^ 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 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' (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 €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(jiTi(yQkvT0.***NW & ,*ia»««««* '