They have no be-
ginning of days or end of life. They have never been
set apart with outward ritual to an official distinction,
marked by days and years. Their acts are not cere-
monial, and wait not on the calendar. They bless
men, and the blessing abides. They pray, and the
prayer dies not. If their prayer lives for ever, can we
suppose that they themselves pass away ? The king-
priest is heir of immortality, whoever else may perish.
He at least has the power of an endless life. If he
dies in the flesh, he lives on in the spirit. An eternal
heaven must be found or made for such men with God.

Now this is the gist and kernel of the Apostle's
beautiful allegory. The argument points to the Son
of God, and leads up to the conception of His eternal
priesthood in the sanctuary of heaven. Let us see how
the parable is interpreted and applied.

That Jesus is a great High-priest has been proved by

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 121

argument after argument from the beginning of the
Epistle. But this is not enough to show that the
priesthood after the order of Aaron has passed away.
The Hebrew Christians may still maintain that the
Messiah perfected the Aaronic priesthood and added to
it the glory of kingship. Transference of the priest-
hood must be proved; and it is symbolised in the
history of Melchizedek. But transference of the priest-
hood involves much more than v/hat has hitherto been
mentioned. It implies, not merely that the priesthood
after the order of Aaron has come to an end, but that
the entire dispensation of law, the old covenant, is
replaced by a new covenant and a better one, inas-
much as the Law was erected on the foundation* of the
priesthood. It was a religious economy. The funda-
mental conceptions of the religion were guilt and
forgiveness, f The essential fact of the dispensation
was sacrifice offered for the sinner to God by a priest.
The priesthood was the article of a standing or a falling
Church under the Old Testament. Change of the
priesthood of itself abrogates the covenant.

What, then, is the truth in this matter ? Has the
priesthood been transferred ? Let the story of
Melchizedek, interpreted by the inspired Psalmist,
supply the answer.

* eV a))r^s (vii. 14). f Cf. chnp. vi. I.

122 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

Firsty Jesus sprang from the royal tribe of Judah,
not from the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. The Apostle
intentionally uses a term * that glances at the prophet
Zechariah's prediction concerning Him Who shall
arise as the dawn, and be a Priest upon His throne.
We shall, therefore, entitle Him " Lord," and say that
'* our Lord" has risen out of Judah.t He is Lord and
King by right of birth. But this circumstance, that He
belongs to the tribe of Judah, hints, to say the least,
at a transference of the priesthood. For Moses said
nothing of this tribe in reference to priests, however
great it became in its kings. The kingship of our Lord
is foreshadowed in Melchizedek.

Secondj it is still more evident that the Aaronic
priesthood has been set aside if we recall another
feature in the allegory of Melchizedek. For Jesus is
like Melchizedek as Priest, not as King only. The
priesthood of Melchizedek sprang from the man's
inherent greatness. How much more is it true of
Jesus Christ that His greatness = is personal ! He
became what He is, not by force of law, which could
create only an external, carnal commandment, but by
innate power, in virtue of which He will live on and

* 'AvaTeraXKev. Cf. Zech. vi. 12, 'AvaroXri, dawn. The citation, as
usual, is from the Septuagint.
t Chap. vii. 14.

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 123

His life will be indestructible.* The commandment
that constituted Aaron priest has not indeed been
violently abrogated ; but it has been thrust aside in
consequence of its own inner feebleness and useless-
ness.f That it has been weak and unprofitable to
men is evident from the inability of the Law, as a
system erected upon that priesthood, to satisfy con-
science.l Yet this carnal, decayed priesthood was
permitted to linger on and work itself out. The better
hope, through which w^e do actually come near unto
God, did not forcibly put an end to it, but was super-
added. § Christ never formally abolished the old
covenant. We cannot date its extinction. We must
not say that it ceased to exist when the Supper was
instituted, or when the true Passover was slain, or
when the Spirit descended. The Epistle to the
Hebrews is intended to awaken men to the fact that
it is gone. They can hardly realise that it is dead.
It has been lost, like the light of a star, in the spread-
ing " dawn " of day. The sun of that eternal day is
the infinitely great personality of Jesus Christ, born
a crownless King ; crowned at His death, but with
thorns. Yet what mighty power He has wielded !

* Chap. vii. 16.

f ddeTTjais, a setting aside (chap. vii. 18).

J ovhev ereXetuxrej' (vii. 19).

124 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The Galilaean has conquered. Since He has passed
through the heavens from the eyes of men, thousands
in every age have been ready to die for Him. Even
to-day the Christianity of the greatest part of His
follov^^ers consists more in profound loyalty to a
personal King than in any intellectual comprehension
of the Teacher's dogmatic system. Such kingly power
cannot perish. Untouched by the downfall of king-
doms and the revolutions of thought, such a King will
sit upon His moral throne from age to age, yesterday
and to-day the same, and for ever.

Thirds the entire system or covenant based on the
Aaronic priesthood has passed away and given place to
a better covenant, — better in proportion to the firmer
foundation on which the priesthood of Jesus rests.*
Beyond question, the promises of God were steadfast.
But men could not realise the glorious hope of their
fulfilment, and that for two reasons. First, difficult
conditions were imposed on faUible men. The
worshipper might transgress in many points of ritual.
His mediator, the priest, might err where error would
be fatal to the result. Worshipper and priest, if they
were thoughtful and pious men, would be haunted with
the dread of having done WTong they knew not how
or where, and be filled with dark forebodings. Confi-

* Chap. vii. 20—22.

vii.i-2S.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 125

dence, especially full assurance, was not to be thought
of. Second, Christ found it necessary to urge His
disciples to believe in God. The misery of distrusting
God Himself exists. Men think that He is such as
they are ; and, as they do not beUeve in themselves,
their faith in God is a reed shaken by the v^rind. These
wants were not adequately met by the old covenant.
The conditions imposed perplexed men, and the revela-
tion of God's moral character and Fatherhood was not
sufficiently clear to rem.ove distrust. The Apostle
directs attention to the strange absence of any swearing
of an oath on the part of God when He instituted the
Aaronic priesthood, or on the part of the priest at his
consecration. Yet the kingship was confirmed by oath
to David. In the new covenant, on the other hand, all
such fears may be dismissed. For the only condition
imposed is faith. In order to make faith easy and
inspire men with courage, God appoints a Surety * for
Himself. He offers His Son as Hostage, and thus
guarantees the fulfilment of His promise. As the Man
Jesus, the Son of God was delivered into the hands of
men. " Of the better covenant Jesus is the Surety."
This will explain a word in the sixth chapter, which we
were compelled at the time to put aside. For it is
there said that God '' mediated " with an oath.f We

^-yVOS. t (I^^<^IT€V<J€V (vi. 17)

126 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

now understand that this means the appointment of
Christ to be Surety of the fulfilment of God's promises.
The old covenant could offer no guarantee. It is true
that it was ordained in the hands of a mediator. But
it is also true that the mediator was no surety, inas-
much as those priests were made without an oath.
Christ has been made Priest with an oath. Therefore
He is, as Jesus, the Surety of a better covenant. In
what respects the covenant is better, the Apostle will
soon tell us. For the present, we only know that the
foundation is stronger in proportion as the oath of
God reveals more fully His sincerity and love, and
renders it an easier thing for men laden with guilt to
trust the promise.

Before we dismiss the subject, it may be well to
remind the reader that this mention of a Surety by our
author is the locus classicus of the Federalist school of
divines. Cocceius and his followers present the whole
range of theological doctrines under the form of cove-
nant. They explain the words "Surety of a better
covenant " to mean that Christ is appointed by God
to be a Surety on behalf of men, not on behalf of
God. The course of thought in the passage is, we
think, decisive against this interpretation. At the same
time, we readily admit that their doctrine is a just
theological inference from the passage. If God swears
that His gracipus purposes will be fulfilled and ordains

vii. 1-28,] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 127

Jesus to be His Surety to men, and if also the fulfil-
ment of the Divine promise depends on the fulfilment of
certain conditions on the part of men, the oath of God
will involve His enabling men to fulfil those conditions,
and the Surety will become in eventual fact a Surety
on behalf of men. But this is only an inference. It
is not the meaning of the Apostle's words, who only
speaks of the Surety on the part of God. The validity
of the inference now mentioned depends on other con-
siderations extraneous to this passage. With those
considerations, therefore, we have at present nothing
to do.

Fourth^ the climax of the argument is reached when
the Apostle infers the endless duration of Christ's
one priesthood.* The number of men who had been
successively high-priests of the old covenant increased
from age to age. Dying one after another, they
were prevented from continuing as high-priests. But
Melchizedek had no successor; and the Jews them-
selves admitted that the Christ would abide for ever.
The ascending argument of the Apostle proves that He
ever liveth, and has, therefore, an immutable priesthood.
For, first, He is of the royal tribe, and the oath of God
to David guarantees that of his kingdom there shall be
no end. Again, in the greatness of His personality. He

* Chap. vii. 23 — 25.

128 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

is endowed with the power of an endless hfe. More-
over, as Priest He has been established in His office by
oath. He is, therefore. Priest for ever.

A question suggests itself. Why is the endless life of
one high-priest more effective than a succession, con-
ceivably an endless succession, of high-priests ? The
eternal priesthood involves two distinct, but mutually
dependent, conceptions, — power to save and inter-
cession. In the case of any man, to live for ever
means power. Even the body of our humiliation will
be raised in power. Can the spirit, therefore, in the
risen life, its own native home, be subject to weakness ?
What, then, shall we say of the risen and glorified
Christ? The difference between Him and the high-
priests of earth is like the difference between the body
that is raised and the body that dies. In Aaron
priesthood is sown in corruption, dishonour, weakness ;
in Christ priesthood is raised in incorruption, in glory,
in power. In Aaron it is sown a natural priesthood ;
in Christ it is raised a spiritual priesthood. It must be
that the High-priest in heaven has power to save con-
tinually and completely. Whenever help is needed. He
is living. But He ever lives that He may intercede.*
Apart from intercession on behalf of men. His power is
not moral. It has no greatness, or joy, or meaning.

* Chap, vii, 25,

vii. 1-28.] THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK. 129

Intercession is the moral content of His powerful
existence. Whenever help is needed, He is living, and
is mighty * to save from sin, to rescue from death, to
deliver from its fear.

To prove that Christ's eternal priesthood involves
power and intercession is the purpose of the next
verses. t Such a High-priest, powerful to save and
ever living to intercede, is the only One befitting us,
who are at once helpless and guilty. The Apostle
triumphantly unfolds the glory of this conception of a
high-priest. He means Christ. But he is too trium-
phant to name Him. ^^ Such a high-priest befits us."
The power of His heavenly life implies the highest
development of moral condition. He will address God
with holy reverence.^ He will succour men without
a tinge of malice, § which is but another way of saying
that He wishes them well from the depth of His heart.
He must not be sullied by a spot of moral defilement ||
(for purity only can face God or love men). He must
be set apart for His lofty function from the sinners for
whom He intercedes. He must enter the true holiest
place and stand in awful solitariness above the heavens
of worlds and angels in the immediate presence of God.
Further, He must not be under the necessity of leaving

* dvyaraif the emphatic word in the passage. f Chap. vii. 26.
;j: 6<nos, § A/ca/coj. Il d/xiavTos.

9

130 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

the holiest place to renew His sacrifice, as the high-
priests of the old covenant had need to offer, through
the priests, new sacrifices every day through the year
for themselves and for the people — yea, for themselves
first, then for the people — before they dared re-enter
within the veil * For Christ offered Himself. Such
a sacrifice, once offered, was sufficient for ever.

To sum up.t The Law appoints men high-priests;
the word, which God has spoken unto us in His Son,
appoints the Son Himself High-priest. The Law
appoints men high-priests in their weakness ; the
word appoints the Son in His final and complete
attainment of all perfection. But the Law will yield to
the word. For the word, which had gone before the
Law in the promise made to Abraham, was not super-
seded by the Law, but came also after it in the stronger
form of an oath, of which the old covenant knew
nothing.

♦ Chap. vii. 27. f Chap, vii, 28.

THE NEW COVENANT,

" Now in the things which we are saying the chief point zs this ."
We have such a High -priest, Who sat down on the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary, and
of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every
high-priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices : wherefore it
is necessary that this High-priest also have somewhat to offer. Now
if He were on earth, He would not be a Priest at all, seeing there are
those who offer the gifts according to the Law ; who serve that which is
a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned
of God when he is about to make the tabernacle : for, See, saith He,
that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee
in the mount. But now hath He obtained a ministry the more excellent,
by how much also He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which hath
been enacted upon better promises." — Heb. viii. i — 6 (R.V.).

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW COVENANT,

'npHE Apostle has interpreted the beautiful story of
-^ Melchizedek with wonderful feHcity and force.
The point of the whole Epistle, he now tells us, lies
there. He has brought forth the headstone of the
corner, the keystone of the arch.* It is, in short, that
we have such a High-priest. Country, holy city, ark
of the covenant, all are lost. But if we have the High-
priest, all are restored to us in a better and more
enduring form. Jesus is the High-priest and King.
He has taken His seat once for all, as King, on the
right hand of the^ throne of the Majesty, and, as Priest,
is also Minister of the sanctuary and of the true
tabernacle. The indefinite and somewhat unusual term
*' minister" or ''public servant " f is intentionally
chosen, partly to emphasise the contrast between
Christ's kingly dignity and His priestly service, partly
because the author wishes to explain at greater length

* /ce^dXatoJ/ (viii. l). f XetTou/97os (viii. 2).

134 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

in what Christ's actual work as High-priest in heaven
consists. For Christ's heavenly glory is a life of
service, not of selfish gratification.. Every high-priest
serves.* He is appointed for no other purpose than
to offer gifts and sacrifices. The Apostle's readers
admitted that Christ was High-priest. But they were
forgetting that, as such, He too must necessarily
minister and have something which He can ofier. Our
theology is still in Hke danger. We are sometimes
prone to regard Christ's life in heaven as only a state
of exaltation and power, and, consequently, to speak
more of the saints' happiness than of their service. It
is the natural result of superficial theories of the
Atonement that little practical use is made by many
Christians of the truth of Christ's priestly intercession.
The debt has been paid, the debtor discharged, and the
transaction ended. Christ's present activity towards
God is acknowledged and — neglected. Protestants are
confirmed in this baneful worldliness.of conception by
their just desire to keep at a safe distance from the
error in the opposite extreme : that Christ presents to
God the Church's sacrifices of the mass.

The truth lies midway between two errors. On the
one hand, Christ's intercession is not itself the making
or constituting of a sacrifice; on the other, it is not

* Chap. viii. 3.

viii. 1-6.] THE NEW COVENANT.

135

mere pleading and prayer. The sacrifice was made
and completed on the Cress, as the victims were slain
in the outer court. But it was through the blood of
those victims the high-priest had authority to enter the
holiest place; and when he had entered, he must
sprinkle the warm blood, and so present the sacrifice
to God. Similarly Christ must enter a sanctuary in
order to present the sacrifice slain on Calvary. The
words of the Apostle John, ^' We have an Advocate with
the Father," express only one side of the truth. But
he adds the other side of the conception in the same
verse, " And He is the propitiation," which is a very
different thing from saying, ^' His death was the
propitiation." But what sanctuary shall He enter?
He could not approach the hoHest place in the earthly
temple. For if He were on earth, He would not be
a Priest at all, seeing there are men ordained by the
Law to offer the appointed gifts on earth.* The Jewish
priests have satisfied and exhausted the idea of an
earthly priesthood. Even Melchizedek could not found
an order. If he may be regarded as an attempt to
acclimatise on earth the priesthood of personal greatness,
the attempt was a failure. It always fails, though it
is always renewed. On earth there can be no order
of goodness. When a great saint appears among men,

* Chap. viii. 4.

136 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

he is but a bird of passage, and is not to be found,
because God has translated him. If it is so of His
saints, what of Christ ? Christ on earth through the
ages ? Impossible ! And what is impossible to-day
will be equally inconceivable at any point of time in
the future. A correct conception of Christ's priestly
•ntercession is inconsistent with the dream of a reign
of Christ on earth. It may, or may not, be consistent
with His kingly office. But His priesthood forbids.
We infer that Christ has transformed the heaven of
glory into the hoHest place of a temple, and the throne
of God into a shrine before which He, as High-priest,
presents His sacrifice.

The Jewish priesthood itself teaches the existence of
a heavenly sanctuary.* All the arrangements of taber-
nacle and ritual were made after a pattern shown to
Moses on Mount Sinai. The priests, in the tabernacle
and through their ritual, ministered to the holiest place,
as the visible image and outline of the real holiest place
— that is, heaven — which the Lord pitched, not man.

Now Christ's more excellent ministry as High-priest
in heaven carries in its bosom all that the Apostle
contends for, — the establishment of a new covenant
which has set aside for ever the covenant of the Law.
" He has obtained a ministry the more excellent by

♦ Chap. viii. 5.

viii. 1-6.] THE NEW COVENANT. 137

how much He is the Mediator of a better covenant." *
These words contain in a nutshell the entire argument,
or series of arguments, that extends from the sixth
verse of the eighth chapter to the eighteenth verse of
the tenth. The course of thought may be divided as
follows : —

1. That the Lord intends to establish a new cove-
nant is first of all shown by a citation from the prophet
Jeremiah (viii. 7— 1 3).

2. A description of the tabernacle and of the en-
trance of the priests and high-priests into it teaches
that the way into the holiest place was not yet open to
men. This is contrasted with the entering of Christ
into heaven through His own blood, which proves that
He has obtained for us an eternal redemption and is
Mediator of a new covenant, founded on His death
(ix. I— 18).

3. The frequent entering of the high-priest into the
holiest place is contrasted with the one death of Christ
and His entering heaven once. This proves the power
of His sacrifice and intercession to bring in the better
covenant and set aside the former one (ix. 25 — x. 18).

I. A New Covenant promised through Jeremiah.

** For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place
have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He saith,

* Chap. viii. 6.

138 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

That I vv-ill make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah ;

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers

In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out
of the land of Egypt ;

For they continued not in My covenant,

And I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

After those days, saith the Lord ;

I will put My laws into their mind,

And on their heart also will I write them :

And I will be to them a God,

And they shall be to Me a people :

And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,

And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord :

For all shall know Me,

From the least to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their iniquities,

And their sins will I remember no more.
In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. But
that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing
away." — Heb. viii. 7 — 13 (R.V.),

The more spiritual men under the dispensation of
law anticipated a new and better era. The Psalmist
had spoken of another day, and prophesied of the
appearance of a Priest after the order of Melchizedek
and a Son of David Who would also be David's Lord.
But Jeremiah is very bold, and says * that the covenant
itself on which the hope of his nation hangs will pass
away, and his dream of a more spiritual covenant,

*Jer. xxxi. 31—34.

viii. 7-13.] THE NEW COVENANT. 139

established on better promises, will at some distant day
come true. It is well to bear in mind that this discon-
tent with the present order lodged in the hearts, not of
the worst, but of the best and greatest, sons of Judaism.
It was the salt of their character, the life of their
inspiration, the message of their prophecy. In days of
national distress and despair, this star shone the
brighter for the darkness. The terrible shame of the
Captivity and the profound agony that followed it were
lit up with the glorious vision of a better future in store
for the people of God. On the quivering lips of the
prophet that " sat weeping," as he is described in the
Septuagint,* this strong hope found utterance. He
had washed the dust of worldliness from his eyes with
tears, and, therefore, saw more clearly than the men of
his time the threatened downfall of Judah and the
bright dawn beyond. In reading his prophecy of the
new covenant we almost cease to wonder that some
persons thought Jesus was Jeremiah risen from the
dead. The prophet's words have the same ring of
undaunted cheerfulness, of intense compassion, of
prophetic faith ; and Christ, as well as the Apostle,
cites His prediction that all shall be taught of God.f
Jeremiah blames the people. | But the Apostle infers

* Lamentations, Preface. f John vi. 45.

\ a.vTov% (viii. 8).

140 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

that the covenant itself was not faultless, inasmuch as
the prophet seeks, in his censure of the people, to make
room for another covenant. We have already been told
that there was on earth no room for the priesthood of
Christ.* Similarly, in the sphere of earthly nationality,
there was no room for a covenant other than that which
God had made with His people Israel when He brought
them out of the land of Egypt. But the earthly priest-
hood could not give efficacy to its ministering, and thus
room is found for a heavenly priesthood. So also, the
covenant on which the earthly priesthood rested being
inadequate, the prophet makes room for the introduction
of a new and better covenant.

< Now the peculiar character of the old covenant was
that it dealt with men in the aggregate which we call
the nation. NationaUsm is the distinctive feature of the
old world, within the precincts of Judaism and among
the peoples of heathendom. Even the prophets could
not see the spiritual truth, which they themselves fore-
told, except through the medium of nationality. The
Messiah was the national king ideahsed, even when He
was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In
the passage before us the prophet Jeremiah speaks of
God's promise to write His law on the heart as made to
the house of Judah and the house of Israel, as if he

* Chap. viii. 4.

viii. 7-13.] THE NEW COVENANT. 141

were not aware that, in so speaking, he was really con- ^
tradicting himself. For the blessing promised was a
spiritual and, consequently, personal one, with which
nationality cannot possibly have any sort of connection.
It is a matter of profound joy to every lover of his
people to witness and share in the uprising of a national
consciousness. Some among us are beginning to know
now for the first time that a national ideal is possible
in thought, and sentiment, and life. But there must not,
cannot, be a nationality in religion. A moral law in
the heart does not recognise the quality of the blood
that circulates through. This truth the prophets strove
to utter, often in vain. Yet the breaking up of the
nation into Judah and Israel helped to dispel the
illusion. The loss of national independence prepared
for the universalism of Jesus Christ and St. Paul.
Now also, when an epistle is written to the Hebrew
Christians, the threatened extinction of nationality
drives men to seek the bond of union in a more stable
covenant, which will save them, if anything can, from
the utter collapse of all religious fellowship and civil
society. It is the glory of Christianity that it creates
the individual and at the same moment keeps perfectly
clear of individualism. Its blessings are personal, but
they imply a covenant. If nationalism has been
dethroned, individualism has not climbed to the
vacant seat. How it achieves this great result will

142 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

be understood from an examination of Jeremiah's
prophecy.

The new covenar deals with the same fundamental
conceptions which dominated the former one. These
are the moral law, knowledge of God, and forgiveness
of sin. So far the two dispensations are one. Because
these great conceptions lie at the root of all human
goodness, religion is essentially the same thing under
both covenants. There is a sense in which St. Augus-
tine was right in speaking of the saints under the old
Testament as '^ Christians before Christ." Judaism
and Christianity stand shoulder to shoulder over against
the religious ideas and practices of all the heathen
nations of the world. But in Judaism these sublime
conceptions are undeveloped. Nationalism dwarfs their
growth. They are like seeds falling on the thorns, and
the thorns grow up and choke them. God, therefore,
spoke unto the Jews in parables, in types and shadows.
Seeing, they saw not ; and hearing, they heard not,
neither did they understand.

Because the former covenant was a national one, the
conceptions of the moral law, of God, of sin and its for-
giveness, would be narrow and external. The moral
law would be embedded in the national code. God
would be revealed in the history of the nation. Sin
would consist either in faults of ignorance and inad-
vertence or in national apostasy from the theocratic

aii. 7-I3-] ^-^^ ^^^ COVENANT. 143

King. In these three respects the new covenant excels,
—in respect, that is, of the m' S law, knowledge of
God, and forgiveness of sin, v h yet may be justly
reo-arded as the three sides Oi the revelation given
under the former covenant.

I. The moral law will either forget its own holiness,
righteousness, and goodness, and degenerate into
national rules of conduct, or else, by the innate force
of its spirituality, create in men a consciousness of sin
and a strong desire for reconciliation with God. Men
will resist, and, when resistance is vain, will chafe
against its terrible strength. "The Law came in
beside, that the trespass might abound." * But it often
happens that guilt of conscience is the alarum that
awakens moral self-consciousness out of sleep, never to
fall asleep again when holiness has found entrance into
the soul. Beyond this the old covenant advanced not a
step. The promise of the new covenant is to put the
Law into the mind, not in an ark of shittim wood, and
to write it in the heart, not on tables of stone. The
Law was given on Sinai as an external commandment ;
it is put into the mind as a knowledge of moral truth.
It was written on the two tables in the weakness of the
letter ; on the heart it is written as a principle and a
power of obedience. The power of God to command

* Kom. V. 20.

144 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

becomes the strength of man to obey. In this way
the new covenant reahses what the former covenant
demanded. The new covenant is the old covenant
transformed, made spiritual. God is become the God
of His people ; and this was the promise of the former
covenant. They are no more children, as they were '
when God took them by the hand and led them out of
the land of Egypt. Instead of the external guidance,
they have the unction within, and know all things. *
Renewed in the spirit of their mind, they put on the
new man, which after God is created in righteousness
and the holiness of truth.

2. So also of knowing God. The moral attributes
of the Most High are revealed under the former
covenant, and the God of the Old Testament is the
God of the New. Abraham knows Him as the ever-
lasting God. Elisha understands that there is no
darkness or shadow of death where the workers of
iniquity may hide themselves. Balaam declares that
God is not a man that He should lie. The Psalmist
confesses to God that he cannot flee from His presence.
The father of believers fears not to ask, *' Shall not the
Judge of the earth do right ? " Moses recognises that
the Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving
iniquity and transgression. Isaiah hears the seraphim
crying one to another, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts." But nationalism distorted the image. The

viii. 7-I3-] THE NEW COVENANT. 145

conception of God's Fatherhood is most indistinct.
When, however, Christ taught His disciples to say in
prayer, " Our Father," He could then at once add the
words " Who art in heaven." The spirit of man rose
immediately with a mighty upheava4 above the narrow
bounds of nationalism. The attributes of God became
more lofty as well as more amiable to the eyes of His
children. The God of a nation is not great enough to
be our Father. The God Who is our Father is God in
heaven.

Not only are God's attributes revealed, but the
faculty to know Him is also bestowed. The moral law
and a heart to love it are the two elements of a know-
ledge of God's nature. For God Himself is hoHness
and love. In vain will men cry one to another, saying,
" Know the Lord." As well might they bid the blind
behold the light, or the wicked love purity. Know-
ledge of nature can be taught. It can be parcelled in
propositions, carried about, and handed to others. But
the character of God is not a notion, and cannot be
taught as a lesson or in a creed, however true the
creed may be. The two opposite ends of all our
knowledge are our sensations and God. In one respect
the two are alike. Knowledge of them, cannot be con-
ve3^ed in words.

3. The only thing concerning God that can be known
by a man who is not holy himself is that He will punish

10

146 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

the impenitent, and can forgive. These are objective facts.
They may be announced to the world, and believed. In
the history of all holy men, under the Old Testament
as v^ell as under the New, they are their first lesson
in spiritual theology. To say that penitent sinners
under the Law could not be absolved from guilt or taste
the sweetness of God's forgiving grace must be false.
St. Paul himself, who describes the Law as a covenant
that " gendereth to bondage," cites the words of the
Psalmist, " Blessed is he whose transgression is for-
given, whose sin is covered," to prove that God imputes
righteousness without works.* When the Apostle
Peter was declaring that all the prophets witness to
Jesus Christ, that through His name whosoever be-
lieveth in Him shall receive remission of sins, the Holy
Ghost fell on all who heard the word. The very
promise which Jeremiah says will be fulfilled under the
future covenant Isaiah claims for his own days : " I,
even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for
Mine own sake, and will not remicmber thy sins." f

On the other hand, it is equally plain that St. Paul
and the author of this Epistle agree in teaching that
the sacrifices of the old covenant had in them no
virtue to remove guilt. They cannot take away sin,
and they cannot remove the consciousness of sin.J The

* Roin. iv. 7, f Isa. xliii, 25, % Chap. x. 2, 4.

viii.7-i3.] THE NEW COVENANT. 147

writer evidently considers it sufficient to state the im-
possibility, without labouring to prove it. His readers*
consciences would bear him out in the assertion that
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sins.

It remains — and it is the only supposition left to
us — that peace of conscience must have been the result
of another revelation, simultaneous with the covenant
of the LaW; but differing from it in purpose and instru-
ments. Such a revelation would be given through the
prophets, who stood apart as a distinct order from the
priesthood. They were the preachers. They quickened
conscience, and spoke of God's hatred of sin and will-
ingness to forgive. Every advance in the revelation
came through the prophets, not through the priests.
The latter represent the stationary side of the covenant,
but the prophets hold before the eyes of men the idea
of progress. What, then, was the weakness of pro-
phecy in reference to forgiveness of sin when compared
with the new covenant? The prophets predicted a
future redemption. This was their strength. It was
also their weakness. For that future was not balanced
by an equally great past. However glorious the
history of the nation had been, it was not strong
enough to bear the weight of so transcendent a future.
Every nation that believes in the greatness of its own
future already possesses a great past. If not, it

148 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

creates one. Mythology and hero-worship are the
attempt of a people to erect their future on a sufficient
foundation. But men had not experienced anything
great enough to inspire them with a living faith
in the reality of the promises which the prophets
announced. Sin had not been atoned for. The Chris-
tian preacher can point to the wonderful but well-
assured facts of the life and death of Jesus Christ. If
he could not do this, or if he neglects to do it, feeble
and unreal will sound his proclamation of the terrors
and joys of the world to come. The Gospel has for
one of its primary objects to appease the guilty
conscience. How it achieves this purpose our author
will tell us in another chapter. For the present all we
learn is that knowledge of God is knowledge of His
moral nature, and that this knowledge belongs to the
man whose moral consciousness has been quickened.
The evangelical doctrine that the source of holiness
is thankfulness was well meant, as an antidote to
legalism on the one hand and to Antinomianism on
the other. The sinner, we were told, once redeemed
from the curse of the Law and delivered from the
danger of perdition, begins to love the Christ Who
redeemed and saved him. The doctrine contains a
truth, and is applicable to this extent : that he to whom
much is forgiven loveth much. But it would not be
true to say that all good men have sought God's,

vlii.7-i3-] THE NEW COVENANT. 149

forgiveness because they feared hell torments. To
some their guilt is their hell. Fear is too narrow a
foundation of holiness. We cannot explain saintliness
by mere gratitude. For "thankfulness" we must write
"conscience/' and substitute forgiveness and absolution
from guilt for safety from future misery, if we would
lay a foundation broad and firm enough on which to
erect the sublimest holiness of man.

Our author infers from the words of Jeremiah that
there was an inherent decay in the former covenant.
It was itself ready to vanish away, and make room for
a new and more spiritual one.*

II. A New Covenant symbolized in the Tabernacle.

*' Now even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and
its sanctuary, a sanctuary of this world. For there was a tabernacle
prepared, the first, wherein were the candlestick, and the table, and
the shewbread ; which is called the Holy place. And after the second
veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of holies ; having a golden
censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold,
wherein was a golden pot holding the manna, and Aaron's rod that
budded, and the tables of the covenant ; and above it chenibim of
glory overshadowing the mercy-seat ; of which we cannot now speak
severally. Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests
go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services ;
but into the second the high-priest alone, once in the year, not without
blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the people :
the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath
not yet been made manifest, while as the first tabernacle is yet standing;
which is a parable for the time now present ; according to which are

* Chap. viii. 13.

I5d THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREtVS.

offered both gifts and sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience,
make the worshipper perfect, being only (with meats and drinks and
divers wastiings) carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation.
But Christ having come a High-priest of the good things to come, through
the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to
say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves,
but through His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and
bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled,
sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh : how much more shall the blood
of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish
unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living
God?"-HEB. ix. I— 14 (R.V.).

With the words of a prophet the Apostle contrasts
the ritual of the priests. Jeremiah prophesied of a
better covenant, because he found the former one did
not satisfy conscience. A description of the tabernacle,
its furniture and ordinances of Divine service, follows.
At first it appears strange that the author should have
thought it necessary to enumerate in detail what the
tabernacle contained. But to infer that he is a Hel-
lenist, to whom the matter had all the charm of novelty,
would be very precarious. His purpose is to show
that the way of the holiest was not yet open. The
tabernacle consisted of two chambers : the foremost and
larger of the two, called the sanctuary, and an inner
one, called the holiest of all. Now the sanctuary had
its furniture and stated rites. It was not a mere vesti-
bule or passage leading to the holiest. The eighth
verse, literally rendered, expresses that the outer sane-

ix. 1-14.] THE NEW COVENANT. 151

tuary "held a position."* Its furniture was for daily use.
The candelabrum supported the seven lamps, which
gave light to the ministering priests. The shewbread,
laid on the table in rows of twelve cakes, was eaten by
Aaron and his sons. Into this chamber the priests
went always, accomplishing the daily services. More-
over, between the holy place and the holiest of all
hung a thick veil. Into the holiest the high-priest
only was permitted to enter, and he could only enter
on the annual day of atonement. This chamber also
had its proper furniture. To it belonged f the altar of
incense (for so we must read in the fourth verse,
instead of "golden censer"), although its actual place
was in the outer sanctuary. It stood in front of
the veil that the high-priest might take the incense
from it, without which he was not permitted to enter
the holiest ; and when he came out, he sprinkled it
with blood as he had sprinkled the hoHest place itself.
In the inner chamber stood the ark of the covenant,
containing the pot of manna, Aaion's rod that budded,
and the two tables of stone on which the Ten Com-
mandments were written. On the ark was the mercy-
seat, and above the mercy-seat were the cherubim.
But there were no lamps to give light ; there was no
shewbread for food. The glory of the Lord filled it,

* e'xoiJcrT/s (TTaaiP (ix. 8). f txovcra (ix. 4).

152 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

and was the light thereof. When the high-priest had
performed the atoning rites, he was not permitted to
stay within. It is evident that reconciliation through
blood was the idea symbolized by the holiest place, its
furniture, and the yearly rite performed within it. But
the veil and the outer chamber stood between the sinful
people and the mercy-seat. Our author ascribes this
arrangement of the two chambers, the veil, and the one
entrance every year of the high-priest into the inner
shrine, to the Holy Spirit, Who teaches men by symbol*
that the way to God is not yet open. But He also
teaches them through the ordinances of the outer
sanctuary that access to God is a necessity of con-
science, and yet that the gifts and sacrifices there
offered cannot satisfy conscience, resting, as they
do, only on meats and drinks and divers washings.
All we can say of them is that they were the require-
ments of natural conscience, here termed " flesh," and
that these demands of human consciousness of guilt
were sanctioned and imposed on men by God provi-
sionally, until the time came for restoring permanently
the long-lost peace between God and men.

Contrast with all this the ministry of Christ. He
made His appearance on earth as High-priest of the
things which have now at length come to us.f The

• dr)\ovvTos (ix. 8). t Reading yevo/ji^vuv (ix. II).

ix. 1-14.] THE NEW COVENANT. 153

blessings prophesied by Jeremiah have been realised.
As High-priest He entered the true holiest place, a
tabernacle greater and more perfect, even heaven itself.*
It is greater ; that is, larger. The outer sanctuary has
ceased to exist, because the veil has been rent in twain,
and the holy place has been taken into the holiest
place. The tabernacle has now only one chamber, and
in that chamber God meets all His worshipping saints,
who come to Him through and with Jesus, the High-
priest. The tabernacle of God is with men, and He
shall dwell, as in the tabernacle, with them, and they
shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with
them.t Yea, the holiest place has spread itself over
Mount Zion, on which stood the king's palace, and over
the whole city of Jerusalem, which lieth four-square,
and is become the heavenly and holy city, having no
temple, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb
are the temple thereof. " And the city hath no need of
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it ; for the
glory of God lightens it, and the lamp thereof is the
Lamb." The city and the holiest place are commen-
surate. So large, indeed, is the holiest that the
nations shall walk amidst the light thereof. It is also
more perfect.^ For Christ has entered into the pre-

* Chap. ix. II. Cf. chap. ix. 24.
f Rev. xxi. 3.

X T€\€lOT^pj.S (ix. 11).

154 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

sence of God for us. Such a tabernacle is not con-
structed of the materials of this world,* nor fashioned
with the hands of cunning artificers, Bezaleel and
Aholiab. When Christ destroyed the sanctuary made
with hands, in three days He built another made
without hands. In a true sense it is not made at all,
not even by the hands of Him Who built all things ;
for it is essentially God's presence. Into this holiest
place Christ entered, to appear in the immediate pre-
sence of God. But the Apostle is not satisfied with
saying that He entered within. Ten thousand times
ten thousand of His saints will do this. He has done
more. He went through f the holiest. He has passed
through the heavens. J He has been made higher than
the heavens. § He has taken His seat on the right
hand of God. || The Melchizedek Priest has ascended
to the mercy-seat and made it His throne. He is
Himself henceforth the shechinah, and the manifested
glory of the unseen Father. All this is expressed in
the words '' through a greater and more perfect taber-
nacle."

Moreover, the high-priest entered into the holiest
place in virtue of the blood of goats and calves. IT Add,
if you will, the ceremony of cleansing a person who had

♦ ko(tixlk6v (ix. 2). X Chap. iv. 14. || Chap. x. 12.

t 5id (ix. II). § Chap. vii. 26. f Chap. ix. 12.

ix. 1-14.] THE NEW COVENANT, 155

contracted defilement by touching a dead body.* He
also was cleansed by having the ashes of a heifer
sprinkled upon his flesh. Why, the very defilement is
unreal and artificial. To touch a dead body a sin ! It
may have been v^ell to make it a crime from sanitary
considerations, and it may become a sin because God
has forbidden it. So far it touched conscience. When
Elijah stretched himself upon the dead child of the
widow of Zarephath three times, and the soul of the
child came into him again, or when Elisha put his
mouth upon the mouth of the dead son of the Shunam-
mite, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his
hands, and the flesh of the child waxed warm, God's
holy prophet was defiled ! The mother and the child
might bring their thank-offering to the sanctuary ; but
the prophet, who had done the deed of power and
mercy, was excluded from joining in thanksgiving and
prayer. If the defilement is unreal, what shall we
think of the means of cleansing ? To touch a dead
child defiles, but the touch of the ashes of a burnt
heifer cleanses ! Yet natural conscience felt guilty
when thus defiled, and recovered itself, in some
measure, from its shame when thus made clean, f
Such men resemble the persons, referred to by St. Paul,
who have ^' a conscience of the idol." % Judaism en-

• Chap. ix. 13. t ciYtt^f" (ix. 13). } I Cor. viii. 7.

156 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

feebled the conscience. A man of morbid religious
sentiment is often defiled in his own eyes by what is
not really wrong, and often finds peace and comfort in
what is not really a propitiation or a forgiveness.

On the other hand, Christ entered the true holiest
place by His own blood. He offered Himself. The
High-priest is the sacrifice. Under the old covenant
the victim must be ^' without spot." But the high-
priest was not without blemish, and he offered for him-
self as well as for the errors of the people. But in the
offering of Christ, the spotless purity of the Victim
ensures that the High-priest Himself is holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners. For this reason it
is said here* that He offered Himself ^'through an
eternal spirit," or, as we should say in modern phrase,
^' through His eternal personality." He is the High-
priest after the order of Melchizedek ; and He invests
the sacrifice with all the personal greatness of the High-
priest. Is He ^'without beginning of days or end of
life"? So also His sacrifice abides for ever. His
power of an indissoluble life belongs to His atonement.
Is He untouched by the rolling stream of time ? His
death was of infinite merit in reference to the past
and to the future, though it took place historically at
the end of the ages. His eternal personality made it

* Chap. ix. 14.

ix.i-i4-] THE NEW COVENANT. 157

unnecessary for Him to suffer often since the founda-
tion of the world. Because of His personal greatness,
it sufficed that He should suffer once only and enter
once into the holiest place. The eternal High-priest
in one transitory act of death offered a sacrifice that
remains eternally, and obtains for us an eternal
redemption. If, then, the blood of goats and bulls
and the ashes of an heifer appease, in some measure,
the weak, frightened conscience of unenlightened
nature, how much more shall the conscious, voluntary
sacrifice of this eternal, personal Son deUver the con-
science of him who worships, not a phantom deity, but
an eternal, personal, living God, from the guilt of dead
works, and bring him to worship that living God with
an eternal, living personality !

Mark the contrasted notions. The brute life, dragged
to the altar, little knowing that its hot blood is to be a
propitiation for human guilt, is contrasted with the blood
of the Christ (for there is but one). Who, with the
consciousness and strength of an eternal personality,
willingly offers Himself as a sacrifice. Between these
two lives are all the lives which God created, human and
angelic. Yet the offering of a beast in some fashion
and to some degree appeased conscience, unillumined
by the fierce light of God's holiness and untouched by
the pathos of Christ's death. With this imperfect and
negative peace, or, to speak more correctly, truce, of

158 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

conscience is contrasted the living, eager worship of
him whose enlightened conscience has been purified
from spiritual defilement by the blood of Christ. Such
a man's entire service is worship, and his worship is
the ministering of a priest.* He stands in the con-
gregation of the righteous, and ascends unto God's holy
hill. He enters the holiest place with Christ. He
draws near with boldness to the mercy-seat, now the
very throne itself of grace.

It will be seen, if we have rightly traced the line
of thought, that the outer sanctuary no longer exists.
The larger and more perfect tabernacle is the holiest
place itself, when the veil has been removed, and the
sanctuary and courts are all included in the expanded
holiest. Several very able expositors deny this. They
find an antitype of the holy place either in the body of
Christ or in the created heavens, through which He has
passed into the immediate presence of God. But this
introduces confusion, adds nothing of value to the
meaning of the type, and is inconsistent with our
author's express statement that the way into the
holiest was not yet open so long as the holy place stood.

III. A New Covenant ratified in the Death of

Christ.

** And for this cause He is the Mediator of a new covenant, that a death
having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were

* 'ka.Tpeuuv (ix. 14).

ix. I5.-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 159

under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the
promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there
must of necessity be the death of him that made it. For a testament is
of force where there hath been death ; for doth it ever avail while he
that made it liveth ? Wherefore even the first covenant hath not been
dedicated without blood. For when every commandment had been
spoken by Moses unto all the people according to the Law, he took the
blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and
hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself, and all the people, saying,
This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded to you- ward.
Moreover the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry he sprinkled
in like manner with the blood. And according to the Law, I may
almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding
of blood there is no remission. It was necessary therefore that the
copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these ; but
the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For
Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in
pattern to the true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the
face of God for us : nor yet that He should offer Himself often ; as the
high-priest entereth into the holy place year by year with blood not his
own; else must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world :
but now once at the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put
away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed
unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment ; so Christ
also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a
second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation.
For the Law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the
very image of the things, they can never with the same sacrifices year
by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw
nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered, because the
worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more con-
science of sins ? But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of
sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and
goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He cometh in'-.o the
world. He saith.

Sacrifice and offering Thou would est not,

But a body didst Thou prepare for Me ;

i6o THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no

pleasure :
Then said I, Lo, I am come
(In the roll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Thy will, O God.

Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the
which are offered according to the Law), then hath He said, Lo, I am
come to do Thy will. He taketh away the first, that He may establish
the second. By which will we have been sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest indeed
standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices, the which can never take away sins : but He, when He had
offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of
God ; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool
of His feet. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that
are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us : for
after He hath said,

This is the covenant that I will make with them

After those days, saith the Lord ;

!^will put My laws on their heart,

And upon their mind also will I write them ;
then saith He,

And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." —
Heb. ix. 15— X. 18 (R.V.).

The Apostle has proved that a new covenant v^as
promised through the prophet and prefigured in
the tabernacle. Christ is come to earth and entered
into the holiest place of God, as High-priest. The
inference is that His high-priesthood has abolished the
old covenant and ratified the new. The priesthood
has been changed, and change of the priesthood implies

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. i6l

change of the covenant. In fact, to this priesthood
the rites of the former covenant pointed, and on it the
priestly absolution rested. Sins were forgiven, but not
in virtue of any efficacy supposed to belong to the rites
or sacrifices, all of which were types of another and
infinitely greater death. For a death has taken place
for the redemption of all past transgressions, which
had been accumulating under the former covenant.
Now at length sin has been put out of the way. The
heirs of the promise made to Abraham, centuries before
the giving of the Law, come at last into possession of
their inheritance. The call has sounded. The hour
has struck. For this inheritance they waited till Christ
should die. The earthly Canaan may pass from one
race to another race ; but the unchangeable, eternal *
inheritance, into which none but the rightful heirs can
enter, is incorruptible, undefiled, fading not away,
reserved in heaven for those who are kept t for its
possession.

Because possession of it was delayed till Christ died,
it may be likened to an inheritance bequeathed by a
testator in his last will. For when a person leaves
property by will to another, the will is of no force, the
transference is not actually made, the property does
not change hands, in the testator's lifetime. The

* aluviov (ix. 15).

■\ T€Ti}pr}fihriv , , . (ppovpovfjL^povs (i Pet. i. 4).

II

1 62 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

transaction takes place after and in consequence of
his death. This may serve as an illustration. Its
pertinence as such is increased by the fact, which
in all probability suggested it to our author, that the
same word would be used by a Hebrew, writing in
Greek, for *^ covenant," and by a native of Greece for
" a testamentary disposition of property." * But it is
only an illustration. We cannot suppose that it was
intended to be anything more.f

To return to argument, the blood of Christ may be
shown to have ratified a covenant from the use of blood
by Moses to inaugurate the former covenant. The
Apostle has spoken before of the shedding and sprinkhng
of blood in sacrifice. When the high-priest entered
into the holiest place, he offered blood for himself and
the people. But, besides its use in sacrifice, blood was
sprinkled on the book of the law, on the tabernacle,
and on all the vessels of the ministry. Without a
copious stream, a veritable " outflow " % of blood, both
c-s ratifying the covenant and as offered in sacrifice,

t To forestall censure for inconsistency, the present writer may be
permitted to refer to what he now sees to have been a desperate attempt
on his part (in the Expositor') to explain the passage on the suppo^-ition
that the word diadijKr] means *' covenant " throughout. He is bound to
admit that the attempt was a failure. If he lives to write retractations,
this will be one.

% ai/j.aT€KXv<^i0.s (ix. 22).

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 163

there was under the Law no remission of sins. Now
the typical character of all the arrangements and
ordinances instituted by Moses is assumed throughout.
Even the purification of the tabernacle and its vessels
with blood must be symbolical of a spiritual truth.
There is, therefore, in the new covenant a purification
of the true holiest place. To make the matter still
more evident, the author reminds his readers of a fact,
which he has already mentioned,* in reference to the
construction of the tabernacle. Moses was admonished
of God to make it a copy and shadow of heavenly
things. " For, See, saith He, that thou make all things
according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount."
It appears, then, that not only the covenant was
typical, but the tabernacle, its vessels, and the purify-
ing of all with blood were a copy of things in the
heavens, the true holiest place. And, inasmuch as the
holiest place has now, in Christ, included within it the
sanctuary, and every veil and wall of partition has
been removed, the purification of the tabernacle cor-
responds to a purification, under the new covenant, of
heaven itself.

Not that the heaven of God is polluted. Even the
earthly shrine had not itself contracted defilement.
The blood sprinkled on the tabernacle and its vessels

* Chap. viii. 5.

1 64 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

was not different from the blood of the sacrifice. As
sacrificial blood, it consecrated the place, and was also
offered to God. Similarly the blood of Christ made
heaven a sanctuary, erected there a holiest place for
the appearing of the great High-priest, constituted the
throne of the Most High a mercy-seat for men. By
the same act it became an offering to God, enthroned
on the mercy-seat. The two notions of ratifying the
covenant and atoning for sin cannot be separated. For
this reason our author says the heavenly things are
purified with sacrifices. But as heaven is higher than
the earth, as the true holiest place excels the typical,
so must the sacrifices that purify heaven be better than
the sacrifices that purified the tabernacle. But Christ
is great enough to make heaven itself a new place,
whereas He Himself remains unchanged, *^ yesterday
and to-day the same, and for ever."

The thought of Christ's eternal oneness is apparently
suggested to the Apostle by the contrast between Christ
and the purified heaven. But it helps his argument.
For the blood of Christ, when offered in heaven, so
fully and perfectly ratified the new covenant that He
remains for evermore in the holiest place and evermore
offers Himself to God in one eternally unbroken act.
He did not enter heaven to come out again, as the high-
priests presented their offering repeatedly, year after'
year. They could not do otherwise, because they

ix. is-x. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 165

entered '* with blood not their own/' or^ as we may
render the word, '' with aHen * blood." The blood of
goats and bulls cannot take away sin. Consequently,
the absolution obtained is unreal and, therefore,
temporary in its effect. The blood of the beasts must
be renewed as the annual day of atonement comes
round. If Christ's offering of Himself had only a
temporary efficacy, He must often have suffered since
the foundation of the world. The forgiveness under
the former covenant put off the retribution for one
year. St. Paul expresses the same conception when
he describes it as not a real forgiveness, but as "the
passing over f of the sins done aforetime, in the for-
bearance of God." The writer of the Epistle infers that,
if Christ's sacrifice were meritorious for a time only,
then He ought to have repeated His offering whenever
the period for which it was efficacious came to an end ;
and, inasmuch as His atonement was not restricted to
one nation, it would have been necessary for Him to
appear on earth repeatedly, and repeatedly die, not
from the time of Moses or of Abraham, but from the
foundation of the world. But our author has long
since said '' that the works were finished from the
foundation of the world." % God Himself after the

* dWoTpicj) (ix. 25).

f irdpeaip, as contrasted with &(p€<Ti$ (Rom. iii. 25).

X Chap. iv. 3.

i66 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

work of creation entered on His Sabbath rest. The
Sabbath developed from initial creation to final atone-
ment, and, because Christ's atonement is final, He has
perfected the Sabbath eternally in the heavens. But
the Sabbath of God would have been no Sabbath to
the Son of God, but a constant recurrence of sufferings
and deaths, if He did not finish transgression and
atone for sin by His one death. " Once, at the end
of the ages," when the tale of sin and woe has been
all told, " hath He appeared," which proves that He has
finally and for ever put away sin through His one
sacrifice.*

The Apostle speaks as one who believed that the end
of the world was at hand. He even builds an argu-
ment on this to him assured fact of the near future.
True, the end of the world was not yet. But the
argument is equally valid in its essential bearing. For
the important point is that Christ appeared on earth
only once. Whether His one death occurred at the
beginning of human history, or at the end, or at the
end of one period and the beginning of another, is
immaterial.

Then follows a very original piece of reasoning,
plainly intended to be an additional proof that Christ's
dying once put away sin for ever. To appear on earth

* Chap. ix. 26.

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT, 167

often, and to die often, would have been impossible for
Him. He was true man, of woman born, not an
apparition, not an angel assuming the appearance of
humanity, not the Son of God really and man only
seemingly. But it is appointed unto men once, and
only once, to die. After their one death comes, sooner
or later, judgment. To return to earth and make a new
beginning, to retrieve the errors and failures of a com-
pleted life, is not given to men. This is the Divine
appointment. Exception to the Apostle's argument
must not be taken from the resurrection of Lazarus and
others who were restored to life. The Apostle speaks
of God's usual course of action. So understood, it is
difficult to conceive how any words can be more
decisive against the doctrine of probation after death.
For, however long judgment may tarry, our author
acknowledges no possibility of changing any man's
state or character between death and the final award.
On this impossibility of retrieving the past the force ot
the argument entirely depends. If Christ, Who was
true man, failed in His one life and one death, the
failure is irretrievable. He cannot come again to earth
and try anew. To Him, as to other men, it was
appointed to die once only. In His case, as in the
case of others, judgment follows death, — judgment
irreversible on the things done in the body. To add
emphasis to the notion of finality in the work of

1 68 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Christ's life on earth, the Apostle uses the passive verb,
^' was offered."* The offering, it is true, was made by
Christ Himself. But here the deed is more emphatic
than the Doer : " He was offered once for all." The
result of the offering is also emphasised : " He was
offered so as f to lift up sins, like a heavy burden,
and bear them away for ever." Even the word
"many" is not to be slurred over. It too indicates
that the work of Christ was final ; for the sins of many
have been put away.

What will be the judgment on Christ's one redemp-
tive death ? Has it been a failure ? The answer is
that His death and His coming into the judgment have
a closer relation to men than mere similarity. He
entered into the presence of God as a sin-offering. He
will be proved, at His second appearing, to have put
away sin. For He will appear then apart from J sin.
God will pronounce that Christ's blood has been
accepted, and that His work has been finished. His
acquittal will be the acquittal of those whose sins He
bare in His body on the tree.

Nor will His appearing be now long delayed. It
was already the end of the ages when He first appeared.
Therefore look out for Him with eager expectancy §
and upward gaze. For He will be once again actually

♦ TrpoaivtxOtis (ix. 2S). f els. % X^P^^- § aireKb^xoixivois,

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 169

beheld by human eyes, and the vision will be unto
salvation.

We must not fail to note that, when the Apostle
speaks in this passage of Christ's being once offered,
he refers to His death. The analogy between men and
Christ breaks down completely if the death of Christ
was not the offering for sin. Faustus Socinus revived
the Nestorian doctrine that our author represents the
earthly life and death of Jesus as a moral preparation
for the priesthood which was conferred upon Him at
His ascension to the right hand of God. The bearing
of this interpretation of the Epistle on the Socinian
doctrine generally is plain. A moral preparation there
undoubtedly was, as the Apostle has shown in the
second chapter. But if Christ was not Priest on earth,
His death was not an atoning sacrifice. If He was
not Priest, He was not Victim. Moreover, if He fills
the office of Priest in heaven only. His priesthood
cannot involve suffering and, therefore, cannot be an
atonement. But the view is inconsistent with the
Apostle's express statement that, " as it is appointed
unto men once to die, so Christ was once offered."
Of course, we cannot acquiesce in the opposite view
that His death was Christ's only priestly act, and that
His life in heaven is such a state of exaltation as ex-
cludes the possibility of priestly service. For He is
''a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true taber-

I70 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

nacle, which the Lord pitched, not man." * The death
of Christ was a distinct act of priestly service. But it
must not be separated from His entering into heaven.
Aaron received into his hands the blood of the newly
slain victim, and immediately carried the smoking
blood into the holiest place. The act of offering the
blood before God was as necessary to constitute the
atonement as the previous act of slaying the animal.
Hence it is that the shedding and the sprinkling of
the blood are spoken of as one and the same action.
Christ, in like manner, went into the true holiest
through His death. Any other way of entering heaven
than through a sacrificial death would have destroyed
the priestly character of His heavenly life. But His
death would have been insufficient. He must offer
His blood and appear in the presence of God for us.
To give men access unto God was the ultimate purpose
of redemption. He must, therefore, consecrate through
the veil of His flesh — a new and living way by which
we may come unto God through Him.

Must we, therefore, say that Christ entered the

holiest place at His death, not at His ascension?

Does the Apostle refer only to the entrance of the

oul into the invisible world ? The question is not

an easy one. If the Apostle means the Ascension,

* Chap. viii. 2.

ix. 15-X. 18.] THE NEW COVENANT.

what doctrinal use does he make of the interval
between the Crucifixion and the Ascension ? Many of
the fathers are evidently at a loss to know what to
make of this interval. They think the Divine person,
as well as the human soul, of Christ was conveyed
to Hades to satisfy w^hat they call the law of death.
Does the Epistle to the Hebrews pass over in silence
the descent into Hades and the resurrection ? On the
other hand, if our author means that Christ entered the
holiest place immediately at His death, we are met by
the difficulty that He leaves the holiest, to return
finally at His ascension, whereas the Apostle has
argued that Christ differs from the high-priests under
the former covenant in that He does not enter
repeatedly. Much of the confusion has arisen from
the tendency of theologians, under the influence of
Augustine, to construct their systems exclusively on
the lines of St. Paul. In his Epistles atonement is a
forensic conception. "Through one act of righteous-
ness the free gift came unto all men to the justification
of life."* Consequently the death of Christ is con-
trasted with His present life. " For the death that He
died, He died unto sin once ; but the life that He hveth,
He liveth unto God." f But our author does not put
his doctrine in a Pauline framework. Instead of forensic

* Rom. V. 18. f Rom. vi. ip.

172 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

notions, we meet with terms pertaining to ritual and
priesthood. What St. Paul speaks of as law is, in his
language, a covenant, and what is designated justifica-
tion in the Epistle to the Romans appears here as
sanctification. Conscience is purified ; the worshipper
is perfected. The entering of the high-priest into
the holiest place is as prominent as the slaying of the
victim. These are two distinct, but inseparable, parts
of one priestly action. All that lies between is
ignored. It is as if it were not. Christ entered into
the holiest through His death and ascension to the
right hand of the Majesty. But the initial and the
ultimate stages of the act must not be put asunder.
Nothing comes between. Our author elsewhere
speaks of Christ's resurrection as a historical fact.*
But His resuirection does not form a distinct notion in
the idea of His entrance into the holiest place.

The Apostle has spoken of the former covenant Vvith
surprising severity, not to say harshness. It was the
law of a carnal commandment ; it has been set aside
because of its weakness and unprofitableness ; it has
grown old and v.axed aged ; it was nigh unto vanish-
ing away. His austere language will compare wi:h
St. Paul's description of heathenism as a bondage to
weak and beggarly elements.

* Chap. xiii. 20.

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 173

The root of all the mischief was unreality. Our
author brings his argument to a close by contrasting
the shadow and the substance, the unavailing sacrifices
of the Law, which could only renew the remembrance
of sins, and the sacrifice of the Son, which has fulfilled
the will of God.

The Law had only a shadow.* He is careful not to
say that the Law was itself but a shadow. On the
contrary, the very promise includes that God will put
His laws in the heart and write them upon the mind.
This was one of " the good things to come." Endless
repetition of sacrifice after sacrifice year by year in a
weary round of ceremonies only made it more and
more evident that men were walking in a vain show
and disquieting themselves in vain. The Law was holy,
righteous, and good ; but the manifestation of its
nature in sacrifices was unreal, like the dark outline
of an object that breaks the stream of light. Nothing
more substantial, as a revelation of God's moral cha-
racter, was befitting or possible in that stage of human
development, when the purposes of His grace also not
seldom found expression in dreams of the night and
apparitions of the day.

To prove the unreal nature of these ever-recurring
sacrifices, the writer argues that otherwise they

* Chap. X. I.

174 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

would have ceased to be offered, inasmuch as the
worshippers, if they had been once really cleansed
from their guilt, would have had no more conscience
of sins.* The reasoning is very remarkable. It is not
that God would have ceased to require sacrifices, but
that the worshipper would have ceased to offer them.
It implies that, when a sufficient atonement for sin has
been offered to God, the sinner knows it is sufficient,
and, as the result, has peace of conscience. The pos-
sibility of a pardoned sinner still fearing and doubting
does not seem to have occurred to the Apostle. One
difference apparently between the saints under the Old
Testament and believers under the New is the joyful
assurance of pardon which the latter receive, whereas
the former were all their lifetime subject to bondage
from fear of death, and that although in the one case
the sacrifice was offered by the worshipper himself
through the priest, but in the latter case by Another,
even Christ, on his behalf. And we must not ask the
Apostle such questions as these : Are we not in danger
of deceiving ourselves ? How is the assurance created
and kept alive ? Does it spring spontaneously in the
heart, or is it the acceptance of the authoritative
absolution of God's ministers ? Such problems were
not thought of when the Epistle to the Hebrews was

* Chap. X. 2.

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT, 175

written. They belong to a later and more subjective
state of mind. To men who cannot leave off introspec-
tion and forget themselves in the joy of a new faith,
the Apostle's argument will have little force and
perhaps less meaning.

If the sacrifices were unreal, why, we naturally
inquire, were they continually repeated ? The answer
is that there were two sides to the sacrificial rites of
the old covenant. On the one hand, they were, like
the heathen gods, " nothings ; " on the other, their
empty shadowiness itself fitted them to be a Divinely
appointed means to call sins to remembrance. They
represented on the one side the invincible, though
always baffled, effort of natural conscience. For con-
science was endeavouring to purify itself from a sense
of guilt. But God also had a purpose in awakening
and disciplining conscience. The worshipper sought to
appease conscience through sacrifice, and God, by the
same sacrifice, proclaimed that reconciliation had not
been effected. The Apostle's judgment on the subject *
is not different from St. Paul's answer to the question.
What then is the Law ? ^' It was added because of
transgressions. . . . The Scripture hath shut up all
things under sin. . . . We were kept in ward under
the Law. . . . We were held in bondage under the

* Chap. X. 3.

176 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

rudiments of the world." * In allusion to this idea,
that the sacrifices were instituted by God in order to
renew the remembrance of sins every year, Christ said,
" Do this in remembrance of Me^^ — of Him Who hath
put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself.

Such then was the shadow, at once unreal and dark.
In contrast to it, the Apostle designates the substance
as ** the very image of the objects." Instead of repeat-
ing the indefinite expression ^' good things to come,"
he speaks of them as '' objects,"! individually distinct,
substantial, true. The image J of a thing is the full
manifestation of its inmost essence, in the same sense
in which St. Paul says that the Son of God's love, in
Whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our
sins, is the image of the invisible God. § Indeed, it is
extremely questionable whether our author too does
not refer allusively to the same truth. For, in the
verses that follow, he contrasts with the sacrifices of
the former covenant the coming of Jesus Christ into
the world to accomplish the work which they had failed
to do. II When the blood of bulls and goats could not
take away sin, inasmuch as it was an unreal atonement,
God prepared a body for His own eternal Son. The
Son responded to the Divine summons and, in accord-
ance with the prophecies of Scripture concerning Him,

* Gal. iii. 19 — iv. 3. J ekom.

t TpoLyp.6.T03v (x. i). § Col. i. 14, 15. || Chap. x. 5 sqq.

ix. iS-x. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT, 177

came from heaven to earth to give Himself as the
sufficient sacrifice for sin. The contrast, as heretofore,
is between the vanity of animal sacrifices and the
greatness of the Son, Who offered Himself. His
assumption of humanity had for its ultimate end to
enable the Son to do the vi^ill of God. The gracious
purpose of God is to forgive sin, and this was accom-
plished by the infinite humiliation of the infinite Son.
God's will was to sanctify us ; that is, to remove our
guilt.* We have actually been thus sanctified through
the one offering of the body of Jesus Christ. The
sacrifices of the Law are taken out of the way in order
to estabhsh the sacrifice of the Son. f

It will be observed that the Apostle is not contrast-
ing sacrifice and obedience. His meaning is not
precisely the same as the prophet Samuel's : that " to
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the
fat of rams." \ It is perfectly true that the sacrifice of
the Son involved obedience, — a conscious, deliberate,
willing obedience, which the beasts to be slain in sacri-
fice could not offer. The idea pervades these verses,
as an atmosphere. But it is not the idea expressed.
The dominant thoughts of the passage are the great-
ness of the Person Who obeyed and the greatness of
the sacrifice from which His obedience did not shrink.

* Chap. X. 10. t Chap. x. 9. % \ Sam. xv. 22.

12

178 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The Son is here represented as existing and acting
apart from His human nature.* He comes into the
world, and is not originated in the world. The Christo-
logy of the Epistle to the Hebrews is identical in
this vital point with that of St. Paul. The purpose of
the Son's coming is already formed. He comes to
offer His body, and we have been taught in a previous
chapter that He did this with an eternal spirit, f For
the will of God means our sanctification, in the
meaning attached to the word " sanctification " in this
Epistle, the removal of guilt, the forgiveness of sins.
But the fulfilment of this gracious will of God demands
a sacrifice, even a sacrificial death, and that not the
death of beasts, but the infinite self-sacrifice and
obedience unto death of the Son of God. This is
implied in the expression " the offering of the body of
Jesus Christ." %

The superstructure of argument has been raised.
Christ as High-priest has been proved to be superior
to the high-priests of the former covenant. It remains
only to lay the topstone in its place. This brings us
back to our starting point. Jesus Christ, the eternal
High-priest, is for ever King. For the priests under
the Law stand while they perform the duties of their

* Chap. X. 7. f Chap. ix. 14. % Chap. x. la

ix. I5-X. i8.] THE NEW COVENANT. 179

ministry.* They stand because they are only priests.
But Christ has taken His seat, as King, on the right
hand of God. f They offer the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins, and wait, and wait, but in
vain. Though they are priests of the true God, yet
they wait, Hke the priests of Baal, from morning until
midday is past and until the time of the offering of the
evening sacrifice. But there is neither voice nor any
to answer. Christ also waits, but not to renew an
ineffectual sacrifice. He waits eagerly % to receive
from God the reward of His effective sacrifice in the
subjugation of His enemies. The priests under the
Law had no enemies. Their persons were sacred.
They incurred no hatred, inspired no love. Our High-
priest goes out to war, the most hated, the most loved,
of all captains of men.

The foundation of this kingly power is in two things :
first. He has perfected mien for ever by His one offer-
ing ; second, He has put the law of God into the hearts
of His people. The final conclusion is that the sacri-
fices of the Law have passed away, because they are no
longer needed. " For where there is forgiveness, there
is no more an offering for sin."

* Chap. X. II. f Chap. x. 13. % eKdexo/xevos (x. 13).

AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION,

" Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place
by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and
living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh ; and having a great
Priest over the house of God ; let us draw near with a true heart in
fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our body washed with pure water : let us hold fast the confession
of our hope that it waver not ; for He is faithful that promised : and let
us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not
forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom of some
is, but exhorting one another ; and so much the more, as ye see the day
drawing nigh. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire
which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at nought
Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three
witnesses : of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged
worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an
unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we
know Him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me. I will recom-
pense. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But call to remembrance
the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a gjeat
conflict of sufterings ; partly, being made a gazing-stock both by
reproaches and afflictions ; and partly, becoming partakers with them
that were so used. For ye both had compassion on them that were
in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing
that ye yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one. Cast
not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye
may receive the promise.

For yet a very little while.

He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.

But My righteous one shall live by faith :

And if he shrink back. My soul hath no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them that shrink back unto perdition ; but of them
that have faith unto the savin? of the soul." — Heb. x. 19—39 (R.V.).

CHAPTER IX.

AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION,

'' I ^HE argument is closed. Christ is the eternal
-*- Priest and King, and every rival priesthood or
kingship must come to an end. This is the truth won
by the Apostle's original and profound course of
reasoning. But he has in view practical results. He
desires to confirm the Hebrew Christians in their
allegiance to Christ. We shall be better able to under-
stand the precise bearing of his exhortation if we
compare it with the appeal previously made to his
readers in the earlier chapters of the Epistle.* At the
very outset he plunged into the midst of his subject
and proved that Jesus Christ is Son of God and re-
presentative Man. The union in Christ of these two
quaHfications constituted Him a great High-priest. He
is able to succour the tempted ; He is faithful as a Son,
Who is set over the house of God ; He has experienced
the bitter humiliation of Hfe ; He is perfected as our

* Chaps, ii. i — 5 ; iii. I, 6 ; iv. II, 16; vi.

l84 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Saviour, and has passed through the heavens. The
exhortation, based on these truths, is that we must lay
fast hold of our confidence.

Then come the big wave, the hesitation to face it,
the allegory of Melchizedek, the appeal to the prophet
Jeremiah, the comparison between the old covenant
and the new. But the argument triumphs and ad-
vances. Jesus not only is a great High-priest, but this
is interpreted as meaning that He is Priest and King,
and that His priesthood and power will never pass
away. Their eternal duration involves the setting
aside of every other priesthood, the destruction of
every opposing force. Christ has entered into the
true holiest place and enthroned Himself on the mercy-
seat.

This being so, the Apostle no longer urges his
readers to be confident. He now appeals to them as
having confidence,* in virtue of the blood of Jesus, so
that they tarry not in the precincts, but enter them-
selves into the holiest. The high-priest alone dared
enter under the former covenant, and he approached
with fear and trembling, lest he also, like others before
him, should fall down dead in the presence of God. The
exhortation now is, not to confidence, but to sincerity.t
Let their confidence become more objective. They

* Chap. X. 19. f yuerd 6Xy\Qi.V7j% Kapdias (x. 22).

X.I9-39-] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 185

had the boasting of hope. Let them seek the silent,
unboasting assurance that is grounded on faith, on the
reaHsation of the invisible. Instead of believing be-
cause they hoped, let them hope because they believed.
In the earher chapters the exhortation rested mainly
on what Jesus v^as as Son over God's house. Now,
however, the Apostle speaks of Him as a great * Priest
over God's house. His authority over the Church
springs, not only from His relation to God, but also
from His relation to men. He is King of His Church
because He prays for it and blesses it. Through His
priesthood our hearts are cleansed by the sprinkling of
His blood from the consciousness of sin.f But this
blessing of the individual believer is now closely con-
nected by the Apostle with the idea of the Church,
over which Christ is King in virtue of His priesthood
on its behalf. In addition to the cleansing of our
hearts from an evil conscience, our bodies have been
washed with pure water. The Apostle alludes pri-
marily in both clauses to the rite of priestly consecration.
" Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed
them with water." He also " took of the blood which
was upon the altar and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and
upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his
sons' garments with him, and sanctified Aaron, and

* iikri<xv (x. 21). t ^^^ (rw€t5'7(rcw5 woyripas (x. 22).

i86 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

his garments, and his sons, and his sons* garments
with him." * The meaning of our author seems
certainly to be that the worshippers have the privilege
of the high-priest himself. They lose their priestly
character only in the more excellent glory and great-
ness of that High-priest through Whom they have
received their priesthood. In comparisofi with Him,
they are but humble worshippers, and He alone
is Priest. In contrast to the world around them, they
also are priests of God. But the words of the
Apostle contain another allusion. Both clauses refer
to baptism. The mention of washing the "body"
renders it, we think, unquestionable that baptism is
meant. But baptism is not here said to be the antitype
of the priestly consecration of the old covenant.
One rite cannot be the type of another rite, which
is itself an external action. The solution of this appa-
rent difficulty is simply that both clauses together
mean baptism, which is invariably represented in
the New Testament as much more than an outward
rite. The external act may be performed without
its being a true baptism. For the meaning of baptism
is the forgiveness of sin, the cleansing of the heart or
innermost consciousness from guilt, and the reception
of the absolved sinner into the Church of God.

* Lev. viii. 6, 30.

X. 19-39] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 187

*^ Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it,
that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the
washing of water with the word." *

In an earlier chapter our author told his readers that
they were the house of God if they held fast their con-
fidence. He does not repeat it. The Church con-
sciousness has sprung up within them. They were
previously taught to look steadfastly at Jesus as the
Apostle and High-priest of their confession.! They are
now urged to look as steadfastly at one another as
fellow-confessors of the same Apostle and High-priest,
and to sharpen one another's love and activity even to
the point of jealousy.^ In the earlier exhortation no
mention was made of the Church assemblies. Here
prominence is given them. Importance is attached to
the words of encouragement addressed at these gather-
ings of believers. Christian habits were at this time
forming and consolidating into customs of the Church.
Occasional and eccentric manifestations of the religious
life and temperament were yielding to the slow, normal
growth of true vitality. As faithfulness in frequenting
the Church assemblies began to rank among the fore-!
most virtues, unfaithfulness would, by force of contrast,
harden into habitual neglect of the house of prayer :
"As the custom of some is." § •

* Eph. V. 26. \ els irapo^va-fjiov (x. 24).

t Chap. iii. i. § lOos (x. 25).

i88 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

The chief of all reasons for exhorting the readers to
habitual attendance on the Church assemblies the
writer of the Epistle finds in the expectation of the
Lord's speedy return. They could see for themselves
that the day was at hand. The signs of the Son of
man's coming were multiplying and thrusting them-
selves on the notice of the Church. Perhaps the voice
of Joshua, the son of Hanan, had already been heard
in the streets, exclaiming, " Woe to Jerusalem ! " The
holy city was plainly doomed. But Christ will come to
His Church, not to individuals. He will not be found
in the wilderness, nor in the inner chambers. " As the
lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even
unto the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of
man. *

The day of Christ is a day of judgment. The two
meanings of the word ''day," — day in contrast to
night, and day as a fixed time for the transaction of
public business, — coalesce in the New Testament usage.
The second idea seems to have gradually superseded
the former.

The author proceeds to unfold the dreadful character
of this day of judgment. Here, again, the precise
force of his declarations will best appear by compa-
rison with the warnings of the first part of the Epistle
in reference to the sin and to the punishment.
* Matt. xxiv. 27.

X. I9-39-] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 189

First, the sin referred to here has a wider range than
the transgression spoken of in the second chapter.
For there he mentions the special sin of neglecting so
great salvation. But in the present passage his words
seem to imply that rejection of Christ has given birth
to a progeny of evil through the self-abandonment of
those who wilfully persist in sinning, as if from reck-
less bravado.* The special guilt, too, of rejecting
Christ is here painted in darker hues. For in the
earlier passage it is indifference ; here it is contempt.
In the former case it is ingratitude to a merciful
Saviour; in the latter it is treason against the majesty
of God's own Son. ''To trample under foot" means
to desecrate. Christ is the holy High-priest of God,
and is now ministering in the true holiest place.
Therefore to choose Judaism, with its dead rites, and
to reject the living Christ, is no longer the action of a
holy zeal for God's house. Quite the reverse. The
sanctuary of Judaism has been shorn of its glory, and
its sacredness transferred to the despised Nazarene.
To tread under foot the Son of God is to trample with
revel rout on the hallowed floor of the holiest place.
Further, the Apostle's former warnings contained no
allusion to the covenant. Now he reminds his readers
that they have been sanctified — that is, cleansed from

* e\-oi/a-iws (x. 26).

I90 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

guilt — through the blood of the covenant. Is the cleans-
ing blood itself unclean ? Shall we deem the reeking
gore of a slain beast or the grey ashes of a burnt heifer
holy, and consider the blood of the Christ, Who with an
eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, un-
holy and defiling ? * Moreover, that eternal spirit in
the Son of God is a spirit of grace f towards men.
But His infinite compassion is spurned. And thus the
Apostle brings us once more % in sight of the hopeless
character of cynicism.

Second^ the punishment is partly negative. A sacri-
fice for sins is no more left to men who have spurned
the sacrifice of the Son.§ Here again we notice an
advance in the thought. The Apostle told his readers
before that it is impossible to renew to repentance those
who crucify afresh the Son of God and put Him to an
open shame. But the impossibility consists in hard-
iTess of heart and spiritual blindness. The result also
is subjective, — they cannot repent. He now adds the
impossibility of finding another propitiation than the
offering of Christ or of finding in His offering a
different kind of propitiation, seeing that He is the
final revelation of God's forgiving grace. Then, further,
the punishment has a positive side. After hardness of
heart comes stinging remorse, arising from a vague,

* Chap. X. 29. X See chap. vi. 6.

f irvevfJLa ttjs xapiros. § Chap. x. 26.

X. I9-39-] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 191

but on that account all the more fearful, expectation
of the judgment. The abject terror is amply justified.
For the fury* of a fire, already kindling around the
doomed city, warns the Hebrew backsliders that the
Christ so wilfully scoffed at is at the door. Observe
the contrast. The law of Moses is on occasion set
aside. The matter is almost private. Only two or
three persons witnessed it.f Its evil influence did not
spread, and when the criminal was led out to be stoned
to death, they who passed by went their way unheed-
ing. The Christ of God is put to an open shame ; % the
covenant, for ever established on the sure foundation
of God's oath and Christ's death, and the spirit of all
grace that filled the heart of Christ are mocked. Of
how much sorer punishment shall Christ at His speedy
coming deem the scorner worthy ? The answer is left
by the Apostle to his readers. They knew with Whom
they had to do.§ It was not with angels, the swift
messengers and flaming ministers of His power. It
was not with Moses, who himself exceedingly feared and
quaked. |1 It was not with the blind pressure of fate.
They had to do with the living God Himself directly.
He will lay upon them His living hand, — the hand that
might and, if they had not spurned it, would have
protected and saved. Retribution descends swift and

* i'^Xos (x. 27). t Chap. X. 28. X Trapadeiyfiarl^ovTai (vi. 6),
§ Chap. iii. 12. || Chap. xii. 21.

192 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

resistless. It can only be likened to a sudden falling
into the very hands of a waiting avenger.* He will
not entrust the work of vengeance to another. No
extraneous agent shall come between the smiting hand
and the heart that burns with the anger of the sincere
against the false, of the compassionate against the
pitiless. Does not Scripture teach that the Lord will
execute judgment on behalf of His people ? f If on
behalf of His people, will He not enter into judgment
for His Son ?

From the terrible expectation of future judgment the
Apostle turns away, to recall to his readers the grounds
of hope supplied by their steadfastness in the past. He
has already spoken of their work and the love which
they had shown in ministering to the saints. J God's
justice would not forget their brotherly kindness. Now,
however. His purpose in bidding them remember the
former days is something different. He writes to con-
vince them that they needed no other and greater
confidence to face the future than had carried them
triumphantly through conflicts in days of yore. They
had endured sufferings ; let them conquer their own
indifference and put away their cynicism with the lofty
disdain of earnest faith. The courage that could do
the former can also do the latter.

• eyw7re<r<iv, f Deut. xxxii. 36. \ Chap. vi. 10.

X. I9-39-] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 193

From the first break of day in their souls* they had
felt the confidence of men who walk, not in darkness,
not knowing whither they go and fearing to take
another step, but in the light, so that they trod firmly
and stepped boldly onward. Their confidence was
based on conviction and understanding of truth. For
that reason it inspired them with the courage of
athletes,! when they had to endure also the shame of
the arena. Made a gazing-stock to a scoffing theatre,
they had not turned pale at the roar of the wild
beasts. Instead of tamely submitting, they had turned
their sufferings into a veritable contest against the
world, and maintained the conflict long4 Taunted by
the spectators, torn by the lions, reproaches and
afflictions alike had been ineffectual to break their
spirit. When they witnessed the prolonged tortures
of their brethren whose Christian life was one martyr-
dom, § they had not shrunk from the like usage. They
had pitied the brethren in prisons and visited them.
They had taken joyfully the spoiling of their substance,
knowing that now they had themselves, || as a better
and an abiding possession. If they had lost the world,
they had gained for themselves their souls.^ As true

♦ 4>(jiTi(yQkvT0.<i (x. 32). § o\}T03<i dvaarpecpofxeviau (x. 33).

t &e\r]<np. II Reading eavrovs (x. 34).

J TToW-qu, H ds wepLTToirjcnv (x. 39),

13

194 "^HE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

athletes, therefore, let them not throw away * their
sword, which is no -other than their old, undaunted
confidence. There was none like that sword. Their
victory was assured. Their reward would be, not the
plaudits of the fickle onlookers, but the fulfilment of
God's promise to Abraham. They had need of en-
durance, because in enduring they were doing the will
of God. But the Deliverer would be with them in a
twinkling.f He had delayed His chariot wheels, but
He would delay no more. Hear ye not His voice ? It is
He that speaks in the words of the prophet, " Those
whom I deny will perish out of the way. But I have
My righteous ones % here and there, unseen by the
world, and out of their faith will be wrought for them
eternal life. But let even Mine own beware of lowering
sail. My soul will have no delight even in him if he
draws back."

The Apostle reflects on the words of Christ in the
prophecy of Habakkuk. But he has an assured hope
that he and his readers would repudiate the thought
of drawing back. They were men of faith, bent on
winning § the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus; and the prize would be their own souls.
May we not conjecture that the Apostle's fervid appeal
prevailed with the Christians within the doomed city

* )tt7j aTTo/SctXr/Te. \ Reading iiov (x. 38).

•j" uiKpov baov 6aov (x. 37), § Trepnroirjaiv (x. 39).

X. 19-39] AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION. 19S

"to break the last bands of patriotism and superstition
which attached them to the Temple and the altar, and
proclaim themselves missionaries of the new faith,
without a backward glance of lingering reminis-
cence " ? *

• Dean Merivale, Romans under the Empire, chap, lix.

FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF,

** Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things
not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them. By faith
we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God,
so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do
appear."— Heb. xi. 1—3 (R.V.).

CHAPTER X..

FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF,

T T is often said that one of the greatest difficulties
-*- in the Epistle to the Hebrews is to discover any
real connection of ideas between the author's general
purpose in the previous discussion and the splendid
record of faith in the eleventh chapter. The rhetorical
connection is easy to trace. His utterances throughout
have been incentives to confidence. '^ Let us hold
fast our confession." '* Let us draw near with bold-
ness unto the throne of grace." ^' Show diligence
unto the full assurance of hope." ^' Cast not away
your boldness." Any of these exhortations would
sufficiently describe the Apostle's practical aim from
the beginning of the Epistle. But he has just cited
the words of Habakkuk, and the prophet speaks of
faith. HoW; then, does the prophet's declaration that
the righteous man of God will escape death by his
faith bear on the Apostle's arguments or help his
strong appeals ? The first verse of the eleventh
chapter is the reply. Faith is assurance, with
emphasis on the verb.

200 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

But this is only a rhetorical connection, or at best
a justification of the use the author has made of the
prophet's words. Indeed, he has already in several
places identified confidence with faith, and the opposite
of confidence with unbelief. " Take heed lest there
be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief; , . .
for we are become partakers of Christ if we hold fast
the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end." *
"They could not enter in because of unbelief; . . .
let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest,
that no man fall after the same example of dis-
obedience." t " Be not sluggish, but imitators of them
who through faith and patience inherit the promises."!
" Having therefore boldness to enter into the holy
place, ... let us draw near with a true heart in
fulness of faith." §

Why, therefore, does the author formally state that
faith is confidence ? The difficulty is a real one. We
must suppose that, when this Epistle was written, the
word *' faith " was already a well-known and almost
technical term among Christians. We infer as much
as this also from St. James's careful and stringent
correction of abuses in the application of the word.
It is unnecessary to say who was the first to perceive
the vital importance of faith in the life and theology

* Chap. iii. 12. % Chap. vi. 12.

t Chaps, iii. I9;iv. n. § Chap. x. 19.

xi. 1-3.] FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF. 201

of Christianity. But in the preaching of St. Paul faith
is trust in a personal Saviour, and trust is the condition
and instrument of salvation. Faith, thus represented,
is the opposite of works. Such a doctrine was liable
to abuse, and has been abused to the utter subversion
of morality on the one hand and to the extinction of
all unselfish greatness of soul on the other. Not,
most certainly, that St. Paul himself was one-sided in
teaching or in character. To him Christ is a heavenly
ideal : *^ The Lord is the Spirit ; " and to him the
believer is the spiritual man, who has the moral
intellect of Christ.* But it must be confessed — and the
history of the Church abundantly proves the truth of
the statement — that the good news of eternal salvation
on the sole condition of trust in Christ is one of the
easiest of all true doctrines to be fatally abused. The
Epistle of St. James and the Epistle to the Hebrews
seem to have been written to meet this danger. The
former represents faith as the inner life of the spirit,
the fountain of all active goodness. " Faith, if it have
not works, is dead in itself. Yea, a man will say,
Thou hast faith, and I have works ; show me thy faith
apart from thy works, and I by my works will show
thee my faith." f St. James contends against the
earliest phases of Antinomianism. He reconciles faith

* 2 Cor. iii. 17 ; I Cor. ii. 16. \ James ii. 17, 18.

ao3 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

and morality, and maintains that the highest morality
springs out of faith. The writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews contends against legalism, — the proud, self-
satisfied, indifferent, hard, slothful, contemptuous,
cynical spirit, which is quite as truly and as often an
abuse of the doctrine of salvation through faith. It is
the terrible plague of those Churches which have never
risen above individualism. When men are told that
the whole of rehgion consists in securing the soul's
eternal safety, and that this salvation is made sure
once for all by a moment's trust in Christ, their after-
life will harden into a worldliness, not gross and
sensual, but pitiless and deadening. They will put
on the garb of religious decorum; but the inner life
will be eaten by the canker of covetousness and self-
righteous pride. These are the men described in the
sixth chapter of our Epistle, who have, after a fashion,
repented and believed, but whose religion has no
recuperative power, let alone the growth and richness
of deep \'itality.

Our author addresses men whose spiritual life was
thus imperilled. Their condition is not that of the
heathen world in its agony of despair. He does not
call his readers, in the words of St Paul to the jailer
at Philippi, to trust themselves into the hands of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that they may be saved. Yet he
too insists on faith. He is anxious to show them that

xL 1-3.] FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF, 203

he is not preaching another gospel, but unfolding the
meaning of the same conception of faith, which is the
central principle of the Gospel revealed at the first by
Christ to their fathers, and applied to the wants of the
heathen by the Apostle of the Gentiles.

If so, it goes without saying that the writer does not
intend to give a scholastic definition of faith. The
New Testament is not the book in which to seek formal
definitions. For his present purpose we require only
to know^ that, whatever else faith includes, confidence
in reference to the objects of our hope must find a
place in it. Faith bridges over the chasm between
hope and the things hoped for. It saves us from
building castles in the air or living in a fool's paradise.
The phantoms of worldliness and the phantoms of
religion (for they too exist) will not deceive us. In
the course of his discussion in the Epistle the author
has used three different words to set forth various sides
of the same feeling of confidence. One refers to the
freedom and boldness with which the confidence felt
manifests its presence in words and action.* Another
signifies the fulness of conviction with which the mind
when confident is saturated. t The third word, which
we have in the present passage, describes confidence
as a reality, resting on an unshaken foundation, and

* Tapf,ri<Tia. f T\r)po<popia.

204 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

contrasted with illusions.* He has urged Christians
to boldness of action and fulness of conviction. Now
he adds that faith is that boldness and that wealth of
certitude in so far as they rest upon reaHty and truth.

We can now in some measure estimate the value of
the Apostle's description of faith as an assurance con-
cerning things hoped for, and apply it to give force
to the exhortations of the Epistle. The evil heart of
unbelief is the moral corruption of the man whose soul
is steeped in sensual imaginations and never realises
the things of the Spirit. They who came out of Egypt
by Moses could not enter into rest because they did not
descry, beyond the earthly Canaan, the rest of the
spirit in God. Others inherit the promises, because
on earth they lifted their hearts to the heavenly
country. In short, the Apostle now tells his readers
that the true source of Christian constancy and boldness
is the realisation of the unseen world.

But faith is this assurance concerning things hoped
for because it is a proof f of their existence, and of the
existence of the unseen generally. The latter part of
the verse is the broad foundation on which faith rests
in all the rich variety of its m.eanings and practical
applications. Here St. Paul, St. James, and the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews meet in the unity of their

* virtaTaais. f tXeyxos.

xi. 1-3. FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF. 205

conception. Whether men trust unto salvation, or
develop their inner spiritual life, or enter into com-
munion with God and lift the weapon of unflinching
boldness in the Christian warfare, trust, character, con-
fidence, all three derive their being and vitality from
faith, as it demonstrates the existence of the unseen.

The Apostle's language is a seeming contradiction.
Proof is usually supposed to dispense with faith and
compel us to accept the inference drawn. He inten-
tionally describes faith as occupying in reference to
spiritual realities the place of demonstration. Faith in
the unseen is itself a proof that the unseen world
exists. It is so in two ways.

First, we trust our own moral instincts. Male-
branche observes that our passions justify themselves.
How much more is this true of intellect and conscience !
In like manner, some men have firm confidence in a
world of spiritual realities, which eye has not seen.
This confidence is itself a proof to them. How do I
know that I know ? It is a philosopher's enigma.
For us it may be sufficient to say that to know and
to know that we know are one and the same act.
How do we justify our faith in the unseen ? The
answer is similar. It is the same thing to trust and to
trust our trust. Scepticism wins a cheap victory when
it arraigns faith as a culprit caught in the very act of
stealing the forbidden fruit of paradise. But when.

2o6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

like a guilty thing, faith blushes for its want of logic,
its only refuge is to look in the face of the unseen
Father. He who has most faith in his own spiritual
instincts will have the strongest faith in God. To
trust God is to trust ourselves. To doubt ourselves is
to doubt God. We must add that there is a sense in
which trust in God means distrust of self.

Second^ faith fastens directly on God Himself.
We believe in God because we impose implicit con-
fidence in our own moral nature. With equal truth
we may also say that we believe all else because
we beheve in God. Faith in God Himself imme-
diately and personally is the proof that the promises
are true, that our life on earth is linked to a life
above, that patient well-doing will have its reward,
that no good deed can be in vain, and ten thousand
other thoughts and hopes that sustain the drooping
spirit in hours of conflict. It may well happen that
some of these truths are legitimate inferences from
premises, or it may be that a calculation of proba-
bilities is in favour of their truth. But faith trusts
itself upon them because they are worthy of God.
Sometimes the silence of God is enough, if an aspira-
tion of the soul is felt to be such that it became Him
to implant it and will be glorious in Him to reward
the heaven-sent desire.

An instance of faith as a proof of the unseen is given

xi. 1-3.] FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF. 207

by our author in the third verse. We may paraphrase
it thus : '^ By faith we know that the ages have been
constructed by the word of God, and that even to this
point of assurance : that the visible universe as a whole
came not into being out of things that do appear."

The author began in the previous verse to unroll his
magnificent record of the elders. But from the begin-
ning men found themselves in the presence of a mystery
of the past before they received any promise as to the
future. It is the mystery of creation. It has pressed
heavily on men in all ages. The Apostle himself has
felt its power, and speaks of it as a question which his
readers and himself have faced. How do we know
that the development of the ages had a beginning ? If
it had a beginning, how did it begin ? The Apostle
replies that we know it by faith. The revelation which
we have received from God addresses itself to our
moral perception and our confidence in God's moral
nature. We have been taught that ** in the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth," and that " God
said, Let there be light." * Faith demands this revela-
tion. Is faith trust ? That trust in God is our proof
that the framework of the world was put together by
His creative wisdom and power. Is faith the inner life
of righteousness ? Morality requires that our own

* Gen. i. I, 3.

2o8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

consciousness of personality and freedom should be
derived from a Divine personality as the Originator
of all things. Is faith communion with God ? Those
who pray know that prayer is an absolute necessity of
their spiritual nature, and pra3^er lifts its voice to a
living Father. Faith demonstrates to him who has it,
though not to others, that the universe has come to its
present form, not by an eternal evolution of matter, but
by the action of God's creative energy.

The somewhat peculiar form of the clause seems
certainly to suggest that the Apostle ascribes the origin
of the universe, not only to a personal Creator, but to
that personal Creator acting through the ideas of His
own mind. " The visible came into being, not out of
things that appear." We catch ourselves waiting till
he finishes the sentence with the words, '' but out of
thirgs that do not appear." Most expositors fight shy
of the inference and explain it away by alleging that
the negative has been misplaced.* But is it not true
that the universe is the manifestation of thought in the
unity of the Divine purpose ? This is the very notion
required to complete the Apostle's statement concerning
faith as a proof If faith demonstrates, it acts on
principles. If God is personal, those principles are
ideas, thoughts, purposes, of the Divine mind.

* As if At/? e/f (})a.i.voixiviov were for eK fxij (paivofiivuft

xi. 1-3.] FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF. 209

So long, therefore, as our spiritual nature can trust,
can unfold a morality, can pray, the simple soul need not
much bewail its want of logic and its loss of arguments.
If the famous ontological argument for the being of
God has been refuted, we shall not, on that account,
tremble for the ark. We shall not lament though the
argument from the watch has proved treacherous.
Our God is not a mere infinite mechanician. Indeed,
such a phrase is a contradiction in terms. A mechani-
cian must be finite. He contrives, and as the result
produces, not what is absolutely best, but what is the
best possible under the circumstances and with the
materials at his disposal. But if we have lost the
trechanician, we have not lost the God that thinks.
We have gained the perfectly righteous and perfectly
good. His thoughts have manifested themselves in
nature, in human freedom, in the incarnation of His
Son, in the redemption of sinners. But the intellect
that knows these things is the good heart of faith.

14

THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM,

** By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a
place which he was to receive for an inheritance ; and he went out, not
knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land
of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and
Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise : for he looked for the
city which hath the foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. By
faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive seed when she was
past age, since she counted Him faithful Who had promised : wherefore
also there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars
of heaven in multitude, and as the sand, which is by the sea-shore,
innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say
such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of
their own. And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from
which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But
now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly : wherefore God is
not ashamed of them, to be called their God : for He hath prepared for
them a city. By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac : yea,
he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only-
begotten son ; even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed
be called : accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead ;
from whence he did also in a parable receive him back." — Heb. xi.
8— I9(R.V.).

w

CHAPTER XI.

THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM,

E have learned that faith is the proof of the
unseen. We must not exclude even from this

clause the other thought that faith is an assurance of
things hoped for. It is not stated, but it is implied.
The conception of a personal God requires only to be
unfolded in order to yield a rich harvest of hope. The
author proceeds to show that by faith the elders had
witness borne to them in God's confession of them
and great rewards. He recounts the achievements
of a long line of believers, who as they went handed
the light from one to another. In them is the true
unity of religion and revelation from the beginning.
For the poor order of high-priests the writer substitutes
the glorious succession of faith.

We choose for the subject of this chapter the faith
of Abraham. But we shall not dismiss in silence the
faith of Abel, Enoch, and Noah. The paragraph in
which Abraham's deeds are recorded will most naturally
divide itself into three comparisons between their faith

214 "^HE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

and his. We venture to think that this was in the
writer's mind and determined the form of the passage.
From the eighth to the tenth verse the Apostle com-
pares Abraham's faith with that of Noah ; after a short
episode concerning Sarah, he compares Abraham's faith
with Enoch's, from the thirteenth verse to the six-
teenth ; then, down to the nineteenth verse, he
compares Abraham's faith with that of Abel. Noah's
faith appeared in an act of obedience, Enoch's in a
life of fellowship with God, Abel's in his more
excellent sacrifice. Abraham's faith manifested itself
in all these ways. When he was called, he obeyed ;
when a sojourner, he desired a better country, that is,
a heavenly, and God was not ashamed to be called
his God ; being tried, he offered up Isaac.

Two points of surpassing worth in his faith suggest
themselves. The one is largeness and variety of
experience ; the other is conquest over difficulties.
These are the constituents of a great saint. Many
a good man will not become a strong spiritual cha-
racter because his experience of life is too narrow.
Others, whose range is wide, fail to reach the higher
altitudes of saintliness because they have never been
called to pass through sore trials, or, if they have heard
the summons, have shrunk from the hardships. Before
Abraham faith was both limited in its experience and
untested with heaven-sent difficulties. Abraham's

xi. 8-19. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 215

religion was complex. His faith was " a perfect cube,"
and, presenting a face to every wind that blows, came
victorious out of every trial.

Let us trace the comparisons.

First ^ Noah obeyed a Divine command when he built
an ark to the saving of his house. He obeyed by
faith. His eyes saw the invisible, and the vision
kindled his hopes of being saved through the very
waters that would destroy every living substance.
But this was all. His faith acted only in one direc-
tion : he hoped to be saved. The Apostle Peter *
compares his faith to the initial grace of those who
seek baptism, and have only crossed the threshold
of the spiritual life. It is true that he overcame one
class of difficulties. He was not in bondage to the
things of sense. He made provision for a future
belied by present appearances. But the influence of
the senses is not the greatest difficulty of the human
spirit. As the lonely ship rode on the heaving waste
of waters, all within was gladness and peace. No
heaven-sent temptations tried the patriarch's faith.
He overcame the trials that spring out of the earth ;
but he knew not the anguish that rends the spirit like
a lightning-stroke descending from God.

With Abraham it was otherwise. ''He went out,

* I Peter iii. 20.

2i6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

not knowing whither he went." * He leaves his father's
house and his father's gods. He breaks for ever with
the past, even before the future has been revealed to
him. The thoughts and feehngs that had grown up
with him from childhood are once for all put away.
He has no sheltering ark to receive him. A homeless
wanderer, he pitches his tent to-day at the well, not
knowing where his invisible guide may bid him stretch
the cords on the morrow. His departure from Ur of
the Chaldees was a family migration. But the writer
of this Epistle, like Philo, describes it as the man's
own personal obedience to a Divine call. Submitting
to God's will, possessed with the inspiration and
courage of faith, obeying daily new intimations, he
bends his steps this way or that, not knowing whither
he goes. True, he went right into the heart of the
land of promise. But, even in his own heritage, he
became a sojourner, as in a land not his own.f God
" gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as
to set his foot on." J Possessor of all in promise, he
purchased a sepulchre, which was the first ground he
could call his own. The cave of Machpelah was the
small beginning of the fulfilment of God's promise,
which the spirit of Abraham is even now receiving in
a higher form. It is still the same. The bright dawn

* Chap. xi. 8. f Chap. xi. 9. % Acts vii. 5.

xi. 8-19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 217

of heaven ofterx breaks upon the soul at an open grave.
But he journeyed on, and trusted. For a time he and
Sarah only ; afterwards Isaac with them ; at last,
when Sarah had been laid to rest, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, the three together, held on bravely, sojourning
with aching hearts, but ever believing. The Apostle
brings in the names of Isaac and Jacob, not to describe
their faith — this he will do subsequently, — but to show
the tenacity and patience of "the friend of God."

His faith, thus sorely tried by God's long delay,
is rewarded, not with an external fulfilment of the
promise, but with larger hopes, wider range of vision,
greater strength to endure, more vivid realisation of
the unseen. " He looked for the city which hath the
foundations, whose Architect and Maker is God." * In
the promise not a word is said about a city. Apparently
he was still to be a nomad chief of a large and wealthy
tribe. When God deferred again and again the fulfil-
ment of His promise to give him '' this land," His trust-
ing servant bethought him what the delay could mean.
This was his hill of difficulty, where the two ways
part. The worldly wisdom of unbelief would argue
from God's tardiness that the reality, when it comes,
will fall far short of the promise. Faith, with higher
wisdom, makes sure that the delay has a purpose.

• * Chap. xi. 10.

2i8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

God intends to give more and better things than He
promised, and is making room in the believer's heart
for the greater blessings. Abraham cast about to
imagine the better things. He invented a blessing,
and; so to speak, inserted it for himself in the promise.
This new blessing has an earthly and a heavenly
meaning. On its earthly side it represents the
transition from a nomadic life to a fixed abode. Faith "^
bridged the gulf that separates a wandering horde from
the cultured greatness of civilization. The future
grandeur of Zion was already held in the grasp of
Abraham's faith. But the invented blessing had
also a heavenly side. The more correct rendering of
the Apostle's words in the Revised Version expresses
this higher thought : '' He looked for the city which
hath the foundations " — the city ; for, after all, there
is but one that hath the eternal foundations. It is
the holy city,^* the heavenly Jerusalem, seen by the
faith of Abraham in the early morning of revelation,
seen again in vision by the Apostle John at its close.
The expression cannot mean anything that comes short
of the Apostle's description of faith as the assurance
of things hoped for in the unseen world. Abraham
realised heaven as an eternal city, in which after death
he would be gathered to his fathers. A sublime

* Rev. xxi. lo.

xi. 8-19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM, 219

conception ! — eternity not the dwelling-place of the
solitary spirit, the joy of heaven consisting in personal
fellowship for ever with the good of every age and
clime. There the past streams into the present, not,
as here, the present into the past. All are contem-
poraries there, and death is no more. Whatever makes
civilization powerful or beautiful on earth — laws, arts,
culture — all is there etherealised and endowed with
immortahty. Such a city has God only for its
Architect,* God only for its Builder.! He Who con-
ceived the plan can alone execute the design and
realise the idea.

Of this sort was Abraham's obedience. He con-
tinued to endure in the face of God's delay to fulfil the
promise. His reward consisted, not in an earthly
inheritance, not in mere salvation, but in larger hopes
and in the power of a spiritual imagination.

Second^ Abraham's faith is compared with Enoch's,
whose story is most sweetly simple. He is the man
who has never doubted, across whose placid face no '
dark shadow of unbelief ever sweeps. A virgin soul,
he walks with God in a time when the wickedness of
man is great in the earth and the imagination of the
thoughts of his heart is only evil continually, as Adam
walked with God in the cool of the evening before sin

* rexJ'i-TrjS, t ^f^iovpyds.

220 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

had brought the hot fever of shame to his cheek. He
walks with God, as a child with his father ; " and God
takes him " into His arms. Enoch's removal was not
like the entrance of Elijah into heaven : a victorious
conqueror returning into the city in his triumphal car.
It was the quiet passing away, without observation, of
a spirit of heaven that had sojourned for a time on
earth. Men sought him, because they felt the loss of
his presence among them. But they knew that God
had taken him. They inferred his story from his
character. In Enoch we have an instance of faith as
the faculty of realising the unseen, but not as a power
to conquer difficulties.

Compare this faith with Abraham's. " These," —
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, — ^'all died in faith," or, as we
may render the word, " according to faith," — according
to the faith which they had exhibited in their life.
Their death was after the same pattern of faith.
Enoch's contemplative life came to a fitting end in a
deathless translation to higher fellowship with God.
His way of leaving Hfe became him. Abraham's
repeated conflicts and victories closed with quite as
much becomingness in a last trial of his faith, when he
was called to die without having received the fulfilment
of the promises. But he had already seen the heavenly
city and greeted it from afar.* He saw the promises,

* dcTracra^eiot (xi. 1 3)

xi. 8-19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 221

as the traveller beholds the gleaming mirage of the
desert. The illusiveness of Hfe is the theme of moralists
when they preach resignation. It is faith only that
can transform the illusions themselves into an incentive
to high and holy aspirations. All profound religion is
full of seeming illusions. Christ beckons us onward. /
When we climb this steep, His voice is heard calling
to us from a higher peak. That height gained reveals
a soaring mass piercing the clouds, and the voice is
heard above still summoning us to fresh effort. The
cHmber falls exhausted on the mountain-side and lays
him down to die. Ever as Abraham attempted to seize
the promise, it eluded his grasp. The Tantalus of
heathen mythology was in Tartarus, but the Tantalus
of the Bible is the man of faith, who believes the more
for every failure to attain.

Such men " declare plainly that they seek a country
of their own."* Let not the full force of the words
escape us. The Apostle does not mean that they seek
to emigrate to a new country. He has just said that
they confess themselves to be " strangers and pilgrims
on the earth." They are " pilgrims/' because they are
journeying through on their way to another country ;
they are ''strangers," because they have come hither
from another land.f His meaning is that they long to

* Chap. xi. 14. f ^f'l'oi Kai 7rop?7r»or;,uoi.

222 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

return home. That he means this is evident from his
thinking it necessary to guard himself against the
possibiHty of being understood to refer to Ur of the
Chaldees. They were not mindful of the earthly home,
the cradle of their race, which they had left for ever.
Not once did they cast a wistful look back, like Lot's
wife and the Israehtes in the wilderness. Yet they
yearned for their fatherland.* Plato imagined that all
our knowledge is a reminiscence of what we learned
in a previous state of existence ; and Wordsworth's
exquisite lines, which cannot lose their sweet fragrance
however often they are repeated, are a reflection of the
same visionary gleam, —

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting :
The soul that rises with us, our hfe's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And Cometh from afar ;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, Who is our home.**

Our author too suggests it ; and it is true. We
need not maintain it as an external fact in the history
of the soul, according to the old doctrine, resuscitated
in our own times, of Traducianism. The Apostle
represents it rather as a feeling. There is a Christian
consciousness of heaven, as if the soul had been there

* TrarpiSa.

xi. 8-19 ] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 223

and longed to return. And if it is a glorious attain-
ment of faith to regard heaven as a city, more consol-
ing still is the hope of returning there, storm-tossed
and weather-beaten, as to a home, to look up to God
as to a Father, and to love all angels and saints as
brethren in the household of God, over which Christ is
set as a Son. Such a hope renders feeble, sinful men
not altogether unworthy of God's Fatherhood. For He
is not ashamed to be called their God, and Jesus Christ
is not ashamed to call them brethren.* The proof is,
that God has prepared for them a settled abode in
the eternal city.

Thirds the faith of Abraham is compared with the
faith of Abel. In the case of Abel faith is more than
a realisation of the unseen. For Cain also believed in
the existence of an invisible Power, and offered sacri-
fice. We are expressly told in the narrative f that
" Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto
the Lord." Yet he was a wicked man. The Apostle
John says % that ^' Cain was of the Evil One." He had
the faith which St. James ascribes to the demons, who
I ** believe there is one God, and shudder."§ He was
possessed with the same hatred, and had also the same
faith. It was the union of the two things in his spirit
that made him the murderer of his brother. Our

* Chaps, xi. 16; ii. 11. % \ John iii. 12.

t Gen. iv. 3. § Tames ii. 19.

224 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

author points out very clearly the difference between
Cain and Abel. Both sacrificed, but Abel desired
righteousness. He had a conscience of sin, and sought
reconcihation with God through his offering. Indeed,
some of the most ancient authorities, for '' God bearing
witness in respect to his gifts," read " he bearing
witness to God on the ground of his gifts ; " that is,
Abel bore witness by his sacrifice to God's righteous-
ness and mercy. He was the first martyr, therefore,
in two senses. He was God's witness, and he was
slain for his righteousness. But, whether we accept
this reading or the other, the Apostle presents Abel
before us as the man who realised the great moral con-
ception of righteousness. He sought, not the favours
of an arbitrary Sovereign, not the mere mercy of an
omnipotent Ruler, but the peace of the righteous God.
It was through Abel that faith in God thus became the
foundation of true ethics. He acknowledged the im-
mutable difference between right and wrong, which is
the moral theory accepted by the greater saints of the
Old Testament, and in the New Testament forms the
groundwork of St. Paul's forensic doctrine of the Atone-
ment. Moreover, because Abel witnessed for right-
eousness by his sacrifice, his blood even cried from the
ground unto God for righteous vengeance. For this
is unquestionably the meaning of the words " and
through his faith he being dead yet speaketh ; " and

xi. 8- 19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 225

in the next chapter * the Apostle speaks of " the blood
of sprinkling, that speaketh a better thing than that
of Abel." It was the blood of one whose faith had
grasped firmly the truth of God's righteousness. His
blood, therefore, cried to the righteous God to avenge
his wrong. The Apostle speaks as if he were per-
sonifying the blood and ascribing to the slain man the
faith which he had manifested before. The action of
Abel's faith in life and, as we in ay safely assume, in
the very article of death, retained its power with God.
Every mouthing wound had a tongue. In like manner,
says the writer of the Epistle, the obedience of Jesus
up to and in His death made His blood efficacious for
pardon to the end of time.

But Abraham's faith excelled. Abel was prompted
to offer sacrifice by natural religiousness and an
awakened conscience ; Abraham sternly resolved to
obey a command of God. He prepared to do that
against which nature revolted, yea that which con-
science forbade. Had not the story of Abel's faith
itself loudly proclaimed the sacredness of human Hfe ?
Would not Abraham, if he offered up Isaac, become
another Cain ? Would not the dead child speak, and
his blood cry from the ground to God for vengeance ?
It was the case of a man to whom " God is greater

♦ Chap. xii. 24.

15

226 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

than conscience." He resolved to obey at all hazards.
Hereby he assured his heart — that is, his conscience—
before God in that matter wherein his heart may have
condemned him.* We, it is true, in the hght of a
better revelation of God's character, should at once
deny, without more ado, that such a command had
ueen given by God ; and we need not fear thankfully
and vehemently to declare that our absolute trust in
the Tightness of our own moral instincts is a higher
faith than Abraham's. But he had no misgiving as
to the reality of the revelation or the authority of the
command. Neither do the sacred historian and the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews question it. We
also need not doubt. God met His servant at that
stage of spiritual perception which he had already
attained. His faith was strong in its realisation of
God's authority and faithfulness. But his moral nature
was not sufficiently educated to decide by the character
of a command whether it was worthy of God or not.
He calmly left it to Him to vindicate His own righteous-
ness. Those who deny that God imposed such a
hard task on Abraham must be prepared to solve still
greater difficulties. For do not we also, in reference to
j-.ome things, still require Abraham's faith that the
Judge of all the earth will do right ? What shall we

* I John iii. 19, 20,

xi. 8-19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM, 227

say of His permitting the terrible and universal suf-
ferings of all living things ? What are we to think of
the still more awful mystery of moral evil ? Shall we
say He could not have prevented it ? Or shall we
take refuge in the distinction between permission and
command ? Of the two it were easier to understand
His commanding what He will not permit, as in the
sacrifice of Isaac, than to explain His permission of
what He cannot and will not command, as in the un-
doubted existence of sin.

But let us once more repeat that the greatest faith of
all is to believe, with Abel, that God is righteous, and
yet to beHeve, with Abraham, that God can justify His
own seeming unrighteousness, and also to believe, with
the saints of Christianity, that the test which God im-
posed on Abraham w^U nevermore be tried, because
the enlightened conscience of humanity forbids it and
invites other and more subtle tests in its place.

We must not suppose that Abraham found the com-
mand an easy one. From the narrative in the Book
of Genesis we should infer that he expected God to
provide a substitute for Isaac : " And Abraham said,
My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt
offering; so they went both of them together."* But
the Apostle gives us plainly to understand that Abraham

* Gen. xxii. 8.

228 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

offered his son because he accounted that God was able
to raise him from the dead. Both answers are true.
They reveal to us the anxious tossings of his spirit,
seeking to account to itself for the terrible command of
Heaven. At one moment he thinks God will not carry
matters to the bitter end. His mind is pacified with the
thought that a substitute for Isaac" will be provided.
At another moment this appeared to detract from the
awful severity of the trial, and Abraham's faith waxed
strong to obey, even though no substitute would be
found in the thicket. Another solution would then offer
itself God would immediately bring Isaac back to life.
For Isaac would not cease to be, nor cease to be Isaac,
when the sacrificial knife had descended. " God is not
God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto
Him." * Besides, the promise had not been with-
drawn, though it had not yet been confirmed by an
oath ; and the promise involved that the seed would be
called in Isaac, not in another son. Both solutions w^ere
right. For a ram was caught in a thicket by the horns,
and Abraham did receive his son back from the dead,
not literally indeed, but in a parable.

Most expositors explain the words "in a parable"
as if they meant nothing more than "as it were," "so
to speak ; " and some have actually supposed them to

* Luke XX. 38.

xi. 8-19.] THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. 229

refer to the birth of Isaac in his father's old age, when
Abraham was " as good as dead." * Both interpreta-
tions do violence to the Greek expression,! which must
mean "even in a parable." It is a brief and pregnant
allusion to the ultimate purpose of Abraham's trial.
God intended more by it than to test faith. The test
was meant to prepare Abraham for receiving a revela-
tion. On Moriah, and ever after, Isaac was more than
Isaac to Abraham. He offered him to God as Isaac,
the son of the promise. He received him back from
God's hand as a type of Him in Whom the promise
would be fulfilled. Abraham had gladly received the
promise. He now saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced.^

* Chap. xi. 12. t KoX kv irapa^oXy. J John viii. 56.

THE FAITH OF MOSES,

" By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his
parents, because they saw he was a goodly child ; and they were not
afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was
grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing
rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season ; accounting the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt : for he looked unto the recompense
of reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the
king : for he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible. By faith he
kept the passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer
of the first-born should not touch them."— Heb. xi. 23—28 (R.V.).

CHAPTER XII.

THE FAITH OF MOSES.

/^^NE difference between the Old Testament and
^-^ the New is the comparative silence of the former
respecting Moses and the frequent mention of him in
the latter. When he has brought the children of Israel
through the wilderness to the borders of the promised
land, their great leader is seldom mentioned by
historian, psalmist, or prophet. We might be tempted
to imagine that the national life of Israel had outgrown
his influence. It would without question be in a
measure true. We may state the same thing on its
religious side by saying that God hid the memory as
well as the body of his servant, in the spirit of John
Wesley's words, happily chosen for his and his
brother's epitaph in Westminster Abbey, *' God buries
His workmen and carries on His work." But in the
New Testament it is quite otherwise. No man is so
frequently mentioned. Sometimes when he is not
named it is easy to see that the sacred writers have
him in their minds.

234 THE EFISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

One reason for this remarkable difference between
the two Testaments in reference to Moses is to be
sought in the contrast between the earlier and later
Judaism. During the ages of the old covenant
Judaism was a Hving moral force. It gave birth to a
peculiar type of heroes and saints. Speaking of
Judaism in the widest possible meaning, David and
Isaiah, as well as Samuel and Elijah, are its children.
These men were such heroes of religion that the saints
of the Christian Church have not dwarfed their great-
ness. But it is one of the traits of a living religion to
forget the past, or rather to use it only as a stepping-
stone to better things. It forgets the past in the sense
in which St. Paul urges the Philippians to count what
things were gain a loss, and to press on, forgetting
the things which are behind, and stretching forward to
the things which are before. Religion lives in its
conscious, exultant power to create spiritual heroes,
not in looking back to admire its own handiwork. The
only religion among men that lives in its founder is
Christianity. Forget Christ, and Christianity ceases to
be. But the life of Mosaism was not bound up with the
memory of Moses. Otherwise we may well suppose
that idolatry would have crept in, even before Hezekiah
found it necessary to destroy the brazen serpent.

When we come down to the times of John the
Baptist and our Lord, Mosaism is to all practical ends

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 235

a dead religion. The great movers of men's souls
came down upon the age, and were not developed out
of it. The product of Judaism at this time was
Pharisaism, which had quite as little true faith as
Sadduceeism. But when a religion has lost its power
to create saints, men turn their faces to the great ones
of olden times. They raise the fallen tombstones of
the prophets, and religion is identical with hero-
worship. An instance of this very thing may be seen
in England to-day, where Atheists have discovered
how to be devout, and Agnostics go on a pilgrimage !
" We are the disciples of Moses," cried the Pharisees.
Can any one conceive of David or Samuel calling him-
self a disciple of Moses ? The notion of discipleship
to Moses does not occur in the Old Testament. Men
never thought of such a relation. But it is the dominant
idea of Judaism in the time of Christ. Hence it was
brought about that he who was the servant and friend
appears in the New Testament as the antagonist,
^' For the Law was given by Moses ; grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ."* This is opposition and
rivalry. Yet '' this is that Moses which said unto the
children of Israel, A Prophet shall God raise up unt3
you from among your brethren, like unto me." f

The notable difference between the Moses of New

* Johni. 17. t Acts vii. 37.

236 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Testament times and the Moses delineated in the
ancient narrative renders it especially interesting to
study a passage in which the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews takes us back to the living man, and
describes the attitude of Moses himself towards Jesus
Christ. Stephen told his persecutors that the founder
of the Aaronic priesthood had spoken of a great Prophet
to come, and Christ said that Moses wrote of Him.*
But it is with joyous surprise we read in the Epistle to
the Hebrews that the legislator was a believer in the
same sense in which Abraham was a believer. The
founder of the old covenant himself walked by faith in
the new covenant.

The references to Moses made by our Lord and by
Stephen sufficiently describe his mission. The special
work of Moses in the history of religion was to prepare
the way of the Lord Jesus Christ and make His paths
straight. He was commissioned to familiarise men with
the wondrous, stupendous idea of the appearing of God
in human nature, — a conception almost too vast to
grasp, too difficult to believe. To render it not im-
possible for men to accept the truth, he was instructed
to create a historical type of the Incarnation. He
called into being a spiritual people. He realised the
magnificent idea of a Divine nation. If we may use the
term, he showed to the world God appearing in the life
* John V. 46.

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 237

of a nation, in order to teach them the higher truth
that the Word would at the remote end of the ages
appear in the flesh. The nation was the Church ; the
Church was the State. The King would be God. The
court of the King would be the temple. The ministers
of the court would be the priests. The law of the State
would have equal authority with the moral require-
ments of God's nature. For Moses apparently knew
nothing of the distinction made by theologians between
the civil, the ceremonial, and the moral law.

But in the passage before us we have something
quite different from this. The Apostle says nothing
about the creation of the covenant people out of the^,.
abject slaves of the brick-kilns. He is silent concern-
ing the giving of the Law amid the fire and tempest of
Sinai. It is plain that he wishes to tell us about the
man's inner life. He represents Moses as a man of
faith.

Even of his faith the apparently greatest achieve-
ments are passed over. Nothing is said of his appear-
ances before Pharaoh ; nothing of the wonderful faith
that enabled him to pray with uplifted hands on the
brow of the hill whilst the people were fighting God's
battle in the valley ; nothing of the faith with which, on
the top of Pisgah, Moses died without receiving the
promise. Evidently it is not the Apostle's purpose to
write the panegyric of a hero.

238 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

Closer examination of the verses brings out the
thought that the Apostle is tracing the growth and
formation of the man's spiritual character. He means
to show that faith has in it the making of a man of
God. Moses became the leader of the Lord's redeemed
people, the founder of the national covenant, the legis-
lator and prophet, because he believed in God, in the
future of Israel, and in the coming of the Christ. The
subject of the passage is faith as the power that creates
a great spiritual leader. But what is true of leaders is
true also of every strong spiritual nature. No lesson
can be more timely in our days. Not learning, not
culture, not even genius, makes a strong doer, but
faith.

The contents of the verses may be classified under
four remarks : —

1. Faith gropes at first in the dark for the work of
life.

2. Faith chooses the work of life.

3. Faith is a discioline of the man for the work of
life.

4. Faith renders the man's life and work sacramental.
I. The initial stage in forming the servant of God is

always the same, — a vague, restless, eager groping in the
dark, a putting forth feelers for the light of revelation,
'i his is often a time of childish mistakes and follies, of
which he is afterwards keenly ashamed, and at which

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 239

he can sometimes afford to smile. It often happens, if
the man of God is to spring from a religious family,
that his parents undergo, in a measure, this first discip-
line for him. So it was in the case of Moses. The
child was hid three months of his parents. Why did
they hide him ? Was it because they feared the king ?
It was because they did not fear the king. They hid
their child by faith. But what had faith to do with the
hiding of him ? Had they received an announcement
from an inspired seer that their child would deliver
Israel, or that he would stand with God on the top of
Sinai and receive the Law for the people, or that he
would lead the redeemed of the Lord to the borders of
a rich land and large ? None of these sufficient grounds
for defying the king's authority are mentioned. The
reason given in the narrative and as well by Stephen *
and the writer of this Epistle sounds quaint, if not
childish. They hid him because he was comely. Yet
they hid him by faith. The beauty of a sleeping babe
was to them a revelation, as truly a revelation as if
they had heard the voice of the angel that spoke
to Manoah or to Zacharias. The Scripture narrative
contains no hint that the child's beauty was miraculous,
and, what is more to the purpose, we are not told that
God had given it as the token of His covenant. It is an
instance of faith making a sacrament of its own, and
* Exod. ii. 2 ] Acts vii. 2Q.

240 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

seeking in what is natural its warrant for believing in
the supernatural. Nothing is easier, and perhaps
nothing would be more rational, than to dismiss the
entire story with a contemptuous smile.

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews must admit
that Jochebed's faith was unauthorised. But does not
faith always begin in folly ? Is it not at first a blind
instinct, fastening on what is nearest to hand ? Has
not our belief in God sprung out of trust in human
goodness or in nature's loveliness ? To many a father
has not the birth of his first-born been a revelation of
Heaven ? Is not such faith as Jochebed's the true explan-
ation of the instinctive rise and wonderful vitality of
infant baptism in the Christian Church ? If Abraham's
faith dared to look for the city which hath the founda-
tions when God had promised only the wealth of a tented
nomad, was not the mother of Moses justified, since
God had given her faith, in letting the heaven-born
instinct entwine with her earth-born love of her off-
spring ? It grew with its growth, and rejoiced with
its joy ; but it also endured and triumphed in its sore
distress, and justified its presence by saving the child.
Faith is God's gift, no less than the testimony which
faith accepts. Sometimes the faith is implanted when
no fitting revelation is vouchsafed. But faith will liva
on in the darkness, until the day dawn and the day-star
arise in the heart.

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES, 241

A wise teacher has warned us against phantom
notions and bidden us interpret rather than anticipate
nature. But another great thinker demonstrated that
the clearest vision begins in mere groping. Anticipa-
tions of God precede the interpretation of His message.
The immense space between instinct and genius is in
rehgion traversed by faith, which starts with mera
palpatio f but at last attains to the beatific vision of God.

2. Faith chooses the work of life. The Apostle has
spoken of the faith that induced the parents of Moses
to hide their child three months. Some theologians
have set much value on what they term " an implicit
faith." The faith of Moses himself would be said by
them to be " enwrapped " in that of his parents.
Whatever we may think of this doctrine; there can
be no question that the New Testament recognises
the idea of representation. The Church has always
upheld the unity, the solidarity, of the family. It
sprang itself out of the family. Perhaps its consumma-
tion on earth will be a return into the family relation.
It retains the likeness throughout its long history. It
acknowledges that a believing husband sanctifies the
unbelieving wife, and a believing wife sanctifies the
unbelieving husband. In like manner, a believing
parent sanctifies the children, and no one but them-
selves can deprive them of their privileges. But
they can do it. The time comes when they must

16

242 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

choose for themselves. Hitherto led gently on by
loving hands, they must now think and act for them-
selves, or be content to lose the power of indepen-
dent action, and remain always children. The risk is
sometimes great. But it cannot be evaded. It often-
times happens that the irrevocable step is taken un- «
observed by others, almost unconsciously to the man
himself. The decision has been taken in silence ; the
even tenor of life is not disturbed. The world little
weens that a soul has determined its own eternity in
one strong resolve.

But in the case of a man destined to be a leader of
his fellows, whether in thought or in action, a crisis
occurs. We use the word in its correct meaning of
judgment. It is more than a transition, more than a
conversion. He judges, and is conscious that as
he judges he will be judged. If God has any great
work for the man to do, the command comes sooner
or later, as if it descended audibly from heaven,
that he stand alone and, in that first terrible sohtari-
ness, choose and reject. In an educational age we may
often be tempted to sneer at the doctrine of immediate
conversion. It is true, nevertheless. A man has come
to the parting of the two ways, and choice must be
made, because they are two ways. To no living man
is it given to walk the broad and tlie narrow ways.
Entrance is by different gates. The hisory of some of

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 243

the most saintly men presents an entire change of
motive, of character even, and of general life, as
produced through one strong act of faith.

When the Apostle vi^rote to the Hebrew Christians,
the time was critical. The question of Christian or not
Christian brooked no delay. The Son of man was
nigh, at the doors. Even after swift vengeance had
overtaken the doomed city of Jerusalem, the urgent
cry was still the same. In the so-called " Epistle
of Barnabas," in the " Pastor of Hermas," and in the
priceless treasure recently brought to light, " The
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," the two ways are
described : the way of life and the way of death. Those
who professed and called themselves Christians were
warned to make the right choice. It was no time for
facing both ways, and halting between two opinions.

Moses too refused and chose. This is the second
scene in the history of the man. Standing as he did
at the fountain-head of nationalism, the prominence
assigned to his act of individual choice and rejection
is very significant. Before his days the heirs of the
promise were in the bond of God's covenant in virtue
of their birth. They were members of the elect family.
After the days of Moses every Israelite enjoyed the
privileges of the covenant by right of national descent.
They were the elect nation. Moses stands at the
turning point. The nation now absorbs the familyji

244 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

which becomes henceforth part of the larger conception.
In the critical moment between the two, a great person-
ality emerges above the confusion. The patriarchal
Church of the family comes to a dispensational end in
giving birth to a great man. That man's personal act
of refusing the broad and choosing the narrow way
marks the birth of the theocratic Church of nationalism.
Before and after, personality is of secondary importance.
In Moses for a moment it is everything.

Do we seek the motives that determined his choice ?
The Apostle mentions two, and they are really two
sides of the same conception.

First, he chose to be evil-entreated with the people
of God. The work of his life was to create a spiritual
nation. This idea had already been presented to his
mind before he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter. " He was instructed in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians ; and he was mighty in his words and
works." * But an idea had taken possession of him.
That idea had already invested the miserable and
despised bondsmen with glory. Truly no man will
achieve great things who does not pay homage to an
idea, and is not ready to sacrifice wealth and position
for the sake of what is as yet only a thought. He who
sells the world for an idea is not far from the kingdom

' Acts vii. 22.

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES, 24$

of heaven. He will be prepared to forfeit all that the
world can give him for the sake of Him in Whom truth
eternally dwells in fulness and perfection. Such a man
was Moses. Had not his parents often told him, when
his mother was nourishing the child for Pharaoh's
daughter, of the wonderful story of their hiding him by
faith and afterwards putting him in an ark of bulrushes
by the river's brim ? Did not his mother bring him up
to be at once the son of Pharaoh's daughter and the
deliverer of Israel ? Was the boy not living a double
life ? He was gradually coming to understand that he
was to be the heir of the throne, and that he would or
might be the destroyer of that throne. May we not,
with profoundest reverence, liken it to the twofold inner
life of the Child Jesus when at Nazareth He came to
know that He, the Child of Mary, was the Son of the
Highest ?

Stephen continues the story : " When he was well-
nigh forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his
brethren the children of Israel." ^' He went out unto
his brethren," we are told in the narrative, " and looked
on their burdens." * But the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews perceives in the act of Mo&es more than
love of kindred. The slaves of Pharaoh were, in the
eyes of Moses, the people of God. The national

* Exod. ii. II.

246 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

consecration had already taken place ; he himself was
already swayed by the glorious hope of delivering his
brethren, the covenant people of God, from the hands
of their oppressors. This is the explanation which
Stephen gives of his conduct in slaying the Egyptian.
When he saw one of the children of Israel suffer wrong,
he defended him and smote the Egyptian, supposing
that his brethren understood how that God by his hand
was giving them deliverance. The deed was, in fact,
intended to be a call to united effort. He was throwing
the gauntlet. He was deliberately making it impossible
for him to return to the former hfe of pomp and courtly
worship. He wished the Hebrews to understand his
decision, and accept at once his leadership. ^' But they
understood not."

Our author pierces still deeper into the motives that
swayed his spirit. It was not a selfish ambition, nor
merely a patriotic desire to put himself at the head
of a host of slaves bent on asserting their rights.
Simultaneous with the social movement there was a
spiritual work accomplished in the personal, inner life
of Moses himself. All true, heaven-inspired revolutions
in society are accompanied by a personal discipline
and trial of the leaders. This is the infallible test
of the movement itself. If the men who control it
do not become themselves more profound, more pure,
more spiritual, they are counterfeit leaders, and the

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 247

movement they advocate is not of God. The writer
of the Epistle argues from the decision of Moses to
deliver his brethren that his own spiritual life was
become deeper and holier. When he refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, he also rejected
the pleasures of sin. He took his stand resolutely on
the side of goodness. The example of Joseph was
before him, of whom the same words are said : " he
refused" to sin against God.

As the crisis in his own spiritual life fitted him to
be the leader of a great national movement, so also his
conception of that movement became a help to him to
overcome the sinful temptations of Egypt. He saw
that the pleasures of sin were but for a season. It is
easy to supply the other side of this thought. The joy
of delivering his brethren would never pass away.
He welcomed the undying joy of self-sacrifice, and re-
pudiated the momentary pleasures of self-gratification.

Second^ he accounted the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt. Not only the
people of God, but also the Christ of God, determined
his choice. An idea is not enough. It must rest on
a person, and that person must be greater than the
idea. He may be himself but an idea. But, even
when it is so, he is the glorious thought in which all
the other hopes and imaginations of faith centre and
merge. If he is more than an idea, if it is a living

248 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

person that controls the man's thoughts and becomes
the motive of his life, a new quality will then enter into
that life. Conscience will awake. The question of
doing what is right will control ambition, if it will not
quite absorb it. Treachery to the idea of life will now
be felt to be a sin, if conscience has pronounced that
the idea itself is not immoral, but good and noble.
For, when conscience permits, faith will not lag behind,
and will proclaim that the moral is also spiritual, that
the spiritual is an ever-abiding possession.

Many expositors strive hard to make the words mean
something else than the reproach which Christ Himself
suffered. It is marvellous that the great doctrine of
Christ's personal activity in the Church before His
incarnation should have so entirely escaped the notice
of the older school of English theology. On this
passage, for instance, such commentators as Macknight,
Whitby, Scott, explain the words to mean that Moses
esteemed the scoffs cast on the Israelites for expecting
the Christ to arise from among them greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt. The more profound
exegesis of Germany has made the truth of Christ's
pre-existence essential to the theology of the New
Testament. Far from being an innovation, it has
brought us back to the view of the greater theologians
in every age of the Church.

We cannot enter into the general question. Con-

xi. 23-28.3 THE FAITH OF MOSES. 249

fining ourselves to the subject in hand, the faith of
Moses, why may we not suppose that he had heard
of the patriarch Jacob's blessing on Judah ? It had
been uttered in the land of Egypt, where Moses was
brought up. It spoke of a Lawgiver. Did not the
consciousness of his own mission lead Moses to apply
the reference to the long succession of leaders, whether
judges or kings or prophets, who would follow in his
wake ? If so, could he have altogether misunderstood
the promise of the Shiloh ? Jacob had spoken of a
personal King, Whom the people would obey. But
nowhere in the Old Testament, not once in the history
of Moses, is the coming of Messiah represented as the
goal of the national development. Christ is not the
flowering of Judaism. On the contrary, the Angel
of the covenant established through Moses is not
a ministering servant, sent forth to minister on the
chosen people. He is the Lord Jehovah Himself.
Christ was with Israel, and Moses knew it. We may
admit the vagueness of his conception, but we cannot
deny the conception. To Moses, as to the Psalmist,
the reproaches of them that reproached Israel fell on
the Christ. Community in suffering was enough to
ensure community in the glory to be revealed. Suffer-
ing with Christ, they would also be glorified with
Christ. This was the recompense of reward to which
Moses looked.

250 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

The lesson taught to the Hebrew Christians by the
decision of Moses is loyalty to truth and loyalty to
Jesus Christ.

3. Faith is a discipline for the work of life. Moses
has made his final choice. Conscience is thoroughly
awake, and eager aspirations fill his soul. But he is
not yet strong. Men of large ideas are often found to
be lacking in courage. A cloistered is often a fugitive
virtue. But, apart from want of practical resolution to
face the difficulties of the situation, special training is
needed for special work. Israel had come into Egypt
to endure chastening and be made fit for national
independence. But in Egypt Moses was a courtier,
perhaps heir to the throne. That he may be chastened
and fitted for his share of the work which God was
about to accomplish towards His people, he must be
driven out of Egypt into the wilderness. Every
servant of God is sent into the wilderness. St. Paul
was three years in Arabia between his conversion and
his entrance on the work of the ministry. Jesus Him-
self was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness. He
learned endurance in forty days, Moses in forty years.

It will be seen that we accept the explanation of the
twenty-seventh verse given by all expositors down to
the time of De Lyra and Calvin. But in modern times it
has been customary to say that the Apostle refers to the
final departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt with

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES, 251

a Strong hand and outstretched arm. Our reasons for
preferring the other view are these. The departure of
the Israelites through the Red Sea is mentioned sub-
sequently ; an event that occurred before the people
left Egypt is mentioned in the next verse, and it is
very improbable that the writer would refer to their
departure first, then to the events that preceded, then
once more speak of their departure. Further, the word
well rendered by the Old and the Revised Versions
'' forsook " expresses precisely the notion of going out
alone, in despondency, as if Moses had abandoned the
hope of being the deliverer of Israel. If we have
correctly understood the Apostle's purpose in the entire
passage, this is the very notion which we should expect
him to introduce. Moses forsakes Egypt, deserts his
brethren, abandons his work. He flees from the
vengeance of Pharaoh. Yet all this fear, hopelessness,
and unbelief is only the partial aspect of what, taken
as a whole, is the action of faith. He still believes in
his glorious idea, and is still willing to bear the reproach
of Christ. He will not return to the court and make
his submission to the king. But the time is not come,
he thinks, or he is not the man to deliver Israel.
Forty years afterwards he is still loath to be sent. He
forsook Egypt because the people did not believe him ;
after forty years he asks the Lord to send another for
the very same reason : " Behold, they will not believe

252 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

me, nor hearken unto my voice." But we should be
obtuse indeed if we failed to recognise the faith that
underlies his despondency. Doubt is oftentimes partial
faith.

Let us place ourselves in his position. He refuses
the selfish luxury and worldly glory of Pharaoh's court,
that he may rush to deliver his brethren. He brings
with him the consciousness of superiority, and at once
assumes the duty of composing their quarrels. Evi-
dently he is a believer in God, but a believer also in
himself. Such men are not God's instruments. He will
have a man be the one thing or the other. If the man
is self-confident, conscious of his own prowess, oblivious
of God or a denier of Him, the Most High can use him
to do His work, to his own destruction. If the man
has no confidence in the flesh, knows his utter weak-
ness and very nothingness, and yields himself to God's
hand entirely, with no by-ends to seek, him too God
uses to do His work, to the man's own salvation. But
Moses strove to combine faith in God and in himself.
He was at once thwarted. His brethren taunted
him, when he expected to be trusted and honoured.
Despondency takes possession of his spirit. But his
trepidation is on the surface. Beneath it is a great deep
of faith. "V^'hat he now needs is discipline. God leads
him to the back of the wilderness. The courtier serves
as a herdsman. Far removed from the monumental

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 253

literature of Egypt, he communes with himself, and
with nature's mighty visions. He gazes upon the
dread and silent mountain, hallowed of old as the
habitation of God. He had already, in Egypt, learned
the faith of Joseph and of Jacob. Now, in Midian, he
will imbibe the faith of Isaac and of Abraham. Far
from the busy haunts of men, the din of cities, the stir
of the market-place, he will learn how to pray, how to
divest himself of all confidence in the flesh, and how
to worship the Invisible alone. For ^' he endured a?
seeing Him Who is invisible." Do not paraphrase it
'* the invisible King.'* That is too narrow. It was not
Pharaoh only that had vanished out of his sight and
out of his thoughts. Moses himself had disappeared.
He had broken down when he trusted himself. He
now endures, because he sees nought but God. Surely
he was in the same blessed state of mind in which St.
Paul was when he said, *' I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me." When Moses and when Paul ceased
to be anything, and God was to them everything, they
were strong to endure.*

4. Faith renders the work of life sacramental.
The long period of discipline has drawn to a close.
The self-confidence of Moses has been fully subdued.

* After penning the above the writer of these pages saw that, in his
view of the purpose of the sojourn in Midian, he had been anticipated
by Kurtz {History of the Old Covenant),

254 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

" He supposed that his brethren understood how that
God by his hand was giving them deliverance."
These, says Stephen, were his thoughts before he fled
from Egypt. Very different is his language after the
probation of the wilderness : ''Who am I, that I should
go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the
children of Israel out of Egypt ? " Four times he
pleads and deprecates. Not until the anger of the
Lord is kindled against him does he take heart to
attempt the formidable task.

The Hebrews had been more than two hundred years
in the house of bondage. So far as we know, the
Lord had not once appeared or spoken to men for six
generations. No revelation was given between Jacob's
vision at Beersheba* and the vision of the burning
bush. We may well believe that there were in those
days mockers, saying. The age of miracles is past ;
the supernatural is played out. But Moses henceforth
lives in a veritable world of miracles. The super-
natural came with a rush, like the waking of a sleeping
volcano. Signs .and wonders encompass him on every
side. The J)ush burns unconsumed ; the rod in his
hand is cast on the ground, and becomes a serpent ; he
takes the serpent in his hand again, and it becomes a
rod; he puts his hand into his bosom, and it is leprous;
he puts the leprous hand into his bosom, and it -is as
* Gen. xlvi. 2.

xi. 23-28.] THE FAITH OF MOSES. 255

K . .

his other flesh. When he returns into Egypt, signs vie
with signs, God with demons. Plague follows plague.
Moses lifts up his rod over the sea, and the children of
Israel go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
At last he stands once more on Horeb. But in the
short interval between the day when one poor thorn-
bush of the desert glowed with flame and the day on
which Sinai was altogether on a smoke and the whole
mountain quaked, a religious revolution had occurred
second only to one in the history of the race. At
the touch of their leader's wand a nation was born in
a day. The immense transition from the Church in a
family to a holy nation was brought about suddenly,
but effectively, when the people were hopeless outcasts
and Moses himself had lost heart.

Such a revolution must be inaugurated with sacrifice
and with sacrament. The sins of the past must be
expiated and forgiven, and the people, cleansed from
the guilt of their too frequent apostasy from the God
of their fathers, must be dedicated anew to the service
of Jehovah. The patriarchal dispensation expired in
the birth of a holy nation. The Passover was both a
sacrifice and a sacrament, an expiation and a consecra-
tion. It retained its sacrificial character till Christ, the
true Paschal Lamb, was slain. As a sacrifice it then
ceased. But sacrament continues, and will continue as
long as the Church exists on earth.

256 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

Moses had seen the invisible God. The burning
bush had symbolized the sacramental nature of the
work which he had been called to do. God would be
in Israel as He was in the bush, and Israel would not
be consumed. He Who is to His foes a consuming
fire dwells among His people, as the vital heat and
glow of their national life. The eye that can see Him
is faith. This is the power that can transform the
whole life of man, and make it sacramental. Too long
has man's earthly existence been divided into two
separate spheres. On the one side and for a stated
time he lives to God ; on the other side he relinquishes
himself for a period to the pursuits of the world. We
seem to think that the secular cannot be religious, and,
consequently, that the religiousness of one day or of
one place will make amends for the irreligion of the
rest of life. The Passover consecrated a nation.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper have, times without
number, consecrated the individual. The true Chris-
tian life draws its vital sap from God. It is not clever-
ness and worldly success, but unselfish loyalty to the
supernatural, and incessant prayer, that marks the man
who lives by faith.

A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

** Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before
us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising shame, and
hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider
Him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against themselves,
that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls. Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin : and ye have forgotten the exhortation,
which reasoneth with you as with sons.

My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when thou art reproved of Him ;

For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,

And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.

It is for chastening that ye endure ; God dealeth with you as with sons ;
for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not ? But if ye are
without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye
bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to
chasten us, and we gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be
in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live ? For they verily for a
few days chastened us as seemed good to them ; but He for our profit,
that we may be partakers of His holiness. All chastening seemeth for
the present to be not joyous, but grievous : yet afterward it yieldeth
peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the
fruit of righteousness. Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down,
and the palsied knees ; and make straight paths for your feet, that that
which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed.
Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which
no man shall see the Lord : looking carefully lest there be any man that
falleth short of the grace of God ; lest any root of bitterness springing
up trouble you^ and thereby the many be defiled ; lest there be any
fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold
his own birthright. For ye know that even when he afterward desired
to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repent-
ance), though he sought it diligently with tears." — Heb. xii. i — 17
{R.V.).

CHAPTER XIII.

A CLOUD OF WITNESSES,

npiME fails us to dilate on the faith of the other
saints of the old covenant. But they must not
be passed over in silence. The impression produced
by our author's splendid roll of the heroes of faith in
the eleventh chapter is the result quite as much of an
accumulation of examples as of the special greatness of
a few among them. At the close they appear like an
overhanging " cloud " of witnesses for God.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau ; and Jacob,
dying in a strange land, blessed the sons of Joseph,
distinguishing wittingly, and bestowing on each * his
own peculiar blessing. His faith became a prophetic
inspiration, and even distinguished between the future
cf Ephraim and the future of Manasseh. He did not
create the blessing. He was only a steward of God's
mysteries. Faith v^ell understood its own limitations.
But it drew its inspiration to foretell what was to come
from a remembrance of God's faithfulness in the past.

* eKaarov (xi. 21).

26o THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

For, before* he gave his blessing, he had bowed
his head in worship, leaning upon the top of his staff.
In his dying hour he recalled the day on which he had
passed over Jordan with his staff, — a day remembered
by him once before, when he had become two bands,
wrestled with the angel, and halted on his thigh. His
staff had become his token of the covenant, his re-
minder of God's faithfulness, his sacrament, or visible
sign of an invisible grace.

Joseph, though he was so completely Egyptianised
that he did not, like Jacob, ask to be buried in Canaan,
and only two of his sons became, through Jacob's
blessing, heirs of the promise, yet gave commandment
concerning his bones. His faith believed that the
promise given to Abraham would be fulfilled. The
children of Israel might dwell in Goshen and prosper.
But they would sooner or later return to Canaan.
When his end drew near, his Egyptian greatness was
forgotten. The piety of his childhood returned. He
remembered God's promise to his fathers. Perhaps
it was his father Jacob's dying blessing that had
revived the thoughts of the past and fanned his faith
into a steady flame.

" By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." f When
the Israelites had crossed Jordan and eaten of the old

* Gen. xlvii. 31.. f Chap. xi. 30.

xi. 20-xii. I.] A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 261

corn of the land, the manna ceased. The period of
continued miracle came to an end. Henceforth they
would smite their enemies with their armed thousands.
But one signal miracle the Lord would yet perform in
the sight of all Israel. The walls of the first city they
came to would fall down flat, when the seven priests
would blow with the trumpets of rams' horns the
seventh time on the seventh day. Israel believed, and
as God had said, so it came to pass.

The treachery of a harlot even is mentioned by the
Apostle as an instance of faith.* Justly. For, whilst
her past life and present act were neither better nor
worse than the morality of her time, she saw the hand
of the God of heaven in the conquest of the land, and
bowed to His decision. This was a greater faith than
that of her daughter-in-law, Ruth, whose name is not
mentioned. Ruth believed in Naomi and, as a conse-
quence, accepted Naomi's God and people, f Rahab
believed in God first, and, therefore, accepted the
Israelitish conquest and adopted the nationality of the
conquerors. \

Of the judges the Apostle selects four : Gideon,
Barak, Samson, Jephthah. The mention of Barak
must be understood to include Deborah, who was the
mind and heart that moved Barak's arm ; and Deborah

* Chap. xi. 31. t R^th i. 16. J. Matt. i. $.

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

was a prophetess of the Lord. She and Barak wrought
their mighty deeds and sang their paean in faith.*
Gideon put the Midianites to flight by faith ; for he
• knew that his sword was the sword of the Lord, f
Jephthah was a man of faith ; for he vowed a vow
unto the Lord, and would not go back. % Samson had
faith ; for he was a Nazarite to God from his mother's
womb, and in his last extremity called unto the Lord
and prayed. §

The Apostle does not name Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar,
and the rest. The Spirit of the Lord came upon them
also. They too were mighty through God. But the
narrative does not tell us that they prayed, or that
their soul consciously and believingly responded to the
voice of Heaven. Alaric, while on his march towards
Rome, said to a holy monk, who entreated him to spare
the city, that he did not go of his own will, but that
One was continually urging him forward to take it.||
Many are the scourges of God that know not the hand
that wields them.

Individuals '' through faith subdued kingdoms." IF

* Judges iv. and v.

f Judges vii. i8.

X Judges xi. 35.

§ Judges xiii. 7 ; xvi. 28.

II Robertson, History of the Christian Churchy book ii., chap. vii.

\ Chap. xi. 33.

xi. 20-xii. I.] A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 263

Gideon dispersed the Midianites;* Barak discomfited
Sisera, the captain of Jabin king of Canaan's host ;
Jephthah smote the Ammonites ; f David held the
Phihstines in check, % measured Moab with a Hne, §
and put garrisons in Syria of Damascus. Samuel
" wrought righteousness/' and taught the people the
good and the right way.|| David " obtained the fulfil-
ment of God's promises : " his house was blessed that
it should continue for ever before God.^ Daniel's faith
stopped the mouths of lions.** The faith of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego trusted in God, and quenched
the power of the fire, without extinguishing its flame. ff
Elijah escaped the edge of Ahab's sword, ft Elisha's
faith saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of
fire round about him. §§ Hezekiah " from weakness
was made strong." |{|| The Maccabaean princes waxed
mighty in war and turned to flight armies of alien s.HH
The widow of Zarephath*** and the Shunammitefft re-
ceived their dead back into their embrace in consequence
of til a resurrection wrought by the faith of the pro-
phets. Others refused deliverance, gladly accepting
the alternative to unfaithfulness, to be beaten to death.

* Judges vii. IF 2 Sam. vii. 28, 29. |i|| 2 Kings xx. 5.

f Judges xi. 33. ** Dan. vi. 22. W i Mace. v.

X 2 Sam. V. 25. tt Dan. iii. 27, 28. *** i Kings xvii. 22.

§ 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6. J J i Kings xix. 1—3. fff 2 Kings iv. 35.

II I Sam. xii. 23. §§ 2 Kings vi. 17. XW e| (chap. xi. 35).

264 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

that they might be accounted worthy* to attain the
better world and the resurrection, not o/, but/ro;w, the
dead, which is the resurrection to eternal life. Such a
man was the aged Eleazar in the time of the Maccabees. f
Zechariah was stoned to death at the commandment of
Joash the king in the court of the house of the Lord.f
Isaiah is said to have been sawn asunder in extreme old
age by the order of Manasseh. Others were burnt §
by Antiochus Epiphanes. Elijah had no settled abode,
but went from place to place clad in a garment of hair,
the skin of sheep or goat. It ought not to be a matter
of surprise that these men of God had no dwelling-
place, but were, like the Apostles after them, buffeted,
persecuted, defamed, and made as the filth of the
world, the offscouring of all things. For the world was
not worthy of them. The world crucified their Lord,
and they would be ashamed of accepting better treat-
ment than He received. By the world is meant the life
of those who know not Christ. The men of faith were
driven out of the cities into the desert, out of homes
into prisons. But their faith was an assurance of
things hoped for and, therefore, a solvent of fear.
Their proving of things not seen rendered the prison,
as Tertullian says,|| a place of retirement, and the

* Luke XX. 35. J 2 Chron. xxiv. 21.

t 2 Macc" vi. 19. § Reading eirpijce-ritxav.

Ad Martyras, 2.

xi. 20-xii. I.] A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 265

desert a welcome escape from the abominations that
met their eyes wherever the world had set up its
vanity fair.

All these sturdy men of faith have had witness borne
to them in Scripture. This honour they won from
time to time, as the Spirit of Christ, which was in the
prophets, saw fit to encourage the people of God on
earth by their example. Are we forbidden to suppose
that this witness to their faith gladdened their own
glorified spirits, and calmed their eager expectation of
the day when the promise would be fulfilled ? For, after
all, their reward was not the testimony of Scripture, but
their own perfection. Now this perfection is described
throughout the Epistle as a priestly consecration.
It expresses fitness for entering into immediate com-
munion with God. This was the final fulfilment of the
promise. This was the blessing which the saints under
the old covenant had not obtained. The way of the
holiest had not yet been opened.* Consequently their
faith consisted essentially in endurance. " None of
these received the promise," but patiently waited. This
is inferred concerning them from the testimony of
Scripture that they believed. Their faith must have
manifested itself in this form, — endurance. To us, at
length, the promise has been fulfilled. God has spoken

* Chap. ix. 8.

266 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

unto us in His Son. We have a great High-priest, Who
has passed through the heavens. The Son, as High-
priest, has been perfected for evermore ; that is. He is
endowed with fitness to enter into the true holiest
place. He has perfected also for ever them that are
sanctified : freed from guilt as worshippers, they enter
the holiest through a priestly consecration. The new
and living way has been dedicated through the veil.
But the important point is that the fulfilment of the
V promise has not dispensed with the necessity for faith.
We saw, in an earlier chapter, that the revelation of
the Sabbath advances from lower forms of rest to
higher and more spiritual. The more stubborn the
unbelief of men became, the more fully the revelation
of God's promise opened up. The thought is some-
what similar in the present passage. The final form.
which God's promise assumes is an advance on any
fulfilment vouchsafed to the saints of the old covenant
during their earthly life. It now includes perfection,
or fitness to enter into the hoHest through the blood
of Christ. It means immediate communion with God.
Far from dispensing with faith, this form of the
promise demands the exercise of a still better faith
than the fathers had. They endured by faith ; we
through faith enter the holiest. To them, as well as
to us, faith is an assurance of things hoped for and a
proving of things not seen ; but our assurance must

xi. 20-xii. I.] A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 267

incite us to draw near with boldness unto the throne
of grace, to draw near with a true heart in full assur-
ance of faith. This is the better faith which is not
once ascribed in the eleventh chapter to the saints of
the Old Testament. On the contrary, we are given to
understand * that they, through fear of death, were all
their lifetime subject to bondage. But Christ has
abolished death. For we enter into the presence of
God, not through death, but through faith.

In accordance with this, the Apostle says that
'' God provided some better thing concerning us." t
These words cannot mean that God provided some
better thing for us than He had provided for the
fathers. Such a notion would not be true. The
promise was made to Abraham, and is now fulfilled
to all the heirs alike ; that is, to those who are of the
faith of Abraham. The author says " concerning," %
not *' for." The idea is that God foresaw we would,
and provided (for the word implies both things) that
we should, manifest a better kind of faith than it was
possible for the fathers to show, better in so far
as power to enter the holiest place is better than
endurance.

But the author adds another thought. Through
the exercise of the better faith by us, the fathers also

* Chap. ii. 15. f Chap. xi. 40. % irepi.

268 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

enter with us into the hoHest place. "Apart from
us they could not be made perfect." The priestly
consecration becomes theirs through us. Such is the
unity of the Church, and such the power of faith,
that those who could not believe, or could not believe
in a certain way, for themselves, receive the fulness
of the blessing through the faith of others. Nothing
less will do justice to the Apostle's words than the
notion that the saints of the old covenant have,
through the faith of the Christian Church, entered
into more immediate and intimate communion with
God than they had before, though in heaven.

We now understand why they take so deep an
interest in the running of the Christian athletes on
earth. They surround their course, like a great
cloud. They know that they will enter into the
holiest if we win the race. For every new victory of
faith on earth, there is a new revelation of God in
heaven. Even the angels, the principalities and
powers in the heavenly places, learn, says St. Paul,
through the Church the manifold wisdom of God.*
How much more will the saints, members of the
Church, brethren of Christ, be better able to appre-
hend the love and power of God, Who makes weak,
sinful men conquerors over death and its fear.

* Eph. iii. 10.

xi. 20-xii. I.] A CLOUD OF li ITNESSES. 269

The word " witnesses " * does not itself refer to
their looking on, as spectators of the race. Another
word would almost certainly have been used to express
this notion, which is moreover contained in the phrase
*' having so great a cloud surrounding f us." The
thought seems to be that the men to whose faith the
Spirit of Christ in Scripture bare witness were them-
selves witnesses for God in a godless world, in the same
sense in which Christ tells His disciples that they
were His witnesses, and Ananias tells Saul that he
would be a witness for Christ. \ Every one who
confessed Christ before men, him did Christ also
confess before His Church which is on earth, and
does now confess before His Father in heaven, by
leading him into God's immediate presence.

* fiaprvpuv (xii, i). f xepiKetfJievov. J Acts i. 8 j xxii. 14.

CONFLICT.

" By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to
come. By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed each of the sons
of Joseph ; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By
faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of
the children of Israel ; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
... By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been
compassed about for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot perished
not with them that were disobedient, having received the spies with
peace. And what shall I more say ? for the time will fail me if I tell
of Gideon. Barak, Samson, Jephthah ; of David and Samuel and the
prophets : who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong,
waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women
received their dead by a resurrection : and others were tortured, not
accepting their deliverance ; that they might obtain a better resurrec-
tion : and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover
of bonds and imprisonment : they were stoned, they were sawn asunder,
they were tempted, they were slain with the sword : they went about
in sheepskins, in goatskins ; being destitute, afflicted, evil-entreated (of
whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains
and caves, and the holes of the earth. And these all, having had witness
borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God
having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they
should not be made perfect. Therefore let us also, seeing we are com-
passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us." — Heb. xi. 20 — xii. i (R.V.).

CHAPTER XIV.

CONFLICT,

npHE author has told his readers that they have
^ need of endurance ; * but when he connects this
endurance with faith, he describes faith^ not as an
enduring of present evils, but as an assurance of things
hoped for in the future. His meaning undoubtedly
is that assurance of the future gives strength to endure
the present. These are two distinct aspects of faith.
In the eleventh chapter both sides of faith are illustrated
in the long catalogue of believers under the Old
Testament. Examples of men waiting for the promise /
and having an assurance of things hoped for come
first. They are Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and Joseph. In some measure these witnesses
of God suffered ; but the more prominent feature of their
faith was expectation of a future blessing. Moses is
next mentioned. He marks a transition. In him the
two qualities of faith appear to strive for the pre-
eminence. He chooses to be evil entreated with the

viroixovT} (x. 36).

18

274 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

people of God, because he knows that the enjoyment
of sin is short-Hved ; he suffers the reproach of Christ,
and looks away from it to the recompense of reward.
After him conflict and endurance are more prominent
in the history of believers than assurance of the future.
Many of these later heroes of faith had a more or less
dim vision of the unseen ; and in the case of those
of whose faith nothing is said in the Old Testament
except that they endured, the other phase of this
spiritual power is not wanting. For the Church is one
through the ages, and the clear eye of an earlier period
cannot be disconnected from the strong arm of a later
time.

In the twelfth chapter the two aspects of faith
exemplified in the saints of the Old Testament are
urged on the Hebrew Christians. Now practically for
the first time in the Epistle the writer addresses himsell
to the difficulties and discouragements of a state of
conflict. In the earlier chapters he exhorted his readers
to hold fast their own individual, confession of Christ.
In the later portions he exhorted them to quicken the
faith of their brethren in the Church assemblies. But
his account of the worthies of the Old Testament in the
previous chapter has revealed a special adaptedness
in faith to meet the actual condition of his readers.
We gather from the tenor of the passage that the
Church had to contend against evil men. Who they

xii. 1-17.] CONFLICT. 27$

were we do not know. They were " the sinners."
Our author is claiming for the Christian Church the
right to speak of the men outside in the language used
by Jews concerning the heathen ; and it is not at all
unlikely that the unbelieving Jews themselves are here
meant. His readers had to endure the gainsaying of
sinners, who poured contempt on Christianity, as they
had also covered Christ Himself with shame. The
Church might have to resist unto blood in striving
against the encompassing sin. Peace is to be sought
and followed after with all men, but not to the injury
of that sanctification without which no man shall see
the Lord.* The true people of God must go forth
unto Jesus without the camp of Judaism, bearing His
reproach, t

This is an advance in the thought. Our author does
not exhort his readers individually to steadfastness,
nor the Church collectively to mutual oversight. He
has before his eyes the conflict of the Church against
wicked men, whether in sheep's clothing or without the
fold. The purport of the passage may be thus stated :
Faith as a hope of the future is a faith to endure in
the present conflict against men. The reverse of this
is equally true and important : that faith as a strength
to endure the gainsaying of men is the faith that

* Chap. xii. 14. f Chap. xiii. 13.

276 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

presses on toward the goal unto the prize of the high
calHng of God in Christ Jesus.

The connecting link between these two represen-
tations of faith is to be found in the illustration with
which the chapter opens. A race implies both a hope
and a contest.

The hope of faith is simple and well understood. It
has been made abundantly clear in the Epistle. It is
to obtain the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham
and renewed to other believers time after time under
the old covenant. '' For we who believe do enter into
God's rest." * " They that have been called receive the
promise of the eternal inheritance."! " We have bold-
ness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." J
In the latter part of the chapter the writer speaks of his
readers as having already attained. They have come
to God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant. In
the first verse he urges them to run the race, so as
to secure for themselves the blessing. He points them
to Jesus, Who has run the race before them and won
the crown, Who sits on the right hand of God, with
authority to reward all who reach the goal. Both
representations are perfectly consistent. Men do enter
into immediate communion with God on earth ; but
they attain it by effort of faith.

* Chap. iv. 3. t Chap. ix. 15. % Chap. x. 19.

xii. I- 1 7.] CONFLICT. 277

Such is the aim of faith. The conflict is more
complex and difficult to explain. There is, first of all,
a conflict in the preparatory training, and this is
twofold. We have to strive against ourselves and
against the world. We must put away our own
grossness,* as athletes rid themselves by severe
training of all superfluous flesh. Then we must also
put away from us the sin that surrounds us, that quite
besets us, on all sides,! whether in the world or in
the Church, as runners must have the course cleared
and the crowd of onlookers that press around removed
far enough to give them the sense of breathing freely
and running unimpeded in a large space. The word
** besetting " does not refer to the special sin to which
every individual is most prone. No thoughtful man
but has felt himself encompassed by sin, not merely
as a temptation, but much more as an overpowering
force, silent, passive, closing in upon him on all sides, —
a constant pressure from which there is no escape.
The sin and misery of the world has staggered reason
and left mien utterly powerless to resist or to alleviate
the infinite evil. Faith alone surmounts these prehmi-
nary difficulties of the Christian life. Faith delivers
su from grossness fo spirit, from lethargy, earthliness
stupor. Faith will also lift us above the terrible

* i'^KOv (xii. l). t evireplcTTaTov.

278 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

pressure of the world's sin. Faith has the heart that
still hopes, and the hand that still saves. Faith
resolutely puts away from her whatever threatens to
overwhelm and impede, and makes for herself a large
room to move freely in.

Then comes the actual contest. Our author says
*' contest." * For the conflict is against evil men.
Yet it is, in a true and vital sense, not a contest of
the kind which the word naturally suggests. Here
the effort is not to be first at the goal. We run the
race *' through endurance." Mental suffering is of the
essence of the conflict. Our success in winning the
prize does not mean the failure of others. The failure
of our rivals does not imply that we attain the mark.
In fact, the Christian life is not the competition of
rivals, but the enduring of shame at the hands of evil
men, which endurance is a discipHne. Maybe we do
not sufficiently lay to heart that the discipline of life
consists mainly in overcoming rightly and well the
antagonism of men. The one bitterness in the Hfe
of our Lord Himself was the malice of the wicked.
Apart from that unrelenting hatred we may regard
His short life as serenely happy. The warning which
He addressed to His disciples was that they should
beware of men. But, though wisdom is necessary, the

d^wya.

xii. I -1 7.] CONFLICT. 279

conflict must not be shunned. When it is over,
nothing will more astonish the man of faith than that
he should have been afraid, so weak did malice prove
to be.

To run our course successfully, we must keep our
eyes steadily fixed on Jesus. ''^ It is true we are com-
passed about with a cloud of God's faithful witnesses.
But they are a cloud. The word signifies not merely
that they are a large multitude, but also that we cannot
distinguish individuals in the immense gathering of
those who have gone before. The Church has always
cherished a hope that the saints of heaven are near us,
perhaps seeing our efforts to follow their glorious
example. Beyond this we dare not go. Personal
communion is possible to the believer on earth with
One only of the inhabitants of the spiritual world.
That One is Jesus Christ. Even faith cannot discern
the individual saints that compose the cloud. But it
can look away from all of them to Jesus. It looks unto
Jesus as He is and as He was : as He is for help ; as
He was for a perfect example.

I. Faith regards Jesus as He is, — the " Leader and
Perfecter." The words are an allusion to what the
writer has already told us in the Epistle concerning
Jesus. He is " the Captain or Leader of our salvation,"!

* Chap. xii. 2. t dpx'?7(5»' (ii- 10).

28o THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

and " by one offering He hath perfected for ever them
that are sanctified." * He leads onward our faith till
we attain the goal, and for every advance we make in
the course He strengthens, sustains, and in the end
completes our faith. The runner, when he seizes the
crown, will not be found to have been exhausted by
his efforts. High attainments demand a correspond-
mgly great faith.

Many expositors think the words which we have
rendered "Leader" and "Perfecter" refer to Christ's
own faith. But the words will hardly admit of this
meaning. Others think they are intended to convey
the notion that Christ is the Author of our faith in its
weak beginnings and the Finisher of it when it attains
perfection. But the use which the Apostle has made
of the words " Leader of salvation " in chap. ii. seems to
prove that here also he understands by " Leader " One
Who will bring our faith onward safely to the end of
the course. The distinction is rather between render-
ing us certain of winning the crown and making our
faith large and noble enough to be worthy of wearing
it.

2. Faith regards Jesus as He was on earth, the
perfect example of victory through endurance. He
has acquired His power to lead onward and to make

* TereXei'w/cej' (x. 14).

xii. I- 1 7.] CONFLICT, 281

perfect our faith by His own exercise of faith. He is
^'Leader" because He is "Forerunner;"* He is
"Perfecter" because He Himself has been perfected. t
He endured a cross. The author leaves it to his
readers to imagine all that is implied in the awful word.
More is involved in the Cross than shame. For the
shame of the Cross He could afford to despise. But
there was in the Cross what He did not despise ; yea,
what drew tears and strong cries from Him in the
agony of His soul. Concerning this, whatever it was,
the author is here silent, because it was peculiar to
Christ, and could never become an example to others,
except indeed in the faith that enabled Him to endure it.
Even in the gainsaying of men there was an element
which He did not despise, but endured. He under-
stood that their gainsaying was against themselves.f
It would end, not merely in putting Him to an open
shame, but in their own destruction. This caused keen
suffering to His holy and loving spirit. But He endured
it, as He endured the Cross itself in all its mysterious
import. He did not permit the sin and perdition of
the world to overwhelm Him. His faith resolutely
put away from Him the deadly pressure. On the one
hand. He did not despise sin; on the other. He was
not crushed by its weight. He calmly endured.

* irpobpofios (vi. 20). f TereXeiufji^vov (vii. 28).

X Reading els iavrovs (xii. 3).

282 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

But He endured through faith, as an assurance of
things hoped for and the proving of things not seen.
He hoped to attain the joy which was set before Him
as the prize to be won. The connection of the thought
with the general subject of the whole passage satisfies us
that the words translated ** for the joy set before Him "
are correctly so rendered, and do not mean that Christ
chose the suffering and shame of the Cross in prefer-
ence to the enjoyment of sin This also is perfectly
true, and more true of Christ than it was even of
Moses. But the Apostle's main idea throughout is that
faith in the form of assurance and faith in the form
of enduring go together. Jesus endured because He
looked for a future joy as His recompense of reward ;
He attained the joy through His endurance.

But, as more than shame was involved in His Cross,
more also than joy was reserved for Him in reward.
Through His Cross He became '^ the Leader and Per-
fecter " of our faith. He was exalted to be the Sancti-
fier of His people. *'He has sat down on the right
hand of God."

Our author proceeds : Weigh this in the balance.*
Compare this quality of faith with your own. Consider
who He was and what you are. When you have well
understood the difference, remember that He endured,

* avoKorytoaffde (xii. 3).

xii. 1-17.] CONFLICT. 283

as you endure, by faith. He put His trust in God.*
He was faithful to Him Who had constituted Him what
He became through His assumption of flesh and blood, f
He offered prayers and supplications to Him Who was
able to save Him out of death, yet piously committed
Himself to the hands of God. The gainsaying of men
brought Him to the bloody death of the Cross. You
also are marshalled in battle array, in the conflict
against the sin of the world. But the Leader only has
shed His blood — as yet. Your hour may be drawing
nigh ! Therefore be not weary in striving to reach the
goal ! Faint not in enduring the conflict ! The two
sides of faith are still in the author's thoughts.

It would naturally occur to the readers of the Epistle
to ask why they might not end their difficulties by
shunning the conflict. Why might they not enter into
fellowship with God without coming into conflict with
men? But this cannot be. Communion with God
requires personal fitness of character, and manifests it-
self in inward peace. This fitness, again, is the result
of discipline, and the discipline implies endurance. *'It
is for discipline that ye endure." %

The word translated " discipline " suggests the notion

* Chap. ii. 13.
f Chap. iii. 2.

\ els iraideiav virofJbiveTe (xii. 7, where the verb is indicative, not
imperative).

284 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

of a child with his father. But it is noteworthy that
the Apostle does not use the word '' children " in his
illustration, but the word ''sons." This was occa-
sioned partly by the fact that the citation from the
Book of Proverbs speaks of '' sons." But, in addition
to this, the author's mind seems to be still lingering
with the remembrance of Him Who was Son of God.
For discipline is the lot and privilege of all sons. Who
is a son whom his father does not discipline ? There
might have been One. But even He humbled Himself
to learn obedience through sufferings. Absolutely
every son undergoes discipline.

Furthermore, the fathers of our bodies kept us under
discipline, and we not only submitted, but even gave
them reverence, though their discipline was not intended
to have effect for more than the few days of our pupil-
age, and though in that short time they were liable to
error in their treatment of us. How much more shall
we subject ourselves to the discipline of God ! He is
not only the God of all spirits and of all flesh,* but also
the Father of our spirits ; that is, He has created our
spirit after His own likeness, and made it capable,
through discipline, of partaking in His own holiness,
which will be our true and everlasting life. The
gardener breaks the hard ground, uproots weeds, lops

* Num. xvi. 22.

xii. 1-17.] CONFLICT. 285

off branches ; but the consequence of his rough
treatment is that the fruit at last hangs on the bough.
We are God's tillage. Our conflict with men and their
sin is watched and guided by a Father. The fruit
consists in the calm after the storm, the peace of a
good conscience, the silencing of accusers, the putting
wicked men to shame, the reverence which righteous-
ness extorts even from enemies. In the same book
from which our author has cited far-reaching instruc-
tion, we are told that ^* when a man's ways please the
Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with
him." *

Here, again, the Apostle addresses his readers as
members of the Church in its conflict with men. He
tells them that, in doing what is incumbent upon them
as a Church towards different classes of men, they
secure for themselves individually the discipline of sons
and may hope to reap the fruit of that discipline in
peace and righteousness. The Church has a duty to
perform towards the weaker brethren, towards the
enemy at the gate, and towards the Esaus whose
worldliness imperils the purity of others.

I. There were among them weaker brethren, the
nerves of whose hands and knees were unstrung. They
could neither combat a foe nor run the race. It was for

* Prov. xvL 7.

286 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

the Church to smooth the ruggedness of the road before
its feet, that the lame things * (for so, with something
of contempt, he names the waverers) might not be
turned out of the course by the pressure of the other
runners. Rather than permit this, let the Church Hft
up their drooping hands and sustain their palsied knees,
that they may be healed of their lameness.

2. As to enemies and persecutors, it is the duty of the
Church to follow after peace with all men, as much as
in her lies. Christians may sacrifice almost anything
for peace, but not their own priestly consecration,
without which no man shall see the Lord Jesus at His
appearing. He will be seen only by those who eagerly
expect Him unto salvation.!

3. The consecration of the Church is maintained
by watchfulness J against every tendency to alienation
from the grace of God, to bitterness against God and
the brethren, to sensuality and profane worldliness.
All must watch over themselves and over all the
brethren. The danger, too, increases if it is neglected.
It begins in withdrawing from § the Church assembHes,
where the influences of grace are manifested. It grows
into the poisonous plant of a bitter spirit, which, ''like
a root that beareth gall and wormwood," spreads

* TO xwXdy (xii, 13), X iTTKrirKoirovvTes (xii. 15),

t Chap. ix. 28, § vaTepwv dir6.

xii. 1. 17.] CONFLICT, 287

through '^ a family or tribe,"* and turns away their
heart from the Lord to go and serve the gods of the
nations. ''The many are defiled." The Church as a
whole becomes infected. But bitterness of spirit is not
the only fruit of selfishness. On the same tree
sensuality grows, which God will punish when the
Church cannot detect its presence.!

From the stem of selfishness, which will not brook
the restraints of Church communion, springs, last and
most dangerous of all, the profane, worldly spirit,
which denies and mocks the very idea of consecration.
It is the spirit of Esau, who bartered the right of the
first-born to the promise of the covenant for one mess
of pottage. The author calls attention to the incident,
as it displays Esau's contempt of the promise made to
Abraham and his own father Isaac. His thoughts
never rose above the earth. " What profit shall this
birthright do to me ?"{ We must distinguish between
the birthright and the blessing. The former carried
with it the great promise given to Abraham with an
oath on Moriah : '' In thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed." § Possession of it did not
depend on Isaac's fond blessing. It belonged to Esau
by right of birth till he sold it to Jacob. But Isaac's
blessing) which he intended for Esau because he loved

* Deut. xxix. 18. X Gen. xxv. 32.

t Chap. xiii. 4. Cf. Rom. i. 18 sqq. § Gen. xxii. 1 8.

288 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

him, meant more especially lordship over his brethren.
Esau plainly distinguishes the two things : '^ Is not he
rightly named Jacob ? For he hath supplanted me
these two times : he took away my birthright, and
behold, now he hath taken away my blessing."* When
he found that Jacob had supplanted him a second time,
he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and
sought diligently, not the birthright, which was of a
religious nature, but the dew of heaven, and the fatness
of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine, and the
homage of his mother's sons. But he had sold the
greater good and, by doing so, forfeited the lesser.
The Apostle recognises, beyond the subtilty of Jacob
and behind the blessing of Isaac, the Divine retribution.
His selHng the birthright was not the merely rash act
of a sorely tempted youth. He continued to despise
the covenant. When he was forty years old, he took
wives of the daughters of the Canaanites. Abraham
had made his servant swear that he would go to the
city of Nahor to take a wife unto Isaac ; and Rebekah,
true to the instinct of faith, was weary of her life
because of the daughters of Heth. But Esau cared for
none of these things. The day on which Jacob took
away the blessing marks the crisis in Esau's Hfe. He
still despised the covenant and sought only worldly

* Gen. xxvii. 36.

xii. I- 1 7.] CONFLICT. 289

lordship and plenty. For this profane scorn of the
spiritual promise made to Abraham and Isaac, Esau not
only lost the blessing which he sought, but was him-
self rejected. The Apostle reminds his readers that
they know it to have been so from Esau's subsequent
history. They would not fail to see in him an example
of the terrible doom described by the Apostle himself
in a previous chapter. Esau was like the earth that
brings forth thorns and thistles and is "rejected."*
The grace of repentance was denied him.f

♦ ddiKiy.Q$ (vi. 8)« f Chap. vi. 6,

' \

MOUNT ZION,

** For ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched, and that
burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and
the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words ; which voice they that
heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them : for
they could not endure that which was enjoined, If even a beast touch
the mountain, it shall be stoned ; and so fearful was the appearance,
that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake : but ye are come unto
Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and Church
of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge
of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the
Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh
better than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
For if they escaped not, when they refused him that warned them on
earth, much more shall not we escape, who turn away from Him that
warneth from heaven : whose voice then shook the earth : but now He
hath promised, saying. Yet once more will I make to tremble not the
earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, Yet once more,
signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that
have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace,
whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and
awe . for our God is a consuming fire." — Heb. xii. i8 — 29 (R.V.).

CHAPTER XV.

MOUNT ZION.

1\ /r UTUAL oversight is the lesson of the foregoing
^^ ^ verses. The author urges his readers to look
carefully that no member of the Church withdraws from
the grace of God, that no poison of bitterness troubles
and defiles the Church as a whole, that sensuality and
worldliness are put away. In the paragraph that
comes next he still has the idea of Church fellowship
in his mind. But his advice to his readers to exercise
supervision over one another yields to the still more
urgent warning to watch themselves, and especially to
shun the most dangerous even of these evils, which is
worldliness of spirit. Esau was rejected ; see that ye
yourselves refuse not Him that speaketh.

That the passage is thus closely connected with what
immediately precedes may be admitted. But it must be
also connected with the entire argument of the Epistle.
It is the final exhortation directly based on the general
idea that the new covenant excels the former one.
As such it may be compared with the earlier exhorta-

294 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

tion, given before the allegory of Melchizedek introduced
the notion that the old covenant had passed away, and
with the warning in the tenth chapter which precedes
the glorious record of faith's heroes from Abel to Jesus.
As early as the second chapter he warns the Hebrew
Christians not to drift away and neglect a salvation
revealed in One Who is greater than the angels, through
whom the Law had been given. In the later exhorta-
tions he adds the notion of the blood of the covenant,
and insists, not merely on the greatness, but also on
the finality, of the revelation. But in the concluding
passage, which now opens before us, he makes the
daring announcement that all the blessings of the new
covenant have already been fulfilled, and that in perfect
completeness and grandeur. We have come unto
Mount Zion ; we have received a kingdom which cannot
be shaken. The passage must, therefore, be considered
as the practical result of the whole Epistle.

Our author began with the fact of a revelation of
God in a Son. But a thoughtful reader will not fail
to have observed that this great subject seldom comes to
the front in the course of the argument. Reading the
Epistle, we seem for a time to forget the thought of a
revelation given in the Son. Our minds are mastered by
the author's powerful reasoning. We think of nothing
but the surpassing excellence of the new covenant and
its Mediator. The greatness of Jesus as High-priest

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 295

makes us oblivious of His greatness as the Revealer of
God. But this is only the glamour cast over us by
a master mind. After all, to know God is the highest
glory and perfection of man. Apart from a revelation
of God in His Son, all other truths are negative ; and
their value to us depends on their connection with this
self-manifestation of the Father. Religion, theology,
priesthood, covenant, atonement, salvation, and the
Incarnation itself, do not attain a worthy and final
purpose except as means of revealing God. It would
be a serious misapprehension to suppose that our
author had forgotten this fundamental conception.
His aim has been to show that the economy of the new
covenant is the perfect revelation. God has spoken,
not through, but m, the Son. The Divine personality,
the human nature, the eternal priesthood, the infinite
sacrifice, of the Son are the final revelation of God.

In the sublime contrast between Mount Sinai and
Mount Zion the two thoughts are brought together.
We have had frequent occasion to point out that the
central fact of the new covenant is direct communion
with God. Access to God is now open to all men in
Christ. We are invited to draw near with boldness
unto the throne of grace. '•'' Jesus has entered as a
Forerunner for us within the veil.f We have boldness

* Chap, iv. 16. t Chap. vi. 20.

296 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.* Yea,
we have already actually entered. We are come unto
Mount Zion. Death has been annihilated. We are
now where Christ is. The writer of our Epistle has
advanced beyond the perplexity that, in his hour of
lonehness, troubled St. Paul, who was in a strait betwixt
two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ,
which is far better.f We are come to Jesus, the
Mediator of the new covenant. That great city the
heavenly Jerusalem has descended out of heaven from
God. I The angels pass to and fro as ministering
spirits. The names of the first-born are registered in
heaven, as possessing already the privilege of citizen-
ship. We must not say that the spirits of the righteous
have departed from us ; let us rather say that we, by
being made righteous, have come to them. We stand
now before the tribunal of God, the Judge of all. Jesus
has fulfilled His promise to come and receive us unto
Himself, that where He is, there we may be also.§

All these things are contained in access unto God.
The Apostle explains their meaning and unfolds their
glory by contrasting them with the revelation of God
on Sinai. We might perhaps have expected him to
institute a comparison between them and the incidents
of the day of atonement, inasmuch as he has described

* Chap. X. 19. X Rev. xxi. 10.

t Phil. i. 23. § John xiv. 3.

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 29)

Christ's ascension to the right hand of God as the
entering of the High-priest into the true hoHest place.
But the day of atonement was not a revelation of God.
The propitiation required antecedently to a revelation
was indeed offered. But, as the propitiation was unreal,
the full revelation, to which it was intended to lead, was
never given. Nothing is said in the books of Moses
concerning the people's state of mind during the time
when the high-priest stood in God's presence. The
transaction was so purely ceremonial that the people
do not seem to have taken any part in it, beyond
gathering perhaps around the tabernacle to witness
the ingress and egress of the high-priest. More-
over, no words were spoken either by the high-priest
before God, or by God to the high-priest or to the
people. No prayer was uttered, no revelation vouch-
safed. For these reasons the Apostle goes back to the
revelation on Sinai, which indeed instituted the rites
of the covenant. With the revelation that preceded
the sacrifices of the Law he compares the revelation
that is founded upon the sacrifice of Christ. This is
the fundamental difference between Sinai and Zion.
The revelation on Sinai precedes the sacrifices of the
tabernacle ; the revelation on Zion follows the sacrifice
of the Cross. Under the old covenant the revelation
demanded sacrifices ; under the new covenant the
sacrifice demands a revelation.

298 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

From this essential difference in the nature of the
revelations a twofold contrast is apparent in the
phenomena of Sinai and Zion. Sinai revealed the
terrible side of God's character, Zion the peaceful
tenderness of His love. The revelation on Sinai was
earthly ; that on Zion is spiritual.

There can be no question that the Apostle intends
to contrast the terrible appearances on Sinai with the
calm serenity of Zion. The very rhythm of his language
expresses it. But the key to his description of the one
and the other is to be found in the distinction already
mentioned. On Sinai the unappeased wrath of God
is revealed. Sacrifices are instituted, which, however,
when established, evoke no response from the offended
majesty of Heaven. Of the holiest place of the old
covenant the best thing we can say is that the lightning
and thunders of Sinai slumbered therein. The author's
beautiful description of the sunny steep of Zion is
framed, on the other hand, in accordance with his
frequent and emphatic declaration that Christ has
entered the true holiest place, having obtained for us
eternal redemption. All that the Apostle says con-
cerning Sinai and Zion gathers around the two
conceptions of sin and forgiveness.

The Lord spake on Sinai out of the midst of the
palpable, enkindled fire, of the cloud, and of the thick
darkness, with a great voice. All the people heard the

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 299

voice. They saw " that God doth talk with man, and
he liveth." They begin to hope. But immediately
they bethink them that, if they hear the voice of the
Lord any more, they will die. Thus does a guilty
conscience contradict itself! Again, the people are
invited to come up into the mount when the trumpet
shall sound long. Yet, when the voice of the trumpet
sounds long and waxes louder and louder, they are
charged not to come up unto the Lord, lest He break
forth upon them. All this appearance of inconsistency
is intended to symbolize that the people's desire to
come to God struggled in vain against their sense
of guilt, and that God's purpose of revealing Himself
to them was contending in vain with the hindrances
that arose from their sins. The whole assembly heard
the voice of the Lord proclaiming the Ten Command-
ments. Conscience-smitten, they could not endure to
hear more. They gat them into their tents, and Moses
alone stood on the mountain with God, to receive at
His mouth all the statutes and judgments which the}^
should do and observe in the land which He would
give them to possess. The Apostle singles out for
remark the command that, if a beast touched the
mountain, it should be stoned to death. The people,
he says, could not endure this command. Why not
this ? It connected the terrors of Sinai with man's
guilt. According to the Old Testament idea of Divine

300 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

retribution, the beasts of the earth f^ll under the curse
due to man. When God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the days of Noah, He said, ^' I will
destroy both man and beast."* When, again, He
blessed Noah after the waters were dried up. He said,
' ' I, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with
every living creature that is with you." f Similarly, the
command to put to death any beast that might haply
touch the mountain revealed to the people that God
was dealing with them as sinners. Moses himself,
the mediator of the covenant, who aspired to behold
the glory of God, feared exceedingly. But his fear
came upon him when he looked and beheld that the
people had sinned against the Lord their God :|: and
made them a molten calf. His fear was not the
prostration of nervous terror. Remembering, when
he had descended, the awful sights and sounds wit-
nessed on the mountain, he was afraid of the anger
and hot displeasure of God against the people, who
had done wickedly in the sight of the Lord, Almost
every word the Apostle has here written bears closely
upon the moral relation between a guilty people and
the angry God.

If we turn to the other picture, we at once perceive
that the thoughts radiate from the holiest place as from

♦ Gen. vi. 7. \ Gen. ix. 9, 10. J Deut. ix. 16, 19.

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 301

a centre. The passage is, in fact, an expansion of what
is said in the ninth chapter, that Christ has entered in
once for all into the holiest place, through the greater
and more perfect tabernacle. The holiest has widened
its boundaries. The veil has been removed, so that
the entire sanctuary now forms part of the holy of
holies. It is true that the Apostle begins, in the
passage under consideration, not with the hoHest place,
but with Mount Zion. He does so because the imme-
diate contrast is between the two mountains, and he
has already stated that Christ entered through a larger
tabernacle. The holiest place includes, therefore, the
whole mountain of Zion, on which the tabernacle was
erected ; yea, all Jerusalem is within the precincts. If
we extend the range of our survey, we behold the earth
sanctified by the presence of the first-born sons of God,
who are the Church, and of His myriads, the other sons
of God, who also have, not indeed the birthright, but
a blessing, even the joyful multitude of the heavenly
host.* The Apostle describes the angels as keeping
festal holiday, for joy to witness the coming of the first-
born sons. They are the friends of the Bridegroom,

* Reading koX ^vpidaiv, arfyeXitsv irauTjyvpei, Kal €KK\r](riq.TrpwT0T6KU)v
(xii. 22, 23). This disconnected use of fivpids is amply justified by
Deut. xxxiii. 2, Dan. vii. 10, and Jude 14. Besides, vau-qyvpis is
precisely the word to describe the assemblage of angels and distinguish
them from the Church.

302 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

who Stand and hear Him, and rejoice greatly because of
the Bridegroom's voice. If, again, we attempt to soar
above this world of trials, we find ourselves at once
before the judgment-seat of God. But even here a
change has taken place. For we are come to a Judge
Who is God of all,* and not merely to a God Who is
Judge of all. Thus the promise of the new covenant
has been fulfilled, '' I will be to them a God." f If in
imagination we pass the tribunal and consider the con-
dition of men in the world of spirits, we recognise there
the spirits of the righteous dead, and are given to under-
stand that they have already attained the perfection %
which they could not have received before the Christian
Church had exercised a greater faith than some had
found possible to themselves on earth. § If we ascend
still higher, we are in the presence of Jesus Himself.
But He is on the right hand of the Majesty on high,
not simply as Son of God, but as Mediator of the new
covenant. His blood is sprinkled on the mercy-seat,
and speaks to God, but not for vengeance on those
who shed it on the Cross, some of whom possibly were
now among the readers of the Apostle's piercing words.
What an immeasurable distance between the first man
of faith, mentioned in the eleventh chapter, and Jesus,
with Whom his list closes ! The very first blood of

f Chap. viii. lo. § Chap. xi. ao.

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 303

man shed to the earth cried from the ground to God
for vengeance. The blood of Jesus sprinkled in heaven
speaks a better thing. What the better thing is, we
are not told. Men may give it a name; but it is
addressed to God, and God alone knows its infinite
meaning.

From all this we infer that the comparison here
made between Sinai and Zion is intended to depict the
difference (seen, as it were, in another Bunyan's dream)
between a revelation given before Christ offered Him-
self as a propitiation for sin and the revelation which
God gives us of Himself after the sacrifice of Christ
has been presented in the true holiest place.

The Apostle's account of Mount Zion is followed by
a most incisive warning, introduced with a sudden
solemnity, as if the thunder of Sinai itself were heard
remote. The passage is beset with difficulties, some of
which it would be inconsistent with the design of the
present volume to discuss. One question has scarcely
been touched upon by the expositors. But it enters
into the very pith of the subject. The exhortation
which the author addresses to his readers does not at
first appear to be based on a correct application of the
narrative. For the Israelites at the foot of Sinai are
not said to have refused Him that spake to them on the
mount. No doubt God, not Moses, is meant ; for it
was the voice of God that shook the earth. The

304 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

people were terrified. They were afraid that the fire
would consume them. But they had understood also
that their God was the living God, and therefore not to
be approached by man. They wished Moses to
intervene, not because they rejected God, but because
they acknowledged the awful greatness of His living
personality. Far from rejecting Him, they said to
Moses, " Speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God
shall speak unto thee ; and we will hear it and do it."*
God Himself commended their words : " They have
well said all that they have spoken." Can we suppf^ ie,
therefore, that the Apostle in the present passage
represents them as actually rebelling, and " refusing
Him that spake " ? The word here translated " refuse "f
does not express the notion of rejecting with contempt.
It means " to deprecate," to shrink in fear from a
person. Again, the word "escape," in its reference to
the children of Israel at Sinai, cannot signify " to avoid
being punished," which is its meaning in the second
chapter of this Epistle.J The meaning is that they
could not flee from His presence, though Moses
mediated between Him and the people. They could
not escape Him. His word '' found \ them" when

* Dent- V. 27. 28.

j irapaiTTjadfieyo!, (xii. 25).

J Chap, ii 3.

§ " The Bible finds me," said Coleridge.

«ii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 30s

they cowered in their tents as truly as if they had
dimbed with Moses the heights of Sinai. For the
word of God was then also a living word, and there
was no creature that was not manifest in His sight;
Yet it was right in the people to deprecate, and desire
Moses to speak to them rather than God. This was
the befitting spirit under the old covenant. It expresses
very precisely the difference between the bondage of
that covenant and the liberty of the new. In Christ
only is the veil taken away. Where the Spirit of the
Lord Jesus is, there is liberty. But, for this reason,
what was praiseworthy in the people who were kept
at a distance from the bounds placed around Sinai is
unworthy and censurable in those who have come to
Mount Zion. See, therefore, that ye do not ask Him
that speaketh to withdraw into the thick darkness and
terrible silence. For us to deprecate is tantamount to
rejection of God. We are actually turning away from
Him. But to ignore and shun His presence is now
impossible to us. The revelation is from heaven. He
Who brought it descended Himself from above.
Because He is from heaven, the Son of God is a life-
giving Spirit. He surrounds us, like the ambient air.
The sin of the world is not the only " besetting "
element of our life. The ever-present, besetting God
woos our spirit. He speaks. That His words are
kind and forgiving we know. For He speaks to u*

20

3o6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

from heaven, because the blood sprinkled in heaven
speaks better before God than the blood of Abel spoke
from the ground. The revelation of God to us in His
Son preceded, it is true, the entrance of the Son into
the holiest place ; but it has acquired a new meaning
and a new force in virtue of the Son's appearing before
God for us. This new force of the revelation is re-
presented by the mission and activity of the Spirit.

The author's thoughts glide almost imperceptibly
into another channel. We can refuse Him that
speaketh, and turn away from Him in unbelief. But
let us beware. It is the final revelation. His voice
on Sinai shook the earth. The meaning is not that it
terrified the people. The writer has passed from that
thought. He now speaks of the effect of God's voice
on the material world, the power of revelation over
created nature. This is a truth that frequently meets
us in Scripture. Revelation is accompanied by miracle.
When the Ten Commandments were spoken by the
lips of God to the people, '* the whole mount quaked
greatly." * But the prophet Haggai predicts the glory
of the second house in words which recall to our author
the trembling of Mount Sinai : *' For thus saith the
Lord of hosts : Yet once more, it is a little while, and I
will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and

* Exod. xix. 1 8. In his citation of this passage our author forsakes
the Septuagint, which has ** And all the people were greatly amazed."

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 307

the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and the desir-
able things of all nations shall come, and I will fiU this
house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts."* It is very
characteristic of the writer of this Epistle to fasten on
a few salient points in the prophet's words. He seems
to think that Haggai had the scenes that occurred on
Sinai in his mind. Two expressions connect the
narrative in Exodus with the prophecy. When God
spoke on Sinai, His voice shook the earth. Haggai
declares that God will, at some future time, shake the
heaven. Again, the prophet has used the words " yet
once more." Therefore, when the greater glory of the
second house will have come to pass, the last shaking
of earth and of heaven will take place. The inference
is that the word "yet once more" signifieth the
removing of those things that are shaken. The whole
fabric of nature will perish in its present material form,
and the Apostle connects this universal catastrophe
with the revelation of God in His Son.

Many very excellent expositors think that our author
refers, not to the final dissolution of nature, but to the
abrogation of the Jewish economy. It is true that the
Epistle has declared the old covenant a thing of the
past. But there are two considerations that "lead us
to adopt the other view of this passage. In the first

* Haggai ii. 6, 7.

3o8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

place, this Epistle does not describe the abrogation of
the old covenant as a violent catastrophe, but rather as
the passing away of what had grown old and decayed.
In the second place, the coming of the Lord is else-
where, in writings of that age, spoken of as accompanied
by a great convulsion of nature. The two notions go
together in the thoughts of the time. '' The day of the
Lord will come as a thief, in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be
dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the
works that are therein shall be burned up."*

We connect the words " as things that have been
made " with the next clause : " that those things which
are not shaken may remain." It is not because they
have been made that the earth and the heaven are
removed ; and their place will not be occupied by
uncreated things only, but also by things made. The
meaning is that nature will be dissolved when it has
answered its purpose, and not till then. Earth and
heaven have been made, not for their own sakes, but
in order that out of them a new world may be created,
which will never be removed or shaken. This new
world is the kingdom of which the King-Priest is
eternal Monarch.! As we partake in His priesthood,
we share also in His kingship. We enter into the
— — -^ __ . — ■^

• 2 Pet. iii. 10. f Chap. xn. 28.

xii. 18-29.] MOUNT ZION. 309

holiest place and stand before the mercy-seat, but our
absolution is announced and confirmed to us by the
Divine summons to sit down with Christ in His throne,
as He has sat down with His Father in His throne.*

Let us therefore accept the kingdom. But beware
of your peculiar danger, which is self-righteous pride,
worldliness, ar.d the evil heart of unbelief. Rather let
us seek and get that grace from God which will make
our royal state a humble service of worshipping
priests.t The grace which the Apostle exhorts his
reader to possess is much more than thankfulness.
It includes all that Christianity bestows to counteract
and vanquish the special dangers of self-righteousness.
Such priestly service will be well-pleasing to God.
Offer it with pious resignation to His sovereign will,
with awe in the presence of His holiness. For, whilst
our God proclaims forgiveness from the mercy-seat
as the worshippers stand before it, He is also a
consuming fire. Upon the mercy-seat itself rests the
Shechinah.

• Rev. iii. 21. f Xarpevw/jLev (xiL 2^"i-

SUNDR Y EXHOR TA TIONS,

Hebrews xiii.

Let love of the brethren continue. Forget not to shew love unto
strangers : for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Re-
member them that are in bonds, as bound with them ; them that are
evil entreated, as being yourselves also in the body. Let marriage be
had in honour among all, and let the bed be undefiled : for fornicators
and adulterers God will judge. Be ye free from the love of money ;
content with such things as ye have : for Himself hath said, I will in no
wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee. So that with
good courage we say,

The Lord i^ my helper ; I will not fear :

"What shall^iian do unto me?

Remember them that had the rule over you, which spake unto you
the word of God ; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their
faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.
Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings : for it is good that
the heart be established by grace ; not by meats, wherein they that
occupied themselves were not profited. We have an altar, whereof
they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies
of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high
priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp. Where-
fore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own
blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him
without the camp, bearing His reproach. For we have not here
an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come.
Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His name. But to do
good and to communicate forget not : for with such sacrifices God is
well pleased. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to

them : for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give
account : that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this
were unprofitable for you.

Pray for us : for we are persuaded that we have a good conscience,
desiring to live honestly in all things. And I exhort you the more
exceedingly to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great
shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the eternal covenant, even
our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will,
working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus
Christ ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

But I exhort you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation : for
I have written unto you in few words. Know ye that our brother
Timothy hath been set at liberty ; with whom if he come shortly, I will
see you.

Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints.
They of Italy salute you.

Grace be with you all. Amen.

CHAPTER XVI.

SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS,

^ I ^HE condition of the Hebrew Christians was most
-■■ serious. But one excellence is acknowledged to
have belonged to them. It was almost the only ground
of hope. They ministered to the saints.* Yet even
this grace was in peril. In a previous chapter the
writer has exhorted them to call to remembrance the
former days, in which they had compassion on them
that were in bonds. f But he considers it sufficient, in
reference to brotherly love, to urge them to see that it
continues. J They were in more danger of forgetting to
show kindness to their brethren of other Churches, who,
in pursuance of the liberty of prophesying accorded in
Apostolic times, journeyed from place to place for the
purpose of founding new Churches or of imparting
spiritual gifts to Churches already established. Besides,
it was a time of local persecutions. One Church might
be suffering, and its members might take refuge in a
sister-Church. Missionaries and persecuted brethren

* Chap, vi, lo. t Chap. x. 34. % Chap. xiii. i.

3i6 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

would be the strangers to whom the enrolled widows
used hospitality, and whose feet they washed.* We
can well understand why in that age a bishop would be
especially expected to be given to hospitality. f Uhlhorn
excellently observes that " the greatness of the age
consisted in this very feature : that Christians of all
places knew themselves to be fraternally one, and that
in this oneness all differences disappeared."! In the
case of a Church consisting of Hebrews the duty of
entertaining strangers, many of them necessarily Greeks,
would be peculiarly apt to be forgotten. When a Church
wavered in its allegiance to Christianity, the alienation
would become still more pronounced.

The constant going and coming of missionary brethren
reminds the author of the ministry of angels, who are
like the swift breezes, and carry Christ's messages over
the face of the earth. § Sometimes they are as a flame
of fire. When they were on their way to destroy the
Cities of the Plain, Abraham and Lot entertained them,
not knowing that they were heaven-sent ministers of
wrath. II It would be presumptuous in any man to deny
the possibility of angeUc visitations in the Christian

* I Tim. V. lo.

•j- I Tim. iii. 2.

'X Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, English Trans., p. 93

§ Chap. i. 7.

II Gen. xviii. 2 ; xix. i.

xiii. 1-25.] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 317

Church ; but the Apostle's meaning is not that hospi-
taHty ought to be shown to strangers in the hope that
angels may be among them. They are to be received
unawares ; otherwise the fragrance of the deed is gone.
But the fact remains, and has been proved in the experi-
ence of many, that kindness to strangers, be they
preaching friars, or itinerant exhorters, or persecuted
outcasts, brings a rich blessing to children's children.
A Syrian builds for himself a hut on the riverside, and
offers to carry the wayfarers across on his shoulders.
One day a child asks to be taken over. But the light
burden becomes every moment heavier. The exhausted
bearer asks in astonishment, '^Who art thou, child?"
It was Christ, and the Syrian was named the Christ-
bearer in remembrance of the event.*

The next exhortation is to purity. It is better not
to attempt to connect these exhortations. Their special
importance in the case of the Hebrew Christians is
reason enough for them. Abstinence from marriage is
not commended. Our author is not an Essene. On
the contrary, he would discourage it. " Let marriage
be held in honour among all classes of men." It is the
Divinely appointed remedy against incontinence. But
in the married state itself let there be purity. For the

* The legend of Christopher is beautifully told by Oosterzee at the
beginning of his book on The Person and Work of the Redeemer^
English Trans. (Ed. 1886).

3l8 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

incontinent, whether in the bonds of wedlock or not,
God's direct, providential judgments will overtake.

Then follows a warning against love of money, and
the Lord's promise not to fail or forsake Joshua* is
appropriated by our author on behalf of his readers.
Their covetousness arose from anxiety, which may have
been occasioned by their distressing poverty in the
days of Claudius, t That the advice was needed shows
the precise character of their threatening apostasy.
Worldliness was at the root of their Judaism. It is
still the same. The self-righteous do not hate money.

Let them imitate the trustfulness of their great leaders
in the past, who had not given their time and thoughts
to heaping up riches, but had devoted themselves to
the work of witnessing and of speaking the word of
God. Let them review with critical eye their manner of
life, and observe how it ended. They all died in faith.
Some of them suffered martyrdom, so complete and
entirely unworldly was their self-surrender to Jesus
Christ ! But Jesus Christ is still the same One. If He
■was worthy that Stephen and James should die for His
sake, He is worthy of our allegiance too. Yea, He will
be the same for ever. When the world has passed
away, with its fashion and its lust, when the earth and
the works that are therein are burned up and dis-
solved, Jesus Christ abides. What He was yesterday
* Josh. i. 5. t Acts xi. 28.

xiii. 1-25] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 319

to His martyr Stephen, that He is to all that follow Him
in earth's to-day, and that He will for ever be when He
shall have appeared unto them who expect Him unto
salvation. The antithesis, it will be seen, is not between
the departed saints and the abiding Christ, but between
the world, which the Hebrew Christians loved too
well, and the Christ Whom the saints of their Church
had loved better than the world and served by faith
unto death.

If Jesus Christ abides. He is our anchorage, and the
exhortation first given near the beginning of the Epistle
once more suggests itself to the Apostle. "Permit
not yourselves to drift and be carried past * the
moorings by divers strange doctrines." The word
" doctrines " is itself emphatic. " Be not borne aside
from the personal, abiding Jesus Christ by propositions,
whether in reference to practice or to belief." What
these '^ doctrines " were in this particular case we learn
from the next verse. They were the doubtful disputa-
tions about meats. The epithets " divers and strange "
restrict the allusion still more nearly. He speaks not
of the general and famihar injunctions of Jewish
teachers respecting meats, the subject rather contemptu-
ously dismissed by St. Paul in the Epistle to the
Romans : " One man hath faith to eat all things ; but
he that is weak eateth herbs." f Our author could not

* /*^ Trapacp^pecrde (xiii. 9), f Rom. iv. 13.

320 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

have regarded these doctrines as " strange/' and he
could scarcely have spoken of ^' strengthening the heart
with meats " if he had meant abstinence from meats.
A recent English expositor * has pointed out the
direction in which we must seek the interpretation of
this difficult passage. The Apostle brushes aside the
novel teaching of the Essenes, who, without becoming
Christians, *'had broken away from the sacrificial
system " of the Mosaic law and " substituted for it
new ordinances of their own, according to which the
daily meal became a sacrifice, and the president of the
community took the place of the Levitical priest."
Such teaching was quite as inconsistent with Judaism
as with Christianity. But the writer of this Epistle
rejects it for precisely the same reason for which he
repudiates Judaism. Both are inconsistent with the
perfect separateness of Christ's atonement.

It is well, as St. Paul said, for every man to be fully
assured in his own mind.f A doubting conscience en-
feebles a man's spiritual vigour for work. The Essenes
found a remedy for morbidness in strictness as to meats
and minute directions for the employment of time. St.
Paul taught that an unhealthy casuistry would be best
counteracted by doing all things unto the Lord. " He
that eateth eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God

* Kendall : The Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. xxv. and 139.
f Rom. xiv. 15.

xiii. 1-25.] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 321

thanks ; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth
not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to
himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether we
live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we
die unto the Lord." * The author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews considers that it betokens a littleness of soul
to strengthen conscience by regulations as to various
kinds of food. The noble thing f is that the heart —
that is, the conscience — be stablished by thankfulness,^
which will produce a strong, placid, courageous, and
healthy moral perception. The moral code of the New
Testament is direct and simple. It is entirely free
from all casuistical crotchets and distinctions without
a difference. Those who busy themselves § about such
matters have never gained anything by it.

Do the Essenes repudiate the altar the sacrifice of
which may not be eaten ? Do they teach that the only
sacrifice for sin is the daily meal ? This is a fatal
error. *' We have,^ says the Apostle, ** an altar of which
the worshippers are not permitted to eat." || All these
expressions are metaphorical. By the altar we must
understand the atoning sacrifice of Christ ; by " those

* Rom. xiv. 6 — 8.
f KoKov (xiii. 9).

J Xa.pi.Ti. The author has chosen a more classical word than that
which St. Paul uses.
§ TepnraTovvTes.
II Chap. xiii. 10.

21

322 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

who serv^e the tabernacle " are meant behevers in that
sacrifice, prefigured, however, by the priests and
worshippers under the old covenant; and by ^'eating of
the altar " is meant participation in the sacredness that
pertains to the death and atonement of Christ. The
purpose of the writer is to teach the entire separateness
of Christ's atonement. It is true that Christians eat
the body and drink the blood of Christ.* But the
words of our Lord and of St. Paul t refer to the passover,
whereas our author speaks of the sin-offering. In the
former the lamb was eaten ;t in the latter the carcases
of the beasts whose blood was brought by the wor-
shipper through his representative, § the high-priest,
into the holiest place on the day of atonement, were
carried forth without the camp and burned in the fire.||
Both sacrifices, the passover and the sin-offering, were
typical. The former typified our participation in Christ's
death, the latter the separateness of Christ's death.

Many expositors see a reference in the Apostle's
words to the Lord's Table, and some of them infer
from the word " altar " that the Eucharist is a continual
offering of a propitiatory sacrifice to God. It is not too
much to say that this latter doctrine is the precise error
which the Apostle is here combating.

* John vi. 51—55. X Exod. xii^

t I Cor. X. 16. § Std.

U Lev. xvi. 27.

xiii. 1-25.] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 323

Two Other interpretations of these verses have been
suggested. Both are, we think, untenable. The one
is that we Christians have an altar of which we have a
right to eat, but of which the Jewish priests and all
who cling to Judaism have no right to eat; and, to
prove that they have not, the Apostle mentions the fact
that they were not permitted to eat the bodies of the
beasts slain as a sin-offering under the old covenant.
There are several weighty objections to this view, but
the following one will be sufficient. The reference to
the sin-offering in the eleventh verse is made in order
to show that it was a type of Christ's atoning death.
As the bodies of the slain beasts were carried outside
the camp and burned, so Christ suffered without the
gate. But there is no real resemblance between the
two things unless the Apostle intends to teach that the
atonement of Christ stands apart and cannot be shared
in by any other person, which implies that the tenth
verse does not convey the notion that Christians have
a right to eat of the altar.

The other interpretation is that we. Christians, have
an altar of which we who serve the ideal tabernacle
have no right to eat, inasmuch as the sacrifice is spiritual.
" Our Christian altar supplies no flesh for carnal food." *
But if the reference is to carnal food, the expression

♦ So Kendall, he. cit.

324 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

*' We have no righi to eat " is not the appropriate one.
The writer would surely have said, " of which we cannot
eat." Besides, this view misses the connection between
the ninth and tenth verses. To say that Christ's death
procured spiritual blessings and that we do not eat His
body after a carnal manner does not affect the question
concerning meats, unless the doctrine concerning meats
includes the notion that they are themselves an atoning
sacrifice. Such was the doctrine of the Essenes. The
argument of the Apostle is good and forcible if it
means that Christ's atonement is Christ's alone. We
share not in its sacredness, though we partake of its
blessings. It resembles the sin-offering on the day of
atonement, as well as the paschal lamb.

But it was not enough that the slain beasts should
be burned without the camp. Their blood also must
be brought into the holiest place. The former rite
signified that the slain beast bore the sin of the people,
the latter that the people themselves were sanctified.
Similarly Jesus suffered without the gate of Jerusalem,
in reproach and ignominy, as the Sin-bearer, and also
entered into the true holiest place, in order to sanctify
His people through His own blood.

We must not press the analogy. The author sees a
quaint but touching resemblance between the burning
of the slain beasts outside the camp and the crucifying
of Jesus on Golgotha outside the city. The point of

xiii. 1-25-] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 325

resemblance is in the ignominy symbolized in the one
and in the other. Here too the writer finds the
practical use of what he has said. Though the atone-
ment of the Cross is Christ's, and cannot be shared
in by others, the reproach of that atoning death can.
The thought leads the Apostle away from the divers
strange doctrines of the Essenes, and brings him back
to the main idea of the Epistle, which is to induce his
readers to hold no more dalliance with Judaism, but
to break away from it finally and for ever. " Let
us come out," he says. The word recalls St. Paul's
exhortation to the Christians of Corinth '' to come out
from among them, to be separate, and not to touch the
unclean thing. For what concord can there be
between Christ and Belial, between a believer and an
unbeliever, between the sanctuary of God and idols? "*
Our author tells the Hebrew Christians that on earth
they have nothing better than reproach to expect.
Quit, therefore, the camp of Judaism. Live, so to
speak, in the desert. (He speaks metaphorically
throughout.) You have no abiding city on earth.
The fatal mistake of the Jews has been that they have
turned what ought to be simply a camp into an abiding
city. They have lost the feeling of the pilgrim ; they
seek not a better country and a city built by God.

* 2 Cor. vi. 15 sqq.

326 THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,

Shun ye this worldliness. Not only regard not your
earthly life as a permanent dwelling in a city, but
leave even the camp ; be not only sojourners, but
outcasts. Share in the reproach of Jesus, and look for
your citizenship in heaven.

Reverting to the teaching of the Essenes, the writer
proceeds : " Through Jesus let us offer a sacrifice of
praise." * The emphasis must rest on the words
"through Jesus." The daily meal is not a sacrifice,
except in the sense of being a thanksgiving ; and our
thanksgiving is acceptable to God when it is offered
through Him Whose death is a propitiation. Even
then Hp-worship only is not accepted. Share the meal
with the poor. God is pleased with the sacrifices of
doing good to all and contributing f to the necessities
of the saints.

The Apostle next exhorts them to obey their
leaders, and that with yielding submission. The
atmosphere 1. certainly different from the democratic
spirit of the Corinthian Church. Yet it is not impro-
bable that the safety of the Hebrew Christians every-
where from a violent reaction towards Judaism was due
to the wisdom and profounder insight of the leaders.
Our author evidently considers that he has them on his
side. " They, whatever we may think of the common
herd, are wide awake. They understand that they

• Chap. xiii. 15. f KQi.viavi(x%.

xiii. 1-25.] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. ^27

will have to give an account of their stewardship
over you to Christ at His coming. Submit to them,
that they may watch over your souls with joy, and not
with a grief that finds utterance in frequent sighs.*
When they give their account, you will not find that
your fretful rebelliousness has profited you aught.
The Essenian society gain nothing by absorption of
the individual in the community, and you will gain
nothing, but quite the reverse, by asserting your indi-
vidual crotchets to the destruction of the Church." f

He asks his readers to pray for him and Timothy,
who has been released from prison. Their prayers are
his due. For he believes he has an upright conscience
in breaking with Judaism. For the same reason he
is confident that their prayers on his behalf will be
answered. He and his friends wish in all things to
live noble lives. He is the more desirous of having
their prayers because of his eagerness to be "restored" +
to them. He means much more than to return to
them. He wishes to be '' restored," or " refitted."
Their prayers will put an end to the perturbation of his
mind, and bring back the happiness of their first love.

He, too, prays for them. His prayer is that God
may furnish them with every gift of grace to do His
will, and His will is their consecration,^ through the

* aTevd^ovTes (xiii. 1 7). f airoKaTao-Tadu) (xiii. 1 8).

t d\v<TiTe\^s. Comp. ver. 9. § Chap. x. lo,

328 THE EFISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. God will
answer his prayer and provide in them that which is
pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. For He
has not left His Church without a Shepherd, though
it is in the wilderness. He has brought up from
the dead, and restored out of the ignominious death
without the gate, our Lord Jesus Christ, the great
Shepherd, Who is ever with them, whatever may become
of the undershepherds. That He has been raised
from the dead is certain. For, when He was crucified
in ignominy without the gate, His blood was at the
same time offered in the true holiest place. That blood
has ratified the new and final covenant between God
and His people. It was through His own blood of
this eternal covenant that He was raised from the dead,
and it is in virtue of the same blood and of the same
covenant that He is now the Shepherd of His Church.

Here, again, we must not draw too broad a distinction
between the resurrection of Christ and His ascension
to heaven. On the one hand, we must not say that by
the words " bringing up from the dead " the Apostle
means the ascension ; on the other hand, the words
do not exclude the ascension. The resurrection and
the ascension coalesce in the notion of Christ being
living. The only distinction present, we think, to
the writer's mind was that between the shame of
Christ's death without the camp and the offering of

xiii. 1-25.] SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS. 329

His blood by the living Christ in the holiest place.
He Who died on the Cross through that death liveth
evermore. He lives to be the Shepherd of His people.
Therefore to Him must be ascribed the glory for ever
and ever.

The Apostle once more begs his readers to bear with
the word of exhortation. Let them remember that he
has written briefly in order to spare them. He might
have said more, but he has refrained.

He hopes to bring Timothy with him, unless his
friend tarries long. In that case he will come alone,
so great is his anxiety to see them.

He sends his greetings to all the saints, but mentions
the leaders. Brethren who have come from Italy are
with him. They may have been exiles or fugitives
who had sought safety during the first great persecu-
tion of the Church in the days of Nero. They too send
greetings.

He closes with the Apostolic benediction. For, who-
ever he was, he was truly an Apostolic man.

INDEX.

The numerals refer to the pages.

Aaron, consecration of, 185 ;
priesthood of, 79, 128.

Abel's faith, 223.

Abraham, faith of, 213; God's
oath to, loi ; promise made
to, 9 ; seed of, 45.

Adam, 220 ; the second, 36.

Agnostics, 235.

Acquittal of Christ, 168.

Alaric, 272.

Allegory of Melchizedek, 113.

Altar, 323.

Angels, assembly of, 301 ; as
emanations, 22 ; man infe-
rior to, 34 ; ministry of, 27,
316.

Anticipation of nature, 241.

Antinomianism, 148, 201.

Antiochus Epiphanes, 264.

Apostasy, 95.

Architect of all, God the, 54.

Aristotle's doctrine of habit, 85.

Assemblies, Church, 187.

Assurance, 174.

Athletes, 194.

Atonement, day of, 296 ; Christ's,
38.

Augustine cited, 142.
Authority of our High-priest, "JT.

Baptism, 186; infant, 240.
Baptisms, doctrine of, 87.
Barak's faith, 26.
Benediction, apostolic, 329.
Bengel, 100.
Blessing of God, 89.
Brotherhood, Christ's, 39, 41.
Bruce, Dr., Humiliation of
Christ, 44.

Cain, how far he had faith,

223.

Calvin, 100, 250.

Canaan, rest of, 61.

Character in relation to under-
standing of truth, 90.

Christ, the coming of, 195 ; a
spotless victim, 156; death of,
37i 93; return of, 188; as
creator, 9; the effulgence of
God's glory, 12; as theocratic
king, 26, 179; piety of, Tj \
true man, 167 ; unchangeable,
164; unites all revelations of
God, 8 ; as first-begotten, 26 ;
as Leader, 38 ; His trust in
God, 40; His humiliation a
propitiatory death, 37 ; more
worthy than Moses, 55 ; in-

332

INDEX,

capable of sin, 72 ; the great

Earnestness, 100.

Shepherd, 328.

Ecstasy, 11, 53.

Christology of the Epistle, 178.

Effulgence of God's glory, 12.

Christopher, legend of, 317.

Eleazar's faith, 264.

Church, consciousness of the,

Elijah's removal, 220 ; his faith,

187; customs, 187; idea of the,

263 ; his sudden appearances,

185.

6 ; defiled by touching a dead

Cloud of witnesses, 259, 279.

person, 155.

Cocceius, 126.

Elisha defiled by touching a dead

Coleridge, S. T., cited, 304.

person, 155.

Colossian heresy, 22.

Emanations, doctrine of, 21 sqq.

Colossians, Epistle to the, 22.

Enoch's faith, 219.

Conflict of faith, 273, 277.

Ephesians, Epistle to the, 52.

Conscience, enlightened, 158,

Equity of our High-priest, 72,

227, 248; natural, 152, 155 ;

74.

enfeebled by Judaism, 156;

Esau a representative of the

as a revelation of God, 3 ; not

worldly spirit, 287.

satisfied under the Law, 123.

Essenes, 26, 320 sqq.

Consecration, priestly, 185,

Eternal duration of Christ's

Conversion, immediate, 242.

priesthood, 116.

Cross, use of the word, 281.

Exhortations of the Epistle com-

Creed, the Nicene, 15.

pared, 183.

Cynicism, 96, 190.

Exinanition of Christ, 44.

Cyprian cited, 95.

Covenant, new. See under New.

Failure, impossibility of, 99.

Covenant, old, 307.

Faith, as an initial grace, 86 ; as

confidence, 200 ; as trust, 201 ;

David's faith, 263.

and works, 201 ; as an inner

Death a spiritual conception, 43.

life, 201 ; and morality, 202 ;

Deborah's faith, 261.

as a realisation of the unseen,

Delitzsch cited, 1 14.

204 ; as proof, 204 ; as obedi-

Demons, faith of, 224.

ence, 215 ; groping for the

De Lyra, 258.

light, 238 ; as endurance, 273 ;

Discipline of conscience, 175 ;

the better, 267.

of character, 283.

Family, the, 241.

Doctrines, strange, 317.

Father of our spirit, God as, 284.

Dominion bestowed on man

Fatherhood, of God, 32 ; Old

through Christ, 36.

Testament conception of God's,

Dreams once a revelation of

145 ; Christ's conception of

God, 10.

God's, 145.

INDEX.

333

Federalist theology, 126.

Holiest place, the, 150 sq.

Finality of Christ's work, 167.

Holy Ghost, partaking of the,

First-begotten, Christ the, 26.

91 ; sin against the, 95.

Flesh, use of the word, 152.

Hope of faith, 276.

Forensic conception of the atone-

House, God's, 56.

ment, 171, 224.

Humiliation of Christ, 44 ;

Forgiveness, 145 sq. ; under the

dominion rests on, 37.

Old Testament, 146.

Forty years since Christ's ascen-

Ideas of God, 20S.

sion, 57.

Ignatius, St., 76.

Illumination, gift of, 93.

Galatians, Epistle to the, 175.

lllusiveness of life, 221.

Gideon's faith, 261.

Image, use of the word, 176;

Glory, of sonship, 37 ; of leader-

of God's substance, 13.

ship, 38 ; in power to conse-

Imagination, nature's highest

crate, 39 ; in destroying Satan,

gift, 4-

42.

Implicit faith, 241.

God, not a mechanician, 209 ; the

Immutable things, 103.

Son is, 27 ; a consuming fire,

Incarnation, the, 45 sq.

309-

Incense, altar of, 151.

Gnostics, 22.

Individuahsm, 141.

Greek gods human, 21.

Inheritance, the eternal, 161.

Initial grace, 91.

Habakkuk, prophecy of, 195.

Intercession of Christ, 128, 134.

Habit, Aristotle's doctrine of, 85.

Interpretation of nature, 241.

Habits, evil, 91.

Introspection, 105.

Hades, Christ in, 170.

Isaac, 102 ; resurrection of, 228 ;

Haggai, prophecy of, 306.

blessing of, 259.

Heathenism, 64, 202.

Isaiah, cited, 40; faith of, 261.

Heaven, a sanctuary, 70 ; purifi-

cation of, 163 ; a city, 218.

Jacob's blessing, 249, 259.

Hebrew conception of God, 21.

James, St., on faith, 200.

Heir, Christ the, 8.

Jephthah's faith, 261.

Herod, deification of, 96.

Jeremiah predicts a new cove-

Heroes of religion, 234.

nant, 138.

High-priest, the great, 69.

Jerusalem, the church of, 9, 85 ;

High-priest, the, an embodiment

the heavenly, 153.

of the old covenant, 69.

Jesus, as God's stev/ard, 55 ;

Hofmann on Christ's humiliation^

looking unto, 279 ; faith of,

44.

280; as leader and perfecter

334

INDEX.

of faith, 280; unchangeable,

318.
John, St., First Epistle of, 135.
Joseph, faith of, 260.
Josephus on Essenes, 26.
Joshua son of Hanan, 188.
Judah, Jesus sprang from, 122.
Judaism, earlier and later, 234 ;

Christ not the flowering of,

249.
Judgment, the coming of Christ

a, 188 ; doctrine of eternal, 87.
Justice, God's, 99.

Kindness, brotherly, 99.
King, Christ the theocratic, 26.
Kingship of Christ, 179, 308.
Knowledge of God, 144.
Kurtz, History of the Old Cove-
na?ttf 253.

Lapsed, the, 95.

Law, given through angels, 23 ;
given by the Son, 31 ; con-
trasted with salvation, 31 ;
how far immutable, 63.

Laying on of hands, 87.

Legalism, 148, 202.

Maccab^an princes, 115.
Macknight, 248.
Malebranche cited, 205.
Man, how inferior to the angels,

34-
Martyrdom, 194.
Mass, sacrifice of the, 134.
Mediator, Christ a, 137 ; of the

new covenant, 302.
Melchizedek, 75, 79, 88, 106,

113, 135, 156.

Mercy-seat, the, 154.

Merivale, Dean, Romans under

the E??ipire, 96, 196.
Messiah, David's Lord, 114.
Messianic, the eighth Psalm, 35.
Midian, purpose of Moses'

sojourn in, 253.
Minister of the Sanctuary, Christ

the, 133, 169.
Ministering to the saints, 192,

313-
Miracles, 30 sq., 306.
Missionary brethren, 315.
Monotheist, Melchizedek a, ri8.
Moral instincts, 205.
Mosaic dispensation created by

Christ, 51.
Moses, 32 ; a steward of Christ,

54; inferior to Christ, 55;

faith of, 233 ; mission of, 236 ;

inner life of, 237 ; comeliness

of, 239 ; Stephen's account of,

245 ; fear of, 300.
Mythology, 148.

Nation, a spiritual, 236.

Nationalism of the old covenant,
140, 243.

Natural religion, 3,

Nature, the vesture of the Son,
27 ; interrogated, 8 ; as a
revelation of God, 3 ; dissolu-
tion of, 307.

Nestorian doctrine, 169.

New covenant, superiority ol
the, 142 ; in relation to the
law, 143 ; in relation to know-
ing God, 144.

Newman, Cardinal, The Arians,
13.

INDEX,

335

New Testament, produced in
one age, 7 ; only accounted for
by the Incarnation, 7.

Nicene Creed, 15.

Noah's faith, 215.

Nomadic life, 218.

Novatianists, 95.

Oath, of God to Abraham,
loi ; of men and God con-
trasted, 104.

Obedience of the Son, 'j'j.

Old Testament defective in
unity, 6.

Oneness of the Dispensations,

51.

Ontological argument, the, 209.
Oosterzee, Person and Work of
the Redeemer, 317.

Parable, use of the word,
228.

Passover, 320.

Paul, St., on the atonement, 224 ;
manner of, 29 ; his account of
faith, 201.

Peace of conscience, 174.

Permission and command, 227.

Personality, greatness of Christ's,
120; of God, 208.

Phantoms, 203, 241.

Pharisaism, 235.

Philo, on child in knowledge, 85 ;
on the earnest soul, 102 ; on
Abraham's faith, 216; on Mel-
chizedek, 115; on the use of
allegory, 116 ; on the Word as
an effulgence, 15.

Piety of Christ, -]-].

Pity of our High-priest, 73.

Plato on reminiscence, 222.

Pre-existence of Christ, 126^^,,
248.

Priesthood, the foundation of
Christ's power, 43 ; of Christ
on earth, 169.

Priest-King, the Son as, 17.

Probation after death, 167.

Progress, moral, 86.

Promise, implies a threatening,
58 ; and oath of God, 104.

Prophecy, in what respects de-
fective, 5.

Prophets, as preachers, 147 ; re-
ceived their message through
the Son, 54 ; visions of the, 10.

Purification, of the tabernacle,
163 ; of heaven, 163

Qualifications of the High
priest, 74.

Race, illustration of the

276.
Rahab's faith, 261.
Ratification of the new covenant

162.
Realisation of Christ, 52.
Reconciliation of God, 78 ; the

holiest place a symbol of, 152.
Reign of Christ on earth, 136,
Reminiscence, Plato's doctrine

of, 222.
Remorse, 190 sq.
Rendall, Epistle to the Hebrews^

320, 323-
Renewal, impossibility of, 83.
Repentance an initial grace.
Representation recognised in the

Nev/ Testament, 241 =

33«

INDEX,

Representative man, Christ the,

34.

Resentment belongs to God's
fatherhood, 32.

Rest, offered by Christ, 58 ; the
ideal of the Old Testament,
58 ; from labour the rudimen-
tary Sabbath, 60 ; in Canaan,
61 ; described by the Psalmist,
61.

Resurrection, doctrine of the,
87 ; of Christ, 72.

Retribution, 191 ; Old Testament
conception of, 300.

Revealer of God — Son of God,
24.

Revelation of God, 294 sq.

Righteousness, word of, 88.

Robertson, History of the Churchy
262.

Ruth, 261.

Sabbath, the, 60, 62, 166.

Sabellius, 28.

Sacrament, 255.

Saintliness, 214.

Salvation contrasted with law,

31-

Samson's faith, 262.

Samuel the prophet, on obedi-
ence, 177.

Sanctification, what, 41 ; use of
the word, 178.

Sanctuary, the outer, has ceased
to exist, 150 sq., 158.

Satan, atonement not given to,
43 ; destruction of, 42 j as
tempter, 72.

Scott, Thomas, 248.

Sense, a spiritual, 85.

Separateness of Jesus, 75.
Septuagint, 35, 139, 306.
Shadow, the law had only a,

173-
Shedding of blood, 170.
Shiloh, promise of the, 249.
Sibyl, fable of the, 59.
Sin, the besetting, 277 ; Christ

incapable of, 72.
Sinai, Mount, 297.
Sinners, use of the word, 275.
Sin-offering, 322.
Socinus, Faustus, 169.
Son of man, sin against the, 95.
Sons, discipline of, 284.
Sonship of Christ, defined, 28 ;

a revelation of God, 12.
Soul of Christ in Hades, 170.
Special trials of Christ, 76.
Spirit, an eternal, 156 ; of grace,

what, 190.
Spirit, the Holy, 152, 306.
Spiritualism, 11.
Staff, Jacob's, 260.
Stephen reproaches the Jews,

23.
Subsisting, the Son's distinct

mode of, 14.
Supernatural erected on nature,

64.
Surety for God, 125.
Sustainer, the Word as, 16.
Sympathy wanting to the angels,

74.

Tabernacle, description of
the, 150; the greater, 153;
purification of the, 163,

Table, the Lord's, 322,

Tantalus, 221.

INDEX,

337

Teaching of the Twelve Apostles^

84.
Teachers in the Church, 84.
Temptation of Christ real, 72.
Testament, 161.
Tertullian cited, 264.
Thankfulness, 309.
Theology, 88 sq.
Timothy, 329.
Traducianism, 222.
Trinity, the, 13.
Typical character of the Law,

163.

Uhlhorn, Charity in the An-
cient Church, 316.

Union the basis of consecration,
41.

Universalism of Christ and St.
Paul, 141.

Veil of Christ's flesh, 170.

Vineyard, parable of the, 31.

Wesleys, epitaph of the, 233.

Whitby, 248.

Wilderness, discipline of the,

250.
Will of God our sanctification,

177.

Wisdom, Book of, 42.

Witnesses, use of the word, 269.

Word of God, living, 63, 305 ;
immutable, 63.

Wordsworth, W., cited, 222.

Works, dead, 88.

World, end of the, 166.

Worship, the result of a revela-
tion, 3.

Zechariah, Book of, 115, 122;

faith of, 264.
Zion, Mount, 153, 297 sq.

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