PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
NOTES AND EEFLECTIONS 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 
 
 BY 
 
 AETHUE PEIDHAM, 
 
 author of " notes and reflections on the epistle to the romans j " " notes and 
 reflections on the epistle to the ephesians;" "notes and reflec- 
 tions on the psalms ; " and " zacchius ; or, the seeker 
 found:" a tale of saving grace. 
 
 " See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who 
 refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we tui-n 
 away from Him that speaketh from Heaven."— Hf.b. xii. 25. 
 
 SfconJi iElJition, iEnlargeU. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WILLIAM YAPP, 70, WELBECK STREET, 
 
 CAVENDISH SQUARE. W. 
 The right of translation is reserved. 
 
[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.] 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews is a solitary and 
 remarkable instance in which the Holy Ghost has 
 dictated a very important book of Scripture in the 
 form of an anonymous letter of exhortation. 
 
 It cannot be a matter of surprise to any, that 
 this circumstance has proved a fruitful source 
 of disputation among Biblical critics. From the 
 earliest ages of the Christian dispensation, to the 
 present hour, the authorship of this Epistle has 
 been a frequent topic of discussion. To the 
 simple-minded Christian, who, by the sure guid- 
 ance of that unction from the Holy One which 
 gives to very babes in Christ ability to distin- 
 guish truth from error,^ the discovery of the 
 writer's name will be a matter of comparative 
 indifference. Discerning in it, as he surely will, 
 the voice of the true Shepherd, he will assure 
 himself, that had it been expedient or necessary 
 to the work of edification that it should be 
 
 1 1 John ii. 20. 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 known, the grace and wisdom wliicli have, in 
 other instances, distinctly indicated the instrument 
 which God employed, would not have concealed 
 it in the present case. But as this question still 
 frequently recurs, and is, like all such questions, 
 employed by the enemy as an instrument for 
 disturbing the souls of men in their reliance on 
 the Word of Truth, it may be useful to state 
 briefly the question as it stands. 
 
 Among modern Christians the balance of opinion 
 has stood mainly between the names of Paul and 
 Apollos. That the latter, who is elsewhere noticed 
 by the Spirit as a man both "eloquent" and 
 "mighty in the Scriptures,"- should have been the 
 author of this Epistle, has seemed almost conclu- 
 sive to some who have sought their proofs in the 
 presumptive evidence of style and language. Of 
 the arguments which might be used in favour of 
 its Pauline authorship, I shall here allege that one 
 alone which rests on the words of his brother 
 apostle in 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16, and which appears to 
 me decisive of the question. 
 
 To appreciate fully the allusion there made to 
 his "beloved brother Paul," it is necessary to re- 
 member that the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the 
 Epistles of Peter have morally a common object. 
 The former is characterized by its author as an 
 "exhortation,"^ while the latter also were written 
 for the declared purpose of " stirring up the 
 minds" of those addressed by "way of remem- 
 
 2 Acts xviii. 24. s Heb. xiii. 22. 
 
PEEFACE. Vll 
 
 brance."'* Standing, according to its acknowledged 
 date, between the First and Second Epistles of 
 Peter, the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews 
 takes notice, in a tone of affectionate severity of 
 the decay of both faith and patience which had 
 caused their "former days" to stand in reproachful 
 contrast to their then condition;^ while the last 
 Epistle of Peter, in which earnest warning is 
 largely mixed with, comfort and encouragement, 
 but quite unaccompanied by any tone of repre- 
 hension or rebuke, fitly closes this series of Divine 
 communications to the Hebrew saints. 
 
 The aim of both writers was, by means of a 
 rich and full ministry of Christ, to confirm their 
 brethren in their patience of hope. By both the 
 promised advent of the Lord is kept distinctly 
 before the view of the disciples, and by both 
 there is delivered an impressive warning of the 
 apostasy of the professing Christian body. Each 
 witness labours to stir up his brethren to take 
 firmer hold upon the God of promise, and by each 
 the word of grace is used to guide the heirs of 
 salvation along the ways of holiness and peace.^ 
 
 When, therefore, I find the Apostle of the Cir- 
 cumcision stating at the close of an Epistle 
 addressed avowedly to the "Dispersion," that Paul, 
 "according to the wisdom given unto him, had 
 
 4 2 Pet. iii. 1, 2. 
 
 5 Heb. X. 32-34. With this compare 1 Pet. i. 5- 9. 
 
 6 Compare, as to the similarity of doctrine in these Epistles, Heb. 
 vi. 11-20, and x. 36-39, with 1 Pet. 5-7; and with Heb. xii. 2-4, 
 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 written unto them; as also in all his Epistles, 
 speaking in them of these things," &c. — drawing 
 thus a pointed distinction between his Epistles to 
 the Gentile Churches and that addressed by him 
 to the circumcision, I accept each testimony as 
 conclusive. It affirms, first, that the teaching of 
 Paul and Peter (though each had his specially 
 appointed work, and one might exceed the other 
 in the measure of the revelations made to him,) 
 was essentially the same; and, secondly, that the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles had expressly written to 
 the same " strangers of the dispersion," ' as are here 
 addressed by Peter, i. e. to believing Hebrews, who, 
 in whatever local situation^ they might be tem- 
 porarily found, are contemplated by the Spirit of 
 grace, as abroad upon their pilgrimage of faith ; 
 having here no continuing city, but in quest of 
 one to come. 
 
 Exposition of doctrine, rather than critical dis- 
 cussion, has been my aim in preparing the follow- 
 ing work. It is intended for Christian readers, 
 in what spiritual condition soever they may be, — 
 for any reader, happy or unhappy, who may find 
 upon the title-page, or in this preface, any promise 
 of either profit or relief. Those who already are 
 at peace, and, in the happy confidence of faith, 
 are joying now in God through Jesus Christ, w^ill 
 naturally enter on the work at its commencement. 
 
 ■'' Atao-TTopa. 1 Pet. i. 1. Compare, for the proper force of this 
 expression, John vii. 25, and James i. 1. 
 
 8 It is impossible to say positively to what place this Epistle was 
 originally sent. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 For to sucli the Epistle will present, in all its 
 parts, the value and attraction of the word of 
 grace. On the other hand, it is my hope that, 
 through the mercy of God, the weak or unset- 
 tled Christian, who is a stranger to solid peace 
 of conscience, will not turn wholly in vain to 
 such parts of this volume as the practical exi- 
 gency of his spiritual condition may prompt him 
 to examine in the first place. 
 
 With reference to this Second Edition, it is 
 only necessary to say, that in the course of the 
 thorough revision which it has undergone, the origi- 
 nal work has been considerably enlarged, besides 
 being slightly altered in some minor details. No- 
 thing, however, has been changed^ either with regard 
 to its general structure or its doctrinal tone and 
 character. 
 
 To the reader whose principal desire may be to 
 obtain a clear and connected view of the structure 
 and argument of this Epistle, the extent to which 
 the practical application of doctrine has in some 
 instances been carried, may appear undesirable and 
 inconvenient. I shall be truly sorry, if, in any 
 instance, an attentive reader is injuriously diverted 
 from the main thread of the Spirit's argument. 
 On the other hand, a desultory or careless perusal 
 of a work of this description is little likely to 
 please or profit any one. Writing in the in- 
 terests of Truth alone, and for those only who 
 are seeking truth, I have attempted always to 
 adjust in their due proportion doctrinal statement 
 
 b 
 
X PEEFACE. 
 
 and practical application ; bearing ever in mind, 
 that while truth must, in its very nature, interest 
 the understanding of all who are Truth's children, 
 it is to the heart and conscience of the believer that 
 the voice of the Spirit is continually addressed. 
 
 Should these Notes be in any degree instru- 
 mental in persuading Christians to the liabit of 
 studying the books of Scripture consecutively, as 
 well as in detached and fragmentary parts, they 
 will not have been published in vain. Desultory 
 reading tends rather to loosen than to gird the 
 loins of our minds.^ It is, indeed, a sweet privi- 
 lege of the believer to be allowed to cull at will, 
 for the refreshment of his spirit, the fairest flowers 
 of Divine promise. For all that God has spoken 
 He has spoken for His children's sakes. But to 
 taste in perfection the comfort of His word, we 
 must ourselves be seeking, not our own comfort 
 chiefly, but the knowledge of His will. Now God 
 has given us His Word in divers forms. If then 
 we would honour Him in His gracious gifts, or 
 consult full blessing to ourselves, we must accept 
 His testimonies as they are delivered to us, and, by 
 a patient and believing study, endeavour to gather 
 from them all the precious fruits of wisdom which 
 they promise to the inquiring man of God.^ 
 
 May He mercifully bless this aim. 
 
 A. P. 
 
 9 1 Pet. i. 13, ii. 2 12 Tim. iii. 14-17; Jas. iii. 13-18. 
 
 October, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 CHAPTER I. 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
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 410 
 
 h 2 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DISPENSATIONS. 
 
 An expression occurs at the very commencement 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, a full elucidation 
 of which seems to call for more space than may 
 conveniently be afforded to it in the body of the 
 following work. On the other hand, a just appre- 
 ciation of its meaning is highly desirable for all 
 who would seek, from the careful study of this 
 Epistle, a fuller measure of that knowledge which 
 we are exhorted to add to our faith,^ and the 
 possession of wliich constitutes the chief distinction 
 between the infantine believer and the full grown 
 man in Christ.'* 
 
 It is to the "last days,"^ which, at the opening 
 
 1 2 Pet i. 5. 
 
 2 1 John ii. 14; 1 Cor. xiv. 2. Compare also the remarks in the 
 ensuing work on chapter v. ad fin. 
 
 3 The reading now generally adopted hy critical editors, ett' 
 IffxaTov Tu>v rjfispCiv rowrwv, "at the close of these days," i.e. at 
 the conclusion of the period during which the revealed word has 
 been successively communicated to men, is, perhaps, to he preferred. 
 
XIV INTKODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 of the first chapter, are contrasted with the former 
 times in which the fathers lived, that the present 
 allusion is made. The least attentive reader is 
 aware of the general drift of the contrast there 
 expressed. But there is an exactness and pre- 
 cision in the language of the Spirit, which we 
 are not wdse to disregard. In the present instance, 
 if we would correctly appreciate the above -quoted 
 expression, some degree of intelligent acquaintance 
 must first be had with the nature and intention 
 of those former economic periods, to which it 
 stands in so marked and important a relation. 
 
 Nor is the study of dispensational doctrine desir- 
 able only as a means of furnishing the Christian's 
 mind with an ordered chronology of great Scrip- 
 tural facts. To note the wisdom with which God 
 has governed the slow march of time, and brought 
 to pass, in their appointed sequence, those events 
 which assisted the gradual advancement of the 
 day of light and truth, is undoubtedly both inter- 
 esting and useful. But it is when contemplated 
 morally that the record of past time presents its 
 most important lessons to the soul. For not only 
 are the varied phases of Christ's many glories 
 discernible by faith in what His Spirit has dic- 
 tated to the holy men of old ; but the lively 
 oracles of God contain the only safe and true 
 solution of all the changeful phenomena of human 
 history which remain to the mind that disregards 
 their voice, a riddle of perplexity and doubt. The 
 inspired Word is the sole mirror which faithfully 
 
INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. XV 
 
 reflects the moral features of both God and man. 
 For God, who has suffered human character to 
 expand itself, by bringing man under diverse and 
 successive dispensations, has published the results 
 for our instruction in the unbroken Scripture of 
 His truth. His varied dealings with His creature 
 have given occasion to the revelation of His own 
 perfections, which they have educed, also the mani- 
 fold qualities of fallen humanity, and (where the 
 ear is opened to receive His testimonies) have 
 expounded man completely to himself. 
 
 Some feeling of the intrinsic importance of the 
 subject, and a belief that this branch of Divine 
 knowledge has been less generally cultivated 
 among Christians than other portions of God's 
 perfect truth, have induced me to present to the 
 reader the following rude outline, in which an 
 attempt has been made to sketch distinctly the 
 leading features of these former epochs, with a 
 view to a better understanding of the times in 
 which our own lot has been cast. Our inquirj^ 
 will be directed to three principal economies, or 
 dispensations— the Antediluvian, the ISToachic, and 
 the Mosaic, or legal. These shall be severally 
 considered in their order, with such passing notice 
 of those more particular instances of Divine in- 
 tervention in the course of human history, of 
 which the Scriptures speak, as may serve to set 
 in more distinct and ample view the general 
 subject now under consideration. We shall find 
 that under all the varieties of form which dis- 
 
xvi INTKODUCTORY ESSAY. 
 
 tinguisli the earlier dispensations from each other, 
 one common feature attaches to them all: the 
 redaimahlencss of fallen humanity is there assumed 
 as the ostensible* basis of God's dealings with 
 men. Let us now cast our glance backwards for 
 a little space. 
 
 Brief but decisive witness has been borne by the 
 Spirit of God to the origin, the progress, and the 
 end of human society, in the antediluvian world. 
 Adam's transgression had preceded the first birth 
 of human kind. Sent forth from Paradise, under 
 sentence of a life of toil, until his measured days 
 of vanity should end in death, man was to prove 
 his fealty to his Creator by honouring Him in a 
 truthful and submissive recognition of his own 
 now degraded yet hopeful position. A choice, 
 indeed, lay still before him. He might accept 
 with wise humility his outcast place, and giving 
 glory thus to God, by acknowledging his right- 
 eous work of judgment, he might look from the 
 remoteness of that banishment to the same God 
 as his refuge, and his ultimate reward, by con- 
 fiding in Him as the faithful speaker of the word 
 of promise; ^ or he might, in the spirit of self- 
 will and self-dependence, acquiesce, with an evil 
 contentment, in his new position as an alien from 
 Eden. Finding the ready soil obedient, with rich 
 return of increase, to his labour, he might cease 
 
 * I say " the ostensible basis," because from the very beginning, 
 the secret of man's total ruin, morally as weU as physically, has been 
 the possession of saving faith. ^ G^n. iji. 15. 
 
INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. XVll 
 
 to remember that that labour was itself a badge 
 of sin, that God had cursed the ground because 
 of human guilt, and that the sweat which stood 
 upon his face while thus he toiled for bread, was 
 a perpetual witness that the link was severed which 
 had once, bound peace and blessedness to God's 
 unfallen creature as the willingly dependent object 
 of His goodness. In the first pair of human 
 generation, both these conditions stand exemplified 
 in their contrast. The former, which is the way of 
 God, was discoverable only by faith, and through 
 the effectual power of His grace. Abel chose this. 
 He confessed God according to the truth of his 
 natural and inherited position as a sinner, and 
 thus gave glory to the God of judgment, while his 
 trust was in the faithful promise of His mercy.^ 
 The latter was the way of nature — obvious and 
 inviting to man's master principle of self- depen- 
 dence, but exactly contrary, in its tendency and 
 result, to the way of faith. Such was the choice 
 of Cain. But nature, though it loves not God, 
 and turns a deaf ear to the searching testimonies 
 of His truth, is, nevertheless, instinctively a wor- 
 shipper in its own perverted way. Eefusing all 
 true acknowledgment of sin, and standing, in self- 
 delusive confidence, upon the fallacious assumption 
 of its own inherent capability of good, its chosen 
 form of worship becomes the clearest conviction 
 both of its folly and its guilt. It was thus with 
 
 ^ For a further notice of Abel and his faith, the reader is referred 
 to the remarks on chap. xi. 4, in the ensuing work. 
 h 5 
 
xviii INTEOBUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 Adam's first-born son. Cain tills the ground. He 
 reaps its fruits; he brings them spontaneously as 
 an offering to God, with expectation of acceptance 
 for himself and for his work. But God, who is 
 not to be deceived by outward shew, rejected 
 both ; for though thus seemingly honoured and 
 adored, He had no sanctuary in the heart of 
 Cain. Neither confession nor repentance find ex- 
 pression in his gifts. He worshipped in the 
 haughtiness of an unbroken will, instead of in 
 the reverence and godly fear, which are the un- 
 failing accompaniments of faith. Hatred of Abel's 
 righteous way was in his thoughts, while Cain 
 thus outwardly drew nigh to God. Having sup- 
 posed that God was even as himself, he is enraged, 
 but not humbled, when thus undeceived. Instead 
 of filling him with godly sorrow, his disappoint- 
 ment only ripens jealousy to madness. And so 
 the first -recorded worshipper was also the first 
 murderer, shedding his brother's blood at the 
 bidding of a stronger feeling than the instincts 
 of nature. He was of "that wicked one."' It was 
 the shining of God in Abel's righteous works that 
 roused the bitter wrath of Cain. "His own deeds 
 were evil, and his brothers righteous." 
 
 Thus the first fruit of woman's travail was sin 
 in its most fearful type. The first -begotten of 
 mankind, because he sought his own prosperity 
 in proud forgetfulness of God, became a fratricide 
 at the bidding of the devil. Such is the natural 
 
 7 1 John iii. 12. 
 
INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. XIX 
 
 catastrophe of the flesh when left to work its 
 own results. " Sin, when it is finished, bringeth 
 forth death." The carnal mind, being enmity 
 against God, while it is the obsequious slave of 
 sin, is always capable of this. Murder is one of 
 the evil treasures which lie deep hidden in the 
 heart of ruined man.^ 
 
 The mark of God was set upon the murderer 
 as a token of exemption from all vengeance at 
 the hands of man. For as yet the right of judg- 
 ment, which belongs to God alone, had not been 
 delegated to a human hand. But the goodness 
 of God, which should have led the guilty to re- 
 pentance, becomes but an occasion to the selfish 
 desires of the flesh. Willingly departing from the 
 presence of God, though he well knew that the sole 
 tenure by which he held his life, was the forbear- 
 ance of his Judge, Cain becomes the founder of 
 the first settled, social community upon the earth. 
 The useful arts, and fair embellishments of life, — 
 things capable, indeed, of goodly ends when used 
 for God, but which, as merely human inventions, 
 are the chief nourishment and solace of that '' pride 
 of life" which keeps the unrepentant world at a 
 willing distance from the God of grace,^ — are sig- 
 nificantly declared by the Spirit to have originated 
 in the family of Cain.^ 
 
 The substituted branch which grew from Adam's 
 root, in place of slaughtered Abel, produced, mean- 
 
 8 Matt. XV. 19. « Isa. v. 12. i Gen. iv. 21, 22. 
 
XX INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 while, its separate and abundant fmit.^ Men 
 multiplied. The several races of Cain and Seth 
 grew on with rapid increase. The time and 
 manner of their interfusion is not distinctly noted 
 in the word of God. Intrinsically they were on 
 precisely equal terms. Adamic nature, that is, was 
 not less evil and corrupted in the Sethic race than 
 in the family of Cain. Yet it is in the second 
 line of natural descent alone that instances of grace 
 are found. Enoch and Noah are of Sethic blood. 
 No child of Cain obtained a good report from God 
 through faith. But the comely testimony which is 
 borne to Enoch seems to cast, by its brightness, 
 a yet deeper shade upon the broad living picture in 
 the midst of which this individual figure is pre- 
 sented in such pure reliefs He walked with God 
 — a proof that God still spake to those whose ear 
 was open to His word.* Time fast grew on. Men 
 lived long lives and multiplied their works, while 
 each man walked in the light of his own counsel, 
 
 2 Gen. V. 
 
 3 It is not intended to imply that Enoch stood alone as a man of 
 faith. The Lord had, doubtless, even then. His people whom He 
 knew. All that is denied is the intrinsic goodness of the Sethic line. 
 Such a notion is a merely fabulous tradition, entirely unwarranted 
 by Scripture. 
 
 ^ The living word of promise which accompanied the exiles from 
 Eden, was in itself a sufficient warrant for the faith of any who still 
 looked to God. But there is good reason for believing that the Spirit 
 also bore direct testimony in other ways, and that among the numer- 
 ous oifspring of the house of Seth, Enoch was not the only prophet 
 of the Lord, although he was, undoubtedly, the most conspicuous 
 and highly favoured. Nothing can, however, be clearly proved from 
 Scripture on this subject. 
 
INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. XXI 
 
 unchecked by any forcible restraints of law. The 
 result has been minutely recorded in the word 
 of God for instruction.^ Sixteen hundred years of 
 natural probation brought man to such a ripeness of 
 iniquity as drew upon a full and reckless world the 
 unsparing vengeance of the God of judgment. He 
 would meet man in his ways. His Spirit should 
 no longer strive in vain.^ He would rid Him of 
 that which was a daily provocation of the eyes 
 of His holiness. Violence, whose first beginning 
 was fraternal murder, now filled the earth which 
 God had entrusted to men's hands. God's world 
 was totally corrupt, and its corruption was the 
 unchecked wilfulness of man. 
 
 The dispensation of natural liberty thus results 
 in a judgment of general destruction. 
 
 Eight souls are saved by grace ; and on the 
 subsidence of the waters of judgment another 
 world immediately begins. Man, saved by Divine 
 mercy as a relic from a perished race, is set 
 anew in the now vacant earth, to have it, and to 
 hold it, according to the specialties of Divine 
 covenant.'^ The will of God was now more forcibly 
 expressed, and His commandments more imme- 
 
 5 Gen. vi. - viii. 
 
 6 In that dispensation. For, as lias been -well observed, the accom- 
 panying reason, " for that he also is flesh," was an oracular inti- 
 mation, which succeeding dispensations have but too abundantly 
 illustrated, that no striving of the Spirit can improve the flesh. The 
 declaration by the Kving Truth, that " the flesh profiteth nothing," 
 is a statement of the fundamental necessity of Divine redemption. 
 
 7 Gen. is. 
 
XXU INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 diately applied, as a yoke of governance and a law 
 of guidance, to the human will. The new world, 
 like the old, began its course with blessing from 
 its Creator. "God blessed JSToah," &c. But before 
 the blessing and the injunctive ordinances which 
 accompanied it were pronounced, a solemn witness 
 had been borne to the unchanged moral identity 
 of the survivors of the flood with those whose 
 iniquity had been their ruin.^ The verdict of 
 man's utter moral corruption, which had gone be- 
 fore the judgment of the deluge, is repeated at the 
 inauguration of the second father of the race. But 
 now it was for mercy, and not judgment, that God 
 spake these words. God said them in his hearty 
 when gratefully reminded, by the acceptable offer- 
 ing of Noah, of the sweeter savour of a Eedemp- 
 tion which was yet to be. He caused the secret 
 pleasure of His heart to be recorded in the word 
 of truth, for the comfort and assurance of the 
 souls that fed upon that word. Meanwliile the truth 
 of this, His newly uttered estimate of man, would 
 be established in due time.^ 
 
 The dispensation based upon the covenant with 
 Noah runs on still. Nor will it cease until the 
 last destruction (not by water), for which the pre- 
 sent heavens and the present earth are held in 
 
 8 Gen. viii. 21. 
 
 9 Full soon. Noah, the preserved of God — the heir of the right- 
 eousness which is by faith — the beginner of a new world — is the 
 first renewer of the actual course of sin. The father's drunkenness 
 is the opportunity of the son's impiety. In the first the weakness, in 
 the second the ivickedness, of nature is exemplified. 
 
IXTRODUCTOEY ESSAY. XX 111 
 
 sure keeping by the word of God, shall have 
 finally removed the stage on which the long and 
 eventful conflict of good and evil will have then 
 been carried to its utmost close/ 
 
 Violence had filled the world before the flood, 
 in which no trace of special government appears. 
 No other barrier than the feeble one of natural 
 conscience then stood betvreen men and their guilty 
 inclinations. But now there was imposed on them 
 a direct and authoritative check. A law of blood 
 was declared to Xoah, on his formal investment 
 with the government of the earth, which, if obeyed, 
 would have acted as a bridle on man's murderous 
 lusts.- But war has been, notwithstanding, man's 
 pastime and his bank. Led of his lusts, he has 
 shed blood like water on God's earth for gain. In 
 every climate and in each succeeding age, the hand 
 of violence has found its occupation and reward.^ 
 The most conspicuous and most frequently recurring 
 
 1 2 Pet. iii. 1 ; Eev. xx. 11 - 15. 
 
 2 Blood could be slied lawfully only in the "vray of retribution. 
 Man was God's minister of wrath upon the first shedder of blood. 
 Abraham's slaughter of the kings (Gen. xiv.) has this character. So 
 likewise the wars of Israel (so far as they were sanctioned by 
 Jehovah) were inflictions of Divine judgment upon the provocation 
 of human iniquity. * 
 
 8 It is weU to remind the reader that the gro^-ing unpopularity of 
 ■war, in what is called Christendom, though, doubtless, owing in part 
 to the beneficent effect of the difiusion of Christian doctrine, (which 
 even in its most debased form, never fails to exercise some happy 
 influence, though its vital power may be unknown,) is far more the 
 result of prudence than of principle. As civilization extends, wars 
 become increasingly inconvenient and tmwelcome to all classes, but 
 those who are warriors by profession. Peace, no less than war, is the 
 effect of human selfishness operating under different conditions. 
 
XXIV INTKODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 events in the great chronicle of human history are 
 wars. 
 
 At Bethel was exhibited the first unanimous 
 re-action of the human will against the positive 
 commandment of the Lord. That men should 
 separate, and fill the earth was the expressed 
 desire of their Maker. The labour of the foolish 
 builders was for safe and lasting union and re- 
 nown.* "Lest we be scattered abroad upon the 
 face of the whole earth," expressed a motive strong 
 enough to lead them to attempt a work whose top 
 should reach the heaven which they thus defied. 
 But God met their counsel half way in the wisdom 
 of His might. 
 
 The call of Ahram, the event next noticed in 
 the Spirit's narrative, is a solemn era in the history 
 of the world. The national division of the earth 
 had been effected by Divine power in judicial 
 contravention of the human will. The universal 
 family of man thus sundered, and kept separate 
 by diversity of tongue, obeyed alike the bias of 
 an evil will that liked not to retain the knowledge 
 of God, and grudged Him His true glory, though 
 they knew Him well. It was from a family of 
 idolaters that Abraham was chosen by the God of 
 glory, who called him by His word of promise.^ 
 The selection thus of one man to become the head 
 and father of a separate race, may be regarded as 
 the era of Gentile reprobation of which the apostle 
 speaks.^ God turned aside from an apostate world 
 
 * Gen. xi. « Josh. xxiv. 2. « Eom. i. 21-28. 
 
INTEODUCTORY ESSAY. XXV 
 
 to choose one man who should become the parent 
 of a nation,' whose distinctive glory among the 
 other families of men who still served lying vani- 
 ties, was to be their knowledge and worship of 
 the true and only God. Meanwhile, He left the 
 Gentiles to their own dishonoured way.^ 
 
 The cradle of the Jewish nation is the Abra- 
 hamic promise. That promise bore its gracious 
 fruit when God, with outstretched arm, redeemed 
 the children for the fathers' sakes, and brought 
 His people to Himself on eagles' wings.^ Grace, 
 backed by righteous power, took the nation out of 
 Egypt. Grace bore their murmurings and sup- 
 plied their need, without upbraiding, till the mount 
 of God was reached.^ God's faithfulness had both 
 formed and saved a people from the seed of Abra- 
 ham, His friend. But at Sinai we behold a new 
 and solemn scene. God here displays His glory 
 in another sort. Having made them witnesses 
 
 '' Of many nations, even of all who in the time to come should be 
 "of faith." (GaL iii.) The reader vrill remember that our present 
 subject is the dispensational government of God. It is as the father, 
 therefore, not of elect individuals, but of an elect nation, that he is 
 regarded in the text. 
 
 8 Acts xiv. 16, Yet not so as to leave Himself without witness 
 of judgment, as well as of mercy. The catastrophe of Sodom and 
 the cities of the plain, and the judgment executed on the Canaanites 
 by means of Israel, were solemn examples of the certainty of that 
 eventual visitation of human evil which must one day glorify the 
 God whose judgment is according to truth. Their iniquity was 
 early full. "Whenever the world's measure shall have reached its fill, 
 the hour of its judgment will have certainly arrived. Meanwhile 
 His goodness does not cease, though men may slight it to their own 
 undoing in that coming day. (Acts xiv. 17 ; Eom. ii. 3-6.) 
 
 9 Exod. iii.-xis. i Exod. xii.-xviii. 
 
XXYl INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 both of His grace and of His power as a Saviour, 
 He now presents Himself mediately to Israel as 
 their Lawgiver and Judge. The Law was formally 
 proposed to try the people's heart. It was a fatal 
 test ; discovering at the moment of its first pro- 
 posal, the radical self-ignorance, as well as ignorance 
 of God, which forms the basis of fallen human 
 character. The covenant of works was welcomed 
 eagerly by those whose way from the beginning 
 had been a way of gainsaying and temptation. 
 AVith the manna still around them, and in the 
 presence of that rock which witnessed to them 
 both their own unprofitableness and the faithful 
 goodness of the God of promise, they close imme- 
 diately with a proposal, which, in its very terms, 
 conveyed (to one who knew himself aright) a 
 sentence of exclusion from the now conditional 
 blessing of acceptance. 
 
 By the covenant of Law, man's promise takes 
 the place, as a condition of blessing, of the pro- 
 mise of God. "All that the Lord hath spoken we 
 will dor Such was the new and voluntary basis 
 upon which man confidently took his stand at 
 Sinai. Persuaded by a heart which sin deceived, he 
 does not hesitate or pause. He deems it no hard 
 thing to do the will of God ; and so he lightly takes 
 that mighty debt upon himself. But man is a liar, 
 by the necessity of his corrupted nature, in every 
 personal undertaking of good. By the foregone tes- 
 timony of God, the quality of the human heart and 
 its imaginations had already been pronounced ; and 
 
INTEODUCTORY ESSAY. XX\ai 
 
 the history of Israel under the Law is a solemnly 
 instructive confirmation of its truth. By their ac- 
 ceptance of the Law as a condition of blessing, 
 they had blindly transferred their confidence from 
 Jehovah to themselves. The long and weary dis- 
 cipline, which was to bruise the nation's stony 
 heart till God should take it quite away, and, by 
 giving them another heart,*^ should make them 
 capable of Christ, was then begun. The Law had 
 entered that the offence might abound. Conferring 
 upon its subject nothing which might aid his 
 natural weakness, while it rigidly defined a course 
 which a creature once fallen and alienated in will, 
 could never possibly fulfil ; its effect was but to 
 make lyvadiccdly evident the intrinsic evil of a 
 nature which had borne the fatal seal of its re- 
 pudiation from the moment of the first trangres- 
 sion.^ Not sin, however, in tlie foi'm only of active 
 disobedience, but the ignorance which it produces, 
 "the deceitfulness of sin," — an ignorance alike of his 
 own heart, and of God, — is discovered by the Law 
 to be a standing characteristic of the natural man. 
 They knew not what they said, when they bound 
 their souls by willing promise to the covenant of 
 death. They knew not what they did, when, going 
 about to establish their own righteousness, they 
 slew the Son of God, and hanged Him on a tree. 
 The advent of the Only -begotten of the Father 
 was the last experiment of Divine wisdom and 
 patience upon the presumed reclaimableness of the 
 
 2 Ezek. xxxvi. 26. » Eom. v. U. 
 
XXVIU INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. 
 
 seed of Adam.^ "They will reverence my Son/' 
 was His word, who for long had risen early to send 
 prophets, whom they treated evilly and slew. No 
 hard exaction from a people T\'ho still made their 
 boast of God! But the whole head was sick, and 
 the whole heart faint. They beheld, but did not 
 recognize, Jehovah in their midst. The wonders 
 which He wrought were, to their blinded hearts, but 
 an occasion of blasphemous reproach,*^ while for 
 the grace and truth which flowed from the lips of 
 the incarnate Son of God, they judged Him fit to 
 die.^ They sought to the idolatrous Gentile for 
 authority to quench the Light of Israel And what 
 they sought they found. Flesh, circumcised and 
 uncircumcised, was willingly confederate against 
 the only Temple of the living God. Herod and 
 Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of 
 Israel, were found united to conduct God's Holy 
 Child to death.* The wisdom which directed, and 
 the power which administered the world's affairs, 
 gave willing sanction to the murder of the only 
 Eighteous One. It was in guilty ignorance of the 
 wisdom of God that the authorities of tliis world 
 crucified the Lord of Glory.^ 
 
 The death of Jesus closed the hitherto ostensibly 
 
 1 It was tliis, but it was also much more tlian this. For though 
 the Lord presented Himself to Israel as their Shepherd and Deliverer, 
 He taught distinctly, and from the first, the total unprofitableness of 
 the flesh, and the consequent necessity of a new birth. See Gospel 
 of John, passim. 
 
 2 Matt. xii. 24. 3 John viii. 31-59. 
 4 Acts iv. 27. 5 1 Cor. ii. 8. 
 
INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. XXIX 
 
 open question respecting the reality of man's natural 
 condition in the sight of God. God had Himself 
 been manifested in the flesh, and had been dis- 
 allowed and rejected of men. His love had been 
 repulsed by hatred ; His truth had been condemned 
 by falsehood; His holiness had been derided by 
 self-righteous hypocrisy and incredulous wickedness. 
 Mankind had thus been fully and variously tried, 
 and were found to love darkness rather than light, 
 because their deeds were evil. 
 
 Jesus, rejected of men, is gone into the heavens. 
 From the right hand of the Father, where the 
 Despised of men now sits enthroned, there has been 
 sent forth a new and Divine witness to the glory of 
 the risen and ascended Son of God. The descent of 
 the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost was the 
 effectual commencement of a new and special dis- 
 pensation among men.^ He was and is the power 
 in which alone could be set forth in truth the testi- 
 mony to the finished grace of God. It is, therefore, 
 to the dispensation of gracious testimony in the 
 power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, 
 
 6 This may, perhaps, in the judgment of some, require explanation. 
 I do not forget that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and in 
 the second chapter of this Epistle, the preaching of the Lord ^dll 
 come more immediately under our notice. In the meanwhile, it may 
 be sufficient to remind the Christian reader, that the sin which con- 
 demns the world was filled to its measure by the rejection of the Son 
 of God. The demonstration of the three great facts of sin, of right- 
 eousness, and of judgment, was not until the Spirit came, who 
 should witness, as the glorifier of Jesus, to the perfect Truth, in its 
 relation both to God and man. (John xvi.) 
 
i^OTES AND EEFLECTIONS 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 The solemn abruptness with which, unprefaced by 
 any introductory address, the Spirit of God has led 
 the writer of this Epistle to open his subject is 
 remarkable ; and is immediately noticed by the 
 attentive student of Scripture as a peculiarity. 
 One other Epistle only — the first of the three 
 which bear the name of John upon their titles — 
 resembles it in being without any opening salu- 
 tation of the parties addressed. 
 
 Verses 1, 2. "God who in divers measures and 
 in divers manners spake," ^ &c. These words appear 
 
 1 HoXvfiepwg Kat TroXvrpoTrojg. There is a significant emphasis 
 in this assurance, that "G^06? spake" to the fathers, of which we do 
 weR to take notice in a day when the doctrine of Divine inspiration 
 is so assiduously controverted, and in so many different ways. If 
 holy men of old spake in the name of God, it was only as they were 
 "moved by the Spirit of God." The words, therefore, which they 
 uttered were the words of God. Speech is the vehicle or expression 
 of thought and purpose, "Words, therefore, which faithfully convey 
 God's meaning, are the words of God, though hiiman lips be 
 employed to shape them to the apprehension of mankind. The 
 words, therefore, whether of Moses or of his successors in the pro- 
 phetic office, carry with them the sanction of the Name in which 
 they were spoken. There was, indeed, a material difference in the 
 
 / 
 
2 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 to intimate, first, the gradual, and, as it were, irre- 
 gular manner in which the word of Scripture had 
 been communicated from the first; and, secondly, 
 the diversity of form under which the Divine reve- 
 lations had been made. God had spoken to the 
 fathers hy the Frojplids.^ By this expression we 
 are here to understand the ancient oracles of God 
 at large. The Law and the Psalms are comprised, 
 together with the later prophetic testimonies, under 
 this as a generic term, by which all Scripture might 
 be represented which contained any portion of re- 
 corded but unfulfilled promise.^ 
 
 Viewed in this light, the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment form one continuous prophecy of Christ. The 
 Laiu, as well as the Prophets, prophesied until John.* 
 For from the moment that the work of sin was done, 
 which made the first man, Adam, no longer capable 
 of blessing on his own account, God had begun to 
 speak in gracious promise of good things to come. 
 The second Adam was announced in figure, ere the 
 first effect of sin was felt in the expulsion of the 
 first transgressor from the garden of the Lord. The 
 ancient testimonies were, therefore, to the fathers 
 who received them with an ear of faith, the word 
 
 condition of those who spoke to the fathers in the Old Testament, and 
 that of the " apostles and prophets " of the New. The latter, having 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost, as the Spirit of adoption, and the power 
 consequently of Divine communion, understood and enjoyed what 
 they declared to others, which the former prophets did very imper- 
 fectly, or not at all. (Comp. 1 Pet. i. 10-12 ; 1 Cor. ii. 9-15.) 
 
 3 Rather, " in the prophets " — tv toIq Trpo(pr]TaiQ. — It was God 
 who spoke. See preceding note. 
 
 3 This use, by synecdoche, of a single descriptive title for the 
 general contents of Scripture, is not infrequent. Thus the apostle 
 (Rom. iii. 19), while quoting exclusively from the Psalms and the 
 Prophets, cites his proofs as the verdict of the Law. (Compare John 
 J. 34, and xv. 25.) * Matt. xi. 13. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 3 
 
 of life as well as promise. Life, which in them- 
 selves was confessedly a forfeited thing because of 
 sin, was sought for, and by faith was found, in the 
 recorded promise of the living God. The Scriptures 
 were then, as now, the word of Christ His Spirit 
 moved the -men who prophesied of Him.^ But earlier 
 than the written word, the oral promises of God had 
 fed and comforted the heart of faith. It was in the 
 sustaining power of a faith which lived on the sure 
 word of grace, that Enoch spake in prophecy of that 
 far-dated judgment which has yet to be fulfilled.^ 
 
 With the declaration of the Abrahamic covenant 
 of promise, there was laid a broader and more com- 
 modious, though not a surer, footing for the faith of 
 God's elect. His secret was with them that feared 
 His name.'^ He would show them His covenant in 
 due time. With longing patience was it waited for 
 by many prophets and by many kings,^ who passed 
 their earthly days as sojourners and strangers, until 
 that day of Christ should come which was to justify 
 and to reward the long-tried patience of their souls.^ 
 
 But although the voice of God had spoken thus 
 distinctly in the prophets, it was of earthly things, 
 as well as upon earth, that He had chiefly spoken to 
 the fathers. It was, indeed, of Christ, that Moses 
 and the prophets spake. Good things, whose value 
 none could know, but those who mourned their own 
 inherent weakness and corruption as conceived in 
 
 5 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. 6 Gen. v. 22; Jude 14, 15. "^ Ps. xxv. 14. 
 
 8 And, -vrithout doubt, by very many more, who in every age re- 
 mained as a remnant of true worshippers, unnoticed or despised amid 
 the multitudes, who idly boasted in the outward privileges of God's 
 people, whUe their hearts were far from Him. 
 
 9 Luke X. 24 ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 5 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 15. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 sin, were shadowed forth in type, and were spoken 
 of in promise, to the true children of the covenant. 
 But the peace which was to flow as a full river from 
 the finished work of righteousness, and the quietness 
 and assurance which should be the permanent effect 
 of that same righteousness, were to be tasted and 
 enjoyed, not only in the purged consciences of the 
 preserved of Jacob, but externally, also, in the long 
 enduring blessedness of realized earthly promise, 
 which, as the nation of Jehovah's choice, they were 
 to know and to delight in, in ImmanueVs land} 
 
 Such had been constantly the drift and burden of 
 the Jewish prophecies. True it is, and a truth to be 
 constantly remembered, that the faith of God's elect, 
 while it waited for Divine salvation according to the 
 tenor of an earthly promise, never found its rest in 
 
 1 Isa. xxxii. aud xlv. 18-25. I am to be understood as speaking 
 of the proper Jcvvish. expectations of Messianic blessing. Justi- 
 fication in Him was the chief of these — the basis of all the rest. 
 (Isa. xlv. 25.) A full abundance of earthly blessing, to be ad- 
 ministered and secm-ed in the manifested royalty of Christ the 
 King of Israel, was to be the immediate result. The question put 
 by the disciples to the risen Lord (Acts i. 6,) is an instructive 
 proof of this. Already the Lord had opened their understandings, 
 that they might understand the Scriptures. (Luke xxiv. 45.) It 
 was in the divinely-imparted light which they had thus received, 
 that they read so distinctly the verities of Jewish promise. All 
 had now been done. Christ had sufiered (as they now perceived) 
 according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, also, He 
 had risen from the dead. What, then, now remained to hinder the 
 immediate fulfilment of the national hopes — of the glories which the 
 prophets of Israel had so vividly described in connection with the 
 manifested sceptre of the reigning Son of David.'' Was not the 
 kingdom noiv to be restored to Israel ? The Lord's reply is neither 
 an upbraiding of their ignorance, nor a correction of error in their 
 question. That which their hearts desired should happen in its 
 season, at the Father's will. Meanwhile, another calling, and a 
 higher hope, were presently to be revealed to their faith, when the 
 Comforter should have openly declared within the Chui'ch the doc- 
 trine, until then kept secret, of the heavenly calling, as an immediate 
 and present truth. — Compare Notes on the Ephesians^ passim. — Spec. 
 ch. iii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 5 
 
 anything below the heavens. The God who raiseth 
 the dead was the abiding strength and the exceeding 
 great reward of the fathers, who obtained a good 
 report. The 11th chapter of this Epistle will open 
 this more fully. Considered, however, dispensation- 
 ally, and according to the specialties of declared pro- 
 mise, the Jewish prophets spoke of earthly things. 
 
 But now another testimony had been given, and 
 by a greater Witness. God, who had spoken by the 
 prophets of good things to come, " hath in these last 
 days spoken unto us by His Son." The reader should 
 be careful to bear constantly in his remembrance that 
 the persons immediately addressed in this Epistle 
 are Jewish believers. If this be lost sight of, many 
 of the contrasts with which it abounds will be mate- 
 rially weakened, and much of the peculiar force of 
 the Spirit's language must remain unfelt. 
 
 In the present instance we have a threefold con- 
 trast. First, "these last days" are opposed to the 
 time past of prophetic testimony. Secondly, "the 
 fathers " are compared, in their relations to God, with 
 "us." And, lastly, the Son is mentioned, in broad 
 and emphatic distinction from the prophets, who 
 before had borne their several and united testimony 
 to Him. 
 
 With respect to the first of these expressions, 
 "these last days," its general signification^ is equi- 
 
 2 Compare, for a similar expression with like meaning, 1 Cor. x. 1 1 ; 
 TO. TfXr] tCjv a'lMVMV, "the ends of the ages, or dispensations." Speak- 
 ing of the present dispensation in its general sense, it may be held to 
 date its commencement from the baptism of the Lord, and will con- 
 tinue until the second advent of Christ in glory shall have introduced 
 that new economy which elsewhere is described as " the dispensation 
 of the fulness of times." (Eph. i. 10.) But the language of the text 
 is susceptible of a stricter definition, as is attempted to be sho\vn 
 
6 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 valent to the common phrase, "the present dispen- 
 sation," as distinguished from those which have pre- 
 ceded it in the order of time. As to the second, the 
 pronoun "us" comprises, in its wider meaning, all 
 who now are hearers of the word of God. But until 
 the promised advent of the Saviour for His own, 
 the Church, in which neither Jew nor Gentile has a 
 place, is the only faithful listener to the truth. As 
 partakers of a common grace through faith, believers 
 in the present dispensation are of kindred to the 
 fathers who believed of old, widely as they may 
 differ in point of special privilege or calling.^ Pri- 
 marily, however, and with a lasting force of appli- 
 cation, it is to believing Hebrews that this Epistle is 
 addressed. " Salvation is of the Jews," and it was " to 
 us," to the children, that is, of the fathers unto whom 
 the prophets spake, that God had first addressed His 
 latest message by His Son.* For " Jesus Christ was 
 a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, 
 to confirm the promises made to the fathers."^ It 
 was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that the 
 Son of Man was sent, when, in the days of His flesh, 
 He preached the word, and manifested in their sight 
 the presence and power of the kingdom of God. It 
 was, moreover, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and 
 the men of Israel assembled there, that the Spirit of 
 God, upon His first descent from heaven as the 
 messenger of the Son, addressed Himself imme- 
 
 in the Introduction to these Notes, which the reader is earnestly 
 requested not to pass over unread, as it bears materially on the 
 elucidation of the opening verses of the present chapter. 
 
 3 And wide, indeed, as well as real, is the difference that does exist. 
 See, on this subject, the remarks on chapter xi. ad Jin. 
 
 * " To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." (Rom. i.) 
 
 5 Rom. XV. '^. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 7 
 
 diately in the Gospel of reconciliation. " Unto you 
 first, God, having raised up His Son Jesus, hath sent 
 Him to bless you,"^ &c. 
 
 This last quotation is an important one, and will 
 help us much to understand the peculiar force of the 
 passage now before us. Peter had referred the Jews 
 to whom he spake to the prophecy of Moses respect- 
 ing Messiah, the promised restorer of Israel. Pre- 
 sently he applies this, and the testimony of the 
 prophets generally, to the Christ as he was then 
 declaring Him. Jesus, the true Hope of Israel, was 
 in heaven. God would send Him upon the repent- 
 ance of the nation (verse 20). In the meanwhile, 
 Peter, standing as an ambassador of Christ, and in 
 the power of the Spirit, personifies, as it were, his 
 
 testimony, saying, "God hath sent Hiin to bless 
 
 you." In the unity of the Godhead, it was Christ 
 Himself who spoke when the Spirit spoke. God 
 spoke. The special subject of the apostolic doctrine 
 was the rejected and exalted Christ ; the power of 
 testimony was the Spirit of Jesus — the Comforter, 
 who was His very self.'' In a similar manner, God 
 is here said to have spoken by His Son.^ Taken in 
 
 6 Acts iii. 26. 7 John xiv. 18 ; 2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 
 8 'Ev uiy. The absence of the article here is very emphatic. 
 There had been mant/ prophets in the fathers' days, some true, some 
 false. The former are distinguished as those to whom alone, and by 
 a Di\ane sanction, the title belonged, by the article. God spake 
 sv toIq 7rpo(p7]raig ; they spake as they were moved of Him. But 
 there is but one Son. The relationship of the only - begotten to the 
 Father could be pretended by no rival. Others might claim to be the 
 Christ; and there is one who sets himself as God in the temple 
 of God; but all such "wicked ones" speak as of themselves. In 
 Jesus only was beheld the glory of the only-begotten of the Father. 
 God was in Christ; and He who spake to men delivered the true 
 words of God, not as the prophets, by occasional impulse and in 
 another's name, but daily, and in all places, speaking with authority 
 as the very JFord, the Fountain and Author of all truth. 
 
8 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 its fullest meaning, this expression comprehends the 
 Lord's earthly ministry. More strictly and imme- 
 diately, however, it is the testimony of the Holy 
 Ghost, the operative power of Him who now con- 
 tinues to speak from heaven, that is meant.^ God 
 now speaks to us in Christ. The Spirit is the j)ower 
 of that voice, and the purged lips of believers are its 
 echo and its instrumental utterance. 
 
 This mention of the Son presents to us the proper 
 subject of the Epistle. It treats of Christ, according 
 to the glory of His person, as the living and eternal 
 realization, in perfect fulness of grace and power, of 
 Jewish promise and figure. How the fulness of this 
 glory and blessedness is opened to the believer for 
 his present stablishment and delight, in the varied 
 official title of the Son, as the apostle and High Priest 
 of our profession, is shown in the chapters which 
 follow. In the one before us we have a rich and 
 very full display of His original and native glory, as 
 the only begotten of the Father, an assertion of His 
 proper and eternal Sonship as the Woed. 
 
 Now, with reference to this, and in connexion with 
 what has been stated in the preliminary essay, it is 
 remarkable that the truth first predicated of the Son 
 of God is His heirship by ajpyointmcnt : "whom He 
 hath appointed heir of all things." The essential 
 glory of His Divine nature is stated in the verse 
 which follows. But the Spirit of God leads our 
 minds immediately, by this previous mention of 
 appointed heirship, to contemplate the actual posi- 
 tion of the blessed Lord in the glory into which He 
 
 3 Characteristically, it is a heavenly testimony, with reference both 
 to the place from whence it immediately proceeds, and also to the 
 end and purport of the word spoken (chap. iii. 1). 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 9 
 
 entered after His resurrection from the dead/ and 
 thus discovers to us the manner in which God now 
 speaks to us by His Son. It is not as a teacher 
 and witness upon earth, that Jesus now speaks, but 
 from His seat of glory at the right hand of the 
 Majesty in the heavens. Moreover, by making men- 
 tion first of the awarded blessings of Divine inheri- 
 tance, with which Jesus stands invested as the result 
 of His fulfilled obedience to the Father's will, a 
 point of view is chosen for us, from whence the 
 excellency of His Person, the ineffable riches of His 
 grace and love, as well as the intrinsic verity of His 
 power and Godhead, may be most readily and abun- 
 dantly discerned on our parts. 
 
 In the counsels of God, Jesus had been from ever- 
 lasting the destined heir of things as yet not made. 
 In the unity of the Divine nature, He was eternally 
 co-equal with the Father, while relatively, as the 
 only-begotten Son, He possessed, in perfect fellowship 
 of Divine glory, the proper heirship of universal 
 blessing.^ That inheritance was not by appointment. 
 It attached to Him from all eternity by right of 
 birth, even as by right of creation all things were 
 His own. But that counsel which respected His 
 ajfypointecl heirship must attend for its fulfilment 
 both His incarnation and His death. God's equal 
 must first empty Himself, to become capable of re- 
 •ceiving that investment as the gift of God. The 
 Son must first be disallowed and dishonoured in 
 His natural title, that He might be thus proclaimed 
 anew from heaven, as the appointed heir of all. 
 And thus it was. Thinking it no robbery to be equal 
 
 1 Compare, witli reference to this, Rom. i. 4. 2 John xyii. 5. 
 B 5 
 
10 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 with God, He had em]3tied himself^ to become a 
 vessel of Divine pleasure in perfect human obedience. 
 Coming into the world in the fulness of grace and 
 truth, and there presented by the Holy Ghost to 
 the natural seed of Abraham, as the Son of David 
 and the Son of God, the Christ of promise and the 
 King of Israel, He had been utterly dishonoured and 
 disowned. His lesser titles were a mockery; His 
 mightier name, a blasphemy. He came indeed unto 
 His own, but His own received Him not. They 
 turned His glory into shame ; they chose a murderer 
 before the Holy One and the Just. With solemn 
 counsel and advisement, they condemned the Prince 
 of Life to a transgressor's death. 
 
 It is upon Jesus, the despised and rejected of men, 
 that God has set the glory of universal heirship. He 
 was born into the world the seed and heir of David, 
 the fulfilment also of the promises to Abram and to 
 Eve. He is declared in resurrection to be the Son of 
 God with power. Earthly honour as the King of 
 Israel was denied Him. He is now appointed heir of 
 all things.^ Things in heaven, as well as things on 
 earth — the earth itself, with all its fulness — all that 
 owes its place in creation to the alone Word of crea- 
 tive power* is comprised in the inheritance of the 
 ascended Son of Man. 
 
 His power and glory as the alone effective Creator 
 
 2 "EaiTov iKEVojfftVj ixop(priv SovXov \aj3it)V. (Phil.^i. 7.) 
 
 3 The force of this expression would be peculiarly felt by a Jewish 
 believer. The mention thus early of the appointed heirship of Jesus 
 is noticeable as a characteristic trait of Him who is the Spirit both of 
 wisdom and of grace. For there is thus presented to the contempla- 
 tion of the Jewish reader, a view of Christ which at once meets and 
 pre-occvipies those feelings and expectations, of which Messianic 
 glory was always the substantial and defined centre in the national 
 mind. * John i. 1 -3 : Col. i. 16. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 11 
 
 are next affirmed, "By whom also He made the 
 worlds."^ Not one, but all. The ages, in the ordered 
 sequence of their ever-flowing course, are the work 
 and ordinances of the Son. God made them by the 
 Son. Creation, under what aspect soever regarded, is 
 a Divine work. The wisdom which designed it, and 
 the power which produced it, are alike of God. But 
 Christ is the wisdom, and Christ is the power of 
 God.^ In the creation, as well as in the administra- 
 tion of the ages and dispensations, He has been (con- 
 jointly, in the unity of Godhead, with the Father 
 and the Spirit) the producer, and remains for ever 
 the maintainer of them all. All things consist in 
 Him,^ for He is God.^ 
 
 Verse 3. The proper glory of His person is now 
 more fully stated, "Who being the brightness of His 
 glory," &c. Eelatively to the Father, He is the eter- 
 nal Son. Descriptively, He is, in His essential Son- 
 ship, the positive expression of the Divine subsist- 
 ence.^ In this definition of Christ, His person is 
 presented under its Divine aspect alone. Incarna- 
 tion, it is true, did not, in one sense, render Him less 
 the express image of the invisible God, than He had 
 always been before the worlds. Eather, it made yet 
 more apparent, and that after a sort more wondrous 
 
 5 TovQ alwvag. Both " ages," and what they witness and contain. 
 The expression is capable of a very wide interpretation, a striking 
 example of which is to be found in Eph. ii. 7. In the present 
 passage, I believe it to be simply equivalent to " creation." (Com- 
 pare chap. xi. 3.) 
 
 6 1 Cor. i. 24. '^ Td rravTa kv av t (p (Tvv'efTTijKS. ^ Col. i. 17. 
 ^ XapaKTTjp TTJg viroaraatoiQ aurov. '■^ Bas Ebenbild seines 
 
 Wesens." — Luth. '■'■ Ein Abdruck seines Wesens." — De Wette. 
 " II carattere delta sossisfenza d'esso," — Diod. All these renderings 
 are good ; the last is the most exact. " Person " seems less complete 
 and expressive as a translation of vTrocraaiQ^ than " subsistence." 
 
12 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 than before, the reality, in all its blessed fulness, of 
 the Divine being and action. God was manifested in 
 flesh ; the Word, who had become flesh, was himself 
 essentially God. But the moral briglitness of the 
 Divine glory then shone forth from a foi^m which 
 was human, not Divine. What seems to be exclu- 
 sively intended in the passage now before us, is an 
 assertion of the majesty of the Son, while "in the 
 form of God."^ Taking the words in their broad and 
 general sense, they describe the second person in the 
 Divine Unity as the sole medium of the visible mani- 
 festation of God. Objective Deity is displayed to 
 the creature in the Person of the Son alone.^ 
 
 Thus, then, there is furnished by the Holy Spirit 
 to the Hebrew saints, His one effective answer to the 
 question addressed of old by the prophets to their 
 fathers: "To whom, then, will ye liken God? or what 
 likeness will ye compare unto Him?"^ In tlie folly 
 of their hearts, they had essayed to make a graven 
 image a fit semblance of Jehovah ; and now, from the 
 heaven which had received the incarnate, but world- 
 rejected Son, the voice which hewed the former gene- 
 rations by the prophets,^ and had consigned the 
 earthly city of solemnities to desolation, until the 
 promised day of His return,^ speaks comfortably to 
 the remnant according to the election of grace. God's 
 faithful likeness now shone forth upon them in the 
 
 1 Phil. ii. 6. 
 
 2 It is a scriptural statement, that angels see God (Luke i. 19) — 
 that they hehold the Father. (Matt, xviii. 10.) At the presence of 
 Christ's majesty it is that the seraphim veil their faces. (Isa. vi. ; John 
 xii. 41.) Jesus is Jehovah. The expression, "seen of angels" (1 
 Tim. iii. 16), is not here in point. I do not think that the language 
 of the text is limited in its meaning to God's manifestation of Himself 
 to men. ^ Isaiah xl. 18. * Hosea vi. 5. ^ Matt, xxiii. 37-39. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBREWS. 13 
 
 annunciation of the gospel of salvation.® The appro- 
 priateness of this rich and full declaration of ^les- 
 siah's personal glory, in an epistle addressed to them, 
 whose watch-word of sad but hopeful patience had 
 been, "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, O 
 God of Israel, the Saviour,"^ will easily appear to 
 the attentive student of the Word. 
 
 But further, and yet more demonstrative evidence 
 is adduced, in the words which now follow, of the 
 fulness of Godhead which dwells in the Son, who is 
 described as "upholding all things by the ivorcl 
 of His jpoiver!' We have already regarded Him as 
 the effective Creator of the worlds, which God is said 
 to have made by Him. We have seen Him also 
 manifested as the visible effulgence of the Father of 
 lights — the authentic expression of the invisible God. 
 But in the words just quoted, we have separate men- 
 tion, first of Himself, as the upholder of all things, 
 and then, of the "Word of His power," as the instru- 
 mental energy by which the things are so sustained. 
 Christ, who is elsewhere spoken of, both as the Word 
 of God, and the Power of God, has here assigned to 
 Him as His ovm, those attributes of Almightiness, in 
 word and power, which chiefly glorify the only God.® 
 
 The omnipotent divinity of the Son having been 
 thus emphatically asserted, mention is next made of 
 that decisive act which will abide in its results as an 
 
 6 Psalm Ixxxix. lo. 7 Isaiah xlv. 15. 
 
 8 The believer, while finding in such passages as this a principal 
 aliment of his faith, is led into a region of truth whither the under- 
 standing can but feebly foUow, if at aU. No man knoweth the Son. 
 The Father does, and He alone. The Spirit of the Father reveals 
 Him to our faith according to the truth and fulness of His ever 
 blessed Person. But it is weU for us to remember that as yet we 
 only know in part. 
 
14 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 eternal attestation both of His power and His grace. 
 "When He had hj himself purged our sins," &c. 
 The Scripture elsewhere treats in full the blessed 
 subject of the Lord's humiliation; of His obedience 
 unto death, even the death of the cross. The Divine 
 work of redemption is here presented in another 
 light. It is as the act of Him who gave himself for 
 our sins, that it is now reviewed. The work itself is 
 considered in its relation to the Workman. The 
 personal competency of the Son of God to effect the 
 mighty task of His people's deliverance, is the point 
 to which prominence is here given by the Spirit. He 
 ^purged our sins. Moreover, it was not only hy him- 
 self, unaided by all else, but also for himself, that He 
 thus Divinely wrouglit.^ No mention is here made 
 of the Father. For it is not the purport of the pas- 
 sage to illustrate the filial grace of Jesus as the doer 
 of the Father's will, but to afiirm His proper suffi- 
 ciency in person, and to prove His reality in point 
 of fact, as the effectual cleanser of the sins of 
 His people; even as He had made them and had 
 held their souls in natural life, as the alone Creator 
 and Upholder of the 'creature. It was Jesu's will 
 to save — to purge our sins, and His power has 
 justified the desire of His love. The mode and pro- 
 cess are not here intimated. The result only is stated 
 in the words which follow, in proof of the sufficiency 
 of Him who undertook the work : "He sat down on 
 the right hand of the Majesty on high." Nothing is 
 here said of resurrection, as an act of God of which 
 
 ^ At' tavTov KaBapiGpibv tt o irj cr a. fxev o g. The force of the 
 middle verb is evident to the critical reader. The words, Si eavrov, 
 are omitted by Tischendorf and some others; nor are they necessary 
 to the clear sense of the passage. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 15 
 
 Christ was the subject. Nay, the very fact of resur- 
 rection is left unexpressed. The condensed energy 
 of the Spirit's language in this remarkable verse is 
 most striking. The Son had quitted heaven (though 
 in another sense remaining there stilP for a purpose. 
 That purpose was to put away His people's sins. 
 The purpose having been effected, He resumes His 
 seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high, in 
 token of its absolute and everlasting completion. 
 God now speaks to us hy Him.^ 
 
 Verse 4. " Being made," &c. A comparison of the 
 Son with angels is now introduced, in immediate 
 connexion with His ascension into glory. If we 
 remember that the persons specially addressed are 
 believing Hebrews, the propriety and peculiar force 
 of such comparison become immediately apparent. 
 Angelic ministration had, from the earliest times, 
 been a chief instrument of Divine power, as well as 
 a frequent medium of communication in the dealings 
 of Jehovah with His people. Angels, therefore, at 
 all times occupied a lofty height in the contemplation 
 of a Jewish mind. And justly so ; for high, indeed, 
 was the official dignity witlr which they might be- 
 come invested as the representative ambassadors of 
 God — the ef&cient ministers of His almighty will. 
 
 The most memorable and august^ display of an- 
 gelic glory ever made to men was when, at Sinai, the 
 
 1 Joliniii. 13. 
 
 2 With similar majesty of expression, the Son of God delivered 
 Himself, when unveiling to His own a glory which they conld not 
 worthily perceive until the Comforter should come : " I came forth 
 from the Father, and am (?ome into the world; again, I leave the 
 world, and go to my Father." (John xvi. 28.) 
 
 3 I pass by, in this statement, the earlier instances of angelic visi- 
 tation recorded in the book of Genesis, not doubting that the Lord of 
 life Himself was thus revealed to the fathers. 
 
16 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 first covenant of works was ordered and delivered 
 instrumentally through them. It was Jehovah's 
 covenant; but, as we are expressly taught, it was 
 communicated and received "by the disposition of 
 angels."* Next to that of Jehovah Himself, the 
 holiest as well as highest name in the estimation of 
 an Israelite was that of His angel. Prophetic faith 
 discerned, no doubt, under that official title, the 
 person of Immanuel with a certain degree of dis- 
 tinctness.^ But the demonstration of the Holy 
 Ghost was needful to set in clear, soul- satisfying 
 evidence, the great and blessed mystery of godliness. 
 The astonishing truth of mans supremacy, where 
 angels worshipped, was something which entirely 
 transcended the national expectations of Messianic 
 glory. It is this last truth which is so strikingly 
 exhibited in the present and immediately succeeding 
 verses. 
 
 God has given a name which is above every name 
 to Jesus, whom He raised from the dead. The mani- 
 festation of the Son of God in the seat of Divine 
 Majesty is in the form and likeness of man. In His 
 absolute and original character, as the only begotten 
 of the father. He is incapable of angelic comparison, 
 inasmuch as no creature may compare with the 
 Creator; but the incarnation having been once 
 effected, through the self-humbling grace of the 
 
 4 Acts vii. 53 ; Gal. iii. 19. A full contrast between tlie respective 
 ministries of the first and second covenants is presented in the sequel 
 of this epistle. 
 
 5 "An Israelite indeed" would recognize the divinity of Messiah's 
 person. (John i. 49.) But it is doubtful whether mere Jewish theology- 
 did not always leave His name below that of angels (Matt, xxii, 42) ; 
 though they were not ignorant of His official title as the Son of the 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 17 
 
 Only-begotten, He thus became capable, under His 
 new form of flesh, of a name which might be a 
 worthy and commensurate expression of the proper 
 dignity of His Person. That name is Jesus. Di- 
 vinely imposed on Him while yet unborn — mocked 
 and dishonoured^ by His own, who waited for an- 
 other Saviour — it is now declared wdth power to be 
 the name of none other than the eternal Son of God, 
 by means of the resurrection from the dead. Incar- 
 nation had placed the Son of God in a lower sphere 
 than that of angels. Their dwelling is in heaven; 
 they see the face of God. Excelling ,in strength, 
 they do His pleasure in the light of His countenance. 
 If sent forth from thence, it is still in their unaltered 
 character and quality as ministers of power, the re- 
 sistless agents of Divine command. An angel can 
 combine no other nature with his own. As a perfect 
 vessel of Divine creation and appointment, he is as 
 incapable of descending below his assigned place in 
 creation as he is of raising himself above it. Angels 
 may fall, but never can descend. They have in part 
 already fallen,'^ while elective power retains the rem- 
 nant in their place.^ God only can descend without 
 impair. This Jesus did. He came to dwell below 
 the heavens, which were His handiwork. Himself 
 the Light of life, He made a weary sojourn in the 
 midst of darkness for our sakes. ^q put ojf strength 
 to work the works of God. With a power which, in 
 the perfection of His human character, He gloried to 
 ascribe to God, but with a patient sufferance which 
 was all His own, He carried His obedience to the 
 
 6 ^^Save thyself and us." "He saved others. Himself He cannot 
 save" &c. 7 Jude 6. ^ 1 Tim. v. 21. 
 
18 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 full measure of the Father's will. ".He humbled 
 Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the 
 death of the cross." ^ Angels might watch this 
 wonder in its growth, and be the admiring and 
 adoring witnesses of its end and its results. Their 
 desire still is towards the knowledge of the mystery 
 of godliness — to unravel and investigate the un- 
 searchable way of Divine, redeeming love.^ But 
 the work was none of theirs. 3Ian wrought it 
 in a pure obedience to God — the Man Christ Jesus. 
 Yet was the work entirely Divine. That patient 
 man was God's eternal Son. It was the mighty and 
 enduring energy of perfect Love that formed for 
 Jesus that lone path of straitness and distress which 
 earned for Him the title of " the Man of Sorrows." 
 Angels, moreover, cannot svffer. They act as swift 
 messengers to do the will of their Creator. But Jesus 
 suffered from man, from Satan, and finally from God. 
 The visitings of wrath in judgment, the aversion of 
 the Father's face, the reality of death's most bitter 
 taste, brought to its consummation His soul's pro- 
 longed acquaintance with our griefs.^ For, as His 
 people's substitute. He suffered thus. He drew His 
 labour to the grave, and left it there.^ There God 
 
 9 Phil. ii. 8. 1 1 Pet. i. 12. 2 Isa. liii. 4. 
 
 3 In a day when much confusion of thought prevails as to the true 
 character of the Lord's sufferings, and not a little unsoundness of 
 doctrine finds welcome acceptance with the ujiwary, it is necessary 
 to avoid, as far as possible, any misconception of one's views. There 
 ought, surely, to exist in every believer's mind a capacity to distin- 
 guish, as it were instinctively, between the gracious patience of 
 Imraanuel in the days of His flesh, and the "hoiu:" of judicial 
 suffering, for which He had come into the world. But the " pure 
 minds" of God's children are easily susceptible of defilement, and 
 the slow but sure effects of plausible, but most erroneous teaching 
 upon a subject of such interest to every believing heart, are but too 
 painfully evident in many quarters at the present moment. I wish, 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 19 
 
 lias found it, and from thence has owned it. The 
 award of tiniversal inheritance is due, by the de- 
 clared decree of the supreme Jehovah to the justified 
 Son of God.^ The glorification of the ascended 
 Christ was the replacing — in His new form (a form 
 so strange in heaven !) ^ of palpable humanity — of 
 the Son in His primeval seat of co-equal majesty 
 wdth the Father. It was thus by means of incarna- 
 tion (which rendered Jesus capable of receiving, as 
 a reward, that pre-eminence wdiich was naturally 
 His own as the only-begotten) that His name is 
 brought into comparison wdth those of angels; in- 
 asmuch as "He is the Son, He hath obtained hy 
 inheritance a more excellent name than they." 
 
 This subject is expanded into fuller detail in the 
 remainder of the chapter. "For unto which of the 
 angels said He at any time," &c. (verse 5). Two 
 separate quotations from the Old Testament are ad- 
 duced in this verse. Both alike apply to the Lord 
 Jesus as alive from the dead, and not in the days of 
 His flesh. The former of these is from the 2nd 
 Psalm,*^ the subject of which is the royal glory and 
 earthly dominion of the once -rejected Son of God, 
 according to the Divine decree which stood fast and 
 firm, although the heathen might rage, and the 
 
 therefore, to state distinctly, that I refuse and denounce as unscrip- 
 tural and unsound, the notion that a punitive or expiatory character 
 attaches in any sense to the daily life of Him who endvired such 
 contradiction of sinners against Himself. It is in the Cross alone that 
 either expiation or judicial visitation have any place. There it was 
 that Christ was "made a curse" for His people; and there, also, in 
 His own body He bore their sins. (Gal. iii. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 24.) 
 
 * 1 Tim. iii. IG; Ps. ii. 
 
 5 The pointed opposition of the " form of man " to the " form of 
 God," in Phil. ii. should be always borne in mind, though the 
 creature was from the beginning, in his proper sphere, an image and 
 likeness of his Maker, (Gen. i.) 6 Ps. ii. 7. 
 
20 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 princes take counsel together, against Jehovah, and 
 against His Christ. Now it is manifest that the 
 decreed title of the incarnate and rejected ^lessiah 
 is quite a different thing from the Name which 
 belonged eternally to the Son of God, in His purely 
 Divine character as the only-begotten of the Father. 
 That was no subject of time. Nor was it owing to 
 express decree. He was the Son, anterior to all 
 decree. No counsel, therefore, which was properly 
 Divine, existed, or could exist, without His original 
 participation. But the expression, "this day," is 
 both definite and precise. It marks a certain time, 
 a positive era, or date. Clearly as this should appear 
 upon its simple statement, the point is happily placed 
 beyond the necessity of extended disquisition by the 
 express testimony of Scripture.'^ The apostle Paul 
 cites this passage in direct corroboration of his own 
 testimony to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.^ 
 We shall find also a similar use made of it in the 
 fifth chapter of this Epistle. It was then to no 
 angel, but to the Man Jesus of Nazareth, whom men 
 had slain, but whom God had raised from the dead, 
 that this greeting of filial title was addressed.^ 
 
 The second quotation, from 2 Sam. vii. 14, respects 
 the Lord more immediately in His strictly Messianic 
 character as David's seed. This title also, having 
 been disallowed of men, has been vindicated and 
 anew declared of God. It is Jesus Christ, of tlu 
 seed of David, who was raised from the dead, and 
 thus declared in power to be the Son of God.^ " The 
 
 '^ Yet it is a remarkable fact, that this obvious point has been very 
 generally overlooked; and the passage consequently quite misinter- 
 preted by many who are no enemies to the truth of God. 
 
 8 Acts xiii. 33. ^ Acts ii. 22-36, i 2 Tim. ii. 8. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 21 
 
 sure mercies of David " are secured in Him, wlio is 
 to return no more to corruption.^ What God had 
 promised to the son of Jesse concerning his true 
 seed, could vest in no object of a nature alien to 
 David's flesh. Angels, therefore, are excluded by 
 necessity of their nature ; the covenanted promise 
 must find its' destined object in a man. It has done 
 so in Jesus, the Son of Man — David's true seed 
 according to the flesh, but essentially and from ever- 
 lasting the very Son of God. 
 
 Verse 6. "But when He bringeth again the first- 
 begotten into the world," ^ &c. A close connexion 
 subsists between this and the preceding verse. He 
 had quoted, in proof of the Sonship of the Christ, a 
 testimony and a promise, of both which Jesus was 
 the single object. Having thus shewn that the filial 
 title forms no part of Angelic glory, but is appro- 
 priated exclusively to the ascended Son of Man, a 
 new quotation is next made, to show in what relation 
 angels stand to Him who has been thus pre-eminently 
 named. It is the application of the distinctive epi- 
 thet "first-begotten" to the Heir, that indicates the 
 connexion of this verse with the foregoing quotation.* 
 ISTow there are two things affirmed of the First-begot- 
 ten: First, He is to be brought into the world; and, 
 secondly. He will, when thus introduced, receive the 
 worship of all the angels of God. Before going 
 
 2 Acts xiii. 34. 
 
 ^"Orav dk ttuXiv daayayy tov TrpiororoKov elg rijv oiKOVfievrjv. 
 
 * The connexion is a moral one. In Ps. Ixxxix. 27, the title " first 
 born" is applied to Messiah as the subject of the Davidical covenant. 
 The use of the article in the present verse before irpioToroKov is 
 either to give a technical force to the word as a well-known Messianic 
 title, or else to indicate the identity of the person mentioned with the 
 " Son" in the preceding quotation. 
 
22 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 further into the subject, let us endeavour to ascertain 
 precisely from Scripture, the proper meaning and 
 limitation of the term "first-begotten." 
 
 "First-born," or "first-begotten," is not a title of 
 pre-eminence simply ; it is always a relative expres- 
 sion. As such, it is applied in Scripture to the Lord 
 Christ both before His incarnation, and at His resur- 
 rection from tlie dead; but never during the days of 
 His flesh.° AVith reference to the Divine glory of 
 His Person, He is called the first-born of every crea- 
 ture; the explanation of which phrase is given in 
 its immediate context: "For by Him were all things 
 created," "^ &c. His birth, that is, as the Eternal Son, 
 is antedated to the creation, which is the work of 
 His own hands. When, in the ripened fulness of the 
 times, He was visibly presented, full of grace and 
 truth, as the incarnate manifestation of Divine love, 
 it was under the title of ^'the only hegotten of the 
 Father." He came thus into the world.'' He stood 
 under this title in His proper and exclusive cha- 
 racter of Son, independently of all or any special 
 relationship with His people, which either then 
 subsisted, or, in the after fulfilment of Divine coun- 
 •sel, might eventually be declared. Immanuel, or 
 "God with us," is likewise the only begotten of 
 the Father. But when the results of this great 
 work of love are stated, and He is Himself re- 
 vealed in resurrection as the first-fruits of His own 
 eternal victory over death, w^e find the title "first- 
 born" again applied to Him by the Holy Ghost. He 
 
 5 Matt. i. 25, and Luke ii. 7, do not here apply. He is there de- 
 scribed as Mary's first-born. 
 
 6 Col. i. 16. 7 John i. 14, 18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 23 
 
 is there described as "the beginning, the first-ham 
 from the dead!' A relation is here very plainly im- 
 plied to those, who, like Himself, and in Him, are 
 born out of death ; who will rise by virtue of their 
 portion in Him, who is the Eesurrection and the 
 Life, but who follow, as it respects the actual accom- 
 plishment of- their hope, the First-fruits in the ap- 
 pointed order of God.^ Now the beginning of re- 
 surrection is also the First-born of many brethren, 
 whose predestined glory is to be conformed to Him.^ 
 But the form of Jesus is the form of man; He is the 
 second Adam, as well as the true Lord of glory. 
 Enough has now been alleo-ed from the Word of God 
 to prove, it is hoped conclusively, these two important 
 points. First, that the expression we are now exam- 
 ining is not a synonyme for "only-begotten;" and, 
 secondly, that it does not relate to the Lord Jesus 
 while He dwelt a stranger on the earth. 
 
 Let us now proceed to the general interpretation of 
 the verse. "When He bringeth in," &c. With refer- 
 ence to His first advent, Christ is said in Scripture to 
 have come into the world — to have been sent— and 
 to have been born. He is here said to be hrought or 
 introduced into the world. Moreover, it is under a 
 title which, as we have just seen, does not apply to 
 Him at His former advent, that He is again to come. 
 When, therefore, it is promised that the First-begotten 
 shall a<?ain^ be brought into the world, there is a 
 
 8 1 Cor. XV. 20-28. In chap. xii. of this Epistle, the term "first- 
 born" is applied characteristically to the entire Church, as a rela- 
 tive title which distinguishes it from other partakers of Divine 
 redemption. This point will be more fully noticed in its place. 
 
 9 Eom. viii. 29. 
 
 1 1 forbear from any argument in proof of the correctness of the 
 marginal translation, "when He bringeth again" To most readers 
 
24 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 reference very clearly implied to His previous expul- 
 sion from the world. Men drove Him ignominiously 
 from the world, when, by the grace of God, His 
 beloved Son was crucified in weakness. He will re- 
 enter it in majesty, according to the power of God. 
 His own testimony to the judges of unrighteousness 
 was, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting 
 on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds 
 of heaven."*^ He will be brought with solemn pomp 
 of royal and Divine dominion into a world which 
 once has witnessed His reproach. Then, among other 
 wonders, will it openly be manifested, that the hom- 
 age of all angels is rendered willingly to Him whose 
 honour is God's principal delight. 
 
 With reference to the language^ of the present 
 passage, it may further be remarked, that it is not to 
 be confounded with the statement elsewhere made, 
 that God, when incarnate, was beheld of angels. Still 
 less do these expressions apply to that angelic min- 
 istration, of which the self-emptied and willingly 
 dependent Son made Himself capable, and which 
 He actually accepted in the hour of His need, when 
 heavenly messengers conveyed, at the bidding of the 
 Father, a sensible refreshment to the patient but ex- 
 hausted sufferer of His will.'' Nor has it, further, 
 any connexion with the multitudinous worship of the 
 
 of the original it will, I conceive, appear preferable to that of the 
 text. Alford, who fairly discusses the question of construction, 
 arrives at the same conclusion. 
 
 2 Matt. xxvi. 64. 
 
 3 The words in the text are an exact quotation from the Septuagint 
 version of Deut. xxxii. 43. In our present Hebrew Bible the passage 
 is omitted. The same words are given by the lxx. in their version 
 of Ps. xcvii. 7 ; the verb only being changed from the second person 
 to the third: TTpoaKvvr]GaTf. avrtp TrdvTtg dyyeXoi avTov [sc. Gtou]. 
 
 * Matt. iv. llj Luke xxii. 43. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 25 
 
 heavenly host, who, when Mary had brought forth 
 her first-born son, appeared, and bore consenting and 
 harmonious witness to the amazing truth which Jeho- 
 vah's angel had but just before announced to the 
 bewildered shepherds of Bethlehem.^ That angel's 
 tidings were, that in the city of David, had been born 
 a Saviour, even Christ the Lord. An announcement 
 which called forth a new and joyful doxology from 
 the host of heaven. But then they praised the Sen- 
 der, not the Sent. God in the Highest was the object 
 of their worship, though its moving cause might be 
 the lowly Babe, which lay, unkingly cradled, at the 
 royal city of His birth. 
 
 It is not, therefore, to the former advent of the 
 Son of God, when, in fulfilment of the ancient pro- 
 mise. He Avas born a child of Abraham's family, and 
 of David's seed, that the quotation in the present 
 verse refers. What is here contemplated is rather 
 the epiphany of His glorious kingdom, when, after 
 long expectance on His Father's throne. He shall 
 have received investment of His own appointed 
 royalty as the only "King of nations." The era here 
 referred to, is the time when He shall come mani- 
 festly forth, and every eye shall see Him, as He 
 brings nigh to earth the majesty of His presence, — 
 coming, as He will, to be at once the Judge and the 
 Eestorer of the world. It is into this habitable earth, 
 which God created, but which man, at Satan's bid- 
 ding, and as the willing victim of his deception, has 
 corrupted through his lusts of evil, that Jesus will 
 be brought. He will visit it with power, and in the 
 perfect majesty of apparent glory, but in vindication 
 
 5 Luke ii 13, 14. 
 
 
26 NOTES ON TPIE HEBKEWS. 
 
 of a right which once had been derided and dis- 
 owned. Men bowed the knee in mockery to Jesus, 
 when they hailed, with scornful homage, the patient 
 Wearer of the crown of thorns; for then was not 
 the hour of His kingdom, but of His reproach.^ It 
 ^^as man's hour, and the power of darkness; the 
 scripture must be so fulfilled. But glory was or- 
 dained for Him; for it was the very ''Lord of glory," 
 whom the powers of the present world judged wor- 
 thy of the Cross. 
 
 Already this is recognized in heaven, where angels, 
 and authorities, and powers, now own subjection to 
 the risen Christ. Already, too, it is known and re- 
 joiced in by the Church of God, within which are 
 unfolded by the Spirit those mysteries of blessedness 
 which still remain unknown, and undesired by the 
 world. But nothing is now hidden, in the wisdom 
 of God's will, but for its manifestation at His own 
 appointed time. Christ now is hidden in God. With 
 Him is hidden there His people's life ; for it is Him- 
 self who is their life."^ He is no longer visible to 
 those whom yet He loves, and of whom He is be- 
 loved as well as worshipped. The heavens have 
 received and still retain Him, since the day when 
 He vanished from the wistful gaze of those who 
 witnessed the translation of the Son of Man.^ But 
 He has gone away with purpose of return. He 
 will come in like manner as He went; He will re- 
 turn to the self-same world which He has left; He 
 
 6 "iVoK' is my kingdom not from hence" (John xviii. 36) was His 
 own word of explanation to the wondering governor of Judaea when 
 he questioned Jesus, with mingled feelings of alarm and scorn, touch- 
 ing that title which sounded meaningly, and yet incredibly in his ears. 
 
 7 Col. iii. 3, 4. 8 Acts i. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 27 
 
 will be OAvned in fear where He was once rejected 
 with contempt; He will come in the power of the 
 kingdom which He is gone to receive.^ As King of 
 Israel, He was delivered, with scourging and with 
 spitting to the Cross. The glory of His power will 
 in that day justify His mightier title of King of 
 kings, and Lord of lords. Nor will He come alone. 
 Besides the holy myriads of His saints, whose call^ 
 ing is to suffer and to reign with Him, He will be 
 brought upon His way by the whole angel host of 
 God. For the Son of Man shall come "in His own 
 glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels."^ 
 The Father has conferred His honour on the Son.^ 
 Judgment and worship are assigned to Him. To 
 Jesus every knee must bow. In the same world in 
 which He had not where to lay His head, supremest 
 homage shall be rendered to the once rejected Son 
 of Man. 
 
 Verses 7-9. Thus far the comparison has been be- 
 tween filial relationship and ministerial place. The 
 Son's inheritance is found to comprise within it all 
 angelic worship. In what next follows, wt have yet 
 more fully and expressly shown to us, the essential 
 difference in nature upon which all outward and 
 official orders of distinction rest. Angels were 
 created to serve. "He maketli His angels spirits, and 
 His ministers a flame of fire." They are indeed 
 spirit, and not flesh ; they bear, moreover, a descrip-. 
 tive semblance to Him, who is himself a consuming 
 fire; but they have their being, and are kept in 
 their appointed spheres by the word of Him who 
 made them. In all their might and excellency, they 
 
 9 Luke xix. 12. i Luke ix. 26. 2 Jolm v. 22, 27. 
 
 C 2 
 
28 NOTES ON THE HEBIIEWS. 
 
 are wholly His who formed them for Himself. They 
 are angels and ministers of God, and the God of 
 their creation, as well as the object of their homage, 
 is the Son. 
 
 In the quotation from Ps. xlv., which immediately 
 succeeds, there is a striking declaration of the origi- 
 nal Divinity of Him who is to be known in power 
 as the enthroned monarch of the kingdoms of this 
 world.^ The main object, both of this passage, and 
 of those which have gone before, is not so much to 
 assert the Deity of the Son in the abstract, as to 
 show that in all the varied aspects under which the 
 Christ appears (who is the fulfiller in His Person 
 of all Divine testimony and promise), it is none 
 other than the very God who is declared. The sub- 
 ject of Ps. xlv.^ is Messiah the King. The sphere, 
 however, of that dominion, which is the leading 
 theme of Jewish prophecy, is not heavenly, but 
 earthly. But the essential majesty of His Persori is 
 insisted on in language far above the apparent neces- 
 sities of the sphere in which, dispensationally, His 
 glory is there displayed. To be the fulfiller of David- 
 ical promise, and so to take a kingdom, and to exer- 
 cise a sway helow the heavens, needs less than the 
 presence of the only God. Thus flesh might reason, 
 and so sight would judge. But such was not the 
 counsel of the all-wise God of promise. The mystery 
 of godliness reveals to the believer the unity of the 
 Giver and the Eeceiver of the primal promise and 
 blessing. The qualification for effective human rule 
 
 3 Rev. xi. 15. 
 
 ^ For a fuller notice of the general scope and meaning of this most 
 beautiful Psalm, as well as of other Psalms referred to in this chapter, 
 the reader is referred to my Notes on the Fsalms. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 29 
 
 and supremacy is only found in the intrinsic right- 
 eousness of the Divine nature. Power belongs to God 
 alone!' The throne of the dominion, which will hold 
 the government of all heneath the sun,^ is set in the 
 stability of an eternal right. "Thy throne, God, 
 is for ever and ever." 
 
 In the former Adam there was vested a proba- 
 tionary title of all sublunary rule. God's chiefest 
 creature was entrusted, as His image, with the rights 
 of God.'^ The result was to demonstrate the unfit- 
 ness of the creature to abide in honour by the main- 
 tenance, in righteousness, of sovereign place. Adam 
 proved by his fall both his personal unworthiness and 
 his consequent incapacity to be the head of govern- 
 ment and guardianship to a dependent creation. The 
 fitness of the second Adam to bear the sceptre of the 
 w^orld's dominion, is based upon the natural Deity 
 of His person — on His heing the Lord from heaven. 
 He that is to be feared as the King of nations is 
 the true God. He is the living God, and an ever- 
 lasting King.^ The language of the 8th verse is not 
 to be confounded in its meaning with that of the 
 9th. In the first the Lord's Divinity is stated abso- 
 lutely, and the sceptre of righteousness is ascribed 
 to the Son as an attribute which belongs originally 
 to Him who is the Judge of all the world.^ In the 
 other verse we see Him as the Perfect One, to whom 
 Jehovah bears His witness, and to whom the rewards 
 of righteousness are assigned as to the Man of God's 
 pure sanction and delight. Jesus has proved, in 
 
 5 Ps. Ixii. 11. « Ps, Ixxii. 
 
 '' Vicariously, that is, and so far as respected tlie condition of the 
 subject creature, which must stand or fall wdth its appointed head. 
 8 Jer. X. 7, 10. 9 Rom. iii. 5, 6. 
 
30 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 finished human obedience, His fitness to receive the 
 rod of hnman rule.^ He is the Just One. He 
 walked thus in His fleshly days. He loved right- 
 eousness, and hated iniquity, in a world which 
 loved darkness rather than light. It is, therefore, 
 that the more abundant unction of the oil of glad- 
 ness is placed upon His head for ever. His God 
 hath so anointed Him. 
 
 In close connexion with this subject, a new and 
 strange comparison is now introduced — one which 
 is not adversative, like that of angels, but only in 
 degree. Jesus is said to be anointed with the oil of 
 gladness above His fellows. Angels are no fellows 
 to the Son. They are in every way contrasted with 
 Him, as we have seen. His fellows are none other 
 than they who are elsewhere said to be partakers of 
 His flesh and of His bones,^ and whose predestined 
 glory it is, by the exceeding riches of the grace of 
 God, to be conformed to the image of His Son; for 
 He is to be, and is, the first-born of many hrethreii. 
 The companions of His patience, and the sufferers of 
 His reproach, will share the anointed fellowship of 
 Messiah's reigning joy. We may well devote a little 
 further space to the consideration of this wondrous 
 and most blessed truth. 
 
 We have just now been reminded that the pre- 
 eminent Eeceiver of this unction of gladness is, in 
 nature and in power, the eternal God. As such, His 
 challenge from of old had been, " To whom will ye 
 liken me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One."^ 
 And we have already seen the primary answer to 
 this question in the personal delineation of Jehovah's 
 1 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. 2 Eph. v. 30. 3 iga. xl. 25. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 31 
 
 fellow. But God's true image and glory is not to 
 be visible in the incarnate Son alone. His glory is 
 to shine through its apx^ointed media, even as the 
 Father's brightness is revealed in Him. And so in 
 the mystery of God's eternal counsel, there has been 
 found for Emmanuel a companionship with fellows 
 of His glory and His place. When man could point 
 to none with whom the Highest might compare, God 
 has Himself discovered, in the fair invention of re- 
 deeming love, a manner of comparison whereby His 
 glory should be yet more marvellously known than 
 in the solitary majesty of His only immortality and 
 light. He has matched Himself, in grace, with 
 children, whom He has fitted to receive from Him a 
 Father's love. In Christ He has begotten for Him- 
 self a progeny, who, in the mystery of their new 
 creation, participate both His nature and His joy. 
 Born, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; 
 born of the Spirit, and not of the flesh, — of God, 
 and not of man, — they awake, at the quickening 
 voice of Jesus, from the sleep of natural death in 
 sin to the consciousness of a life which only breathes 
 in perfect righteousness,* and which looks for glory 
 as its proper hope and end. It is unto the fellow- 
 ship of the Son of God that the justified (because 
 believing) sinner is now called.^ Those joys which 
 Christ counts such — joys for the sake of which He 
 bore the cross— are already the promised portion and 
 the pledged possession of the brethren of His love. 
 Of this the Holy Ghost is in their hearts both the 
 living earnest and the seal.^ Only in measure will 
 His joy excel. By how much it is better and more 
 
 4 Eom. viii. 10. ^ i Cor. i. 9. « 2 Cor. v. 5; Eph. i. 13, 14. 
 
32 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 blessed to give than to receive, by so miicli will His 
 joy exceed the happiness of those whose perfect 
 blessedness it is to be receivers of the fulness which 
 is His ; who know that all things are their own, for 
 they are, Christ's. The Church is the companion of 
 the Lord whom angels serve. They stand and veil 
 their faces in His presence. But she will sit upon 
 His throne — an elevation equally beyond all human 
 powers, whether of contemplation or attainment ; 
 yet the place where faith even now may rest ador- 
 ingly upon the bosom of Divine and perfect love. 
 For the believer knows to what a dreary depth that 
 love has first descended, that its chosen though 
 guilty objects might be counted worthy of that seat.'' 
 Verses 10-12. The proper glory of Christ as the 
 Former^ of all things, the pre -existent originator 
 of all beginning, is further illustrated in the next 
 quotation. The passage is one, not of description, 
 but of comparison. It is to identify the appointed 
 Heir of all things with the Ancient of days, that it 
 is here cited by the Spirit. His goings forth have 
 been from old, from everlasting. The heavens and 
 the earth are alike the work of His hands. He is 
 the eternal Survivor, as well as the Ancestral Source 
 of all created being.^ The creature, even in its fair- 
 est form, and under its grandest character, is intrin- 
 sically subject to decay. It is dependent wholly for 
 its continuance upon the sustaining power of the 
 Creator. The things which are will not for ever be. 
 
 '' Eph. ii. 5, 6, iv. 9. » ^VV Jer. x. 16. 
 
 1 God only hath immortality. The new creation, which will stand 
 in the power of eternal redemption, abides with God. I speak in the 
 text of Deity as it intrinsically differs from all that is below itself, 
 All creature life and being is existent only at the pleasi-ire of the 
 Divine will. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 33 
 
 The heavens, which now declare the glory of God, 
 will one day pass away. The same Almighty Lord, 
 who spreads them as a tent to dwell in, who has 
 filled them with beauty and magnificence by the 
 garniture of His Spirit,^ and who makes them black 
 with sackcloth at His will, shall change them in due 
 time. They wdll be changed, that new and yet more 
 fair creations may appear.^ That new Creation will 
 indeed remain. Founded in the power of redeeming 
 love, it will be the perpetual dwelling-place of right- 
 eousness and life, a work no more to be repented of 
 by Him who grieved in heart to see the spoiling of 
 the first creation through the sin of man. God will 
 roll off from sight the heavens which now are. With 
 a great noise they will depart before the urgent 
 power of His will, who now upholds them in their 
 place. But a perpetual Christ remains. "Thou art 
 the same, and Thy years shall not fail."* His nature 
 and condition are subject to no change; He is eter- 
 nally Divine. As He has been from everlasting the 
 unchanging Source from whence has emanated every 
 manifestation, whether of majesty or holiness, of 
 truth or wisdom, of grace or power, which in the 
 successive dispensations of the Divine will has 
 hitherto been unfolded to the creature, so in the 
 coming dispensation of the fulness of times, there 
 
 2 Job xxvi. 13. 3 Rev. xxi. 1-5. 
 
 * It is noticeable that tbe quotation from Psalm cii. is taken from 
 the Septuagint. The Hebrew text does not contain any equivalent 
 to the word " Lord." It seems to be here introduced by the Spirit 
 of God in order to give a clearer distinctness to the quotation in its 
 present application. In the Psalm, on the other hand, the omission 
 of express title^ while the perfect attributes of Divine being and 
 majesty are ascribed to the One addressed, enhances still the won- 
 drous power of the contrast which the passage presents of the perfect 
 self-abasement in grace of the Son of God, to the essential and 
 supreme glory of His Person. 
 
 c 5 
 
34 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ^Yill be found oouceutred in the Person of the ^lan 
 whose name is " Wonderful," the total fulness of all 
 Godhead in its widely-spreading and beneficent dis- 
 play. "The God of the whole earth" is the title 
 with which, in the written record of prophetic pro- 
 mise/ He is already greeted whom the Christian 
 knows and looks for as the great God and His 
 Samour Jesus Christ.® 
 
 Verses 13, 14. The series of Messianic quotations 
 from the Old Testament closes with the revelation 
 of the Heir of all things in the attitude of expectant 
 session at the right hand of God. We have already 
 seen how He has won that seat at His triumphant 
 re-ascension in accomplished victory, after having 
 wrought the mighty work for which He quitted, for 
 a time, the place which had been always His. His 
 position on the throne of God is now declared with 
 reference to the Father's will. For it was at the 
 Father's invitation that, after having finished the 
 work of His obedience upon earth, He took that 
 place. It was said to Him at His ascension, "Sit 
 Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies 
 Thy footstool." The importance of this passage will 
 be obvious to the thoughtful Christian. For it is 
 not only an additional corroboration of the already 
 cumulative testimony to the Sonship and glory of 
 the exalted Christ. It affirms, besides, the all- 
 important circumstance of His present expectancy. 
 Jesus sits, but not on His own throne.' He waits, 
 but does not reiga' All power, indeed, is His, in 
 
 5 Isa. liv. 0. 6 Tit. ii. 13. 
 
 " The reader will easily perceive that in speaking thus antithetically, 
 I am dealing exclusively with the subject of the Lord's ilispensational 
 position. The foregoing pages have insisted sufficiently, I trust, upon 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 35 
 
 heaven and in earth. Angels, and authorities, and 
 powers, are submitted to His sway. In the esti- 
 mation and confessed acknowledgment of those who 
 now obey the truth, He is the only Lord of all. 
 But the power of His kingdom is as yet appreciated 
 only by the believing subjects of His grace. The 
 time for its decisive vindication is as yet not come ; 
 its accomplishment is still deferred until the day 
 determined shall arrive. A preparation must be 
 made for this, in which the agent is the Father, 
 while its object is the Son. He sits at God's right 
 hand until He makes the haters of His Christ a 
 footstool for His feet. The Lord God Omnipotent 
 will surely reign; His kingdom and the power of 
 His Christ will come. But while the dispensation 
 lasts of Gospel grace — the season of Divine long- 
 suffering in Gentile mercy® — Christ sits in heaven 
 at tlie right hand of God. God speaks in patient 
 mercy by His Son. Anon His speech will be in 
 wrath. The Christ of men's derision and contempt 
 will suddenly be known in vengeance as the Mighty 
 One of God.^ 
 
 The session of Jesus, on the Father's throne, is 
 closely connected with the specialty of His title as 
 the Melchisedec Priest, a title more fully to be 
 examined further on. It was for no angel that this 
 
 the proper glory and majesty of His Person to prevent misapprehen- 
 sion on this point. In one sense, the Father's throne is also Christ's, 
 all that the Father hath heing His. They are, however, pointedly 
 distinguished in another sense. Again, the Lord reigns, in so far as 
 all power in heaven and on earth is already committed to His hands. 
 Howheit it is to the Church, and in the Church, that the glory of this 
 power is now revealed ; and that by the Spirit, which the world seeth 
 not nor knoweth. But in that coming day all eyes shall see Him, 
 whose title (to he justified at His appearing) is that of "Prince of 
 the kings of the earth." (Rev. iii. 21.) 
 
 8 Rom. xi. 9 Ps. ii, 4, 5. 
 
36 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 place had been reserved; it is the Lord who may 
 alone sit there. " Jehovah said nnto my Lord^' &c. 
 Worship and homage are the attendants of that seat. 
 There are lesser thrones in heaven, whose exalted 
 occupants must worship there. Thrones and do- 
 minions, principalities and powers, bear each their 
 measure of Divinely-adjusted sway. They rule for 
 God where He appoints their rule. In governing 
 they obey ; their province, as their title, is to be the 
 ministers of God. With reference, moreover, to the 
 latter clause of this verse, it may be noticed that 
 angels can have no personal enemies; their ani- 
 mosities and their affections are but varied ex- 
 pressions of their zeal for God. Rest also is no 
 attribute of angel life ; they live and shine as the 
 ever ready messengers of Him who dwelleth in the 
 high and holy place. To God alone, and to the 
 Lamb, are ceaseless praise and adoration paid. 
 
 And now another marvel is revealed. We have 
 seen how all God's angels are prepared to greet with 
 worship the second entrance of the First -begotten 
 into the world. We have seen, too, that they are 
 already the willing vassals of Him who is the Head 
 of all principality and power. The nature of their 
 present service is now more particularly declared. 
 "Are they not ministering spirits, sent forth to 
 minister to them who are about to inherit salva- 
 tion?"^ A wondrous truth! Yet let it not seem 
 strange in the eyes of those for whom Christ died, 
 that even such things should be found among the 
 true sayings of the blessed God. A grateful portion 
 is it, surely, of the "present truth," and one which 
 
 ^ Aid TTOvf {XsWovrag KXrjpovofiilv (yu)TT]piav. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 37 
 
 the believer will do wisely to keep constantly in 
 view. The ministers are angels ; the receivers of 
 the ministry are heirs. They are fellow-heirs with 
 Christ, owned now as the children of a Father 
 whom they know and joy in as their Saviour and 
 their God. Once sunk in sin beyond all natural 
 hope, they are now, through grace, become in Christ 
 the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty — 
 begotten to the living hope of their enduring herit- 
 age through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
 the dead."^ The heritage for which they wait is, in 
 one single word, "Salvation," Christian salvation 
 is not a mere escape from wrath. The vessels of 
 God's mercy are by Him prepared in Christ for 
 gloi^y. They who receive abundance of grace, and 
 the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, 
 Jesus Christ. The receivers of Divine forgiveness 
 through the blood of Jesus are also sanctified 
 through faith in Him. Now the inheritance of 
 trod's saints is in light. They are themselves the 
 children of light. They will shine thus in glory 
 to His eternal praise, who is both the God of 
 glory, and the Father of lights.^ Angels assent 
 to this. Great is the pure joy which they taste in 
 heaven at the turning of one soul to God ; they 
 celebrate, with louder strains of joyful adoration 
 than were rendered at creation, God's chiefest work 
 of wisdom and of love. They desire to behold, with 
 deeper search, the still unfathomed mysteries of Di- 
 vine redemption. Meanwhile, they bear their willing 
 part in the furtherance of His good pleasure, whom 
 they only live to serve. They are sent forth to be 
 
 2 1 Pet. i. 3. 3 Acts vii. 2 ; Jas. i. 7. 
 
38 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the ministers of help to those whom God holds 
 worthy of such ministry, because they bear the title 
 of His Son. 
 
 Little, indeed, it may be feared, is this truth at 
 present estimated in the Church of God. For an 
 active and simple faith is needed to perceive, in what 
 men carelessly regard as accidents of time and place, 
 the positive working of angelic ministry. And faith, 
 in its application to the things of daily life, is at a 
 feeble flow indeed in this our day of evil. Yet it is 
 only thus that the just man can be said to live. A 
 Christian, if the Spirit lead him, does not walk by 
 sight. It is not from events, or from appearances, 
 that he is left to argue that God does at times exert 
 immediate influence on present things. Men can do 
 this, who naturally know not God. For God is not 
 as yet ostensibly disowned of men.'' Eemote and 
 general dispositions of Divine Providence are com- 
 monly acknowledged by the thoughtless world itself. 
 It belongs to faith alone, which knows its access b/ 
 the Spirit to the Father's presence in the full wel- 
 come of the Son's acceptance, to walk, in a confi- 
 dence not unmixed with fear, under the sweet yet 
 solemn consciousness of being thus attended from 
 on high. It is a truth which brings the shadow of 
 God's majesty with a peculiar nearness over the 
 believer's soul. That we are seen of angels is an 
 assurance to which the Spirit elsewhere practically 
 bids our heed.^ A happy thought, yet one of sober- 
 
 * Though He is so virtually wherever heed is given to the lying 
 spirit which now endeavours, in so many varied tones, to persuade 
 the willing ignorance of the age, that although God is, He does not 
 speak; and that by a rhetorical figure only can the Scriptures he 
 said to he the living Word of God. 
 
 5 1 Cor. xi. 10. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 39 
 
 ing effect, to be thus seen; to be the objects of near 
 gaze, and very contact, to those holy visitants of 
 watchful love, who, standing as the bright apparitors 
 of heavenly majesty beside the throne on which the 
 Son of God now rests, are sent forth to speed upon 
 their way the pilgrim brethren of their Lord. 
 
40 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 The preceding chapter has largely demonstrated the 
 eternal Sonship and the personal majesty of the 
 once-rejected Christ; has declared His supremacy, 
 as the appointed Heir of all things, to the angels 
 who excel in strength, and, in thus setting forth the 
 superlative perfection of the object of his faith, has 
 opened to the believer a distinct though general view 
 of the nature and quality of his standing as an 
 heir of salvation. It is upon the doctrine of His 
 Person and pre-eminency that the hortative warning 
 is founded with which the present chapter opens. 
 
 Verses 1-4. " Therefore we ought," &c. God hath 
 spoken by His Son. He has addressed Himself in 
 Him to us. We, therefore, who have heard, should 
 give a proportionately earnest heed to what we have 
 received. A more diligent regard is due to what is 
 now spoken than to what the fathers heard, for four 
 principal reasons. First, because of the essential 
 majesty and glory of the Messenger of the new 
 covenant, by whom God now speaks. The things 
 heard by us were spoken by the Lord. Secondly, 
 because the message now addressed to us is final. 
 Thirdly, because of the infinite preciousness of the 
 things concerning which the word is spoken; and. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 41 
 
 lastly, because of the hopeless perdition which is 
 the declared alternative to those who now reject the 
 testimony of saving grace. 
 
 The danger to which the Hebrew christians stood 
 peculiarly exposed, was that of a gradual moving 
 away from the pure and perfect standing of finished 
 grace to the older, but, for the time, abandoned con- 
 fidences of traditional religion. They had to give 
 good heed, lest what they had received in the Gos- 
 pel, as the perfect trutli of God in Christ, should 
 gradually lose its hold ^ u^^on their hearts ; lest hav- 
 ing ceased (through that dimness of spiritual vision, 
 which follows as the natural effect, where faith is 
 not duly exercised,)^ to perceive the living beauty 
 of the truth, and so to love it and delight in it, as 
 that which satisfied the longing of their souls, they 
 should yield to the ever present temptation to turn 
 again to the vain conversation which had been de- 
 livered to them by their fathers, and from which the 
 precious blood of Christ had set them free. But 
 this would be to draw back to perdition. Hence 
 the solemnity of the present appeal. There was no 
 escape from the wrath already impending over the 
 children of disobedience, if this great salvation were 
 neglected. 
 
 This solemn position is sustained a fortiori by a 
 reference to the former covenant, and its results. 
 The word spoken by angels had been stedfast. The 
 
 ^ "With respect to the conchiding words of verse 1: /u?) roTti 7ra- 
 p ap p V u> fxevy while their moral diift is quite clear, it is not easy to 
 render their sense exactly. ^'■Daniit ivir nicht etiva darum kommen" 
 is De Wette's version. '' Che talora -non isfuggiamo," — Diod. '''■Dass 
 v:ir nicht dahin fahren," — Lxith. The E. V. is sound and sufficient, 
 though for strictness of translation, the margin is preferable to the 
 text. 7 2 Pet. 1. 9. 
 
42 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 blessings indeed which the Law proposed had failed, 
 because they were conditional upon the obedience 
 of the people; while for the same reason, the curse 
 which it denounced had taken its effect, and had 
 attached, with more or less intensity of infliction, to 
 the natural seed of Abraham.^ They had not 
 escaped. But besides the general historic reference 
 to the nation of Israel, which is here implied, there 
 is a direct allusion to the character and necessary 
 effects of the Law as an administrative dispensation 
 of God, in order to compare it with the Gospel 
 under the same point of view. 
 
 After noticing the intrinsic inferiority of a com- 
 munication made to man "by angels," to that which 
 is now spoken by the Son, the distinctive nature and 
 operation of the Sinaitic covenant are briefly intimated 
 in what follows. Conferring nothing upon man, and 
 thus, in its form and language, hiding rather than 
 revealing the true character of God, it lay on those 
 who had received it as a strict and inflexible demand 
 of right, which nothing but complete obedience 
 could discharge. Penal in its essence, as well as 
 prohibitive in most of its injunctions, the Law ad- 
 justed punishment exactly to transgression. "Every 
 transgression and disobedience received a just re- 
 compence of reward." God measured human con- 
 duct by the letter of His own commandment; 
 and visited delinquency with death.^ Dispensa- 
 
 8 Compare Levit. xxvi. 14-43; Lament, ii. 17; Dan. ix. 11; and 
 1 Thess. ii. 16. 
 
 ^ Historically, and in point of fact, this was not always rigidly 
 insisted on. It was so at first. The fate of the Sabbath-breaker 
 (Numb. XV. 35), and the several instances of special judgment which 
 befel the people in the wildemess, exemplify this. But mercy ever 
 rejoiced against judgment, and God was not extreme to mark imme- 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 43 
 
 tionally considered, the covenant ordained by angels 
 went no farther than this. Its dominion is over a 
 man "as long as he liveth."^ Moreover, the Law 
 dealt only with external acts. It judged men ac- 
 cording to their deeds? Hence its penal visitations 
 were upon things palpable to the senses. Human 
 testimony was therefore necessary for the establish- 
 ment of legal judgment. He that despised Moses' 
 Law died without mercy under two or three wit- 
 nesses. The Law thus wrought effectually as a 
 ministry of death. But this ordinance of judgment, 
 although spoken by angels, was the word of God; 
 and that word may lose no jot or tittle of its force. 
 The Law, therefore, remained stedfast, until by its 
 perfect accomplishment in Christ, it was taken for 
 ever out of the believer's way.^ 
 
 But if God has justified His sayings which He 
 spake by angels, how much rather will He establish 
 that which He is now speaking by the Son. Now 
 the Law, as has been shown, enjoined obedience, and 
 
 diately what was done amiss. Had He done so, no remnant could 
 have been left. Long-suffering patience bore with the multitude of 
 the people's iniquities, from day to day, as their provocations in- 
 creased, and the evil of their doings ripened beneath the prolonged 
 continuance of prophetic testimony. Still judgment came, though 
 long deferred. For God is not mocked. In the captivities and dis- 
 persions of the nation, Jehovah had vindicated the testimony of His 
 servant according to the truth of His own holiness. 
 
 1 Eom. vii. 1. The ultimate decision of the day of judgment 
 is not here in question. As to this, see Eom. ii. 12-16. 
 
 "^ True it is that to the regenerate soul, the Law was spiritual. 
 As such it discerned the thoughts and intents of the heart. "Thou 
 shalt not covet," ruined all hope of legal justification in the con- 
 science of one whom God instructed in the secret of His way. 
 Jewish faith deprecated the Law of debt as much as Christian. 
 "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, Lord, for in thy sight 
 shall no man living be justified," is the language of such as hoped in 
 God, and not in themselves. It is imder its outward and literal aspect 
 only that the Law is contemplated in the text above. 
 
 8 Matt. V. 17. 
 
44 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 promised life as a reward. On the other hand, it 
 slew the rebel with the sword of temporal* ven- 
 geance. It is in marked contrast to this, in all its 
 points, that the things now addressed to us present 
 themselves in the word of Christ. 
 
 The Gospel speaks the language, not of a Law- 
 giver, but of a Saviour. Its burden accordingly is 
 not a restatement of God's righteous claims upon 
 His creature, but a declaration of positive and sove- 
 reign grace. It is thus a ministration, not of sin 
 and death, but of life and righteousness. That 
 blessed ministration proceeds upon the previous 
 proof of the total unprofitableness of the flesh ; and 
 witnesses of righteousness, and life eternal, as the free, 
 unqualified gift of God in Christ. Its moving cause 
 is the completeness of the sinner's ruin in his 
 natural condition. God acts, in Christ, upon that 
 His love to the world. His kindness toward man, 
 appeared in the sending of His Son as a propitiation 
 for human sin. Thus, while the original spring of 
 Divine redemption is in the secret depths of God's 
 own nature, which is love; and, as it respects His 
 elect people, their special blessing is based upon the 
 promise and grace which were given them in Christ 
 before the world began, yet its occasion of display, 
 the immediate motive of its effectual operation, was 
 the actual condition of the world in its ripeness of 
 sin and death. "For when we were without strength, 
 in due time Christ died for the ungodly."^ God thus 
 commends to us His love. 
 
 ^ Resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment, were truths 
 well known to the fathers, and generally held through their tradition 
 by the nation of Israel. As a positive dispensation of God, however, 
 the Law dealt only with earthly and temporal things. 
 
 ^ Rom. V. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 45 
 
 The grand topic, therefore, of the word now spoken 
 is Salvation. God speaks no more to men of 
 personal obedience unto justification, with the alter- 
 native of hopeless condemnation upon failure of 
 their covenanted engagement. This was His lan- 
 guage when He spake by angels in the Law. He 
 now preaches peace by Jesus Christ. Finding in the 
 obedience of His own Son a righteous channel 
 through which His love to man may freely reach its 
 object, He now speaks of the full remission of many 
 offences — of the forgiveness of all trespasses through 
 the precious blood of Jesus. Abundance of grace, 
 and the free gift of righteousness, are the burden of 
 the Gospel. It is the ministration of righteousness; 
 and, therefore, of both life and peace. 
 
 A word which ministers such things, if it be not 
 accepted with love and honour, will be slighted by 
 indifference, or rejected with contempt. Now, as we 
 have already seen,*' God's capital question with men 
 has always been whether they would own Him ac- 
 cording to His actual manifestation of Himself. 
 But the testimony which declared His title to obedi- 
 ence as a Lawgiver, when applied as a test of quality 
 to man's alien will, produced rebellion as its result. 
 And as it is elsewhere written : " The Law entered 
 that the offence might abound."'' The proof, on the 
 other hand, to which men are noiu subjected is, not 
 whether they can establish for themselves a claim, 
 in equity, to the Divine favour, but whether they 
 will accept, at the hands of the Father, salvation as 
 the unconditional grace of His perfect love in Christ. 
 The question, therefore, which is now addressed to 
 
 6 Introduction — passim. '' Rom. v. 20. 
 
46 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 the conscience is, " How shall we escape, if we neg- 
 lect so great salvation?" Acquired by merit it can 
 never be, while from outward knowledge it cannot 
 be hidden ; for " their sound went into all the earth, 
 and their words unto the ends of the world." ^ Both 
 Israel and the Gentiles know. But the message, 
 though distinctly heard, may be listened to with 
 apathy, or fruitlessly received into the mind, while 
 the heart and conscience remain strangers to its 
 power. But that which men are in danger of thus 
 carelessly disregarding, is nothing less than God's 
 great salvation. It is so described, first, because of 
 the greatness of Him who is the Sa\'iour. Secondly, 
 because of the magnitude and hopelessness of that 
 ruin out of which it saves. Thirdly, with reference 
 to the exceeding and eternal weight of glory — the 
 transcendant fulness of those unsearchable riches of 
 Christ, which are the appointed heritage of those 
 who are entitled and provided for in the word of 
 grace as "heirs of salvation." 
 
 But in proportion to the greatness of the salva- 
 tion, which awaits the believer in Jesus, is the 
 infinite measure of that inevitable judgment which 
 impends over the despiser of the w^ord of reconcilia- 
 tion. " How shall we escape ? " 
 
 With respect to this, it is to be remembered, that 
 not only are the certainties of life and incorrupti- 
 bility brought to light by the Gospel, but likewise 
 their fearful contraries, the second death, and ever- 
 lasting wrath. Both these opposites had been re- 
 vealed (the former more distinctly than the latter) 
 imperfectly in earlier days. Faith saw them in the 
 
 8 Eom. X. 18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 47 
 
 word of promise.^ But now, by the testimony of 
 the Gospel, they are made distinctly manifest. God 
 has given to all men an earnest of judgment, as well 
 as a full assurance of righteousness to the believer, 
 in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.^ 
 The conditional blessings and cursings of the Law 
 are now displaced and supplanted by the testimony 
 of the Spirit of Grace to salvation through the 
 blood of the Cross, as the only refuge from the 
 wrath which is to come. As then there has been, 
 and continues still to be, a fulfilment upon the sub- 
 jects of the Law of the penalties which it contains, 
 so will there be assuredly an accomplishment, in its 
 appointed time, of the perfect word of God in 
 Christ. Judgment to come is as clear a testimony 
 of the Holy Ghost as present salvation through the 
 faith of Jesus. Meanwhile, there is a temporary 
 impunity to the despisers of the gift of God. The 
 visitations of the Law were immediate and decisive ; 
 a man could not despise that word and live. But 
 the time of Gospel testimony is the sinner's oppor- 
 tunity. For now is the day, not of wrath, but of 
 salvation. The scorner sits at ease, regardless alike 
 of the gracious entreaties, and of the solemn warn- 
 ings of the Gospel, until the protracted season of 
 long-suffering grace be closed, and the day of ven- 
 geance be at length revealed.^ 
 
 The instrumental means of testimony to this great 
 
 9 On tlie subject of future retribution generally, see among other 
 l^assages, Numb, xxiii. 10; Ps. 1.; Pro. xiv. 32; Eccles. v. 8, &c. 
 
 ^ Acts xvii. 31 ; John xvi. 10. 
 
 2 In the present passage the certainty of retribution to the careless 
 despisers of grace is the point insisted on. Later in the epistle (x. 
 26-39), we have a reference to its measure in comparison with the 
 effects of legal judgment. 
 
48 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 salvation are next mentioned. Tlie Lord had begun 
 to speak of it while yet on earth. The words which 
 Jesus spake were spirit, and were life. To as many 
 as the Father brought to Him, He gave immediately 
 eternal life. Forgiveness of sins was freely spoken 
 by His lips to all whose hearts were rendered capa- 
 ble of perceiving and owning in Him the presence 
 of Jehovah. Especially He had announced the mes- 
 sage of this great salvation, when, after He had risen 
 from the dead, He greeted His disciples with the 
 word of peace ; while, to confirm that joyful word, 
 He showed to them His hands and feet, from whence 
 had flowed that precious blood, by means of which 
 the covenant of peace had been eternally secured.^ 
 But the message of salvation which the Lord began 
 to speak was not completed by His personal ministry. 
 He had " many things to say," both for comfort to 
 His own, and in testimony to the world, which He 
 would not utter then, because the fitting time was 
 not yet come. There was another Comforter whom 
 He would send, and whose advent should be for a 
 testimony to the perfect truth. It was not, therefore, 
 until the descent from heaven of the Holy Ghost, 
 that they who had listened to the voice of Jesus, 
 and received their charge from Him, were enabled 
 boldly to declare the Gospel of this great salvation. 
 It was as endued with power from on high that they 
 began to speak.* The subject of their testimony was 
 the Lord Himself They preached a Sctviour. Ee- 
 pentance, and remission of sins, were declared in the 
 name of that Jesus of Nazareth, whom men, indeed, 
 had crucified; but whom God had raised from the 
 
 8 John XX. 19, 20. * Acts i. ii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 49 
 
 dead. The fruit of this testimony was to be the 
 formation of the Church, — His Church. He had 
 promised to Himself a Church while yet upon the 
 earth. He had said, " Upon this Eock I vjill hidlcl 
 my Church," when Simon, expressly taught from 
 heaven of the Father, had made confession to His 
 perfect title- of "the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God."^ And now that mighty work had been effec- 
 tively began. Its deep and sure foundation, which 
 was laid from eternity in the purposes of God, had 
 been prepared also, in fact, by the shedding of the 
 blood of Christ, and now stood openly revealed to 
 faith in the Person of the risen and ascended Son 
 of God. 
 
 Moreover, God had borne special witness (verse 4) 
 to the chosen messengers and hearers of His Son. 
 It was from the Father that the promise of the Holy 
 Ghost had been received, who now was come from 
 heaven as the willing minister of Jesus. With rich 
 diversity of miraculous power, and with a lavish 
 distribution of effectual gifts, had the Father of 
 Lights expressed the fuU concurrence of His will 
 from the beginning of that apostolic ministry of 
 Christ for which His feeble witnesses had been 
 thus prepared.^ Themselves completely cleansed 
 from all defilement through the once shed blood of 
 eternal redemption, they were filled and sanctified as 
 by the pure fire of God, when the Holy Ghost, de- 
 scending in a form which men might see, sat openly 
 upon each vessel of His choice, and gave to each, 
 with sovereign distribution of His grace, a new and 
 
 * Matt. xvi. 16-18. ^ Acts i. 8 ; ii. passim. 
 
50 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 authentic utterance of things which God alone had 
 power truly to declare.'^ 
 
 The object of the extended comparison of the Son 
 with angels, which is presented in the former chap- 
 ter, is rendered thus yet more apparent to our minds. 
 The ministries respectively of the Old Covenant and 
 the New stand representatively, the first in angels, 
 the second in the Son. Both were glorious ; for 
 both were of God. But the glory of the first had 
 faded, and was, as it were, forgotten in the trans- 
 cendent glory of the second. By how much life is 
 better than death, and the ministration of righteous- 
 ness a more excellent thing than the ministration of 
 condemnation, by so much had the word of grace 
 excelled the former testimony of the Law. God had 
 
 ''' 1 Cor. xii. For although the disciples were competent witnesses of 
 the resurrection of the Lord, it was the Messenger from heaven who 
 alone could testify with power to the ascension, and heavenly glory of 
 the Son of Man. (Comp. John xv. 26, 27.) Moreover, the descent of the 
 Iloly Ghost at Pentecost was God's visible appropriation of the first- 
 fruits of redemption. God could now rest in man through his com- 
 plete piirification by the blood of Jesus. The disciples were sanctified 
 by faith in Him, The presence of the Holy Ghost attested this. 
 The proper origin of the Church is to be found in this event, for the 
 Chiu'ch had a formal existence in fact only from the moment of its 
 baptism with the Holy Ghost. No longer listeners at Moses' seat, 
 the disciples were themselves become the sole dispensers of the truth 
 of God. As the ground and pillar of the truth, the Church was now 
 set on its foundation in the open sight of men. Its hope and calling 
 were indeed but partially disclosed, until the time arrived for the full 
 development of the mystery of God through the apostleship and 
 ministry of Paul. It existed, however, as an objective thing, from 
 the day of Pentecost. The full statement of the doctrine of the 
 Church is to be found in the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Co- 
 lossians. In the present Epistle its heavenly calling is affirmed and 
 illustrated ; but its relation to Christ, according to the perfect counsel 
 of the Father's will, is not completely shown. The Epistle has a 
 different object. The efiect, it may be added, of the descent of the 
 Spirit upon the Church is two-fold. First, He is the unction of 
 Divine intelligence to the saints ; and, secondly. He is the power of 
 effectual testimony in the world. Both these results appear conspicu- 
 ously in the Pentecostal Church. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 51 
 
 now made His own desire and ability to bless the 
 ground of His new and final revelation of Himself 
 to man, instead of man's presumed capability of 
 merit on his own account. The Spirit's present 
 testimony is to God — in the perfect fulness, the 
 abundant riches, of His grace in Christ. Well may 
 the question then be asked, how they are to escape 
 who negligently slight so great salvation ! 
 
 Verses 5-9. Having now fully asserted the Divine 
 supremacy of the Son of God, and having aroused 
 their souls to w^akeful heed by the solemn warning 
 which vv^e have just been reviewing, he proceeds in 
 the following verses to exhibit the reverse and coun- 
 terpart of the mystery of godliness, by setting forth 
 the true humanity of Him who is thus made known 
 as the appointed Heir of all. This also is made the 
 subject of angelic contrast. In the former chapter 
 it was shown that the glorification of the exalted 
 Christ was the enthronement, under a new form, of 
 the eternal Maker of all things. The reality of that 
 nature whose form has thus been glorified, and the 
 appointment, therefore, of man to more than angel 
 honour in the person of the Son, is now brought 
 more immediately before our view. 
 
 The subject is first taken up in connexion with a 
 passage in the foregoing chapter. It had been said 
 (chap. i. 6), "And when He bringeth again the 
 First-begotten into the world. He saith, Let all the 
 angels of God worship Him." We now read (verse 
 5), " Unto the angels hath He not put in subjection 
 the luorlcl to come, whereof ive speah.^ But one in a 
 certain place testified, saying, What is manV' &c. 
 
 8 T»)v o'lKOV^uvriv ttjv fikWovaav irepi rjg \a\oviiev. 
 D 2 
 
52 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 There are two principal points to be considered in 
 this passage. First, we find mention made of a 
 world which, relatively to the present dispensation, 
 is ''the world to come;" and secondly, the entire 
 sovereignty of this world is claimed for man. A 
 fuller expansion of this subject in its detail, and its 
 immediate relation to the Person of the Son of God, 
 will follow presently. Let our first endeavour be to 
 settle, by clear scriptural testimony, the true force of 
 the expression, " world to come." 
 
 The first thing to be noticed in such an inquiry is 
 the obvious fact, that the sphere and substance of 
 this promised dominion, so far as it is specified by 
 the above-mentioned expression, are neither heaven, 
 nor heavenly things. The descriptive quotation 
 from Ps. viii. might alone suffice to establish this ; 
 for it is of earth, and earthly things, that that Psalm 
 speaks.^ But a somewhat fuller examination of 
 scriptural evidence upon this point appears desir- 
 able, that the subject may be set in a still clearer 
 light. Let us then remember that the point to be 
 established is, not only that what is here spoken of 
 is the existing habitable earth, but that it is the same 
 earth in a future dispensation — the world to come} 
 
 9 Characteristically, tliat is, and in its primary meaning. We 
 shall see hereafter how the language of that Psalm is extended in its 
 interpretation so as to comprise within its terms the whole dominion 
 of the reigning Christ. 
 
 ^ The word olKovfikvr] occurs in the New Testament sixteen times. 
 Neither in Scripture nor anywhere else does it ever mean heaven in 
 any sense. Generally its use in Scripture is similar to that which it 
 received in classical writers, i. e., " the civilized earth " as opposed to 
 the rest of the world. (Compare Lidd. and Scott in loc.) It is, how- 
 ever, found not unfrequently in a much wider sense, as will appear 
 in the paragraph immediately follo\iing in the text, where the presence 
 of the word in question is indicated by its English representative 
 being printed in italics. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 53 
 
 When the Son of Man endured in the wilderness 
 the temptation of the devil, one of the fruitless lures 
 of the deceiver was the sudden presentation to the 
 view of Jesus of the kingdoms of the world and their 
 glory. The form in which God's equal stood before 
 him seemed, in the eyes of the first man's destroyer, 
 an assurance that even in the self-humbled Son of 
 God there might be found that selfish lust of power 
 which he knew, by successful experience, to be the 
 master passion of the human soul. He rightly 
 judged that the dominion of God's earth was not to 
 be for ever left in his polluting grasp. His error 
 was to think that he, the father of lies, had anything 
 of his within the Holy One of God.^ But the king- 
 dom of Messiah was not then to be displayed in 
 power as an earthly rule. He had come to suffer, 
 not to reign. His reign would come in its appointed 
 time, when God should vindicate in power the long 
 suspended promise of His truth. The state in which 
 the natural man remains, while Jesus sits at God's 
 right hand, has been already brought under our view. 
 He who is earth's rightful Lord has no share of his 
 affection, and enforces no claim on his obedience. 
 If God now speaks by His ambassadors, it is with 
 words of persuasive entreaty, not of peremptory and 
 irresistible command. As viewed from heaven, men 
 are still seen to be in fixed and determinate oppo- 
 sition to God, and to His Christ. Meanwhile the 
 Gospel, which is God's pure message of entire love 
 to those who naturally are His foes, is preached for 
 a testimony in all the world? But until the hour of 
 his binding be arrived, Satan though powerless to 
 
 2 John xiv. 30. » Matt. xxiv. 14. 
 
54 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 harm the elect vessels of mercy, who are divinely 
 kept through faith, deceives with his delusions the 
 world wherein the word of grace is preached.* The 
 final effort of the arch-deceiver's energy, before the 
 second coming of the Lord wdth power, will be the 
 gathering together of the kings of the whole vmrld 
 "to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."^ 
 For God has set apart a day, and chosen Him a Man 
 whereby to judge the world in righteousness.^ God's 
 day begins, as well as ends, with judgment, though 
 its coming be to introduce the world's Millennial 
 peace."^ But before that day arrives men's hearts will 
 fail them in perplexed and dreadful apprehension of 
 the things which will be looked for as about to come 
 upon the earths 
 
 From the passages to which reference has just 
 been made, it is abundantly manifest, first, that the 
 habitable world is, in the present dispensation, the 
 sphere of Gospel testimony ; and secondly, that the 
 prospective termination of this day of grace is judg- 
 ment at the coming of the Lord. It is also further 
 evident that the governing influence which is suf- 
 fered to direct the course of the world as it now 
 exists is of Satan, and not of God. The same 
 Gospel of truth which claims for Christ the perfect 
 title of all dominion, in the determinate purpose of 
 God, declares the devil to be the prince as well as 
 god of this present world. The Holy Ghost assigns 
 to him in testimony that place of wrong, until the 
 time be come for the manifestation of the kingdom 
 of God, and the power of His Christ.'' But the 
 
 ^ Eev. xii. 9. * Rev. xvi. 14. ^ Acts xvii. 31. 
 
 7 2 Pet. iii. 8 Luke xxi. 26. ^ Eev. xii. 10. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 55 
 
 dominion of the destroyer must be taken away 
 before the reign of human blessedness and safety 
 can commence. For it is plain that the world, 
 whose kings are presently to be gathered, by the 
 craft and power of the devil, to open battle against 
 Jehovah and His Christ,^ cannot rightly be regarded 
 as already rejoicing beneath the blessing of that 
 divinely sanctioned human rule- of which the pro- 
 phets speak. 
 
 Since, then, it is manifest from Scripture that the 
 world which now is awaits the revelation of the day 
 of Christ, while a promise is given in explicit terms 
 of a coming world, which is to own complete subjec- 
 tion to the Son of man in blessing; since, too, it has 
 appeared already from the former chapter, and is 
 elsewhere expressed in Scripture, that the Lord shall 
 certainly be brought again into the self-same world 
 which He has left, it follows that in the expression 
 " world to come," no other meaning is conveyed than 
 that it is the now existing earth which is to be thus 
 subjected to man. 
 
 1 Eev. xvi. U, 17; xix. 19. 
 
 2 Most assuredly " the powers that be are ordained of God." (Rom. 
 xiii. 1.) It is the joyful privilege of a Christian to render unto 
 Caesar the things which are Caesar's. For in the existing powers he 
 recognizes God, whose ministers they are ; and who holds them re- 
 sponsible to Himself for the righteous discharge of their trust. But 
 government in human hands, if it be not exercised in confessed sub- 
 jection to His will, is never according to the mind of God. Such 
 government can never therefore be a source of vaunixed blessing to 
 the world. For he that ruleth over men must be jtist, ruling in the 
 fear of God. (2 Sam. xxiii.) Personal uprightness, and devoted 
 subjection to God, are conditions of human government which, 
 though indispensable to the world's happiness, exist in no merely 
 human being. They are found in the Just One alone. With respect 
 to Gentile dominion generally, until the rightful Monarch be revealed, 
 the similitude chosen by the Spirit of holiness, in order to convey 
 most aptly the Divine estimate of their moral character, is that of 
 ravenous birds and beasts. (Tsa. xlvi. 1 1 ; Dan. vii. viii.) 
 
56 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that the prophetic 
 Scriptures everywhere abound with unfulfilled pre- 
 dictions of earthly blessing. Of these prophecies a 
 remarkable sample is exhibited in the present quo- 
 tation from Ps. viii. Like all the rest of Scripture, 
 this psalm regards as its eventual object the person 
 of the Christ. Its citation here is for a double pur- 
 pose. First, in order to assert the proper manhood 
 of Him who is its subject ; and secondly, by a recital 
 of prophetic earthly promise of which man is the 
 object, to shape the thoughts of the believing Jews 
 aright respecting the true nature and results of their 
 actual calling, as partakers of the heavenly calling, 
 and so companions of the 'patience as well as king- 
 dom of Jesus Christ.^ 
 
 The first point to be noticed, then, in this quota- 
 tion, is the distinctness with which the proper man- 
 hood of God's Heir is shown. "What is man?" was 
 the wondering inquiry of lowly -minded faith, when 
 led by the Spirit of God to ponder the riches of Di- 
 vine wisdom and power, revealed in all their bright 
 display in the heavens of His glory, and to weigh 
 the intrinsic littleness and unprofitableness of man 
 at his best estate, against the wide extent of his 
 appointed mastery over the works of God's hands. 
 What is man? Vanity at his best, is the reply 
 which comes spontaneously to the lips of every child 
 of truth. No other answer can be rendered, when 
 the question is addressed to one who recognizes in 
 himself an experimental authentication of that word 
 which makes king Solomon and all his glory of less 
 account than the fading flower of the field. But 
 3 Rev. i. 9. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 57 
 
 God can answer His own Spirit's question, not in 
 despondency, but in triumph. The eager but still 
 baffled search of those who strove to penetrate the 
 unexpounded promise of good things to come, is 
 now succeeded by the open revelation of the perfect 
 truth, according to its full accomplishment in the 
 Person of His Son. To the question, "What is 
 man ? " God answers, " Christ!' 
 
 Man is the image and glory of God. The first 
 Adam was so as a shadow ; the Second is its reali- 
 zation in abiding truth and power. But man, in the 
 scale of original creation, though placed in head- 
 ship over creatures lower than himself, held an 
 inferior place to angels. To the former Adam it 
 might well have seemed a lofty honour to be but 
 little lower, in his weakness, than the angels who 
 excel in strength. Moreover, angels were in heaven. 
 On earth, indeed, man held dominion without peer. 
 Whatever God had made below the sky was his. 
 He named God's creatures at his will. The God who 
 set the first man over His creation, and who walked 
 with him in Eden, was alone the Lord of him who 
 had the homage of all else below. But Adam was 
 both from and for the earth. He had neither place 
 nor hope in heaven while unf alien ; his sphere of 
 blessing was exclusively terrestrial. God fitted him 
 for natural joys, and blessed him on the earth, not 
 absolutely, but with blessings whose continuance 
 was made dependent on the personal obedience of 
 the receiver.* Glory and honour rested upon Adam, 
 
 * He liad no access, even in hope or desire, to heavenly things. 
 His walk was by sight, not by faith. His rest was paradise. God 
 visited and blessed him in that rest. It was as a stricken and de- 
 D 5 
 
58 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 while innocence continued in liis ways. Shame and 
 dishonour were the immediate effect of his trans- 
 gression. Death then became the lord of one who 
 just before had held dominion over every living 
 thing. God's counselled purpose of abiding human 
 excellency remained indeed unchanged, but the man 
 whom He had formed from dust was found no fitting 
 vessel to contain that glory, which was the destined 
 portion of the true image and likeness of the living 
 God.^ 
 
 But Adam was a figure of Him that was to come,^ 
 The gift of dominion which the first man could not 
 hold, because himself the vanquished slave of sin 
 and death, has passed, with heavenly addition, into 
 the hands of the Second. As might be expected in 
 a Messianic prophecy, the language of Ps. viii., 
 while generally descriptive of paradisaical dominion, 
 is of far more extensive import. All things are 
 there made subject to the rule of man. For the 
 Spirit's object in that Psalm is the second Adam, not 
 the first. But things in heaven, as well as things on 
 earth, are comprehended in God's gift to Him. The 
 dispensation of the fulness of times is to witness 
 the supremacy of His Anointed in acknowledged 
 headship over all.'^ 
 
 Man therefore is to rule, and all things are to be 
 made subject to his sway. No creature, whether 
 heavenly or earthly, has been exempted from that 
 yoke (verse 7).^ But this dominion is as yet a thing 
 
 graded outcast from that primal seat of happiness that man first knew 
 by faith the hope of heaven, through the word of gracious promise. 
 
 5 2 Cor. iv. 4. 6 j^om. v. 14. 7 Eph. i. 10. 
 
 8 It is worthy of remark, as an instance of the imconseious aid 
 which accurate verbal criticism brings to the service of true spiritual 
 exposition, that the words, "And hast put all things under His feet," 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 59 
 
 unseen. Its time has not yet come. "We see not 
 yet all things put under Him. But we see Jesus 
 
 crowned with glory and with honour," &c. 
 
 (verse 9.) The Name and Person of the Man whom 
 God has purposed thus to honour, of Him who alone 
 is worthy to exercise this universal sovereignty, is 
 now more pointedly presented to our view. The 
 object which now fills the delighted eye of Christian 
 faith is not the visible display of Christ's royal glory, 
 according to the title which proclaims Him King of 
 kings, and Lord of lords. For the revelation of His 
 kingdom, the believer is content to wait with hope- 
 ful patience, well assured by the promises of Him 
 who cannot lie, that in that mighty and triumphant 
 light He will himself appear.^ His present joy is 
 to behold his soul's deliverer at God's right hand. 
 Under the very name and in the self-same flesh, 
 wherein He underwent in grace the pains of her 
 salvation, the Church now sees and worships the 
 exalted Son of ]Man. We see Jesus crowned. It is 
 thus that the Comforter now presents to the eye of 
 faith the "Eejected of men," to fill the joy of all 
 who truly know through grace the saving power of 
 that name.^ 
 
 But it is further said, that He who is thus crowned 
 "was made a little lower ^ than the angels." The 
 
 are almost unaaimously rejected from the text by modem editors. 
 Occurring as they do in the Psalm from vhich the apostle is quoting, 
 their absence is in strict keeping with the Spirit's general argument 
 in this passage ; which goes to shew that while truth sits crowned 
 with glory in the heavens in the person of the exalted Son of Man, the 
 time for the manifestation of His promised kingdom is not yet come. 
 
 9 Col. iii. 4. 1 John x\'i. 14 ; 1 John. i. 4. 
 
 2 (5gaxv Ti. Many prefer to render this " For a little while," the 
 expression being equally applicable to time, space, or quantity. The 
 E. V. however, appears to give the truest sense. 
 
60 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Lord from heaven had assumed in self-hnmiliation a 
 place and form which were the glory of the first 
 created man. He stood on earth a willingly depen- 
 dent worshipper of God. But He had descended 
 thus in order to be capable of that mediatorial work 
 which none could do who was not really Man.^ 
 It was "for the suffering of death" that Jesus was 
 made lower than the angels. A low abasement for 
 the Son of God ! That which in Adam was his 
 highest honour, was to Jehovah's Fellow but the 
 first immeasurable step in that descent for our sakes 
 which had its termination in the grave. Death has 
 no power over angels.* It never reached so high. Its 
 prey is man, by His appointment who judged His 
 sinful creature thus in a redeemable penalty, if only 
 a fit surety could be found. It was for death's sake, 
 then, that Jesus took this lowly place. It is as 
 having died the death which only sin could merit, 
 and died it without sin, that He now wears, as the 
 endless reward of His obedience unto death, the 
 crown of life, and all the honours of the Father's 
 throne. He tasted death for us, that He might prove 
 in resurrection, as the First-born from the dead, the 
 perfect blessedness of life to God: "He liveth unto 
 God."^ The incarnation which enabled Him to die, 
 with perfect realization of the bitterness of death, 
 was likewise His ability to tread the path of life in 
 conscious entrance to the joy of Him who raised 
 His Holy One again from death.^ But both His 
 obedience and its renewal were for our sakes. Hav- 
 ing been made a curse for us upon the cross, He has 
 
 3 1 Tim ii. 5, 6. ^ I do not speak here of the second death, 
 
 s Eom. vi. 6 Ps. xvi. : Acts ii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 61 
 
 also been accepted for iis in His resurrection from 
 tlie dead. The first fruits of Divine salvation have 
 refreshed the lips of the Saviour Himself As it is 
 elsewhere written: "His glory is great in thy sal- 
 vation ; honour and majesty hast thou laid upon 
 Him. For thou hast made Him most blessed for 
 ever ; thou hast made Him exceeding glad with 
 the joy of thy countenance."'' Jesus, then, thus 
 crowned and honoured, is disclosed by the Spirit to 
 the ready gaze of faith. And joy is the result — a 
 joy which is unspeakable and full of glory. For 
 in seeing Jesus on the throne, we see the Pattern 
 and Forerunner of all those who now, as justified 
 by the faith of Him, rejoice in hope of the glory of 
 God. 
 
 We have, further, in the latter clause of the verse, 
 a statement both of the paramount occasion, and the 
 definitive intent of this descending and ascending of 
 the Son of Man.® It was "in order that He by the 
 grace of God should taste of death for every man.^ 
 As in the former chapter, the work of redemption 
 has been celebrated to the praise of His glory, who 
 personally wrought that work; purging thus, both 
 by and for Himself, His people's sins ; so here, since 
 the doctrine of Christ's proper humanity is the more 
 prominent topic of consideration, both His humilia- 
 tion and His exaltation are referred distinctly to the 
 grace of God. For if Jesus died willingly, it was 
 because He was obedient unto death. It was at the 
 commandment of the Father that the Son laid down 
 
 7 Ps. xxi. 5, 6. 8 John iii. 13 ; Eph. iv. 9, 13. 
 
 9 'YTTEp iravTOQ. Perhaps, "for every thing" is to be prefen-ed, re- 
 gard being had to the eventual, as well as immediate results of the 
 Cross. (Comp. Col. i. 20; John xii. 32.) 
 
62 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 His life.^ What, therefore, we are here reminded of 
 is that su]3reme love of God to man, because of 
 which He sent His only begotten into the world, that 
 we might live through Him.*^ In commending thus 
 the bitter cup of death to the lips of His Beloved, 
 God manifests His gracious love to us.^ 
 
 But the glory, not less than the degradation of the 
 Son of Man, was necessary for tlie effective demon- 
 stration of this grace. For if it is by the removal 
 and extinction of their sin through the sacrificial 
 death of Jesus, that God testifies His kindness to- 
 wai'ds those who by faith now take Him at His word, 
 and, by naming Jesus Christ the world's propitiation,* 
 leaves the despisers of His grace without excuse; it 
 is by setting Him on high that He has constituted 
 Him the active dispenser of salvation. For each 
 several vessel of mercy He has tasted death, and 
 has thus entitled each believer to echo the Apostle's 
 bold confession of his faith, "He gave Himself for 
 me."^ But, besides this, He is, as seated on the 
 throne which governs all, the hope and stay of all, 
 that whether in heaven or on earth has suffered 
 through the entrance of sin into the world, and 
 which will hereafter own Him (in their several 
 grades, and widely differing spheres) as the Eecon- 
 ciler of the creature to its God. 
 
 Having thus shown upon what foundation it has 
 pleased the God of all grace to establish both the 
 individual safety of His people, and the administra- 
 tion of His own eternal kingdom; in the verse 
 
 1 John X. 18. 2 1 John iv. 9 ; Titus ii. 11; iii. 4. 
 
 3 Rom. V. 8. * 1 John ii. 2, comp. with John vi. 51. 
 
 5 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS, 63 
 
 wliich follows, the apostle opens further the doctrine 
 of God's sovereign goodness in its present applica- 
 tion to the Church. 
 
 " For it became Him for whom are all things," ^ &c. 
 (verse 10.) The wide reach of redemption, as being 
 in its aspect commensurate with the effects of sin, 
 has already been declared. We have now a more 
 definite expression of the special purpose of God, 
 whose counsels of grace and holiness have received 
 their practical efficacy through the deatli of Jesus. 
 To bring sons unto glory was the worthy purpose of 
 the Father of glory. But the natural condition of 
 those whom He contemplated as the objects of this 
 purpose, was that of hopeless alienation from Him- 
 self — of mere and total condemnation by the ne- 
 cessity of His holiness. For sinners are not sons 
 of God ; but, because conceived in iniquity, they are 
 children of wrath. And such are all hy nature.'^ 
 Yet God had provided, in the counsels of His love, 
 for many sons. He had ordained a heritage of glory 
 for those whom already He regarded in the nearness 
 of adoption, according to the sure election of His 
 own good pleasure. 
 
 But because God set His love upon His children 
 while yet dead in sins, their perfect justification 
 must be first effected before the hope of glory could 
 be theirs. Salvation must evince the manner of the 
 Father's love. But again, if God saved sinners, it 
 must be in a way worthy of Himself. If grace alone 
 
 6 di ou TO. Ttavra koI li ov t.tt. It is interesting to compare witli 
 this the language of the apostle in Col. i. 16, when speaking of 
 Christ. What the Father is originally, and in a paramount sense, the 
 Son is effectively, and with a view to manifested glory. 
 
 7 Eph. ii. 3. 
 
64 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 could reach the children's need, that grace must 
 reach them in the way of perfect righteousness. 
 Now it was God's own truth that had riveted the 
 chain of hopeless bondage on the human soul. The 
 very strength of the sin which governed each man's 
 will was in the Law, which, by explicitly declaring 
 the requirements of Divine holiness, made every 
 man a sinner by the verdict of his own conscience, 
 the moment its true power as the word of God was 
 felt within the soul. Man, when defined by the 
 letter of the Law, is a sinner upon whom its curse 
 already lies. To remove the awful burden of this 
 curse, and to raise the chosen vessels of the Father's 
 mercy from the wretchedness of guilty alienation to 
 the righteous liberty of filial acceptance, was the 
 w^ork of salvation. For the doing of that work the 
 Father sent His only-begotten into the world. But 
 the coming of the Saviour in the flesh was His pre- 
 paration only for the battle of His people's deliver- 
 ance. To discerning faith, indeed, to look upon the 
 new-born Saviour was to see salvation;^ for faith 
 saw in the Person of the Lord of life a pledge of the 
 performance of His work. But the declaration of 
 His glory, as the perfect Captain of salvation, could 
 only be made upon the consummation of that vic- 
 tory which was to set His people free. The enemy 
 was there, until triumphantly subdued, to mock His 
 title, and dispute His claim. 
 
 This triumphant glory of the Son of man began 
 to dawn amid the darkness of that night on which, 
 because the hour of the Father's will was come, He 
 was betrayed for death into the hands of men.^ Al- 
 
 8 Luke ii. 30. 9 John xiii. 31. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 65 
 
 ready He had suffered " many things." The patient 
 course of His obedience, as He perfected the cycle 
 of all righteousness, had been accomplished under 
 the weary burden of suspicion and reproach. As 
 the Doer of all truth. He had wrought the Father's 
 will amid the daily contradiction of sinners against 
 Himself But the honour with which God would 
 glorify Him in Himself — exalting Him to be a 
 Prince and Saviour at His own right hand — must 
 arise from His fulfilment, in His own unspotted 
 Person, of that just and inflexible decree which had 
 made the curse of God the judgment of His people's 
 sins. As disobedience had led man from life to 
 death by the necessary sentence of the righteous 
 Judge, so, by obedience unto death, the sinless 
 Lamb of God would win in righteousness the path 
 of endless life for those whose trust should be re- 
 posed in Him as the divinely- chosen Captain of 
 salvation. The power of the enemy must cease to 
 act effectually against the objects of the Father's 
 choice, the moment there was found a channel 
 through which the pure desires of Divine and 
 perfect love could reach their righteous aim. The 
 fulfilment, in the life and death of Jesus, of the 
 perfect will of God for ns, accomplished this. The 
 perfect obedience of the one Man, Jesus Christ, 
 because it stands for ever before God in gratuitous 
 substitution for the bankrupt sinner's debt, as well 
 as in entire acceptance for its own intrinsic worthi- 
 ness, has opened to the God of holiness and truth 
 the fitting means of compassing His glory as a 
 Saviour.^ 
 
 ^ Tiie infinite importanoe of the doctrine of this verse is readily 
 
QQ NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 It thus became the Father of glory to found the 
 title of His Son's abiding honour upon His suffering 
 obedience. More will be said in chapter v. on this 
 most interesting subject; we may note in the mean- 
 while from another Scripture, how thoroughly the 
 mind of the ever -blessed Sufferer was in sympathy 
 with the thought of Him whom He had come into 
 the world to serve : " The third day I shall be per- 
 fected,'"'^ was His anticipative note of triumph, when 
 about to close His patient labour by repairing for the 
 last time to the city which had slain the prophets, 
 and was presently to fill the measure of her guilt by 
 smiting the Judge of Israel upon the cheek, and 
 numbering the Just One with transgressors. And 
 now the heart's desire '^ of the obedient One has been 
 fulfilled, and the exalted Christ now again glorifies 
 the Father as His companion on the throne,^ even as 
 when on earth He had glorified Him by His obe- 
 dience unto death. It is to the praise of the Father's 
 glory, as well as in the exercise of His omnipotent 
 power, that the work of salvation now proceeds ; and 
 that work is wrought by means of Jesus' name alone. 
 God thus puts honour on the victory of Him by 
 whom the written law of death has been for ever 
 taken from the children's way, while principalities 
 and powders have yielded up their spoils, and bow 
 beneath the might of Him who, as the fruit of His 
 
 perceived by tlie believer. The death of Christ is thus insisted on as 
 the sole ground of all our hope. His life alone was profitless to save. 
 For the glory which He gave to God by the perfection of His per- 
 sonal obedience did but the more emphatically sever Him from those 
 who still continued "under sin." The harvest of Divine salvation 
 could only spring from the consignment of the solitary grain of 
 goodness to the dust of death. (John xii. 24.) 
 
 1 Luke xiii, 32, comp. i?ifra, chap. xii. 2. 
 
 2 John xvii. 1. * Rev. iii. 21. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 67 
 
 great conquest, has made death as well as life His 
 own.* 
 
 Verses 11-13. The paramount supremacy of the 
 God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, 
 in the work of salvation, having been declared, and 
 His especial relation to Jesus as the Captain of His 
 many sons' salvation clearly shewn, this branch of the 
 subject is further expanded in the next three verses, 
 by setting forth the nature of the relationship which 
 grace has established between the Saviour and the 
 saved. And, first, there is the general assertion of 
 their oneness — "For both He that sanctifieth, and 
 they who are sanctified, are all of one." ^ The root of 
 this astonishing statement is the Divine generation 
 of the children who are born of God.^ But that is 
 not the prominent truth of the above expression ; it 
 testifies rather the perfection of that gracious identity 
 which Jesus had assumed for ever with those for 
 whose sakes He had suffered in the flesh, in order to 
 become effectually the Captain of their salvation. 
 It is a precious and enduring fruit of the incarnation 
 of the Word that is here presented. Thus only was 
 it that the eternal Son could say " my God " to Him 
 who had been the children's refuge, and the portion 
 of their hope, since grace first spoke in promise. 
 By death and resurrection He has raised this blessed 
 fellowship to another and a higher sphere, seeing 
 that thereby the children are exalted in Himself to 
 the wondrous level of communion with the Father's 
 
 4Col. ii. 14, 15; Eom. xiv. 9. 
 
 ^ 'E? ivbq iravTsg. " Sincl alle von ein&m. [ Voter. ^ "— De "Wette, 
 *' Sono tutu d'uno" — Diod. Perhaps it should rather be rendered by 
 "one-wise," or "of one natiu'e," as suggested by some. 
 
 6 John i. 13. 
 
QS NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 love. It was the joy of Jesus, — ere He went Him- 
 self on high, to lead captivity captive, and to receive 
 sifts for men, — to declare this to the men whom the 
 Father had given to Him out of the world, " I ascend 
 unto my Father and your Father, to my God and 
 your God.'"^ He is not, then, ashamed to call them 
 brethren ; for, as begotten of the Father, they are the 
 equal sharers of that love which satisfies the soul of 
 the Beloved ; ^ while, by the gracious act of incar- 
 nation, the living Word has placed Himself for ever 
 within the sphere of human fellowship as the sharer, 
 as well as source, of all His people's joys. 
 
 Three distinct passages are next quoted from the 
 Old Testament, in confirmation of the general state- 
 ment of the oneness of the Sanctifier and the sanc- 
 tified. In the first of these ^ the risen Sufferer of 
 death is presented in the act of announcing to His 
 brethren the perfect name and glory of Jehovah. 
 In the midst of the assembly of His people He 
 declares the God of peace — teaching His true praise 
 to them who now, through the shedding of His own 
 precious blood, are sanctified as worthy worshippers 
 of the one God and Father. The place of the risen 
 Jesus is the midst of the blood-bought Church of 
 God. Himself at the right hand of the Majesty in 
 the heavens, to represent His people there, according 
 to the efficacy of His once shed blood. He is by the 
 Spirit still in the midst of His suffering brethren 
 here below. It is there that He discloses, in the 
 fulness of His gracious love, the riches of the glory 
 of the Father's name, causing the light of that 
 excellent glory to become the very home of their 
 
 7 John XX. 17. 8 John xvii. 23. ^ Ps. xxii. 22. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 69 
 
 desires, as they behold in Him who has entered there 
 as their Forerunner, a pattern of that manner of love 
 which the Father already hath bestowed on them. 
 He is their God in everlasting peace. The glory unto 
 which He is bringing individually His many sons, 
 as He calls successively the vessels of His mercy by 
 the sure word of His grace, already rests for them 
 upon the perfected Captain of their salvation. Hence 
 the natural language of God's children, even here on 
 earth, is the joyful celebration of His praise through 
 Jesus Christ.^ 
 
 In the next quotation^ there is a prophetic expres- 
 sion of the personal faith of Jesus while on earth. 
 The seed of David, and the object of the promises, 
 is thus represented as awaiting in perfect confidence 
 the righteous award which in due time should be 
 made to Him who alone is worthy, by the God 
 whom He had glorified in perfect obedience ; although 
 for an appointed season His gracious labour might 
 seem to have been spent for nought and in vain, 
 while man and Satan appeared only to prevail.^ 
 
 The last of these illustrative citations is from Isa. 
 viii. 18. The application of this passage to Jesus, 
 as the disowned of God's professing people, is quite 
 obvious. In like manner as the prophet and the 
 children who received their names from heaven, 
 were signs in Israel from the Lord of hosts, so now, 
 while yet He hides Himself from Jacob, and is as a 
 stumbling-block to both the houses of Israel, the 
 
 lEom. V. 11; Phil. iii. 3. 
 
 2 It is doubtful whether this is taken from the context of the one 
 which immediately follows, or from 2 Sam. xxii. 3. In both passages 
 the Lxx. have imroiQojQ taofiai ett' avTtp, though the original pas- 
 sages do not exactly coincide. 
 
 3 Isa. xlix. 4. 
 
70 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 elect vessels of God's calling are gathered by the 
 quickening Spirit to the name of Jesus, and by Him 
 are owned and fostered as the Father's precious gift.* 
 They are the household and family of the world- 
 rejected Son of God.^ They are consequently the 
 witnesses of God both to gainsaying Israel and to the 
 unbelieving world. It is to them, moreover, as dis- 
 ciples of the truth, that the mysteries of the kingdom, 
 and the hidden wisdom of the God of glory, are 
 revealed.^ The glorious mystery of the elect Church, 
 as the peculiar portion of Him whom man rejected, 
 but God has crowned with glory, is indicated rather 
 than declared expressly in the present passage.'' It 
 should be well remembered, that the primary object 
 of each of these quotations is the establishment and 
 illustration of the blessed truth, already stated affir- 
 matively in verse 11, of the Lord's abiding and 
 indissoluble oneness with all to whom He stands 
 related as the perfected Captain of salvation. 
 
 Verses 14, 15. In close connexion with the doc- 
 trine declared and illustrated in the foregoing verses, 
 we have now a restatement of the fact of Divine 
 incarnation in its special bearing on the calling of 
 God's elect. It was for the children s sahes,^ that the 
 Son of God took part of flesh and blood. This has 
 already been exhibited in its relation to the grace 
 
 4 John X. 29; xvii. 6, 9, 11, 12. 
 
 5 Infra^ chap. iii. ^ Matt, xiii ; 1 Cor. ii. 
 
 '' In John xxi. 5, we see the Lord showing Himself after His re- 
 sun-ection to the disciples, as the Father and Provider of those whom 
 God had given Him. It is in this passage alone that Jesus accosts 
 them hy the term (Trai^ta), here found in the quotation from Isaiah. 
 
 8 The 14th verse expands the force of the quotation from Isaiah 
 viii. 18, so as to make it comprehend not the Church only, but also the 
 nation for which Christ died, and all others who eventually become 
 partakers of the blessings of redemption. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 71 
 
 and glory of the Father, who had provided for the 
 fulfilment of His counsels, the perfect Captain of 
 His many sons' salvation. It is here presented in 
 another light. The personal grace of Jesus, and His 
 devotedness of perfect love towards His ovm, are now 
 the nearer object of our contemplation. The purpose 
 of deliverance^ was in His heart before He took on 
 Him the children's form. He knew the nature of 
 their bondage, and the sole condition of their eman- 
 cipation. Because the children are partakers of flesh 
 and blood, He likewise would become partaker of 
 the same. For only thus He might come lawfully 
 within the lists of conflict with the children's foe. 
 Jesus arrayed Himself for cUatli by taking thus the 
 children's flesh and blood. For death was the 
 weapon whose sure use should win the victory of 
 their deliverance by destroying once for all him and 
 his work who had the power of death. 
 
 Satan's work of sin is perfected in death. God 
 willed it thus ; giving the deceiver power over his 
 victim as the minister (in God's own way and season) 
 of the sentence which had righteously been spoken 
 against human sin. That Jesus might enjoy the 
 children as the gift of God, He must first take away 
 the yoke of the oppressor. But because the right 
 of Satan to destroy was founded on the victory of 
 sin, which made man, under all conditions of his 
 natural life, the lawful prey of death, Jesus, who 
 loved the children, though as yet they knew Him 
 not, took also flesh ; that in their stead, and under 
 their true likeness, He might undergo that death 
 which should for ever spoil the devil of his claim. 
 
 9 Yerse 15. 
 
72 NOTES ON THE HEBEEVfS. 
 
 The limitation of the atoning work of Jesus to the 
 children, as its object, should be carefully observed. 
 The Lord knoweth them that are His own. The 
 Shepherd knew His sheep before He came into the 
 world to give them new and more abundant life.^ 
 
 It was for the destruction of the devil, then, by 
 means of death, that the Son of God became incar- 
 nate for the children's sakes. He will thus " deliver 
 them who through fear of death were all their life- 
 time subject to bondage!" It is the state of the 
 believer's soul while under law that is contemplated 
 in this description. Bondage, not liberty, must be 
 the practical condition of all who are not standing 
 in the conscious liberty of redemption. And such 
 was the state of those Jewish saints who expected 
 the advent of the promised Saviour while themselves 
 personally under Law. They were slaves, not heirs. 
 They were bound, moreover, in a covenant of impos- 
 sible fulfilment. But the penalty of that hard bond 
 was death. The Law, therefore, wrought death. God 
 ministered it through the Law ; and Satan was His 
 minister. Thus hope was excluded ; and peace could 
 never come to those who only knew the ministry of 
 condemnation. A live-long fear of death pressed 
 heavily upon their souls. Because their consciences 
 were never purged from sin, they could not know 
 exemption from the fear of God's recorded judgment 
 upon sin.^ Now "the sting of death is sin, and the 
 
 1 John X. 10, 14. 
 
 2 This is quite consistent with the presence of a hope in the Divine 
 mercy which the children at all times fundamentally possessed. But 
 the "consolation of Israel" was a wished-for futurity, not an enjoyed 
 blessing, to them that were under the Law. They could not know 
 the blessing of a conscience definitively purged from sin. {Infra^ 
 ch. ix. X.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 73 
 
 strength of sin is the Law." The death of Jesus 
 once for all to sin^ has removed that sting, and 
 turned that strength to nothingness. The children 
 of the living God now walk in life amid the shades 
 of death. Sin was the devil's work, and death was 
 God's award in righteousness to those who earned 
 such wages through their willing service in that 
 work. But the Son of God was manifested to 
 destroy the devil's works, and so to take away His 
 people's sins.* Having righteously deprived Satan 
 of His power by accomplishing the total will of 
 God, He is free to pass His sentence upon him 
 who was a murderer from the beginning. The 
 guiltless dying of the Lamb of God converts the 
 lawful wielder of death's power into a convicted 
 culprit, for whom vengeance is prepared. He is 
 judged as a conspirator against the children's peace. 
 Already is the judgment of the prince of this world 
 passed. That sentence will be presently fulfilled. 
 The God of peace shall shortly bruise His children's 
 ruthless enemy beneath their feet.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, for the believer, Satan's power over 
 death is already at an end. For a Christian dies no 
 more a sinner's death. Already passed from death to 
 life in Jesus, the dissolution of his natural life is but 
 his departure to be for ever with the Lord. He dies, 
 indeed, but not to Satan ; nor in the fear which 
 death brings with it as the penalty of sin. He dies 
 to Him who holds him still within His power as 
 Lord of the living and the dead. It is Jesus, and 
 not Satan, who is now associated with death in the 
 mind of a believer. He falls asleep in Jesus, to 
 
 3 Bom. vi. * 1 John iii. 5, 8. 5 Rom. xvi. 20. 
 
74 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 wake Tip in His likeness in due time. Death is 
 therefore no longer an object of just dread to the 
 believer. As the closing scene of a life which is 
 mortal only on account of sin, death must, indeed, 
 when rightly considered, be always a solemnly im- 
 pressive thing; but the Christian who has truly 
 learned the cross, knows that there he has already 
 confronted and subdued the last great enemy of his 
 soul. Death's bitter savour having, by the grace of 
 God, been once the portion of His Son for us, can 
 never be experienced by those whose life is hid 
 with Him in God. We die (if natural dissolution 
 be our lot, because the Saviour tarries still) to Him 
 who has the keys of death. In life or death, we are 
 alike the Lord's.^ 
 
 Pursuing still the subject of the incarnation and 
 its objects, the 16th verse defines categorically, and 
 by way of contrast, the special subject towards which 
 the positive action of redemption-power is directed: 
 "For, verily. He taketh not hold of angels, but of 
 the seed of Abraham He taketh hold"^ {margin). 
 The doctrine of the Lord's humanity, and its com- 
 parison with angels, have been already treated in 
 earlier verses of the present chapter. Angels are 
 now compared, not with Adam's nature, whether in 
 abasement or in glory, but with the objects of 
 Christ's electing grace. He has assumed as His 
 purchased possession, not angels, but the seed of 
 Abraham. Angels are not the seed of promise. 
 
 6 Rom. xiv. 
 
 ''' Qy yap StfTTOv a.yyk\(i)v eTriXafi^dvsTai. K.X. The 
 marginal translation is decidedly preferable to that in the text of our 
 E. v., though that also contains a fragment of the truth which is 
 here occupying the Spirit's mind. The Jewish humanity of the 
 Lord is a point never to be lost sight of. (Comp. John iv. 22.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 75 
 
 Christ is personally such, in fulfilment of the 
 Father's counsel, who, in due time, sent Him into 
 the world. For the birth of Jesus into the family 
 of David, after the flesh, was the accomplishment 
 in His person of the Abrahamic promise. But the 
 same title attaches also to His people, who receive, 
 by virtue of their faith, the common badge of Abra- 
 ham's lineage. Called and adopted by that appro- 
 priative love which makes the Father and the 
 children one,^ the saved are thus far identified in 
 privilege and title with the Saviour. For as many 
 as are Christ's are Abraham's seed, by the witness 
 of the Spirit in another place.^ We shall presently 
 see within what limits this expression is to be 
 understood in its existing application to the Church. 
 It is to be remarked, in the meanwhile, that the 
 expression, " seed of Abraham," is, as a generic term, 
 descriptive of the entire family of faith. For "they 
 which are of faith, the same are the children of 
 Abraham." ^ Believers, whether circumcised or un- 
 circumcised, are comprehended in this term.^ They 
 that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 
 By the Lord's own figure, Abraham's bosom is the 
 rest to which the ministering spirits bore the liber- 
 ated soul of the neglected child of promise.^ 
 
 Considered thus, the three expressions, "seed of 
 Abraham," "brethren," and "people" (verse 17), are 
 terms of commensurate signification, their meaning 
 being limited exclusively to the real family of faith. 
 For to such alone do the peculiar blessings of re- 
 demption attach. He taketh hold of such. And 
 
 Verse 13. 9 Gal. iii. 29. i Gal. iii. 7. 
 
 8 Eom. iv. 16. 8 Luke xvi. 
 
 E 2 
 
70 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 never will they fall, nor ever be plucked forth from 
 that sure grasp.'' But although the work of redemp- 
 tion is complete, and Jesus sits on high as the 
 triumphant Captain of salvation, yet as it respects 
 the objects of this grace, they are left still, for a 
 season, to suffer in their fleshly bodies here below. 
 We are saved: but our salvation is hy hoin. The 
 subject, which in the preceding verses has been 
 dilated to the wide extent of redemption in its full 
 results, now narrows itself to the special case of 
 those who become actually cognizant (as the Church 
 now is) of their peculiar position as expectant and 
 suffering heirs of salvation : who know, because 
 severally taught of God, both the completeness of 
 their acceptance in the risen Saviour, and the utter 
 contrariety of all that is naturally in themselves to 
 God ; who are conscious of deliverance through the 
 victory of Jesus, and yet living continually within 
 the influences of temptation. It is because, there- 
 fore, of the present condition of the children in 
 their need, that He who is not ashamed to call 
 them brethren has accepted in His love the priestly 
 consecration at the Father's hands. For their sakes 
 He has sanctified Himself.' 
 
 Priesthood is an institution not of man, but of 
 God. Its basis is the gracious compassion of Divine 
 holiness. Its object is the people with whom God 
 has chosen, in His own good pleasure, to connect 
 His name. Its moving occasion is the condition of 
 that people, considered with reference to their per- 
 sonal inability to maintain themselves in an accept- 
 able position in the presence of His holiness. Its 
 
 * Jolm X. 5 John xvii. 19. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 77 
 
 end is the Divine glory, througli the effectual fulfil- 
 ment in uninterrupted blessedness of all the cove- 
 nanted promises of truth. God's consecrated Priest 
 is His own established link between the Blesser and 
 the blest. He is the chosen Intercessor of the 
 people's need, and the authentic Minister of the 
 grace which meets it. He is, moreover, their only 
 medium of accepted worship. The personal quali- 
 ties of one who should worthily discharge the priestly 
 office must be correspondent to the nature of his 
 appointed ministration. To God and the worshipper 
 he must be equally suitable. The fitness of the Son 
 of God alone to be the High Priest over the house 
 of God, in contrast with His factitious and shadowy 
 precursors of Levitical ordinance, and the corres- 
 ponding difference in the manner of the people's 
 blessing, are demonstrated, with precious richness 
 of detail, in succeeding portions of the Epistle. In 
 the two concluding verses of this chapter, the subject 
 is introduced in immediate connexion with the doc- 
 trine of His incarnation. 
 
 It was needful,^ for the children's sake, that He 
 who was their Captain of salvation should likewise 
 be their faithful and merciful High Priest. We 
 must ever bear in mind that Jesus is not the luorkVs 
 High Priest. For the world is not of God. He 
 represents His oivn. He lives to succour and to 
 comfort them whom already He has made the 
 acceptable people of God by the effectual work of 
 reconciliation in the body of His flesh through 
 death. But to fulfil this ceaseless ministry of grace, 
 a perfect knowledge of His people's griefs was re- 
 
 s "09ev u)<pH\ev. k. \. 
 
78 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS, 
 
 quisite, as well as an essential capacity to maintain 
 them still unblemished before the face of God. By 
 His patience in the flesh He has acquired this. He 
 has suffered temptation for His people's sakes, and 
 therefore morally, as well as absolutely, He is ahle 
 to succour them that are tempted.^ Jesus is God's 
 High Priest. "The things of God" are His most 
 sacred charge. And He is faithful to that charge. 
 But it is for the people that He acts; and that 
 people are the brethren of His love. In faithfulness 
 and mercy He is theirs. 
 
 7 The subject of the sympathy of Jesus is more fully treated, in its 
 practical application, at the close of the 4th chapter. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 79 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The perfection of Jesus as the Captain of salvation, 
 and His personal fitness to fulfil all priestly service, 
 having been declared, His blessed Person, under the 
 twofold title of Apostle and High Priest, is now set 
 pointedly before His people's faith as the object of 
 their entire and undivided attention. They had 
 received the testimony which witnessed of salvation 
 through His finished work. They are exhorted now 
 to set their minds exclusively on Him to whom they 
 now belong, who, having saved them from the bond- 
 age of the prince of this world, is to be their leader 
 and preserver through the way of pilgrimage, by 
 which the promised glory must be reached. 
 
 They are addressed, accordingly, in the first verse 
 of this chapter, under names expressive both of 
 their actual standing as the acceptable people of 
 God, and of the nature of the hope which was to 
 animate their souls, while walking still by faith, and 
 not by sight. They are "holy brethren, partakers 
 of the heavenly calling." Already they were sanc- 
 tified by faith in Him whom God has made His 
 people's sanctification, as well as their righteousness 
 and their redemption.^ By the sprinkling of the 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
80 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 precious blood of Jesus, they had known, in living 
 power and reality, a separation from the present evil 
 world, of which the paschal night in Egypt had 
 afforded to their fathers a fore -shadowing type. 
 That blood had redeemed them, not only from the 
 fearful penalties of natural sin, but likewise from the 
 vain conversation received by tradition from their 
 fathers.^ The yoke that bound their souls, in dark- 
 ened ignorance of God, to a perpetual exercise of 
 profitless observances, had been dissolved by Him 
 who had blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances, 
 and nailed that covenant, which was the ministra- 
 tion of death, to the cross of Jesus, as a cancelled 
 and vacated bond. In the body of His flesh, through 
 death, a reconciliation had been made whereby they 
 were presented without spot to God. The sanctity 
 which the Spirit recognizes as attaching to the 
 believer, is immediately connected with the truth of 
 the resurrection. A Christian's life is the ascended 
 Christ. The faith which justifies him, acquaints 
 him, also, with the nature of the grace wherein he 
 stands, and makes him know his union with his 
 risen Head, that it is in the beloved that He is ac- 
 cepted. The holy separateness of the brethren is 
 thus the effect, not of external observance, nor of 
 inherited privilege, but of a faith which sees in Jesus 
 glorified the truth and vital substance of their hope. 
 Joined to the Lord in the unity of the Spirit, they 
 are (as elsewhere described),^ 'Elect of God, holy and 
 beloved;' and according to their standing, is the 
 nature of their present calling. It is a heavenly 
 calling. 
 
 2 1 Pet. i. 18. 8 Col. iii. 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 81 
 
 To the mind of a recently-converted Jew, perhaps 
 no truth was harder to receive, and to retain in 
 unimpaired effect upon his heart and conscience, 
 than the one just stated. For it was a total inver- 
 sion of his earliest and most deeply-rooted feeling 
 and desire. The land of Israel, and the earthly city 
 of solemnities, were to the natural children of the 
 covenant of promise, their boasted portion, and the 
 home of their affections. For the calling of Israel 
 had been an earthly calling. True faith in God 
 could find, indeed, no rest, except in Him who had 
 revealed Himself to Abraham as His exceeding great 
 reward;* but, in the meantime, it was with earth and 
 earthly things that Jewish faith had immediately to 
 do. For it was with reference to them that God then 
 dealt with the people which He called His own. 
 God had taken Him a nation from the midst of 
 another nation, when He brought the seed of Jacob 
 out of Egypt. He had redeemed them with a mighty 
 hand, and had ordained His Captain of deliverance 
 to lead them to the place which He had chosen — 
 to the mountain of His inheritance, which he had 
 given to the fathers for their children to enjoy.^ The 
 goodly blessings of terrestrial happiness, the rich 
 abundance of all natural enjoyments, were to be the 
 undisturbed possession of the people which Jehovah 
 had called to be His witnesses among the nations, to 
 the glory and holiness of His name, as the Most 
 High God of all the earth. For it was the King of 
 nations who elected Israel for Himself, to be the 
 portion of His heritage in holy separation from the 
 idolatrous darkness of the Gentiles.*^ If national 
 
 * Gen. XV. 1. ^ Exod. xv. ^ Jer. x. 
 
 E 5 
 
62 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 sin had forfeited the privileges which, by the cove- 
 nant of works, were made conditional for their en- 
 joyment on the obedience of the people, and had 
 made the salt bread of captivity the frequent portion 
 of a rebellious house ; still, in the words of gracious 
 promise, with which the prophets were commanded 
 to relieve the burden which hewed the loftiness of 
 carnal pride, and brake in pieces the false confidences 
 of a seed of evil-doers, the land was ever kept before 
 their view with prominent distinctness, as an object 
 of their chief desire. The promised Hope of Israel, 
 who should purge away iniquity from Jacob, was 
 likewise to establish him in lasting possession of 
 Immanuel's land. The wasted cities should again be 
 raised, and the desolations of many generations be 
 repaired. The double portion of blessing which would 
 banish the remembrance of their former shame, was 
 to be the sure possession of the seed of Israel in the 
 land which, for their sins, had been the spoil and 
 derision of the Gentiles.^ The height of Zion was 
 Jehovah's mountain of delight and holiness,^ and 
 as such was to become the centre of the world's con- 
 senting homage when the promised times of restitu- 
 tion should have come.^ That He would plant His 
 people ineradicably in the land which He had given 
 them, and win them praise and honour from the 
 families of all the earth, was a promise which had 
 been reiterated by the changeless God of truth.^ 
 
 Nor would these pledges fail to be redeemed. 
 Tor the Kock of Israel is not a man that He should 
 lie — His gifts and callings are without repentance. 
 
 '' Isa. Ixi. ^ Dan. xi. 45. 
 
 9 Acts iii. 21. ^ Amos ix. 15. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 83 
 
 The death of Christ was for that nation" which re- 
 fused Him, when He came in lowly meekness to 
 fulfil all righteousness; and who will yet discern in 
 Him the Shepherd and the Stone of Israel; when, 
 with unveiled heart, and seeing eye, Jerusalem shall 
 welcome the now hidden Lord of her salvation with 
 grateful and heartfelt hosannahs in Jehovah's name.^ 
 But while the veil remains on Israel's heart, and 
 God has turned to be their enemy for their rejection 
 of His love, a new and hitherto unpromised^ work 
 is being wrought, whereby another people shall be 
 formed for God. As He has once assayed to take a 
 nation to Himself from amidst another nation, so 
 now, from every nation under heaven, He is calling, 
 by the quickening word of truth, the scattered 
 children of His love. The manner of Jehovah's 
 former dealings, when He formed in Israel's praises 
 a habitation for His name, is here presented as a 
 pattern of those better things which are discovered 
 to the children by the Comforter, who shows to 
 them the things of Jesus. They were an earthly pre- 
 figurement of heavenly and lasting truth. The acts 
 which Israel's eyes beheld, and their palpable dis- 
 cernment of Jehovah's goodness in the rich fulfil- 
 ment of His faithful promise,^ find in the faith of 
 
 2 Jolinxi. 51, 52. 
 
 3 Ps. cxviii. ; Matt, xxiii. 39. The subject of Israel's present aliena- 
 tion, and future restoration, is more largely treated in my Notes on 
 the Epistle to the Romans, chapters ix. x. xi. 
 
 ^ Forming, that is, no part of those "promises" which are Israel's. 
 (Rom. ix. 4.) A promise had been made, indeed, before the world, 
 the manifestation of which is by preaching the Gospel (Tit. i. 2, 3 ; 
 2 Tim. i. 9, 10); but the mystery of the Church, which is developed 
 in the present economy, was hidden in God from the beginning of 
 the world, and not made known unto the sons of men. See further 
 as to this. Notes on the Ephesians, chap. iii. 
 
 ^ Joshua xxiii. 14. 
 
84 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 God's elect, tlieir antitype of more enduring blessed- 
 ness. As Israel saw the carcases of Pharaoli's host 
 before they raised their song of triumph,— perceiving 
 by that witness that in Hoses'^ they had gotten a 
 true captain of deliverance ; so now by faith, al- 
 though they see Him not, the true partakers of the 
 heavenly calling rejoice with joy unspeakable, and 
 full of glory, in Jesus, as the crowned Eedeemer of 
 their souls. God blessed His former people with all 
 natural blessings in a pleasant land. It is with all 
 spiritual blessings in heavenly places, that believers 
 now are blessed in Christ.^ Moreover, to the natural 
 Israel, affliction was a token of Divine displeasure, 
 while ease and outward honour were the sure atten- 
 dants of Jehovah's favour. But now, since their 
 illumination with the light of life, they whom the 
 Apostle addresses as partakers of the heavenly call- 
 ing, had endured a great fight of affliction from 
 no other cause. The truth which blessed them with 
 the knowledge of the Father's love in Jesus, exposed 
 them to a daily conflict with an enemy who sought 
 their blood. ^ 
 
 It is because of this pervading contrariety of 
 Jewish feeling to true Christian hope, and the prac- 
 tical difficulty which every believing Israelite must 
 find in dating for himself a new beginning from the 
 grave of Christ, in which the former man — the Jew, 
 as weU as Gentile — lay buried with his sins,^ that 
 with the rich assurances of blessing, which are pre- 
 sently unfolded, there is mingled such a deep and 
 
 6 Joshua is, in another sense, tlie typical captain of salvation, as he 
 led the people into Canaan. In Jesus we enjoy the antitype of both. 
 
 7 Eph. i. 3. 8 Chap. x. 32 ; xii. 4. 
 9 Rom. vi. ; Col. ii. 11, 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 85 
 
 earnest tone of warning. In the labour wliose object 
 is the presenting every man perfect in Christ Jesus, 
 teaching and warning are never separated by the 
 Spirit of God.^ For the nature of the dangers by 
 which the Christian is surrounded is discovered only 
 in the light of the doctrine which ascertains his true 
 position before God. 
 
 They are exhorted, then, as partakers of this new 
 and heavenly calling, to dismiss from their minds 
 the former things, and to fix their whole attention 
 upon Him who is now presented to their contem- 
 plation as the Apostle and High Priest of their 
 profession. For thus alone would they be safe from 
 harm to whom their former rest was now become a 
 wilderness of danger and of drought. The power 
 of God could alone suffice to lead His children 
 safely through that waste. By living faith in Him 
 whom God had chosen as the Shepherd of His 
 people, they would glory in that power as their 
 safeguard and their praise. 
 
 The separate ministries of Moses and Aaron are 
 united, in the fulness of Divine perfection, in the 
 Person of the Son of God. It is with the former 
 that He is first compared, as the Apostle of His 
 people's deliverance, and the faithful ruler of the 
 house of God (verse 2). The appointment of Moses 
 was to bring the people out of Egypt, and to bear 
 their burden till he brought them to the Eest. 
 Alone with God in the far wilderness of Horeb, he 
 received his commission of deliverance.^ He was 
 
 1 Col. i. 28, 29. 
 
 2 As to the process by means of -which he became morally qualified 
 for his mighty task, see the remarks on chap. xi. 24-27. 
 
86 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 sent to break the iron yoke of those whose groan 
 of heljoless misery had come into the ears of Israel's 
 God, In faithfulness (through the sustaining grace 
 of Him that sent him) he fulfilled that trust. The 
 people knew him, and gave him homage as Jehovah's 
 servant, when they saw the work of their deliverance 
 completed through the power of his mighty rod of 
 of&ce.^ And it was in a way morally resembling 
 this that the heavenly Deliverer had been sent. 
 From the secret of the Father's bosom He had come 
 to do His bidding as the Saviour of His people, 
 when they lay without all strength in hopeless bond- 
 age under sin and death.* That gracious mission He 
 had thoroughly effected, and now, in the ascended 
 glory of the once-slain Lamb, His people saw their 
 safety and adored their Saviour. The will of God 
 had faithfully been done, and His will was to save 
 His many children from their sins. 
 
 By their redemption out of Egypt, the tribes of 
 Israel were formed into the acknowledged house- 
 hold of Jehovah. Fidelity was found in Moses, as 
 a servant, in his deputed regulation of that house 
 (verse 5). God gave this witness to His servant's 
 honour, though in him, too, was exemplified the 
 intrinsic weakness and unprofitableness of the flesh.^ 
 But the glory of which Moses was accounted worthy, 
 as the faithful steward of the house of which he 
 formed himself a part, was far less in measure, as 
 well as different in kind, from that with which we 
 now see Jesus crowned. For Jesus is the builder 
 of God's true and living house (verse 3).^ He has 
 
 3 Exod. iii.-xiv. ^ Rom. v. 6. ^ Num. xii. 7. 
 
 6 Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBREWS. 87 
 
 laid its sure foundations in the truth of His own 
 Person as the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
 But it is upon Himself in death that He has built 
 the fabric of His glory. In the majesty of His 
 power, as the Eesurrection and the Life, He has 
 raised from that foundation an abiding habitation 
 for the only wise and blessed God.'^ Now it is the 
 Builder of all things ^ who has founded and com- 
 pleted in Himself this spiritual house (verse 4). The 
 Church then is the workmanship of God. From the 
 wide extent of His creation He has gathered, at His 
 will, the lively stones of which that house is built. 
 As no house builds itself, nor can be raised without 
 the skill and method of some competent designer, 
 so, from its foundation to its last details, the house 
 which God inhabits is exclusively the luork of God. 
 
 Verses 5, 6. " And Moses verily was faithful," &c. 
 As then the glory of the Creator exceeds that of 
 His creature, so must the glory of Jesus, as the 
 Builder of the house of God, be exalted above that 
 of Moses. But they are now more particularly con- 
 trasted in their several relations to the house when 
 built. Moses was faithful as a servant and a ivitness. 
 His ministry had reference to something yet to be. 
 He acted, in his stewardship, in faithfulness to Him 
 who built the house; but the servant could not 
 minister the perfect truth of God. He stood himself 
 within the promises, and saw Jehovah's glory in the 
 
 7Epli. ii. 20-22. 
 
 s Ante, chap. i. 3. 6 KararrKEvcKTaQ. A -word has been here 
 chosen by the Spirit which gives the amplest possible description of 
 the Saviour's work. Wisdom decorates what it builds. Whether in 
 nature or in grace, the comeliness of God discovers itself to the 
 seeing eye by means of the operation of His hands. (Ps. civ. 24; 
 Prov. viii. and ix.) 
 
88 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 mount ; but the vail was on his face before the 
 people.^ In his actual office, as the mediator of tlie 
 first covenant, Moses was a minister of condemnation 
 and of death. But in the manner of his ministry, 
 as the maker of the tabernacle, and the establisher 
 of the Levitical priesthood and its rites, he was a 
 prophetic witness of good things to come. But what 
 he testified, both by figurative ordinance and in 
 words of promise, was a vailed and enigmatic mys- 
 tery to the natural seed of Israel, though in the 
 hearts of God's believing remnant they spoke hope- 
 fully of better things. Moses was thus a 'preacher 
 of law, but a prophet of grace. The things to which 
 his ministry gave witness " were to be spoken after." 
 The true and living bread of God might not be given 
 to the children by the servant's hands.^ 
 
 To the failing^ though honoured servant of the 
 former house, Christ is now set forth in contrast as 
 the Son over His own house. He has been already 
 glorified in His name of absolute Divinity as the 
 Builder of the house. It is in special relation to 
 the Father that He now appears as the Son over His 
 own house. It is, indeed. His own ; yet He holds it 
 by cqypointment as the Fathers gift. And Jesus is 
 faithful as the ruler of that house. Himself the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, He fills with that 
 radiance the house which He has built. What 
 Moses darkly testified, is now spoken plainly by 
 
 9 2 Cor. iii. i John vi. 
 
 2 No mention is made, in the present comparison, of Moses's failure 
 under the too great burden of the stiff-necked people. It is graciously- 
 omitted by the Spirit, whose object here is not to demonstrate the un- 
 profitableness and practical faiiltiness of man, but to extinguish, in 
 the revelation of the brighter glory, the feebler light, which only 
 burned until that perfect day should rise. (Compare 2 Cor. iii. 10.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 89 
 
 the Son. He preaches peace within His house. He 
 brings forth from His own exhaustless store, the 
 bread which satisfies with everlasting life the be- 
 lieving brethren of His love. As Moses was the 
 minister of holiness and truth, to make the people 
 know, 'in fear, how far they were from God, so Jesus 
 is the minister, in holiness, of finished grace, to shew 
 His people into what nearness they are brought 
 through the consummation of the Father's love.' 
 The house of Jesus is a house of joy. For it stands 
 upon a basis of discovered truth, which makes its 
 happy inmates know that God is love. Sadness and 
 heaviness might well become the servile state of 
 legal bondage. But grace and truth have come by 
 Jesus Christ, to take away the children's prison rags, 
 and clothe them, according to their royal title, with 
 the garments of the rightful Heir.^ 
 
 Believing sinners thus become, by virtue of their 
 heavenly calling, the house of Christ; and it is by 
 the power of God, through faith, that they are thus 
 preserved. Now the first and most natural effects 
 of simple faith are confidence and joy. For " peace 
 with God " is witnessed by the Sx3irit as the imme- 
 diate result to the believer of the finished work of 
 Christ.^ He stands now with a full acceptance 
 before the living God, as one already quickened 
 through righteousness from his former state of death. 
 For he has access with confidence by the faith of 
 Jesus to that now no longer dreaded presence. But 
 the certainty of his deliverance is likewise the be- 
 ginning of his lioije. He finds himself an heir of 
 heavenly promise — a partaker of the heavenly call- 
 3 1 John iii. 1: iv. 16-18. * Rom. viii. 15-17. ^ Rom. v. 1. 
 
90 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ing. He knows himself to be forgiven. He finds 
 himself to be, in Christ, prepared for glory. To 
 "rejoice in hope of the glory of God" is thus the 
 natural right of those whom grace already has made 
 heirs. Christ is Himself within them as the Hope 
 of glory. He is known as such by the witness of 
 the Spirit, who is the abiding seal and earnest of 
 that hope. It is, therefore, by rejoicing in the bold, 
 though meek and quiet, confession of their hope, 
 that believers show themselves to be the genuine 
 household of the Son. Tor what soul ever truly 
 tasted Christ ^ that did not find both confidence and 
 joy in Him ? 
 
 It is evident that the doctrine here stated, of the 
 headship of the Son over His own house, contains 
 within its principle all that relates either to dis- 
 cipline or personal conduct in the church of God. 
 Elsewhere, accordingly, these subjects are variously 
 presented in their relation to this fundamental 
 truth ;^ but the present object of the Apostle is not 
 to expand the doctrine to its full extension, but 
 rather to establish the hearts of his brethren in that 
 vital godliness which consists in the lively apprehen- 
 sion, by faith, of Jesus as the inseparable companion 
 
 ^ Let no self-torturing spirit, that lives in weary fretfulness and 
 barren sorrow upon the bitterness of inward personal experiences, 
 think that he is truly tasting Christ. He may be a believer. There 
 are, indeed, too many such, who rarely know abiding confidence or 
 joy, because, instead of exclusively considering Jesus, they are occu- 
 pied chiefly with themselves. But vainly shall we search in our 
 hearts, as men, for other furniture than what the Lord discovers 
 there. To look for aught but evil in oiu'selves is to dishonour Jesus 
 as the Word of Truth. To attempt to cure the evil that is there by 
 any effort of our own is to deny Him in His ever-blessed work. 
 The strength to curb that evil flows directly from the trusted grace 
 of Christ. It is through the Spirit that the flesh is overcome. 
 
 7 Bev. ii. iii. ; 2 Tim. ii. 19-21 ; Titus ii. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 91 
 
 as well as the Almighty Saviour of our souls. There 
 only could they be preserved from falling back again 
 under the former dominion of that vain conversation 
 received by tradition from their fathers,® from which 
 Christ had died to set them free. 
 
 It is the presence of the master that virtually 
 makes the house. But where Christ's blessed pre- 
 sence is perceived, both confidence and hopeful joy 
 are found. Believers, then, are warned to note 
 these tokens in themselves. Inward hesitation or 
 indifference, is an effect of experimental distance 
 from the Saviour. The life which is in us, as 
 believers, can be preserved from languishing and 
 decay, only by a watchful and assiduous communion 
 with the Lord who is its source. The branch that 
 ceases to abide in Him becomes a sapless and a life- 
 less branch. The Master also is the glory of the 
 house. If Christians are not glorying in Jesus, 
 they have ceased to bear the true distinction of the 
 family of faith. The question here relates to the be- 
 liever's experimental continuance in the grace of God. 
 God will preserve His many sons, and bring them 
 safe to glory in the wisdom of His grace and power. 
 They are preserved in Jesus Christ, as well as called.^ 
 But while remaining in the flesh, the word of warn- 
 ing is as needful for the conscience as the word of 
 comfort for the heart. For faith and patience must 
 be put to trial in the experiences of actual life, so 
 long as the believer tarries in a world whose every 
 thought and motion is against the truth of that posi- 
 tion which the children occupy as the household of 
 the risen Christ. No addition can be made, intrin- 
 8 1 Pet. i. 18-21, 9 Jude 1, 
 
92 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 sically, to the present value of their position; for 
 already they are fully blessed in Christ. They have 
 to hold firmly fast unto the end the confidence and 
 the rejoicing of the hope. 
 
 The quotation from Ps. xcv., which occupies the 
 five succeeding verses (7-11), is now cited as an 
 earlier^ testimony of the Holy Ghost, that it may 
 form the basis of the more extended and searching 
 exhortation which the same Spirit now addresses to 
 the brethren of the Son. The provocation of the 
 earthly nation was through the error of their heart. 
 They never understood the manner of the God with 
 whom they had to do. They knew His power, and 
 believed His grace, when by faith they passed the 
 sea which swallowed up the host of Pharaoh.^ They 
 loudly sang His praises who should bring the people 
 to His place of rest, as He had led them forth in 
 mercy by His own redeeming power. But they did 
 not consider that their calling, as Jehovah's people, 
 was to learn His way. They longed exceedingly to 
 taste the goodly blessings of His land ; but they 
 understood not that He was Himself the portion 
 of His people. Not knowing Him aright, they 
 would not trust Him in their hearts ; and not trust- 
 ing Him, they could not tarry for His counsel.^ 
 Interpreting the Promises according to the eagerness 
 of selfish expectation, their confidence was turned 
 to faintness, and their joy to thankless discontent, 
 when they saw that Canaan might be only reached 
 
 1 A testimony delivered by the Spirit of prophecy, with an especial 
 reference, I believe, to the futiire condition of the ransomed nation, 
 but here applied, by an obvious analogy, to the partakers of the 
 heavenly calling as the only house which God now owns. 
 
 2 Chap. xi. 29. 3 pgg. Ixxviii. cvi. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 93 
 
 by paths which none but God could find, and 
 through a wilderness where none might live but 
 such as He immediately sustained. While Moses 
 knew the secret of His ways, it was by ostensive 
 acts alone that Israel, as a nation, knew the God 
 who had redeemed them, whether for exultation, or 
 in deadly fear. Jehovah's presence was the safety, 
 as well as glory, of the house which He had formed ; 
 and well His servant knew this when, pleading for 
 the stiff-necked people, he refused to lead them as 
 his own.* The people hailed that presence with a 
 shout of triumph, and fell upon their faces with 
 mingled reverence and delight, when, at the visible 
 uplifting of the hands of mediatorial and priestly 
 benediction, they beheld Jehovah's manifested glory, 
 and knew that Aaron's blessing was commanded 
 from on high upon His people, in token of His 
 favourable presence, by the fire which consumed 
 before their eyes the accepted offerings of His altar.^ 
 Yet ignorance of His nature and His way was still 
 within their heai*ts. They rebelled and vexed His 
 Holy Spirit by their ways. And when He gave fresh 
 tokens of His nearness and His power, to confirm, 
 by new and special sanction, the chosen witness of 
 His name, although murmuring was turned to abject 
 dread, the people's heart remained rebellious still.^ 
 For nature never willingly consents to God. Its 
 selfish heart can never cleave to Him. It seeks its 
 own. God's gifts and blessings are desired, not to 
 be enjoyed with ffim, but for itself And Israel was 
 a fleshly nation. Divine election kept a seed of grace, 
 whose hearts were circumcised, within the multitude 
 4 Exod. xxxiii. ^ Levit. ix. 22-24. ^ Numb. xvii. 
 
94 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 who only stood on their hereditary claim as Abra- 
 ham's natural seed ; but the rest were a stiff-necked 
 generation, a people of no pleasure before God. 
 
 But Israel's provocation in the wilderness is ex- 
 ampled by the Spirit for the admonition of the 
 Church.'' The frequent stroke, which bruised but 
 did not kill their folly, is meant to act, through its 
 divinely- kept memorial, as a warning of instruction 
 on the children's hearts.® Egypt's gods and Egypt's 
 pleasures were the snares which took the earthly 
 people in the net of their destruction ; but apostasy 
 of heart from God was the root and bitterness of 
 their transgression. And the unbelief which was its 
 cause is still the snare of destruction to those who 
 only have a name to live.^ Accordingly, in what 
 now follows, the whole weight of the Spirit's exhor- 
 tation is directed to that point (verses 12-19). 
 Dejmrtiore from the living God was the one vital 
 danger against which they were to guard. 
 
 By faith in Jesus they had been brought nigh to 
 God. The precious blood of their redemption was 
 also their separation in holiness as the family of 
 God. Grace had established this nearness in the 
 accepted Person of the Son of God. They had been 
 by faith translated into the kingdom of God's dear 
 Son. By the unction of the Spirit they were made 
 to know that they were holy brethren whom the 
 First-born did not blush to own as His. They were 
 made partakers of Christ^ (verse 14) by the faith 
 
 7 1 Cor. X. 11. 8 Prov. xvii. 10. 9 Titus i. 15, 16. 
 
 1 MsToxoi Tov Xpi(TTov, " fellows," or companions of Christ. 
 Ante, chap. i. 9, and the remarks there made. A Christian is, in a 
 double sense, a partaker of Christ. He has a personal interest in 
 Him as his Captain of salvation. He is, by grace, His fellow heir, a 
 participator with Him of the blessings of the Father's house. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 95 
 
 which brought them from a state of natural ruin and 
 religious bondage to be the children of the house of 
 God. As having tasted in the word of Gospel truth 
 the riches of the Father's grace, they were fitted to 
 become acquainted with His holiness in love. 
 Communion, unreserved and diligently cultivated, 
 with the Father and the Son, is the manner of the 
 children's walk who yield themselves without reluc- 
 tance to the leading of the Spirit of adoption.- 
 
 The saints who are addressed in this epistle had 
 witnessed, both in word and deed, a good confession 
 of their faith. They had borne aflfhctions bravely 
 for the name of Christ. For their knowledge of the 
 heavenly inheritance, they had taken joyfully the 
 spoiling of their goods.^ Moreover, for the love of 
 God they had bestowed a labour on His saints which 
 should not fail of its reward.'^ These things might 
 be, and were; and yet ample room existed for the 
 caution here expressed. Danger surrounded them 
 on every side. The heart of unbelief, which barred 
 the land of Canaan from their natural fathers, was 
 yet within their flesh. Not only were the lusts of 
 nature in their ordinary shape for ever combating 
 against the will of God; they were exposed also to 
 a more specious, and therefore a more dangerous, 
 form of evil in the still existing rivalry which they 
 who made their boast in their traditions were 
 zealously opposing to the cross of Christ. Of all 
 the evils with which Satan can afflict the heart on 
 this side atheism, religion, without faith in God, is 
 by very much the worst. For it lulls the conscience, 
 while it weaves its web of unblessed, unsanctifying 
 
 « Ro. viii. 14 ; 1 Jno. i. 3-7. ^ Chap. x. 32-34. * Chap. vi. 10. 
 
96 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 exercises about the heart's affections, so as effectually 
 to exclude the light of G^od. It was to this peace- 
 corroding yet seductive evil that the Jewish Christian 
 stood peculiarly exposed. 
 
 Now the remedy and safeguard against all evil is 
 the truth of God. It is only by listening to the 
 word of Him who speaks to us as children with a 
 knowledge of our need, that believers can be kept 
 in their true place. The possession of truth in the 
 way of doctrine is not enough. God daily speaks, 
 and must be daily heard, if we would know Him as 
 our Shield. 
 
 Moreover, there is in this phrase, "to-day," a for- 
 cible appeal both to the hearts and consciences of 
 God's elect. To-morrovj, considered as a link in the 
 uncertain chain of life, is not our own. From the 
 station which we occupy to-day, as obedient listeners 
 to the word of grace, our prospect is the glory unto 
 which we are prepared. True wisdom teaches us so 
 to measure our pilgrimage as to look upon each day 
 of patience as (not possibly only, but even) prohably 
 the lasj;; reckoning on no other morrow than the 
 surely approaching day of Jesus Christ. And if 
 thus placed on our watch,^ our opened ears will 
 surely find the Shepherd's voice addressing us in 
 very varied tones. For the believer, as a partaker 
 through faith of the risen and ascended Christ, all 
 the circumstances and experiences of the present 
 life are vocal with the words of Him who now " fills 
 all things."^ Prosperity and adversity, disease and 
 health, progression and decline in spiritual growth, 
 each give occasion to the faithful watcher of our 
 
 5 Habakkuk ii. 1, &c. 6 Eph. iv. 8, 16. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 97 
 
 souls, and have each, their language as interpreters 
 of Christ. Especially, however, it is the written 
 word of grace that conveys to us the needed admo- 
 nition and support/ 
 
 Characteristically, the evil which besets the Chris- 
 tian, as a partaker of the heavenly calling, is the love 
 of earthly things.^ To walk therefore, by faith, in 
 the power and enjoyment of the risen life, beholding 
 the invisible but eternal objects of our hope,^ is the 
 true practical assertion of the liberty of our calling. 
 It is the living God to whom the children are ex- 
 horted here to cleave. To be occupied with the 
 world is to be engaged with death ; for by the cross 
 of Christ the world is crucified to the believer.^ The 
 Father's things are not those of the world, they are 
 opposed to them exactly. God only joys in Christ, 
 who is rejected of the world, and is in heaven. 
 Natural objects and pursuits are the things which 
 feed the hopes and interest the minds of natural 
 men, whose life is to themselves, and not to God. 
 
 The things of the Spirit are the proper objects of 
 attention to the spiritual man. As a pilgrim of sal- 
 vation, he is warned against the fleshly lusts which 
 war against the soul. It is the will of God, and the 
 enabling power of the Spirit, that are opposed in 
 the believer to these lusts.^ But it is not outward 
 evil only that separates the heart from God. A 
 Christian has to ask himself a reason for his ordi- 
 nary ways. Is he living now with reference to heaven 
 or to earth ? For sin is a deceitful thing (verse 13). 
 Things intrinsically harmless when considered in 
 
 7 2 Tim. iii. 18, 19. 8 Phil. iii. 19. 9 2 Cor. iv. 18 ; v. 7. 
 
 1 Gal. yi. 2 1 Pet. ii. iv. ; Gal. v. 17, 18. 
 
98 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 themselves, nay, even some of those which are in 
 name and outward appearance spiritual things, works 
 multiplied professedly /or God, may easily become 
 a hindrance to the heart's communion with God. 
 The first love may be quite gone off, while outward 
 diligence has suffered no abatement.^ The fear of the 
 Lord is an abiding correlative to the comfort of the 
 Holy Ghost, in the order of a saint's experience.^ 
 If what he does is not in faith, it is not wrought in 
 God. But whatever is not done in faith is sin.^ 
 
 The word is addressed to them severally: "lest 
 any of you," &c. But incessant mutual exhortation® 
 is the instrument which God has ordained for the 
 maintenance of practical faith and godliness among 
 His saints. It was to be a remedy of daily use. 
 While the day of patience lasted, they were thus to 
 succour one another from the deceitfulness of sin. 
 It is not open evil that is spoken of, but the slow, 
 imperceptible waning of the soul's affections from 
 the living God ; the gradual induration of those 
 hearts which, when nourished by the sure milk of 
 the word, were soft and tender in the sweet enjoy- 
 ment of Christ's love.'^ They were to care thus for 
 
 3 Rev. ii. 2-4. ^ Acts ix. 31. ^ Rom. xiv. 23. 
 
 6 Two things are implied in this exhortation ; 1st, the recognized 
 unity of the body ; and 2nd, the healthy action of its individual 
 members. They were brethren ; they were partakers of the heavenly 
 calling ; they are exhorted to act as such. God and the world were 
 the two great objects of their attention — the one to be dwelt in, the 
 other to be shunned. They followed no divided Christ. It is 
 humiliating to have to ponder such passages in the presence of exist- 
 ing facts. Still, if the Church be ruined in its outward walls, the 
 life and sure foundation of the building standeth fast. Meanwhile, 
 let those who fear the Lord in this, their day of evil, speak often to 
 each other in His name. 
 
 '' The first and most sure symptom of this hardening of heart is 
 an impatience of the fundamental truths of God. When knowledge 
 is preferred to love, departure has already taken place from God. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 99 
 
 one another's souls, as already they had proved 
 their forwardness in ministering to their brethren's 
 outward wants. 
 
 They were made partakers of Christ, if they held 
 the beginning of their confidence steadfast to the 
 end (verse 14). This settlement of soul which 
 they are here exhorted to maintain, was the primary 
 effect of their reception of the grace of God.^ And 
 as they had begun, they should continue to the end. 
 For there is an end ; the patience of the wilderness 
 is for a measured w^hile. They had entered on the 
 journey full of an eager and happy assurance; for 
 by faith they had already grasped the substance^ of 
 their hope. By faith, too, they must hold that sub- 
 stance fast. By considering objectively the Apostle 
 and High Priest of their confession, they would 
 keep the place, and know the blessings of the house 
 of God. It was when Moses ceased to be before the 
 people's eyes, that the terrible apostasy of Israel's 
 heart took place.^ It is when believers cease to 
 enjoy, by daily exercise of faith, the glory and per- 
 fection of their ascended Head, that natural things 
 
 Notions of personal growi;li and increase in spiritual attainment, 
 rather than a watchful dying daily to one's self, that Christ alone 
 may dwell in the heart by faith — thrusting out self in all its forms — 
 are often symptomatic of the same disease. Sin, as a deceiver, may 
 infect the soul through any one of the innumerable avenues which 
 the varieties of human character present to Satan, as the tempter 
 of God's people. The whole armour of God can alone resist his 
 wiles. 
 
 8 Col. i. 6. 
 
 9 There is a variation, not without significance, in the language of 
 verse 6 from that of verse 14. Uapprjaia is the word which, in the 
 former verse, is rendered "confidence." In the latter it is vTcocrraaiQ. 
 The bold and joyful confession of early love is to be perpetuated 
 thi'ough a deepening acquaintance with the solid nature of the 
 blessing. (See further as to this latter term, infra, xi. 1.) 
 
 ^ Exod. xxxii. 
 
 F 2 
 
100 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 resume their hold upon the heart, and the true glory 
 of the house is gone. 
 
 On the remainder of this chapter (verses 16-19), 
 much need not here be said. Yet it is a passage of 
 solemn import to such as heed the certain testi- 
 monies of the Spirit respecting the progress and final 
 results of the existing dispensation of longsufferiug 
 mercy.^ Not all provoked, though with the greater 
 number^ God was not well pleased. Them that 
 believed not God destroyed. They fell in the wilder- 
 ness, because they did not know the ways of God. 
 So is it, and so must it be, in the history of the pro- 
 fessing Church. Profession gives to him who makes 
 it a name and pretension as a member of God's 
 house. But His kingdom is not in word, but in 
 power; and powerless formality is the predicted 
 symptom of apostasy in its maturest growth.^ The 
 living Way which leads into His rest is Christ, who 
 is Himself His people's Eefuge and their End. By 
 faith alone that way may be observed, even as it is 
 by electing grace that it is opened to the soul. The 
 children's faith is not their own ; it is the gift of 
 God. Nor does He ever take away His gifts, which, 
 like His calling, are without repentance.^ It is His 
 will to bring His many sons to glory. The good 
 work of His own beginning He will perform until 
 the day of Jesus Christ.^ Yet are the Spirit's warn- 
 ings not superfluous, although addressed to those 
 who already are in Christ. God's children need the 
 guidance of His word, for it is by that word that He 
 saves them from the paths of the destroyer. By its 
 
 2 2 Pet. iii. 9, 10. 3 To7g TrXeiomv. (1 Cor. x. 5.) 
 
 * 2 Tim. iii. 5. « Eom. xi. 29. 6 phil. i. 6. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 101 
 
 light alone His people may walk safely through the 
 darkness of this world. Thus, although these warn- 
 ings sketch forth to us prophetically the features of 
 an apostasy yet deeper than its type, they comfort 
 while they warn the souls of those who in simplicity 
 of faith can mingle confidence and joy with reverence 
 and godly fear. 
 
102 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 The exhortation is continued, and attains its climax 
 in the present chapter. The word of promise had 
 been preached to Israel, yet Israel fell. The word 
 which spoke to them of Canaan had failed to profit 
 them that heard it. It was a word of blessing and 
 of goodness in itself; but it was not an engrafted 
 word;^ it was not mixed with faith in them that 
 heard it.^ Because of unbelief they had despised 
 the pleasant land ; and God dishonoured those who 
 disbelieved the sure word of His truth.^ But this 
 example has been set forth in the Scriptures for our 
 sakes. 
 
 It behoved, then, the believing Hebrews to fear, 
 lest such a case should seem to be their own. By 
 natural generation they were descended from this 
 unbelieving ancestry ; and they, too, had in their 
 turn received a word of promise. God's rest was 
 set before them clearly in the gospel as the object of 
 their hope (verses 1, 2). But God had not changed. 
 
 1 Jas. i. 21. 
 
 * Instead of the usual reading, some of tlie more recent editions 
 have /ij) (TvyK(Kpa(Tfikvovg rij Tricrr. roTt; ciKOvcraaiy the meaning of 
 which is, that the former promise did not profit them, since they were 
 not mingled by their faith among those who did believe. It is a 
 doubtful point, and one of secondary interest; the moral being, in 
 either case, that faith must respond to testimony, or blessing cannot 
 come. 3 Numb. xiv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 103 
 
 His promise noio, as then, can profit only wlien held 
 fast by faith. It is that the children's faith may 
 stand, not in vain words, but in the power of God, 
 that the word of admonition is thus searchingly 
 applied. 
 
 We have seen that confidence and joyful hope are 
 the just and permanent effects of believing in the 
 Son of God. But the same Spirit who establishes 
 the justified believer in a hope which maketh not 
 ashamed, because He sheds abroad the finished love 
 of God within the children's hearts, is the Counsellor 
 who now exhorts to fear. For dangers lie about the 
 narrow way of life. It is a path of safety and of 
 peace to them that walk therein ; but on every side 
 it is observed by a watchful and untiring foe. It is 
 therefore needful for the pilgrim to be well advised 
 respecting the manner of his journey, and the nature 
 of the perils which beset his route. 
 
 The emphasis of Gospel warning is according to 
 the characteristic principle of Gospel truth. It 
 stands, that is, in precise opposition to the warnings 
 which were given by the Law. The children are 
 exhorted to behold in Jesus what the servant was 
 directed to search for in himself. The danger to be 
 dreaded in the latter case was on the side of God, 
 who, as a Judge, was ready to award a blessing or a 
 curse, according to the equality, or otherwise, of His 
 people's ways. But the Christian's dread is of 
 another kind. It is not God who is against him, 
 but Satan and himself, for it is chiefly through our 
 natural propensities that Satan acts against us as 
 the great opposer of our peace. A believer has no 
 future reckoning of doubtful issue, to the decision of 
 
104 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 which his hope of life must be postponed ; for his 
 life is kept in God with Him who died for him, and 
 rose again. His danger is, lest being nothing, he 
 should begin to think himself of some account — lest 
 in any way the cross of Christ should be practically 
 frustrated and forgotten in his ordinary course of 
 life. The counterpart of confidence in God is self- 
 distrust; it is the man who thinks he stands who is 
 in nearest danger of a fall.* Doctrine will not main- 
 tain us in a state. of conscious blessing, without a 
 present exercise of faith. Christian life is kept in 
 vigour by eating the flesh, and drinking the blood, of 
 the Son of man. He has appointed that as our daily 
 portion. It is the necessary diet of the soul.^ 
 
 Satan is the sleepless enemy of the believer. We 
 have therefore to keep vigilant and sober watch 
 against his wiles. As a tempter to moral evil, he is 
 to be suspected and anticipated by the diligent 
 addition of the several things which make faith 
 strong to bear the fruits of holiness.^ But as a 
 deceiver and flatterer of the heart he is to be yet 
 more dreaded; for it is in his own self-righteous 
 heart (itself the credulous dupe of the father of 
 lies,) that the Christian finds his deadliest foe. 
 Essentially enmity against God, it is sufficiently 
 deceitful to assume all forms, and counterfeit all 
 semblances, of real devotedness to God. That out- 
 ward conformity to Jesus, which is only to be truly 
 caught and kept by looking on Him with the eye of 
 grateful and adoring faith, is attempted often in the 
 mere vanity of the fleshly mind. For it is only too 
 possible for men to give outward homage to the Son 
 
 * Prov. xvi. 18; xsviii. 14. " John vi. ^2 Pet. ii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 105 
 
 of God as their Captain of salvation, while for the 
 attainment of their hope they are inwardly trusting 
 to their own endeavours. Alas ! how many thousands 
 think they stand, because familiar with the nomen- 
 clature of a sound profession, while as yet the true 
 seed of the great salvation has not begun to germi- 
 nate within their hearts. But to err in this matter 
 is a fatal thing. Nothing done on our parts for 
 Jesus can be accepted as an equivalent for that faith 
 which gives Him his true glory, by receiving and 
 rejoicing in Him as our full and perfect Saviour. 
 To the genuine children of the Father He is all 
 their confidence and all their peace, seeing that He 
 has been made to them of God their wisdom ; even 
 their righteousness, their sanctification, and their 
 redemption.''' 
 
 Of the multitudes who are desiring a portion 
 eventually in the promised rest, many, it is to be 
 feared, are endeavouring to enter it by devious and 
 forbidden ways. Men are everywhere to be found 
 who look to works, to knowledge, to purpose, to 
 repentance, to practical amendment, nay, to faith 
 itself, who do not look to Jesus. Yet He is the only 
 Way of entrance to that rest. In the judgment, 
 therefore, of Him who spake the promise, and who 
 knoweth well the children that are His, such as are 
 above described will seem to have come short. I^o 
 natural pretension can ever touch the fruits of 
 promise. The damning evidence of a neglected 
 Christ will close the gates of blessedness for ever 
 against such as strive to enter in some other way. 
 
 It is thus that, in the warnings of Scripture, judg- 
 7 1 Cor. i. 30, where note the structure of the original. 
 F 5 
 
106 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 ment is pronounced by anticipation against those 
 who presumptuously trifle with the Gospel. But 
 such language is intended also to have a widely 
 different effect in admonishing the genuine believer, 
 and thus enabling him practically to keep the way 
 of truth. As therefore it respects the weak but 
 real Christian, against whose tender conscience the 
 Apostle's exhortation may be falsely directed by the 
 enemy, let him consider that the very object of the 
 warning contained in these verses is to perpetuate in 
 the believer's mind, that through sense of personal 
 worthlessness, and conscious impotency for all good, 
 which, by the grace of God, flrst made the name of 
 Jesus grateful to his ears. The passage does not 
 teach the manner of the sinner's justification ; but 
 it applies a searching test whereby to ascertain 
 whether Christ or self is in the hearts of those who 
 by outward profession seek the rest of God. 
 
 It is an evil thing for the believer, when circum- 
 stances are suffered so to act upon his mind as to 
 exclude God from his immediate contemplation as 
 the God of promise. He is this, always and under 
 all circumstances. He is, indeed, much more. But 
 He never ceases to stand specifically and absolutely 
 in this relation to the Christian. Hope will abound, 
 with fruitful progress in the way of well -pleasing, 
 according to the simplicity with whicli the most 
 sure promises of God in Christ are lived on and 
 enjoyed. There is no appearance of deficiency® in 
 
 8 I feel some doubt as to the exact interpretation of the words in 
 
 verse 1, nr)TroTt doKy Tig e^ v/xivv vartprjKsvai. I have 
 
 abeady referred it to the Lord's discrimination in judgment between 
 the true and the false in His kingdom. It seems, however, capable 
 of a present moral application (such as is made above,) to the real 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 107 
 
 those who are happy, while the only reason of their 
 happiness is Christ ; ^ who are busy and in earnest, 
 but whose things are done in the power of that 
 charity which is of God ;^ whose desire is to live to 
 Jesus, as they live by faith in Jesus ; who do not 
 dishonour- Him by suspicion of His love, but who 
 know and recognize with a joy too grateful and too 
 deep for words, the certain tokens of the Shepherd 
 of the sheep, in the exalted Son of man ;^ who trust 
 by Him to enter soon the rest of God, and who 
 desire to be there because the Lord is there, who is 
 their life. With much or little fruitfulness, it is the 
 soul that cleaves to Jesus that will gain the rest of 
 God. For, 
 
 Verse 3. "We which have believed do enter^ 
 into the rest," &c. It is thus that the Holy Ghost 
 declares the certainty of their success whose " help- 
 less souls are ventured upon Jesus Christ alone." 
 For the security of their entrance is the faithfulness 
 and sovereign power of Him that promised; God's 
 
 believer in his ways. Both senses are admissible, and both, I believe, 
 to be intended in a passage which serves at once as a wholesome 
 warning for the quickening of spiritual growth, and a predictive 
 foreshadowing of ruinous apostasy. 
 
 y Phil. iii. 3. i 1 Cor. xvi. 14; 1 John iv. 7. 
 
 2 John X. 11 ; Rev. v. 6. 
 
 3 'ElaipxoiitQa. It is by some preferred to render this by "are 
 entering," in order to bring out into clear light the comparison, which 
 runs through the whole of the Apostle's teaching in this passage, 
 between the former and the present dealings of the Lord with His 
 people. They were on their journey — so are we, &c. My objec- 
 tion to this view is, that while stating an undoubted truth, it tends 
 to weaken the force of the accompanying words: ""We which be- 
 lieve" — faith's privilege ever being to embrace and hold the substance 
 of all God's promises in Christ. If the reasoning of the Apostle is 
 to be taken in its more extended application to the professing body, as 
 distinguished from the election, the rendering above noticed might be 
 preferable to the one given in the text. But such a construction of 
 the passage appears to me both to limit and to weaken its true force. 
 
108 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 promises being but the echo of His will to the 
 believing ear. And it is His will to bring by Jesus 
 His many sons to glory.^ In the present verse, and 
 those immediately following (3-10), the subject of 
 the rest is more expressly treated, and the moral 
 analogy of the present work of God in conducting 
 the Church to her appointed rest, to His former 
 dealings with Israel after the flesh, is yet more fully 
 shewn. That God has a rest, and that that rest is to 
 be enjoyed by His people, are the two fundamental 
 truths on which the reasoning of the present passage 
 turns. The land of Canaan was not the eventual 
 rest of God.^ 
 
 In examining these verses, we must bear in mind, 
 that it is the partakers of the heaveiily calling who 
 are addressed. God is iioiv speaking of a rest, in 
 the Gospel of His grace. The work of creation had 
 been finished from the foundation of " the world. 
 God saw that work, and, for a moment, took His 
 rest in it, — finding His pleasure in the fair produc- 
 tion of His own almighty power. Eden was man's 
 rest with God; it was the fitting abode of natural 
 innocence and terrestrial happiness. But it was not 
 the place of Gods abiding rest. Creation and its 
 rest were shadows of things mightier and more 
 blessed than themselves. The glory in which God 
 would find, with the children of His love, the reali- 
 zation of His eternal thoughts of rest, would crown 
 
 4 John vi. 39; Ante, ii. 10. 
 
 5 The oath of exclusion was originally, that the despisers should 
 not enter into the land. (Numb, xiv.) In Ps. xcv. the Spirit of God 
 alters the expression from y~ii^ to nmJD, doubtless with reference 
 to the use to be afterwards made of the passage in its present 
 application. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 109 
 
 another and yet more marvellous work than that 
 first visible display of power. 
 
 Under the Law, the seventh day (verse 5) which 
 God had sanctified and blessed as a memorial of His 
 first creation -rest, fulfilled a twofold purpose. It 
 was a standing witness of rest broken and destroyed 
 by sin; it was a type also and promise of another 
 rest, whose unbroken security should abide in the 
 power of fulfilled redemption. It was in itself the 
 very clearest and most emphatic witness of the 
 unfitness of man, once fallen, for fellowship, in his 
 natural state, with God. The enforced observance 
 of a day of rest, under mortal penalties upon the 
 least indulgence of men's natural inclinations, places 
 the willing contrariety of the creature to the Creator 
 in the strongest light. But discord of will makes 
 rest, in the moral meaning of the word, a thing 
 impossible. The Jewish sabbath might be, and was 
 to the carnal worshipper, a day of restraint, but 
 could not be a day of real enjoyment. And as with 
 the sabbatic institution, so also was it with the land 
 of earthly promise. Canaan might flow with milk 
 and honey, and be the very land of God's desire ; 
 but it could be no abiding rest for those whose 
 hearts were alien from God. The generation to 
 whom its goodliness was first reported by the word 
 of faithful promise, entered not in because of un- 
 belief. The generation who succeeded, and whom 
 Joshua brought in, defiled that rest by their ini- 
 quities, until the place which God had chosen for 
 His name was become to Him as Sodom for their 
 sakes. To the opened ear of those who trembled at 
 His word, and who, in full confession of the land's 
 
110 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 pollutions, clave still to the sure Covenant of promise, 
 another rest lay distantly in view. The land which 
 iniquity had polluted, would lose her iniquity on an 
 appointed day.® The places which Jehovah had 
 dishonoured and forsaken would again be visited, 
 and be again acknowledged throughout all the earth 
 as a praise and glory to His name. There would be 
 a performance to the nation of the nation's promised 
 blessings. ]Meanwhile, they who lived in sorrow, as 
 a remnant of faithfulness in the midst of national 
 apostasy, died hopefully, in prospect of that letter 
 country which had always been the ultimate object 
 of the fathers' hope."^ 
 
 God, who had disallowed His earthly people and 
 His land, spoke still in prophecy of a rest to come 
 (verses 7, 8). The date of the prophetic testimony 
 is defined. It was by David that God spake, long 
 after the futility of any hope of permanent national 
 prosperity under the conditions of the Mosaic cove- 
 nant had been practically demonstrated. A day is 
 now spoken of on which God's people are to enter 
 on their rest. When Jordan's flood was driven back, 
 it was to open, at the bidding of the God of Jacob, 
 a passage for His people to the promised land. But 
 Joshua^ did not give them rest. It could not be. 
 The thorns and briars with which God filled the 
 nation's sides, were the tokens of the people's natural 
 incapacity to taste His rest.^ The solemn and fearful 
 
 6 Zech. iii. 9. "^ Chap. xi. 15. 
 
 8 The reader is, of course, aware, that it is the son of Nun, and 
 not the Son of God, whose name is mentioned in verse 8. By a too 
 strict fidelity to the letter, the translators have helped to darken, 
 rather than explain, the sense, both here and in Acts vii. 45. 
 
 ^ Judges ii. 1-3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. Ill 
 
 preliminaries which Jehovah's holiness made neces- 
 sary, that the land might be inherited as His, were 
 never from the first effectually performed. Israel, 
 then, had never really known the promised rest. 
 But by the sure word of prophecy it is kept in 
 reserve for the nation for which Jesus died. When 
 Israel has been born a second time, and righteousness 
 becomes the praise of those who now are scattered 
 as a sinful nation, both rest and glory will be found 
 within Immanuel's land.^ 
 
 The ninth verse stands, in the order of the argu- 
 ment, in immediate connexion with the sixth. It 
 states the conclusion of the foregoing reasoning, 
 with a view to its immediate and special application 
 to the partakers of the heavenly calling. A rest had 
 been promised. Some, therefore, must enter it. But 
 it had not yet been entered by them for whom it was 
 prepared, for Canaan, in its conquest by Josuha, was 
 no promised abiding place for the people of Jehovah. 
 Israel, then, had not attained the rest of God. More- 
 over, Israel are not now a people; they are enemies, 
 as concerning the Gospel in which God now speaks.^ 
 Yet God has a people, and to them the Holy Ghost 
 speaks daily of the rest to come. Now they whose 
 confidence and rejoicing are in Jesus Christ, are the 
 people of God.^ And they which believe do enter 
 into rest: already, in spirit; presently, in fact. But 
 the time of patience, and with it, also, of daily warn- 
 ing, yet runs on. There remains, then, to God's 
 waiting people, a sabbath-keeping* of abiding joy. 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14; Isa. Ix. 21 ; Ezek. xxviii. 24. 
 
 2 Rom. xi. 28. 3 £om. xi. 28. 
 
 4 Such is the literal meaning of the very rare word in the text. 
 2aj3/3ari(r/n6f is found only here in the New Testament, and not at 
 
112 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 The strong assurance of prospective rest to the 
 believer is now confirmed by a reference to the Doer 
 of the work to which that rest succeeds. "For He 
 that is entered into His rest hath ceased," ^ &c. God 
 rested from His finished labour of creation on the 
 seventh day; but sin had entered and disturbed that 
 rest. As, therefore, the glory of that first work had 
 been defaced, and the blessing which had crowned 
 it was blighted by a penal curse, another and im- 
 2oerislia'ble work must needs be wrought, in order that 
 He wdiose desire and intent were to display and to 
 communicate the blessedness inherent in Himself, 
 might attain an end worthy of His name. 
 
 Man, who bore His own image having been alien- 
 ated through sin, nothing but a perfect reconciliation 
 — one, that is, which should both righteously ob- 
 literate the sin and convert the enmity to love, could 
 suffice for this end. And there was found in the 
 incarnate Son of God, a Workman fitted to that 
 work. For God only can do perfectly the will of 
 God. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," 
 was the word of Jesus, to those who watched Him 
 with an evil eye in His gracious doing of His Father's 
 business. Salvation is, indeed, the work of God. 
 God rested from creation. God rests now from the 
 finished labour of redemption. But in the manner 
 
 all in the Lxx, It is obviously formed from the verb o-a/3/3ar/^f iv, 
 which in the latter signifies, "to keep the Sabbath;" e. g., Exod. xvi. 
 30 ; Levit. xxiii. 32, &c. 
 
 "> The authorized version does not bring out the just force of this 
 passage, which runs thus : 'O yap tiasXOujv tig rijv KaraTravoiv 
 avToVy Kai avTOQ KaTtiravotv d'rd twv tpyojv a v t o v axnrtp 
 d-Ko T u) V i d i tjv o Qeoq. Professor Scholefield has justly noticed 
 this, whose translation is as follows : " For He that is entered into 
 His rest hath himself also rested from His works, as God did from 
 His own." De Wette's translation is in literal agreement with this. 
 
l^OTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 113 
 
 of its doing, the work of redemption stands most 
 strikingly contrasted with the former work. The 
 majesty of Divine power was the commanding 
 energy which raised the creature at His word; it 
 was in the lowly form of a rejected Man, that the 
 Son of God fulfilled, by suffering, the work of a 
 Eedeemer. But the work was finished and com- 
 plete. Already we have seen the Workman crowned 
 with glory and honour at the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high. Jesus has gone into His rest. 
 He has ceased to labour, and being now set down 
 upon the throne above as the Fulfiller of the work 
 of God, He is become the perfect Sabbath of God's 
 full delight.^ God rests in Him. But because, as the 
 Doer of the will of God, He had wrought in man's 
 likeness and for men, He has at the same time be- 
 come His people's everlasting rest. They, too, have 
 ceased from their works, as He ceased from His. 
 They had toiled long in bondage, and had found no 
 rest. They were imprisoned without help, within 
 themselves. By the dying of the Lamb of God, 
 they have been now set free. To be found therefore 
 in Him, not having their own righteousness, but 
 that which is of God by faith, is now the one desire 
 of the spiritual man.'' 
 
 The blessed results in perfect rest of that once- 
 finished work will presently be felt, not only in the 
 heavenly places, where principalities and powers 
 already own the Reconciler of the creature in the 
 throne of God,^ and where . the Church (already 
 crowned with blessings there in Him) will taste the 
 perfect consummation of her happiness ; but like- 
 
 6 Col. ii. 17. "^ PhU. iii. e Col. i. ; 1 Pet. iii. 22. 
 
114 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 wise to the creature here below, which groans on still 
 in expectation of that day of joy.^ But in the 
 present passage, the Spirit is not opening in detail 
 the glories of that rest. He is rather demonstrating 
 its existence, and exhorting us to its attainment. 
 Accordingly, he proceeds, 
 
 Yerse 11. "Let us therefore labour to enter into 
 that rest," &c. At the beginning of this chapter, 
 when, after reciting the catastrophe of those who 
 fell, he warns us against highmindedness and carnal 
 confidence, his word is, "Let us fear^ But now 
 that he has anew declared to us the verities of 
 promise, and shown us God's sure preparation for 
 His people's rest, in the completed work of Jesus, 
 his exhortation to his brethren is to strive. The way 
 was one of doubtful length as well as full of diffi- 
 culties ; they should therefore hasten on. They 
 should beware of lingering where danger was on 
 every side. The world, the flesh, and the devil, 
 were about their path. The rest was beyond and 
 above them ; and Jesus went before their face to 
 bring them to that rest. Safety was to be found in 
 diligence and earnestness — in keeping their Fore- 
 runner evermore in view. Thus he seeks to animate 
 their courage, and to stimulate the desires of his 
 fellow pilgrims, whose condition called for words 
 of cheer, as well as for the faithful warning of the 
 Shepherd's voice. 
 
 Salvation is the business of Christian life. Because 
 the believing sinner finds a Saviour in the Son of 
 God, his interests are now with his Deliverer, and 
 not with that from which he has been saved. He is 
 
 9 Horn. viii. 19-22. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 115 
 
 to work out his own salvation by persisting in tlie 
 first beginning of his trust. He is to hold it fast 
 until the end. With fear and trembling, yet with 
 confidence and joy, he is to stand fast in the Lord, 
 and in the power of His might. He has to hasten, 
 and he likewise has to strive ; for Christian life is 
 both a conflict and a race. He is to fear and 
 suspect things visible and natural. He is to pursue 
 with eagerness things heavenly and spiritual. As 
 the minding of things earthly is the token of the 
 heart's aversion from the Lord,^ so, by beholding in 
 faith's glass the glory of the Lord, the children of 
 God are through a daily transmutation, to be likened to 
 the image of that glory as by the Spirit of the Lord.^ 
 It was the more excellent knowledge of the Son of 
 God that enabled him, who is the standing pattern 
 of the Christian's way, to count all else but loss. 
 Notliing was left in his esteem below the heavens, 
 which, in containing Jesus, held the sum of all 
 desire. The very things which once had been his 
 ornament, he now avoided as a loathsome thing. 
 Things which were once enjoined of God Himself, 
 were no longer with him as a present truth. The 
 ancient ordinances had fulfilled their use. The 
 schoolmaster had done his work. The Law and its 
 factitious righteousness^ were left behind him and 
 forgotten, from the time that he had entered on the 
 new and living way. And now, to know Him and 
 the power of His resurrection, was his single aim. 
 He thirsted eagerly to win that rest for which he 
 knew himself to be already apprehended of Christ 
 Jesus. Such is the order of the Spirit's way. The 
 1 PhU. iii. U, 19. s 2 Cor. iii. 3 Phil. iii. 6. 
 
116 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 work of faitli goes on within the children till the rest 
 be gained. The work of God is to believe on Him 
 whom God hath sent.* They are not here exhorted 
 to that work, as if it had not yet been done ; for 
 they had already eaten of that Bread of life. They 
 knew Him, and confessed His name. That the 
 believer enters into rest has been already laid down 
 as a maxim of the Gospel, and we are exhorted to 
 be in purpose and in Spirit where we are by the 
 appointment of God's grace. Jesus has entered in. 
 An assiduous cleaving to the Lord, by faith, will 
 place us at the last remove from those who, by 
 neglecting this great salvation, are closing the only 
 door of Life against, themselves.^ 
 
 And here, before proceeding with our chapter, let 
 me earnestly beseech those of my readers (if any 
 such there be) who have not yet claimed by faith an 
 entrance into the rest of God, to defer no longer the 
 decisive step. 
 
 Heedless procrastinators and timid waverers are 
 not less certainly excluded from the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem than vicious criminals.^ God rates the human 
 soul in value above all other created objects; and in 
 proof of this. He has given His eternal Son for 
 its redemption, confirming by this wondrous act 
 His previous testimony to the utter ruin of the 
 natural man. If, therefore, we suffer anything to 
 detain us from a full and unreserved acceptance of 
 that grace which is now declared to us in the gospel, 
 we are self-destroyed. By wilfully despising the 
 only method of escape from the declared alternative 
 of wrath, we provoke a judgment whose lasting in- 
 
 * John vi. 5 Ante^ chap. ii. 3. ^ ;R,ev. xxi. 8. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 117 
 
 fliction will be but an enforcement of tlie sentence 
 already recorded in the Scriptures against all who 
 now refuse to give His proper glory to the Son of 
 God.^ 
 
 Verses 12, 13. The purpose of the foregoing ex- 
 hortation has been to quicken the pulse of spiritual 
 life in God's believing people, by stirring in their 
 hearts both hope and fear, and directing each of 
 these necessary, though conflicting, sentiments to- 
 wards its proper object. In what follows, we have 
 a descriptive testimony (in immediate and natural 
 connexion with the foregoing references to the Old 
 Testament) to the word of God, as the effective 
 instrument of His good pleasure, and the true 
 medium of communion with His people at all times. 
 It is a passage full of comfort as well as warning to 
 those who set the knowledge of God before them as 
 the true object of their desire. Especially is it 
 entitled to attention in a day like the present, when 
 there are found often among the nominal teachers 
 of Christ those who labour actively to deprive the 
 Old Testament Scriptures of their perpetual value 
 and authority as the lively oracles of God. 
 
 The idea of an all-searching God is assented to by 
 the natural understanding of mankind at large, and 
 is, when so contemplated, an empty and unprofit- 
 able notion, neither giving nor evoking spiritual life. 
 But through the application, by His Spirit, of the 
 written Word,^ faith feels the nearness of His pre- 
 sence, whether for confusion of face, or for more 
 abundant peace and joy. That His eye is on the 
 
 7 John iii. 36. 
 
 8 I do not believe that the objective presentation of the Son of 
 God as the Word is at all contemplated in this passage. 
 
118 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 secrets of all hearts, is outwardly confessed by every 
 one who acknowledges His name. But the child- 
 ren's calling is to have to do with God. Because of 
 the completeness of their reconciliation, they are to 
 know Him in their secret purposes, as well as in 
 their outward and apparent walk. It is only by a 
 willing conformity of heart and conscience to the 
 word of truth, that they who know God taste His 
 presence as a shield and sun. 
 
 Life, power, and omniscience, three attributes of 
 God Himself, are here imputed to the written word ; 
 for God is in His testimonies, for the heart of faith. 
 The quickening efficacy of the word has been 
 proved in each particular child of God, when be- 
 gotten by it, as by incorruptible seed, to a sure hope 
 of endless life. As the " word of righteousness," it 
 keeps alive and nourishes God's new-born babes. 
 Because it is a word of -power it will certainly pre- 
 vail. Its promises will bring no shame to their 
 receiver, when life, and righteousness, and glory, 
 form the threefold crown of those who, in their day 
 of patience, have counted the reproach of Christ a 
 better honour than the praise of men. It will prove 
 itself a true discerner of men's thoughts, when, as a 
 swift witness, it comes forward in the day when 
 God wiU judge the secrets of men's hearts by Jesus 
 Christ. Meanwhile, it acts as the detecting presence 
 of omniscient holiness upon the secret counsels of 
 those hearts in which the fear of God is known. 
 
 God is the light in which they who are born of 
 Him are called to walk.^ But God being both 
 invisible and inaccessible to man,^ His word is the 
 
 ^ 1 John i. and ii. imssim. i 1 Tim. vi. 16. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 119 
 
 sole medium tlirougli which He is made present to 
 the heart of faith. The same Spirit who has indited 
 the written word, fulfils also His gracious mission as 
 the indwelling Spirit of adoption — the communi- 
 cative unction from the Holy One — by actively 
 applying His own testimonies to the hearts and 
 consciences of the " children." It is thus, and only 
 thus, that we can be said in truth to have fellowship 
 with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.^ 
 It is with especial reference to the action of the 
 word of God upon the conscience, that it is men- 
 tioned in the present passage. The reason of this 
 is obvious, not only on a view of the actual con- 
 dition of the Hebrew saints, but according to the 
 principle, elsewhere stated more distinctly,^ by which 
 true steadfastness and progress in the faith are made 
 conditional upon the maintenance of a good con- 
 science in the sight of God. Where, therefore, the 
 word is willingly received as the appointed milk 
 of spiritual nourishment,^ it performs its double 
 office of warning and comforting the soul.^ Its 
 penetrating keenness gives no pain to one who, in 
 simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly 
 wisdom, but by the grace of God, maintains his 
 conversation in the world. It is when, by self-seeking 
 or carelessness, the heart has wandered to a distance 
 from its hope,^ and drooping on its way, grows 
 downwards, and not upwards in its thoughts, and 
 while still holding fast the fundamental ground 
 of peace, has ceased to speak of blessedness,' be- 
 cause no longer consciously rejoicing in the love 
 
 2 Comp. Ps. cxix. 130. 3 1 Tim. i. 19. M Pet. ii. 2. 
 
 5 Ps. xix. 10, 11. 6 2 Pet. i. 9. 7 Qal. iv. 15. 
 
120 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 of Christ ; that oftentimes the word of God comes 
 searchingly, and with a sharp surprise, to scare the 
 unwary or secure believer from the danger of his 
 way. 
 
 The effect of self-judgment in the presence of 
 God is to render its subject more than ever con- 
 scious of personal unworthiness and distress. Most 
 fitly, then, as well as gratefully, does the present 
 chapter close with a remembrance of Him, who, in 
 His priestly grace, stands ready to revive the broken 
 spirit of those who, by the searching power of the 
 word of God, may have had anew discovered to 
 themselves the intrinsic faultiness and weakness of 
 their walk. 
 
 Verses 14-16. "Seeing, then, that we have a 
 great High Priest," &c. As the Apostle of our con- 
 fession, the Son of God has been compared with 
 Moses. It was to deliver the people, and to bring 
 them nigh to God, that He fulfilled the work which 
 He was sent to do. But because God's worshippers 
 must have to do with Him, and because the very 
 nearness into which redemption brings the soul 
 renders the exercised spirit more acutely conscious 
 of natural infirmity, there could be no enjoyment of 
 abiding peace, unless, besides the once-wrought work 
 of reconciliation, there were a present ministry of 
 grace in active and constant sympathy with the 
 believer's need. For the distance between God in 
 heaven and His feeble creature here below is too 
 vast, and the contrast of Divine holiness with that 
 intrinsic evil whose presence yet afflicts the saint 
 while in the body too severe, for enduring confidence 
 and ease to be enjoyed without some intervening 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 121 
 
 medium wliicli should make God always near, and 
 always near to succour and to bless. 
 
 The priestly ministry of the Son of God is the 
 Father's gracious ordinance in anticipation of this 
 present need. The confident profession which the 
 abashed and contrite heart might feel disposed to 
 relax, or even to let go, when thinking of its own 
 short-comings, and confounded by some deeper in- 
 sight into the secret of its ow^n corruption, is to be 
 still held fast.^ For He who has passed through 
 the heavens,^ and now is on the right hand of the 
 Majesty on high, is our great High Priest. It is 
 Jesus whom we know to be thus personally at the 
 goal of our utmost hope, and there for us. Faith- 
 fulness and mercy have already been affirmed of 
 Him/ It is in connexion with the c/reatness^ of His 
 Person that the reality of His sympathy is here dis- 
 closed; for succour is the want most keenly felt by 
 the afflicted soul. And power of redress is mated 
 now with perfect sympathy, for the sufferer's relief. 
 
 There is not an inward sorrow which the sore 
 pressed heart of a believer may contain, in which 
 
 8 KparoJijisv rrjg ofioXoyiag. 
 
 9 AuXijXvQora. r.o. Compare with this Eph. iv. 10. To enter 
 into His rest, He must pass through the heavens. Elsewhere, when 
 respect is had to His official ministry, He is said to be appearing in 
 heaven for us (ix. 2 1) ; but vrhen the subject of testimony is His 
 personal excellency, the heavenly courts themselves are left far below 
 the high and holy place on which His glory has its seat. (Ps. viii.; 
 Isaiah Ivii. 15.) The contrast here indicated between Jesus the Son 
 of God, the Leader of His saints to their eternal blessedness, and 
 that former Jesus (verse 8) who could give no rest to Israel, has 
 been noticed by others, and is truly interesting. 
 
 1 Ante, ii. 17. 
 
 2 He has a threefold greatness. First, in comparison with our 
 helplessness, for whom in grace He acts. Secondly, in prevailing 
 opposition to all that is against us. Thirdly, and here esjjeciallij His 
 intrinsic glory is thus contrasted with the feebleness of the perishable 
 priests, who could not save. 
 
 G 
 
122 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Jesus does not claim a share. Sin is in us the root 
 of all distress. Divine compassion fills, in the Ee- 
 deemer's breast, the place of human sin. In the 
 reality of human weakness He has proved, in every 
 point, the tempter's malice, and defied his power. For 
 He knew no sin. Yet He understands temptation per- 
 fectly. Nothing can surprise Him in the confessions 
 of His people; for He knows, with thorough know- 
 ledge, all that is in man. Nothing can be told Him, 
 in the difficult disburdening of the heart's peculiar 
 secret, which lies beyond the effectual ministry of 
 His grace. In the greatness of His mercy He excels 
 the measure of the sinner's utmost need. In the 
 faithfulness of His affection He preserves inviolate 
 the secret of the trusted grief. It is for His 'brethren 
 that He acts with God. And as one that sticketh 
 closer than a brother, He maintains their cause m 
 rigliteonsness by virtue of His own prevailing Name.^ 
 It is the aim of Satan to turn human infirmity to 
 account, by endeavouring, by its means, to unsettle 
 and afflict the conscience, and thus to deter the 
 tempted soul from confident assurance in the sight 
 of God. In thus setting forth the priestly grace of 
 Jesus, the Comforter would re-assure our hearts, by 
 proving to us that the very things which naturally 
 prompt us to avoid God's presence are, by the rich 
 provision of His mercy, reasons for our drawing 
 nigh. And so, they who were exhorted just before 
 to fear, are now encouraged to come loldly to the 
 
 8 And while thus acting effectively with God on behalf of those 
 who come to Him by faith, He is, doubtless, an attentive observer of 
 those who, upon a spitrious title of priestly authority, assume this chief 
 prerogative of the anointed Son of God. Few, if any, of the manifold 
 " wiles of the devil," have wrought such evil in the professed church 
 of God, as the establishment of a priestly confessional upon earth. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 123 
 
 throne of God. For it is a throne of grace on 
 which the Father sits. It is, indeed, a throne of 
 judgment likewise; for the Searcher of all hearts 
 must weigh the value of His people's work, and 
 estimate the tenor of their ways.'' But mercy is 
 with God. If judgment act against His children 
 who walk contrary to Him, it is to bring them back 
 again to a renewed and profounder knowledge of the 
 God of all grace. What God has provided for in 
 the consecration of His Son is the necessities of His 
 people, according to the unalterable requirement of 
 His own holiness ; and in the perfect adaptation of 
 His grace. He knows their need of such a High 
 Priest, and He would have them know it too. It is 
 a very dangerous thing when Christians seem to find 
 a superfluity in this exhortation to come holdly to 
 the throne of grace. Nothing is so disastrous in its 
 effects as carnal confidence. If grace and mercy 
 cease to be the daily craving of our hearts, it is 
 either because of carelessness, and consequent dul- 
 ness of conscience, or from a defective estimate of 
 the holiness of God.^ A sense of personal need 
 creates in our hearts desires which exactly corres- 
 pond to the provision both of grace and mercy, 
 which the Father's goodness has prepared. Where 
 these are felt, the value of this gracious invitation 
 is appreciated. It is truth alone that gives us bold- 
 ness before God. It is when the empty and self- 
 loathing soul draws nigh with confidence by the 
 faith of Jesus, that mercy is tasted in its sweetness, 
 and seasonable grace is found to give the strength of 
 God in every time of need.*^ 
 
 * 1 Pet. i. 17. ^ Gal. iii. 2 ; 1 John i. 8. 
 
 6 Compare 2 Tim. ii. 1 ; Eph. \\. 10. 
 G 2 
 
124 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Having spoken comfortably to the children's hearts, 
 by disclosing to them the personal sympathy of 
 Jesus as the pledge of His effectual intercession for 
 them at the throne of grace, he now proceeds to 
 demonstrate more precisely the nature and glory of 
 the High Priesthood of the Son. As in respect of 
 His Apostleship, He has been both compared and 
 contrasted with Moses, the servant of Jehovah, so, 
 in the present and succeeding chapters, the order 
 and functions of the Aaronic type are examined, 
 with a view to their permanent dismissal from the 
 memory ^ of those whose happy calling is to consider 
 as the High Priest of their profession the ever-living 
 Shepherd of their souls. 
 
 The chapter opens with a general statement of the 
 source and original design of the high-priestly office, 
 and a description of the qualifications, whether per- 
 sonal or extraneous, which must distinguish him 
 who occupies that place (verses 1-4). And, first, 
 his manhood is insisted on — lie is taken from amonof 
 
 1 So far, that is, as their authoritative claim upon the conscience is 
 concerned ; for they still continue, as every Christian will acknow- 
 ledge, to bear a real and very high value ' as illustrative media in 
 setting forth the fulness of Christ. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 125 
 
 men. An angel is no fitting priest for men ; for the 
 moving spring of active intercession is natural sym- 
 pathy. God's Holy One must, therefore, to prove 
 effectively His intercessional grace and power, be 
 " chosen from among the people." ^ Moreover, he is 
 taken. Divine selection severs him from those for 
 whom he is to act. He is God's minister. By his 
 consecration he is separated from the people whose 
 natural incapacity for immediate intercourse with 
 Divine holiness is the necessitating cause of priestly 
 consecration as an ordinance of the God of grace. 
 It was to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins that the 
 high priest was ordained. In his daily ministration, 
 as the offerer of the continual sacrifice at the door of 
 the tabernacle, or when burning, morning and even- 
 ing, the appointed incense before the vail, as well as 
 at the stated seasons of solemn convocation, he 
 maintained the acceptable memorial of his people 
 before God.^ But besides the ordered services of the 
 tabernacle, in its divinely -established routine, the 
 high priest was the daily refuge of the individual 
 Israelite in the manifold exigencies of his condition 
 as a member of the congregation of Jehovah. For 
 the Levitical ministration, besides being a figure of 
 good things to come, was granted as a present relief 
 against the pressure of a burden which, because of 
 natural sin and infirmity, neither the fathers nor 
 their children could sustain.* In the books of Levi- 
 ticus and Numbers we may learn how necessary 
 
 2 Ps. Ixxxix. 23, &c. The mystery of the Incarnation is the 
 efficient root of every blessing, even when, as in the present instance, 
 the special form of gi-ace could only be manifested subsequently to 
 the resurrection. 
 
 3 Exod. XXX. xxxi. ; Levit. xvi. xxiii. ; &c. ^ Acts xv. 10. 
 
126 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 priestly ministration was to the daily well-being of 
 a godly Israelite. For not only was a mitigation of 
 the Law's severity ^ experienced through priestly 
 intercession in certain instances of positive trans- 
 gression,® but such an institution was indispensable 
 for ease of conscience even to a man of moral blame- 
 lessness of life, who might inadvertently incur, at 
 any hour of the day, some outward defilement which 
 priestly ministry alone could meet. Both ignorance 
 and error on the people's part continually exercised 
 the sympathies of God's high priest. 
 
 The same personal infirmity which made Aaron, 
 and his mortal successors in the priestly office fit 
 intercessors for their brethren's need (verse 2), dis- 
 qualified them for the ministry of holy things. 
 Accordingly, their ministry was based in effect upon 
 the atonement first offered for themselves (verse 3). 
 Every step in the process of priestly consecration 
 emphatically attested the intrinsic unfitness of its 
 subject to be a priest to God. The washing of 
 water, the sprinkling of blood, the anointing with 
 oil, and the specified garments, whether of purity 
 or magnificence, indicated a natural destitution in 
 the receiver of this consecration of the qualities 
 which God required in His priest ; while they gave 
 shadowy but hopeful promise of One in whom offi- 
 
 ^ In strictness of tlie letter, for instance, theft was ranked with 
 murder. In the table, God measui'ed sin absolutchj, according to the 
 standard of His own holiness. In its practical administration, respect 
 was had to human infirmity, and in some degree also to natural 
 conscience in its instinctive discrimination of greater and lesser 
 wrongs. But it was by sacrificial ordinances only that this relax- 
 ation could be sanctioned, because the blood-shedding in every case 
 implied the deadly nature of all sin, and how alone it could be 
 expiated in the sight of God. 
 
 ** Levit. vi. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 127 
 
 cial dignity and glory should be but the outward 
 expression of essential perfectness and truth. 
 
 Lastly (verse 4), this honour, so necessary for the 
 people's sake, and so expressive of the holiness and 
 glory of God, could rest in no man but the special 
 object of Jehovah's choice. Aaron was not the 
 people's choice, even as the necessity of priesthood 
 was not the people's own discovery. Nor was he 
 self-elected. His fitness for the office was of the 
 God who both called him by name, and ordained the 
 pattern of his consecration, and the order of his 
 ministry. It is at this point that the comparative 
 contrast is brought distinctly into view between the 
 Divine and everlasting Reality and its weak and 
 perishable type. 
 
 Verses 5, 6. " So also Christ glorified not Him- 
 self to be made an High Priest," &c. Jesus honoured 
 not Himself. The titles of distinction which belong 
 to Him, as the wearer of many crowns, are the 
 Father's proclamation by the one true witness, '^ that 
 He is come in whose personal perfection there is 
 found all that, in God's esteem, is truly capable of 
 honour. Both royal and priestly offices had been 
 borne of old by those whom God had sanctioned by 
 His special calling. But neither king nor priest 
 continued in his place. They laid their honours 
 down in death. The promises of blessing which 
 those titles indicated to the people of God could not 
 be realized in men who were themselves to see 
 corruption. There was no deliverance in such. They 
 stood for a brief space, as expressive though fading 
 emblems of a truth which was not in themselves ; 
 
 7 1 Jolin iv. 6. 
 
128 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 and when they went the way of all the earth, the 
 hope of waiting faith still stayed itself upon the 
 names which God would one day glorify with an 
 abiding praise, when their true Owner should have 
 once appeared. 
 
 It was death that demonstrated the futility of 
 royal and priestly titles when found attaching to 
 the natural man. It was in death, and by its means, 
 that the true Heir of both royal and priestly dignity 
 was found and claimed of God. As therefore it is 
 by means of His resurrection from the dead that the 
 kingly title of Jesus has been vindicated, so it also 
 is in resurrection that His title of High Priest was 
 first conferred? God had chosen Him, indeed, to be 
 His Priest, in the purpose of His holiness, before the 
 types which spake of Him had been revealed. But 
 His declared calling and appointment were postponed 
 to His fulfilment, in obedience, of the will of God. 
 By bringing back the crucified Ptedeemer from the 
 grave, God has testified both of the gift and sacrifice 
 for sins (verse 1), which had once for all been offered 
 and accepted in the Cross. God called His Holy 
 One again from death to invest Him openly with 
 glory and honour. For worthiness was found in 
 Jesus. In the smitten and dishonoured branch of 
 David, God beheld His own anointed Son. In the 
 Lamb that opened not His mouth. He knew the 
 Doer of that sacrifice through which the spotless 
 victim of atonement should become the deathless 
 Minister of righteousness and peace. 
 
 The High-priesthood, then, of Jesus is accepted 
 by Him as a part of the inheritance conferred upon 
 
 ^ Infra, oh., viii. 4. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 129 
 
 Him as the First-begotten from the dead. This truth 
 is established by the former of the two quotations 
 here adduced: "Thou art my Son, to-day have I 
 begotten thee." The demonstration of His Sonship 
 by the resurrection from the dead was the declaration 
 that a Man was found whom God deemed worthy of 
 an everlasting title. The connexion always subsist- 
 ing between the Lord's essential dignity, and the 
 official glories which He sustains is pointedly inti- 
 mated in this passage, and should be kept continually 
 before the mind of the believer. The discovery and 
 assertion of ivlio the Eejected of men really is, 
 becomes the signal for His investment with all the 
 honours which eternal truth can bestow upon its 
 object. Accordingly to this primary assertion of His 
 Sonship, there immediately succeeds a second testi- 
 mony of the Spirit to His priestly calling and glory : 
 "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of 
 Melchisedec." The mediatorial flow of grace from 
 God towards His people, and the reciprocation of 
 true worship by the vessels of His mercy, are not 
 things limited by time, but will endure for ever. 
 For such administration of the things of God, there 
 needs an everlasting Priest. While Jesus, therefore, 
 acts for the believer according to the pattern of the 
 Aaronic ministry — as a minister, that is, of suited 
 grace and mercy, according to the actual condition 
 of His people here below — it is by another order 
 that He stands. His office is annexed to, and is an 
 expression of His Person. It is therefore co-existent 
 with His life who lives for ever. The peculiar force 
 of this expression, "according to the order of Mel- 
 chisedec," so frequently repeated in the course of 
 G 5 
 
130 NOTES OX THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 this Epistle, will appear more fully in the sequel. 
 At present it is quoted in proof, first, that from of 
 old God had chosen Melchisedec as a representative 
 figure of true high-priestly perfection ; and, secondly, 
 that the realization of that pattern has been efi'ected 
 in the resurrection and exaltation of His once- 
 rejected Son. 
 
 Verses 7-10. *^ Who in the days of His flesh," &c. 
 We have considered at an earlier page the quality 
 and measure of the Son's perfection as the Captain 
 of salvation to the many children of the Father of 
 glory. We have now anotlier presentation of the 
 same great truth, but in especial reference to His 
 Melchisedec priesthood. In both these characters 
 the consummation of His title was attained in death, 
 and divinely asserted in resurrection. In the passage 
 now before us a >dew is opened of the manner of 
 that special preparation, through which it was pur- 
 posed that God's acceptable Priest should enter on 
 His perfect and endless ministry of blessing. 
 
 The suffering obedience of Jesus in the flesh 
 corresponds antitypically with the ceremonial pre- 
 paration of Aaron for his office. Natural sympathy 
 has been already shown to be an essential qualifi- 
 cation for the exercise of a priesthood which was 
 "ordained for men" (verse 2). But in Aaron natural 
 sympathy was associated with natural ungodliness. 
 The weakness which he so well understood in others, 
 because himself encompassed by the same, was both 
 in him and them the consequence of sin. And, 
 therefore, though ordained to act for other men, he 
 must evermore have remembrance of himself in his 
 offerings for sins (verse 3). In an especial manner. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 131 
 
 as has been remarked above, this intrinsic wortliless- 
 ness was indicated by the ritual of Aaronic conse- 
 cration. In the blessed mystery of godliness we 
 perceive, on the other hand, how sympathy with 
 human infirmity can be perfectly possessed by One 
 who needed not^ to offer for Himself, when accom- 
 plishing the one atonement for His people's sins. 
 
 It was God's equal who was found in fashion as a 
 man.^ The emphatic statement here made is, that 
 Son as He was,^ He learned obedience by the things 
 which He endured (verse 8). The period of this 
 marvellous discipleship is in general terms expressed 
 as "the days of His flesh." Doubtless from His 
 earliest youth, God's Holy One was daily presented 
 in His willing and spotless obedience to the Law, 
 as a living sacrifice of perfectness, well pleasing in 
 the Father's sight. And as He grew in stature, and 
 with filling years began to meditate His Father's 
 business, He may have wept in secret at the contem- 
 plation of that ' hour of dread for which He knew 
 that He had come into the world. But it is to the 
 times of His ^m^/^'c ministry as God's anointed Son, 
 that the Spirit who descended on Him visibly, to 
 prepare Him for that ministry, draws all our atten- 
 tion in the word of truth. For it was then that 
 Jesus openly assumed, not only the title which the 
 Father's voice conferred on Him from heaven, but 
 that special relationship towards Jehovah, as the 
 obedient Fulfiller of all righteousness, which de- 
 clared Him confessedly as the dependent Servant 
 of His will.^ 
 
 9 Infra, chap, vii, 27- ^ Phil. ii. 
 
 2 KatTTEjO oiv vog. 3 Matt. iii. 13-15. 
 
132 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 It was wlien driven by the Spirit into the wilder- 
 ness to be tempted of the devil, that the suffering 
 obedience of the Son of God began. He had already 
 humbled Himself, in perfect grace, to take a place 
 among the multitude who owned their need of 
 repentance towards God by accepting baptism from 
 John. He was now exposed, by virtue of that 
 humiliation, to the direct assaults of the destroyer.* 
 Thenceforward to the cross, the way of Jesus lay 
 through sorrow and reproach. In the power of the 
 Spirit, He performed the works of God. In the 
 endurance of all obloquy and shame. He filled up, 
 day by day, the perfect measure of His will. As He 
 heard, He spake.^ With an ear that daily opened to 
 the words of God,° He received the instructions 
 which wholly swayed the tenor of His way. Every 
 situation into which the obedience of Jesus led Him 
 served but to exemplify, by varied proof, the intrinsic 
 perfection of His Person. As Aaron was conducted 
 to his office through a ritual which marked the 
 absence in himself of all essential qualifications, so 
 the Son of God advanced to His ofl&cial perfection 
 through a life of suffering experience, which proved, 
 in all its vicissitudes, and in each of the events 
 which crowded its divinely-measured term, that in 
 the fmmi of man there might be found what should 
 delight with perfectness the soul of God.'^ 
 
 But it is upon the complete surrender of Himself 
 to suffer to the death, that the Spirit here insists. 
 Jesus placed His life at the disposal of the Father. 
 In lovincj devotedness to His will, He thus denied 
 
 * Mark i. 8 - 12. ^ John v. 30 ; xii. 49, 50. 
 
 c Isa. L 7 isa. xlii. 1 ; Phil. ii. 7, «S:c. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 133 
 
 Himself. Yet Jesus loved His life. The prospect 
 of death at all was strange and revolting to the 
 Prince of Life. How far more exceedingly so when 
 viewed in connexion with its imputed cause, and all 
 its fearful accompaniments 1 For the Holy One to 
 be accounted sin — that the very Light of life should 
 bow and seem to be extinct beneath the hated power 
 of darkness — that men whom He had gone about to 
 bless should load Him with execrations, and lead 
 Him to an ignominious death — above all, that the 
 Father, whom He only lived to love, should with- 
 draw from Him the comfort of His presence, and 
 seem to forget Him as a thing accursed; — when these 
 things are remembered, we can conceive in some, 
 though in a small degree, the nature of that exceed- 
 ing sorrow unto death which bowed the soul of God's 
 dear Son so heavily, as the shadows of that final 
 hour of darkness began at length to close Him in.^ 
 
 With strong crying and tears, the Son of God 
 made supplication for deliverance from death. In 
 the extremity of His weakness, He thought of the 
 Father's power to save. But eternal salvation for 
 His people was in the mind of God when He thus 
 gave up His Son to die, against the yearnings of an 
 affection which had rested on Him from before all 
 time.° And in thus consigning the Obedient One to 
 the baptism of suffering and death, the counsels of 
 Divine wisdom were but preparing a yet more 
 abundant glory for the Beloved. For the countless 
 multitude of those who, by the riches of the Father's 
 grace, should know Him as the God of their sal- 
 vation, should confess to Jesus as the one sole 
 
 8 Matt. xxvi. 37, 38. » John xvii. 24. 
 
134 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 means and author of their joy. When Jesus prayed 
 for life, His voice was heard. Because of the de- 
 votedness which made the will of God His own/ 
 the request of His pure lips should not be dis- 
 allowed.^ And Jesus was content to win His glory 
 as the Father had decreed. 
 
 It is the perfect, natural fitness of Jesus to receive 
 the consecration of eternal priesthood that is ex- 
 emplified in the present aspect of His suffering 
 obedience unto death. In the resurrection He stands 
 clothed with majesty and honour as the alone Dis- 
 penser of the grace of God. To them that obey 
 Him, He is the author of eternal salvation. !N"o 
 other name is given under heaven among men 
 whereby men may be saved. The obedience here 
 demanded is the obedience of faith. He is a High 
 Priest of salvation to all who now believe (verse 9). 
 The doctrine of these verses is as precious as it is 
 wonderful; for it connects every action of that 
 priestly grace, which is the daily refuge of the tried 
 believer, with the tears of the suffering Son of God. 
 Those tears had never flowed but for their sakes for 
 whom He came to die; He might have prayed for 
 present rescue from the dread which threatened Him, 
 and more than twelve legions of angels would have 
 been the Father's answer to His cry. But the heart 
 of Jesus was in the work He came to do. He knew 
 the prize of His obedience unto death to be the 
 eternal deliverance of His own. And if He loved 
 thus strongly, while the value of His love was yet 
 
 ^ 'Atto rriQ iv\al3siag. The authorized version of this expression, 
 I believe to be quite correct ; possibly, the margin is to be preferred 
 on the score of exactness. 
 
 2 Ps. xxi. 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 135 
 
 SO little known that all forsook Him in His day of 
 shame, His love is surely none the less for those 
 who now by grace cleave to Him as tlie Eock of 
 their salvation and their Hope. The brightness of 
 His glory, as the crowned High Priest, is the per- 
 petual memorial to all who now obey Him, of the 
 victorious energy of that enduring love w^hich made 
 the sinner's Friend a stranger to the face of God. 
 Glory now sliines, in majesty and perfect strength, 
 from the once -marred visage of the Lamb. The 
 glory of God shines there. The Father looks approv- 
 ingly upon His children through the everlasting 
 Priest of their profession. God has greeted^ Jesus 
 in the heavenly places of His glory with the per- 
 fection both of royal and priestly honour. And 
 because of that perfection. His believing people joy 
 in God by Him. They learn the manner of the God 
 with whom they have to do through the lips of 
 Jesus, who declares to them tlie Father's name.* 
 
 Yerses 11-14. In the former part of this chapter 
 the doctrine of the Son's eternal priesthood has been 
 stated generally, and established upon its true basis. 
 It is the risen and ascended Christ who has received 
 the eternal excellency of the Melchisedec title. His 
 never-ending ministry of blessing dates its beginning 
 effectively from the finished work of acceptable 
 sacrifice. The apostle had thus brought his Hebrew 
 brethren in the faith within full view of Him whom 
 they were to consider as the High Priest of their 
 profession ; and his desire was to lead their souls 
 more deeply into the exceeding riches of this hea- 
 
 3 Upo(TayoptvQi\Q vTTo Tov Qtov. K. \. (verse 10.) 
 *Eom. V. 11 ; 1 Jolin iii. 1-3. 
 
136 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 venly knowledge. He longed to unfold in ampler 
 detail the treasures of wisdom and delight which lay 
 hidden in the priestly titles with which God had 
 decked His Christ. For indeed he had many things 
 to say on this new topic.^ The fulness of God's 
 truth was in the Person of Him, who now, as the 
 anointed Minister of the Most High God, was pre- 
 sented to His people as the alone exponent and 
 interpreter of Him who is invisible. Things earthly 
 and things heavenly came both alike within the 
 sphere of His appointed trust ; for the Father had 
 committed all things to His hands. He would be 
 glorified in Jesus as the manifested Lord of all 
 power and might, even as He had been glorified 
 in Him on the earth as the dependent vessel of His 
 own good pleasure. 
 
 More especially, the priesthood of Jesus stands 
 in an immediate and very practical relation to His 
 people as the spiritual Circumcision, the true wor- 
 shippers of God.^ The nature and extent of their 
 standing and privileges as His acceptable people, 
 can be appreciated only through an adequate per- 
 ception of the Son of God in this express character. 
 For it is in the chosen Priest alone that the people 
 stand abidingly with God. He desired, therefore, to 
 present this subject fully to their spiritual under- 
 standing ; to show them things which, while they 
 were a present comfort and furtherance of their joy, 
 might likewise be their wisdom to preserve them 
 
 5 Htpi. ov K.\. Concerning, that is, Melchisedec in the first 
 instance, and ultimately Jesus. The figure must be first exhibited 
 in clear distinctness, in order that the abiding truth which it fore- 
 shadows, may be more perfectly apprehended and enjoyed. Infra^ 
 chap. vii. ^ Phil. iii. 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 137 
 
 from the specious snares which lay around their path 
 on every side. 
 
 But in the spiritual state of those whom he ad- 
 dressed, an obstacle existed to his happy progress as 
 their teacher, which needed sharp rebuke for its 
 removal. He had many things to say concerning 
 God's Melchisedec Priest. But this doctrine, though 
 the natural meat of those who had grown prosper- 
 ously on the word of Gospel grace, was a hard thing 
 to expound to them. For they were dull of appre- 
 hension in all heavenly things. They no longer 
 saw afar off.^ Although partakers of the heavenly 
 calling, they had become earthly in the habit of their 
 minds. In times long passed, indeed, they had heard 
 and known, and joyfully confessed the great salva- 
 tion.^ But they had not grown since then. And, 
 standing still, they had lost the nerve and vigour of 
 tlieir faith, and with them also, much of their 
 original confidence and joy. For progress is the law 
 of blessing to God's saints. jSTot to pursue is to be 
 left behind. And so, instead of teaching others, as 
 became their nominal standing in the faith, the 
 riches of God's hidden wisdom,^ they wanted to be 
 taught anew themselves. They were become faulty 
 even in foundation truths. They were babes in 
 knowledge, and therefore unequal to their proper 
 duty of contending for the faith. For they were 
 unskilful in the word of righteousness^ (verse 13). 
 
 7 2 Pet. i. 9. 8 Infra, chap. x. 32-35. » 1 Cor. ii. 7. 
 
 1 The "word of righteousness" stands opposed to the "law of 
 righteousness" which Israel followed after but did not attain (com- 
 pare Eom. ix. 30, 31). They were inexperienced in that wisdom 
 which knows daily feeding upon Jesus by faith to be the secret of all 
 practical righteousness and spiritual well-being. 
 
138 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 There is a distinction, which the Spirit owns 
 approvingly, between "little ones"*^ and "full-grown" 
 men in Christ.^ For the difference is thus expressed 
 between the first perception of true Christian bless- 
 edness in the Jsinowledge of the Father, and the 
 firm stability of a faith grown strong in truth 
 through a patient digestion of the word of God. 
 Again, there is a sense in which all saints are looked 
 upon and spoken to as "new-born babes."* As such 
 they are commended to the breasts of scripture, to 
 be nurtured on the endless consolations which are 
 given them in Christ — growing on still, both in the 
 grace and knowledge of the Son of God, until all 
 partial knowledge vanishes away before the presence 
 of the perfect Truth.^ But a word so fitly used 
 elsewhere, to express the gracious endearments of 
 Divine compassion,^ is now applied to these remiss 
 believers as a searching and severe reproach. iSTo 
 keener censure can attach to one who knows the 
 Lord than that which is pi-ovoked by an habitual 
 negligence of spiritual things. To be infants still,'' 
 after so long a time — to babble inarticulately of 
 Christ, when as men they should be holding forth 
 the word of life, in clear and bold confession of their 
 blessedness as partakers of the heavenly calling — 
 indicated an habitual indolence of spirit, which 
 boded no prosperity to their souls. For whenever a 
 lieavenly Christ ceases to occupy the heart and its 
 
 2 Uai^ia. 3 1 John ii. ^ ' AQTiykvvqTa Pokdirj. 
 
 5 1 Pet. ii. 2 ; 2 Pet. iii. 18. 6 Matt. xi. 25. 
 
 7 N/;7rioi. The "full aged" of verse U, are the "perfect" of 
 1 Cor. ii. 6 ; rkXeiog being the word used in both passages. Compare 
 also 1 Cor. xiv. 20 ; Phil. iii. 15. As to the nature and meaning of 
 Christian perfection, see further mfra, chapter x. 1, 14. 
 
^ NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 139 
 
 desires, the spring of true spiritual activity is gone. 
 The soul has lost its right position as a stranger in a 
 Christless world, when, through lack of diligence, 
 a Christians faith sees Jesus indistinctly in His 
 present place at God's right hand. 
 
 The danger to which this spiritual inertness ex- 
 posed them was such as to justify the strongest lan- 
 guage of expostulation and reproof. Apostasy from 
 Christ was a step more e^sy and natural to a Jewish 
 than to a Gentile believer ; because the way was 
 always open and inviting to them as men, to return 
 to those associations which had once carried with 
 them the outward sanction of Jehovah's name, and 
 which only the yoioer of God's kingdom had enabled 
 them to renounce. When heavenly realities became 
 inoperative in their souls, the visible image was 
 before them still, and near was the danger of their 
 giving it the homage of their souls. If there were 
 not an habitual exercise of their spiritual senses 
 (verse 14,) their power of discernment would not 
 long remain. They would call evil good, and good 
 evil. For the ignorance which flows from spiritual 
 negligence brings its own punishment of apathetic 
 dulness on the once clear mind, and robs the spirit 
 of its power to detect and baffle the wily methods 
 of the devil. 
 
 It is in the presence of God alone, that a Chris- 
 tian can exert his spiritual energies with effect. 
 Abiding in Christ maintains us in that presence. 
 A more unhappy error cannot befall a believer than 
 to separate, in the habit of his mind, acquired know- 
 ledge from the living Christ. Faith dies at once 
 when separated from its object. Knowledge indeed 
 
140 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 is precious ; but the knowledge of God is a pro- 
 gressive tiling, whose end is not attainable on this 
 side glory: "If any man think that he knoweth 
 anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to 
 know."^ The true experience of an advancing saint 
 is that of continual initiation. "With a prospect 
 ever widening, he has a daily deepening appreciation 
 of the fundamental grace in which he stands, and 
 in which he is more and more established by the 
 " word of righteousness." There is a sense in which 
 the cross may be said to be the sum of Christian 
 knowledge. It is so when it is regarded not only as 
 the stay of personal trust, because it is the clear and 
 ever blessed enunciation of abounding grace, but 
 when its infinite results are pondered as the Com- 
 forter reveals them in the word of Christ. The 
 world is then a crucified and abandoned thing.^ God 
 is the occupation and the study of His children. 
 And it is in Jesus only that He may be learned. 
 
 8 1 Cor. viii. 2. 9 Gal. vi. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 141 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 At the outset of liis new and heavenly topic, the 
 apostle had been constrained reluctantly to pause. 
 For it was necessaiy to disclose to those whom he 
 addressed their spiritual poverty and littleness of 
 growth; and in tones of keen, though affectionate, 
 expostulation he had done this, as we have seen. 
 That they were babes in knowledge, was their shame 
 as well as danger. They ought to have been men. 
 And now, having convinced them of this blame, he 
 is ready to resume his happier task of opening more 
 richly to their view the blessedness and glory of the 
 Son's eternal priesthood. For Christ is evermore the 
 Spirit's natural theme. To have therefore to speak 
 of them — unless it were to cheer their patience, or to 
 praise their faith etnd love in Jesus — though needful 
 for their sakes, was a jarring and unwelcome digres- 
 sion from his proper subject. 
 
 Verses 1-3. With God's permission, then, he would 
 lead them onward in the way of light. But first, an 
 exercise of spiritual discrimination is demanded. 
 The rudiments of truth must be distinguished from 
 the living Truth Himself. Some truths are no 
 longer objects of inquiring faith. They have ful- 
 
142 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 filled tlieir purpose, and may be left behind by those 
 whose calling is to know all knowledge in the Son of 
 God. They are to be assumed as principles, whose 
 ultimate intention and significance become increas- 
 ingly apparent as the soul advances in its study of 
 perfection. God has laid Christ, as His elect foun- 
 dation, on a ground prepared aforetime in His earlier 
 testimonies. The rudimental truths which formed 
 the stock of a believer's knowledge, while the dark- 
 ness lasted, were sufficient to produce, as their result, 
 a radical conviction of personal unprofitableness and 
 ruin, together with a hope to God -ward, which held 
 as yet no surer token of its validity than the word 
 of promise, and the sacrificial signs which spake of 
 better things. But now that the true light shone, 
 and better promises had become a present truth, they 
 were to leave the initiatory word of Christ^ for 
 Christ Himself. This they might safely do. For 
 truths, whose office was to teach their need of Christ, 
 are honoured best by those who, by their light, 
 pressed onward to perfection,^ by bestowing all 
 thoughts on Him. 
 
 The things which the partakers of the heavenly 
 calling are exhorted thus to leave behind are seve- 
 rally stated, and are classed, in common, as funda- 
 mental or established principles. At the head of 
 these we find " repentance from dead works," ^ close 
 
 1 Tbv T^Q apx^Q "Tov XpicTTov \6yGV. ^'■Die cmfdagliche Lehre 
 Christi." De Wette, This expression is more precise in its mean- 
 ing than the somewhat similar one in chapter v. 12. The ancient 
 testimonies were, in a general sense, the oracles of God. Specially, 
 they are rudimental preliminaries to Christ, the perfect Truth. 
 
 2 The "perfection" here spoken of, is contrasted with the spii'itual 
 infancy or nonage mentioned at the close of the preceding chapter. 
 
 3 By "dead works" are to be understood, not only acts of sin, butf 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 143 
 
 joined with its correlative, "faith towards God." 
 From the first entrance of sin into the world these 
 things had been known and acted on by the elect of 
 God. The unprofitableness of the flesh, and the 
 necessity of faith in God as a Saviour, were maxims 
 of the Father's wisdom from the earliest times.* 
 Distinctly recorded from the first in the living 
 oracles of God,^ these truths had in the scriptures 
 of the prophets been emphatically stated as the word 
 of saving doctrine. They were held fast as such 
 by every quickened Israelite, although the spirit of 
 bondage kept the children still in fear, until the 
 work of their emancipation had been fully wrought.^ 
 The doctrine of baptisms^ comes next, and is in 
 close connexion with that of the imposition of 
 hands. These, although morally related in their 
 spirit to the former, and faintly traceable as prac- 
 tical observances from the beginning, are yet, as 
 positive institutions, of no earlier antiquity than 
 the giving of the Law. For it can scarcely be 
 questioned that the lustral ordinances, and sacri- 
 ficial solemnities of the Levitical institute, are here 
 intended. In what manner these once all-important 
 ordinances were to be "left" by the true circum- 
 cision for the living fulness and perfection of Christ, 
 
 that vain reliance upon works of a religious pretension which is a 
 snare of destruction to the man whose heart is willingly estranged 
 from God. The prophetic scriptures abound in denimciatory passages, 
 which might be quoted in proof of this. (Compare Isa. i. Ivii. Iviii. ; 
 Jer. xvii. ; Hab. ii. 4, &(;.) 
 
 * Ps. xxii. 4 ; Infra., chap. xi. 
 
 5 Gen. vi. 5 ; xv. 6. 6 Q-al. iy. 
 
 "^ (ianr 1(7 fxCiv. This word is never used to express the rite of 
 baptism. In chapter ix. 10 of this Epistle it is more justly rendered 
 " washings." In two other places only it occurs, in both which it 
 receives the same translation as in the passage just referred to. 
 (Compare Mark vii. 4, 8.) 
 
144 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 is shewn at length in chapters ix. and x. We have 
 in the meanwhile to remember that it was by means 
 of these significant observances that the necessity of 
 personal purification, and of substitutional atone- 
 ment, was impressed upon the earliest mind of 
 every Israelite. For in the ceaseless recurrence of 
 these ordinances there was a continual recognition, 
 by priest and worshipper alike, of man's natural 
 unfitness for the Divine presence, and of the need 
 of some mediate power of atonement to bring him 
 there. Lastly, both resurrection of the dead, and 
 eternal judgment, are enumerated as a part of the 
 foundation which had long been laid. These truths 
 have a commensurate force and relative corres- 
 pondence with the two first mentioned. The "re- 
 surrection of the dead" being the hope and reward 
 of "faith toward God;" while on the other hand a 
 recognition in the sinner's conscience of the judicial 
 holiness of the eternal God, cannot but convince 
 him of the prime necessity of a "repentance from 
 dead works." With more or less distinctness, there- 
 fore, these rudiments of God have been held by 
 all who from the beginning feared the Judge of all 
 the world, and knew that death was hopeful only 
 to the righteous man.^ 
 
 These were the old foundations. They had been 
 confirmed and re-asserted by the Lord's forerunner, 
 the finisher of legal and prophetic testimony, who, 
 coming in the w^ay of righteousness, had spoken of 
 
 sEccles. xi. 9; xii. 14; Prov. xiv. 32; Ps. xe. 11. That resur- 
 rection was the national belief of Israel is quite clear, from the 
 Gospels. Like other ancient verities, it was challenged and derided 
 by the freethinking liberalism of the day. See further, Acts xxiv. 
 15 ; and xxvi. 7. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 145 
 
 the wrath to come; who had preached repentance, 
 and baptized with water, preparing thus the advent 
 of that Light in whom the perfect wisdom of the 
 just shouh^ be revealed. Upon these foundations, 
 and as the completion of these rudiments, the Holy 
 Ghost establishes the doctrine of the Christ.^ For 
 in His Person are presented God's true vindication 
 and fulfilment of the former things. To the re- 
 pentant sinner who discards the filthy rags of his 
 own works He is given, freely and v\'ithout condition, 
 as the everlasting liighteousness of God. To him 
 wdio trusted, darkly once though hopefully, in God, 
 He is now become, as the manifested Object of a 
 justifying faith, the Light (whose brightness grows 
 not dim) of life, and peace, and never-ending joy. 
 The washings oft repeated, and the laying on of 
 hands, are now to be forgotten in the setting forth of 
 Jesus as the eternal Redemption of His people. Not 
 only is He in His Person both the Eesurrection and 
 the Life ; the doctrine also of the resurrection has 
 received its mighty and decisive confirmation in the 
 raising of the Man Christ Jesus to become the first- 
 fruits, unto Him that raised Him, of the multitude 
 who sleep through Him.^ By the same token like- 
 
 9 The Lord had in His earthly ministry authenticated all these 
 principles, as the Asserter and Fulfiller of the truth of God, while 
 He continually sought to set before the blinded eyes of Israel the 
 Divine realization in His own Person of all that Moses and the 
 prophets taught. (Comp. INIatt. xxiii. 1 - 3.) He preached both re- 
 pentance from dead works, and faith towards God. He taught 
 distinctly both the resurrection and eternal judgment ; while by the 
 surrender of Himself to die the sinner's death, He justified the 
 ancient sacrificial witness, which ceased not from its mute though 
 expressive testimony until the Lamb was found on whom God once 
 for all might lay His people's sins, and in whose precious blood pure 
 cleansing might be found of heart and conscience in His sight. 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. XV. 
 
146 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 wise is He openly announced to men as the ap- 
 pointed Lord and Judge, both of the living and 
 the dead.^ 
 
 The believing Hebrews had already heard and 
 known these things, and had begun their saving 
 acquaintance with the Son of God. To grow onward 
 in that knowledge unto perfect manhood, till the 
 measure of the stature of His fulness be attained, is 
 the calling of the saints of God.^ They are renewed 
 for that knowledge, being called, in the unity of His 
 body, the Church, to the acknowledgment of the 
 mystery of God/ The end and measure of the 
 Spirit's operation as the Comforter, is the edifying 
 of that body to its completion, in the unity of the 
 faith, even as already each several member is com- 
 plete before God in His exalted Head. Progress in 
 this direction is the sure effect of spiritual growth. 
 On the other hand, to stop short of perfection was 
 to expose themselves to the direct action of influences 
 which (but for the faithfulness of God as the pre- 
 server of His own) might move them to apostasy 
 from Christ. To deter them, therefore, more eft'ec- 
 tually from remissness in their pursuit of heavenly 
 things, from looking backward or standing still, in- 
 stead of pressing on toward the mark, until the 
 prize of God's high calling in Christ Jesus should 
 be attained in rest, he adds now a word of fearful 
 warning touching the nature and effects of a de- 
 liberate abandonment of Christ. 
 
 Verses 4-8. The present passage consists, first, 
 of a categorical statement of Christian apostasy and 
 its effects (verses 4-6), and secondly of a figurative 
 
 * Acts xi. 40-42; Rom. xiv. 9. » Eph. iv. 13. ^ Col. ii. iii. 
 
NOTES ON TKE HEBREWS. 147 
 
 illustration of the moral condition of the apostate in 
 the sight of God (verses 7, 8). As to the former of 
 these, the persons described are such as fall aivay.^ 
 What they fall from is largely intimated in the de- 
 scriptive terms which are applied to them before 
 their fall. . They relinquish and despise the light of 
 life, the heavenly gift, the Holy Ghost, the good 
 word or promise of God, and the powers of the 
 v/orld to come. Having been conversant with all 
 these things, they give them up. They fall back to 
 what they were before the light of God shone on 
 them in the Gospel. After trial made of grace, they 
 return advisedly to the way of nature, preferring 
 thus themselves to Christ. To renew such aofain 
 unto repentance is pronounced to be impossible. 
 The reason of this hopelessness of ruin is explained : 
 " they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, 
 and put Him to an open shame." This last expres- 
 sion is sufficiently decisive of the nature of tliis 
 irremediable sin. It is no paroxysm of personal 
 depravity, nor frequent repetition of unfaithfulness, 
 which the guilty and self- condemned abuser of the 
 grace which saves him may have to mourn in secret 
 before God, that is thus denounced. Nor is it such 
 a momentary dereliction of the Saviour as may be 
 won fraudulently, or by force extorted, from the 
 weakness of the flesh, in some dark hour of too 
 great temptation. For all these there is hope. The 
 righteous advocacy of Jesus with the Father is 
 abidingly at hand to meet the sins of such as know 
 them, and confess them in His name. To them that 
 own Him as their great High Priest, He is the 
 
 ^ HovQ TrapaTreaovTcig, 
 H 2 
 
148 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 minister of a grace and mercy to wMcli God has set 
 no limits. It is when the heart which once received 
 the word with joy, departing gradually from the 
 living God, becomes hardened through the deceitful- 
 ness of sin, and willingly resumes the things which 
 it forsook for Christ — when, through the lust of 
 other things, the exceeding great and precious pro- 
 mises of God fall vapidly upon the ear, and are 
 willingly forgotten in the heart ; — or, when the faith 
 of God's elect, which for a while has been professed, 
 is counted fabulous or foolish through proud high- 
 mindedness and self- deceit ; and the precious work 
 of Jesus is a mockery, and His name, which once 
 was a desire, is now become a weariness ; — it is when 
 thus the work which seemed for a while to be of 
 God, turns out in its result to be no better than the 
 creature of that natural will which never heartily 
 consents to God, that the seared and blinded con- 
 science sinks below the reach of all relief. For the 
 only name which God has given under heaven for 
 salvation, is the object of the sinner's proud con- 
 tempt. In his own person he has crucified a second 
 time the Son of God ; deriding the Lord whom he 
 had once confessed, and putting Jesus to an open 
 shame. 
 
 None were so liable to this dreadful and incurable 
 apostasy, as they who, having lived from infancy in 
 a religion which, while it had the outward sanction 
 of God's name, was such as men might glory in who 
 had no faith in God, had abandoned it in favour of 
 a profession based entirely on things heavenly and 
 invisible. To a very small minority of believing 
 Israelites, the spectacle of the mass of their country- 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 149 
 
 men (whose distinctive boast it was that they, and 
 they alone, were God's true people), remaining sted- 
 fast in their ancient worship, must have presented 
 a continual temptation to return to that which 
 they had left. When to this there is added the 
 required abandonment of all superior claim, and 
 the perfect community of hope and privilege which 
 Jew and Gentile shared alike in the new fellowship 
 of Christ's one body, it is apparent that a clear and 
 growing faith in heavenly things w^as needed to 
 preserve the Jewish Christian from relapse. But 
 to return to Judaism w^as to give up Christ — to fall 
 from grace, and place themselves anew beneath not 
 only the general curse of the Law, but that special 
 imprecation which had bound the guilt of Jesus' 
 blood to the reprobate and blinded nation of His 
 murderers. They had confessed already to the fruit- 
 lessness of the former things — the vain conversation 
 received by tradition from the fathers. They had 
 made public avowal of the impotency of all other 
 means of blessing, when they made confession of 
 the cross of Christ. To fall away from that — to 
 return again to mere external religiousness by a 
 departure from the living faith of the Gospel, would 
 be to give up God. For God is in the living Person 
 of His Christ, and can be found no lono'er amonsj 
 the shadows of the former times. 
 
 At all times during the progress of the dispensa- 
 tion, apostasy from Christ is contemplated.*^ Anti- 
 christs sprang up from the beginning, who, in 
 various forms, opposed the truth, and drew men into 
 their pernicious ways. But it is reserved for the 
 
 6 1 Johnii. 18; 2 Tim. iii. 13. 
 
150 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 "last times" to exhibit tliis awful form of evil in its 
 ripe perfection. The man who by evil pre-eminence 
 is called The Antichrist,' will be greeted and ap- 
 plauded by those who have finally denied the Christ. 
 And surely no thoughtful Christian can fail to 
 notice, as one of the signs of the present time, a 
 strange and facile readiness on the part of many, 
 who once seemed to know the power of the gospel, 
 to renounce the faith of God's elect. Under what- 
 ever form (and they are indeed many!) apostasy 
 may present itself, its essential principle is imhelief. 
 The special characteristic, however, of latter-day 
 infidelity is its professed reverence for "truth and 
 nobleness" wherever they are found, and its hypo- 
 critical regret at the alleged discovery of the untrust- 
 worthiness of what has hitherto been accepted as an 
 insx^ired Eecord. To deny, not God avowedly, but 
 that He has spoken, and while continuing to pay an 
 empty reverence to the Scriptures, to disallow them 
 as the Word of God, is the most fatal symptom of 
 anti- christian evil in the present day. But truth 
 will assert its own claims in judgment upon those 
 who refuse to bow to it, when it speaks (as now) in 
 grace. God will send it forth to victory in the day 
 when, according to the written promise, He reveals 
 His Christ in glory. Meanwhile, let those whose 
 hearts are sometimes weakened by the plausible fal- 
 lacies and " great swelling words " of modern nation- 
 alism, remember that all that now is passing has 
 been already scanned and designated by that Spirit 
 of prophecy which is the testimony of Jesus,^ and 
 that stability of soul is the effect, not of hearken- 
 
 7 '0 avTi xpi<^Tog, ^ Rev. xix. 10. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 151 
 
 ing to the ever -changeful voice of human doctrine, 
 but of sticking to the testimonies of the Holy Ghost. 
 The words which nourished and fashioned the soul 
 of God's incarnate Son, and armed Him for the battle 
 of our deliverance/ will also be the joy and strength 
 of those, who, through grace, find Him to be the 
 end of the commandment, and the beginning of their 
 hope. Great is the promised reward of those who 
 still have "kept the word of His patience" amid the 
 seductions and gainsayings of a Christ-denying world.^ 
 To return; it is not wonderful that the minds of 
 many weak believers should have felt painfully 
 exercised while pondering this solemn passage. For 
 the language used • to specify the former state of 
 those whose apostasy is here supposed, is such as 
 seems scarcely applicable to any soul not really 
 alive to God.^ Where this impression is received, 
 an inference will naturally suggest itself of personal 
 insecurity so long as this our present life remains, 
 and with it our liability to fall away from Christ. 
 
 9 Ps. xl. 6-8; Is. 1. 4, 5 ; Matt. iv. 4. ^ Rev. iii. 10. 
 
 2 I do not feel disposed to enter at large on an examination of these 
 several expressions. Their general drift is not to be mistaken. A 
 carnal professor is (until by a renunciation of his creed, he proves the 
 contrary), a Christian; one therefore of whom a Christian status and 
 experience may be assumed. God alone knows how near an approach 
 may be made by nature to the kingdom of God. But entrance thither 
 must be through a second birth by means of the living and ever- 
 abiding word. It is the children's privilege to know that what they 
 have they have received from Him — that what He gives in Christ is 
 not to be revoked — that by His own will He has given life eternal to 
 His people through the word. They know that in themselves there 
 dwelleth no good thing; that neither constancy, nor strength, nor 
 holiness, nor aught besides that makes for their salvation, is their 
 own. Their life is Jesus. Their security is God, who changeth not. 
 None such can fall away. They may sin. In many things they all 
 offend. But to be happy without Christ — to fall away from grace, 
 and feel no loss, is as impossible for one who has eaten of that living 
 Bread, as it is that one who has deliberately cast Him off should ever 
 put a saving faith in Him again. 
 
152 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Such a misuse of Scripture is a common artifice of 
 Satan, and one wliicli finds too ready an acceptance 
 in the natural heart, where suspicion and mistrust of 
 God dwell side by side wdth unbelief and pride. 
 When once, through grace, the truth of nature's 
 ruin has been thoroughly perceived, and Christ has 
 been laid hold of — not in His doctrine by a hasty 
 impulse of mental conviction merely, but (through 
 the Spirit's application of the doctrine) by a believ- 
 ing acceptance of His Person — as the Saviour whose 
 redeeming love is appreciated and adored, because 
 the need of such a love is known in secret in the 
 sight of God, the main -spring of the tempter's 
 power is destroyed. For while the self -judging 
 believer knows full well that deceit and treachery 
 are in the very core of his own heart, and that the 
 countless wanderings of thought from Jesus, which 
 daily are remembered and confessed by him in secret, 
 are tokens of a will wdthin him all whose tendencies 
 are far away from God, yet he knows these things 
 without alarm. The same indwelling Spirit of truth, 
 wdio shows him thus hatefully the proper features of 
 his fiesh, is the Eevealer also of Jesus to his soul. 
 The faithfulness and power of the Shepherd to pre- 
 serve His own are the confidence and reassuring 
 comfort of the sheep that hear His voice. If en- 
 snared or drawn aside from Jesus, the believer's 
 happiness is gone. Contentment is at an end, until 
 restoring grace has brought him back again, in 
 contrite and trustful acknowledgment to God.^ The 
 inward distresses of a Christian, who, wdien mourn- 
 fully reviewing the unworthy tenor of his way, may 
 
 3 1 John i. 9. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 153 
 
 bitterly arraign himself before the Lord, whose love 
 he feels he has so wretchedly requited, bear no re- 
 semblance to the sentiments of an apostate, who has 
 willingly renounced the Saviour. The hopelessness 
 of the latter case consists in an obduracy of heart on 
 which the word of God takes no effect. Eepentance 
 is impossible, because truth has been intentionally 
 put away. 
 
 A well-meant but inconsiderate desire of removing 
 all doctrinal im]3ediments from the path of feeble- 
 minded Christians, has sometimes led true teachers 
 of Christ to mitigate, in their expositions of this 
 passage, the simple and obvious meaning of the 
 Spirit's words. Such tampering with Scripture is 
 neither wise nor safe; nor would godly men have 
 been seduced into so serious a fault, but through 
 the very erroneous notion of the incompatibility of 
 such passages of Scripture with the perfect security 
 which is assured by grace to the real believer.^ But 
 it has not been sufficiently kept in view that a 
 believer's blessing, although absolute in Christ, is 
 conditional for its present enjoyment, on the exercise 
 of his faith. The method of Divine teaching is not 
 simply to satisfy the mind by clear and positive 
 statements of doctrine, but to nourish the heart and 
 exercise the conscience by communion with the 
 Living Truth. Now that Truth is Christ. So long, 
 therefore, as our hearts are cleaving to Him by 
 simple faith in the word of God, we are both con- 
 fident and safe. But neither the peace of God, 
 nor any other spiritual blessing, is attached to a 
 
 * The foolish and irreverent language attributed to Luther in refer- 
 ence to the epistle of James, is a well-known instance in point. 
 
 H 5 
 
154' NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 mere mental acquiescence in evangelical doctrine. 
 Spiiitual peace must necessarily wax or wane in 
 exact proportion to the activity or inactivity of our 
 faith. 
 
 Moreover, we must remember that to deal care- 
 lessly with Gospel truth, is to trifle with the grace 
 of God, a thing of all others the most impious and 
 perilous, as well as the most foolish. Because, there- 
 fore, this wretched tendency exists in every heart, 
 and is assiduously acted on by Satan in a multitude 
 of ways, the Spirit of God sees fit to shew us a just 
 and faithful picture of Christian apostasy ; letting lis 
 thus see cle.arly what it is that men renounce -when 
 they depart from Christ, in order that by the words 
 of His lips, we may be kept from the paths of the 
 destroyer.^ It is thus that He acted as the Com- 
 forter. "Warning every man, and teaching every 
 man, in all wisdom; that He may present every 
 man perfect in Christ Jesus!' ^ 
 
 The just effect then of such a w^arning as the one 
 before us is to stir up watchfulness, and stimulate 
 communion with the Lord. Like other monitory 
 passages of Scripture, it describes a class who really 
 answer to the description. But they whom it so 
 faithfully portrays are exactly those on whom as a 
 vmrning it takes no effect. The man that always 
 fears is always safe. He dreads himself and Satan; 
 and cleaves savingly to Jesus in the discernment of 
 His ever-blessed grace. Deliberate hypocrisy, or 
 open denial of the Son of God, are doubtless des- 
 perate things. God saves by truth alone. To mock 
 Him in His holiness, or deny Him in His grace, 
 
 5 Ps. xvii. 4. 6 Col. ii. 28. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 155 
 
 is ruinous alike to the sin-deceived vessels of His 
 wrath. 
 
 The figurative illustration which is appended to 
 this warning (verses 7, 8), shows plainly that the 
 falling away in question is but the natural result of 
 the uncongenial, and therefore fruitless contact of 
 Gospel truth with man in an unregenerate state. 
 Truth may be received by such. It may be absorbed 
 into the mind, and become a part of its familiar 
 knowledge. But it does not penetrate the seat of his 
 affections and desires. Because there is no faith, God 
 is not really discovered in His word.'^ No acceptable 
 fruit of praise and holy conversation responds to the 
 free ministration of the name of Jesus. The seed 
 sown is not suited to the soil on which it falls. The 
 dew of God, which drops the fatness of abounding 
 grace, with happy increase of pure peace and joy, 
 upon the broken surface of a heart made thirsty for 
 salvation through the deep upturning of its secret 
 wretchedness beneath the eye of Truth, sinks waste- 
 fully among the stony places of man's natural selfish- 
 ness. The fruits are like the soil. They savour of 
 himself, and not of Christ. Eeligious pretension 
 may be among them. But if not of faith, it is the 
 sharpest and most barren brier of them all. God 
 gathers nothing grateful to Himself but from a heart 
 which, bowed beneath the weight of His abounding 
 
 7 To "taste the good word of God," may be the portion of those 
 who yet in time of temptation fall away. As it fared with Jesus 
 when many who, in the fervour of a first impression, had declared 
 themselves disciples, left Him when He began to teach distinctly the 
 great doctrine of eternal life (John vi. 66), so is it often with the 
 gospel when its flesh- withering power is clearly understood. That 
 some receive with joy a testimony which yet takes no root within 
 their souls, is sure upon the Lord's own word. (Matt. xiii. 20, 21.) 
 
156 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 mercies, has no desire (though the flesh he weak) 
 but to walk worthy of Him who died for us, and 
 rose again. When Gospel trath falls plentifully on 
 a still unbroken spirit, and all the return which God 
 receives in answer to tlie ministration of His grace, 
 is the insane presumption of self- righteousness — 
 that most offensive of all provocations to the pure 
 and Holy One,^ or when, under cover of a sound 
 profession, the heart, un weaned from sin, because 
 not really alive to God, esteems the liberty of Christ 
 no other than a special license of iniquity — this 
 solemn word receives its dreary illustration. The 
 branch that does not tarry in the vine can bear no 
 fruit. The soul which does not cleave to Jesus 
 bears no life within itself Its fruits are bitter as 
 the grapes of Sodom to the soul of him who finds 
 refreshment only in the true and living Yine.^ 
 
 Yerses 9, 10. Having traced spiritual declension 
 in its downward course to final apostasy and hope- 
 less reprobation, he hastens to anticipate and to 
 forbid such a construction of his language as might 
 justify in the hearts of those whom he addressed 
 the worst misgivings on their own account. It was 
 not theii' condition that had furnished the materials 
 of the mournful picture lie had drawn. Though he 
 spake thus in faithful warning, yet he was persuaded 
 better things of them. When he contemplated both 
 their past and present state, more cheering signs were 
 visible. "Things that accompany salvation" had 
 abounded in their way, since first they made pro- 
 fession of the Saviour. They had witnessed, and 
 did witness, by their work and labour of love, to 
 
 8 Isa. Ixv. 5. 9 Deut. xxxii. 32 ; John xv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 157 
 
 the sincerity of their professed subjection to the 
 Gospel. In ministering to God's saints, who suffered 
 the reproach of Christ, they had evinced the genu- 
 ineness of their zeal for God — that it was according 
 to knowledge, and therefore not in vain. God knew 
 this, and was iiot unrighteous to forget it.^ It was 
 not, then, for any visible decay of outward diligence 
 that they stood in need of present exhortation. Yet 
 something still was lacking in their faith. There 
 was an inward feebleness and lowness of spiritual 
 tone, which he earnestly desired to invigorate and 
 elevate, that they might be more effectually secured 
 against the wiles of the enemy, as well as for the 
 more abundant increase of their joy. 
 
 Verses 11, 12. They had laboured unitedly in out- 
 ward testimony to God. The desire of the apostle's 
 heart is, that every one of them should show the 
 same diligence to the full assurance of ho])e unto the 
 end. There was a dehnite hope of their calling. 
 That hope w^as Christ in heaven. The God and 
 
 1 The method here adopted by the apostle in his endeavour to 
 re-assiire the Hebrew saints, is well worth our attention. Truth 
 must ever be the instrument of the Comforter, who is Himself the 
 Spirit of truth ; but in its application He has respect to the moral 
 condition of those whom He addresses. Acts of responsive devoted- 
 ness, such as those to which reference is made in the text, though 
 ever precious in the sight of God, are less frequently (perhaps we 
 might say less ivillingly) dwelt on by Him whose office is to glorify 
 Jesus, and by presenting truth in its higher and richer manifestation 
 in His blessed Person and work, to in\ate the believer to the all- 
 absorbing contemplation of a love which passeth knowledge, and in 
 the presence and enjoyment of which oxirselves and our works are 
 alike forgotten, or remembered only in the tender and heart-humbling 
 consciousness of the grace wherein we stand. Hence we find that 
 references to the retributive fidelity of God, are rarely introduced, 
 except either to cheer and animate those who are under the active 
 pressure of affliction for the truth's sake, as in 2 Thess. i. 5, 6 ; or, as 
 in the present instance, to stimulate or encoiirage a languid and 
 diminished faith. 
 
158 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is the God of His 
 people's hope. They must severally have to do with 
 Him by the continual exercise of simple faith, or 
 their strength will waste away and turn to lassitude 
 and faintness of heart, beneath the pressure of their 
 day of trial. There is a burden for each one to bear, 
 a work for every man to prove.*^ By individual faith 
 alone can personal communion be maintained, and 
 with it happiness and peace. Being already justified, 
 and blessed with free deliverance tlirough the faith 
 of Jesus crucified, they are not to relax in their 
 pursuit of heavenly things, but rather to give dili- 
 gence that the brightness of His glory may be 
 continually before them as the immediate object of 
 their hope. The chief impediment to this in every 
 Christian is the ceaseless variance of flesh with 
 spirit. But in the case of the believing Hebrew 
 there was an especial obstacle presented by national 
 associations of a character distinctly sensuous and 
 earthly, in the midst of which they bore the reproach 
 of an invisible and heavenly Christ. 
 
 It is with reference to this that their attention is 
 now drawn to the examples of an earlier time. They 
 are Avarned against the danger of spiritual slothful- 
 ness, and exhorted to be followers of them, who, 
 through faith and patience, had lived on earth a life 
 of unaccomplished hope.^ For expectant heirship was 
 the standing character of their own position, until 
 
 2 Gal. vi. 
 
 3 Twv ^la tt'kjthijq Kai fxaKpoOvfiiag KXtjpovofiovvroJv 
 
 rag eirayy. The force of the present participle should be noticed. 
 They are not described as having inherited the promises, but as sus- 
 taining throughout the present life the character of expectant heirship, 
 dying as well as living in the faith. {Infra, chap, xi.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 159 
 
 Jesus should again return to put them in possession 
 of the promised rest. The model, therefore, of their 
 imitation must be sought for among those who had 
 lived and died while the eartlily Canaan was as yet 
 an unfulfilled desire ; when the sure promises of 
 God made pilgrimage a willing choice to men who, 
 in their trustful knowledge of His truth and power, 
 dwelt safely and with rich contentment (though in 
 tents of changeful sojourn), in a land which was 
 not theirs.* In its main features, patriarchal faith 
 presents a close moral likeness to the proper expe- 
 rience of those, who, as partakers of the heavenly 
 calling, are pilgrims, not by force of outward cir- 
 cumstance, but because of the exceeding great and 
 precious promises of God.^ Accordingly, the case 
 of Abraham is now brought forward, partly as an 
 example of the rule of faith and patience by which 
 the heirs of promise are at all times called to walk, 
 and partly to disclose more evidently to their feeble 
 minds the depth and strength of those foundations 
 upon which they are encouraged to build all their 
 hope. 
 
 Verses 13-15. "For after God had made pro- 
 mise to Abraham, He sware by Himself,"^ &c. The 
 patience of Abraham commenced from the date of 
 the original promise. The birth of Isaac in due 
 time fulfilled his hope, as touching the true seed 
 of his inheritance. But its final confirmation and 
 
 4 Ps. cv. 9-14. 5 2 Peter i. 4. 
 
 6 T<^ yap 'AfSpaufi kTrayyeiXafitvog 6 9. k. \. Not 
 wfien he made promise. The intention of the Spirit is, evidently, to 
 distinguish what the E. V. tends rather to confound. De Wette 
 has given the aorist participle its just force : ^^Als Gott aber verheissen 
 hatte." u. s. u\ 
 
160 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 security was the oath of God, pronounced when the 
 decisive trial of his faith was past, and he had 
 received the child of promise (in a figure) from the 
 dead/ It was after long patience, and by new and 
 wonderful endurance that he thus obtained the pro- 
 mise.^ In the return of Isaac from the altar of 
 appointed sacrifice, and in the confirmation of the 
 oath of God, Abraham had found a sure pledge and 
 distinct foreshadowing of the day of his desire. For 
 it was not simply an additional reiteration of the 
 word already more than once repeated. The oath 
 which God spake out of heaven had respect, indeed, 
 to what had gone before, and was a confirmation of 
 the earlier promise. But it was more than this. It 
 was a new and solenni obligation, founded imme- 
 diately on a transaction which mystically involved, 
 and presented to the faith of Abraham, the manner 
 in which his promised hope was to be realized. It 
 was through an acceptahle offering that the gifts of 
 Him who justifies the ungodly were to be secured, 
 in holiness, to the a^eceivers of His grace.^ It was 
 in the resurrection that the hoped-for blessings could 
 alone be perfectly enjoyed. The promise, many 
 times repeated, was thus established on its final 
 resting-place, no more to be disturbed or tried. The 
 trial was now past, and aU the human doubts and 
 
 7 Gen. xxii. 
 
 8 'ETTtrwxE TTtQ kTrayyeXiag. It was the specific promise of the 
 seed that Abraham thus obtained. With respect to "the promises" 
 in their wider sense, both he and his fellow-heirs, of whom God 
 makes a good report, died, not having received them (fi?) Xo^ovreg). 
 The expression naKpo9vfi,r]<jag appears to involve the whole period 
 of Abraham's pilgrim course, but with especial reference to his 
 obedient surrender of Isaac at the last great trial of his faith. 
 
 ^ Distinct allusion is made to this in Isaiah xxix. 22 : " the Lord 
 who redeemed Abraham," &c. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 161 
 
 strong misgivings, which might from time to time 
 have roused sore conflict in the heart of Abraham, 
 were stilled into the full assurance of a hope which 
 rested on the oath of Him who cannot lie. That 
 oath was now to Abraham as a possessed inheritance. 
 For in the light of it he saw the day of Christ. He 
 saw it, and was glad.^ 
 
 Verses 16-18. But not for Abraham's sake were 
 these things written ; but for the more abundant 
 consolation of God's many heirs of x^romise. Nothing 
 can exceed the tender and gracious cogency of the 
 Spirit's reasoning in the present passage, in which 
 an appeal is made to the established habits of man- 
 kind, and the interest of our common nature,- in 
 order to encourage the faint-hearted Christian to a 
 more thorough and unreserved appropriation of the 
 hope which is by grace. An oath is the resting-place 
 of natural confidence. Men, in their conscious in- 
 firmity of purpose, are wont (in ignorance of their 
 own intrinsic powerlessness)^ to bind their will to a 
 performance of their words by an extraneous sanc- 
 tion. They swear, therefore, by one greater than 
 themselves, and the citing of this mightier Arbiter 
 is an immediate stilling of all strife. Peace thus 
 established rests unbroken while the covenant is 
 kept^ (verse 16). And God, who knows man's heart, 
 would use this means to still the gainsaying of his 
 
 1 John viii. 
 
 2 Compare, as to the principle and method of the Spirit's teaching 
 in this passage, Matt. vii. 11. 
 
 3 Matt. V. 31-36. 
 
 4 How fallacious such a security has often proved in a world which 
 bestows its homage without a blush upon successful perjury, is but 
 too well knoAvn to all. The Apostle's analogy is drawn from the rule, 
 and not from its occasional breach. 
 
162 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 natural unbelief. For it is His will that all strife 
 and question should be set at rest within His people's 
 hearts. He, too, would swear, that they might better 
 understand the x^lain speech of His ever -blessed 
 promise. For though He be Love itself, and only 
 truth is in His word, yet He takes knowledge of His 
 children's case, in whom, while here below, suspicion 
 and misgiving, spite of themselves, are hard to be 
 kept wholly down, because they still remain deep- 
 lodged within the natural heart. An oath, moreover, 
 might be fitly made by Him who has fower to 
 perform. He could swear, indeed, by no greater 
 than Himself, but by the intervention of an oath 
 which should be as His own equal. He would lay to 
 everlasting rest all question of debate between His 
 people and Himself. 
 
 Two reasons are expressed for this interposition 
 of God's oath. First, it was to make distinctly 
 manifest ° to the heirs of promise the immutability 
 of His counsel. Secondly, and as the result of the 
 former, it was that we who see it thus displayed 
 might have strong consolation. To Abraham, his 
 recovered child of promise was the hopeful figure 
 of a sure though far distant performance of the 
 oath which he had heard. To those who in the 
 faith of God are Abraham's children,^ its sure ac- 
 complishment is now disclosed in the death and 
 resurrection of the Son of God. For in Him are 
 all the promises of God made sure."^ The faith 
 which now sees Jesus crowned with glory and 
 honour, as the First-born from the dead, perceives in 
 Him the triumphant confirmation of God's counsel. 
 
 5 'ETTi^cUai. 6 Gal. iii. ^ 2 Cor. i. 20. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 163 
 
 Its riches of eternal blessedness are tlms pledged to 
 the believer in the person of an ever-living Security.'^ 
 The Man Christ Jesus is the mediate Covenant of 
 peace between the heirs of promise and the invisible 
 God of their salvation. By the demonstration of 
 the Spirit this is now made known in the plain 
 speech of gospel testimony. It is slioum thus to the 
 holy brethren of Jesus how firm -set and immutable 
 are the strong foundations of their hope. For we 
 who have fled for refuge to lay hold on Jesus as the 
 Hope of life eternal, have a clouMe assurance that 
 our trust is not in vain. The ancient promise was 
 no lie, nor could be. For it was the echo of God's 
 purpose which He had purposed in Himself; and 
 it is not possible for Him to mock Himself. The 
 word, then, upon which the children feed is an im- 
 mutable thing. But the living Christ in heaven is 
 the ratification and security of all God's counsel, 
 and of every word of promise. He is the Truth of 
 God. The Spirit, who, as the Kevealer of Jesus, 
 anoints the children with the unction of salvation, 
 is no lie.^ It was not possible for God to lie. Yet 
 He has spoken, and His word is Cheist. His secret 
 counsel has thus become, to the believing sinner, a 
 manifest as well as solid resting-place of saving 
 truth. All that God is, is pledged for the fulfilment 
 of their expectation, who, as fugitives from the 
 wrath revealed from heaven against human sin, 
 have laid firm hold upon the hope which is set 
 before them in the gospel of His grace. 
 
 8 The marginal translation of verse 17 is, of course, to be pre- 
 ferred, though not exactly literal. The words ifitaiTtvaev opKtp 
 are simply "mediated by an oath." ^^ Mit einem Eide Bnrgschaft 
 leistete." — De Wette. ^ 1 John ii. 27. 
 
164 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 In setting Jesiis forth as the living immutability 
 of His counsel, God. has consulted glory to Himself, 
 while ministering to the heirs of promise a strong 
 consolation. And let the weak-hearted Christian 
 ponder well the meaning of these simple yet most 
 blessed words. The streugth of our comfort is 
 derived from the discovery thus made to us of the 
 infinite extent of the obligation under which the 
 God of all grace has bound Himself in Christ for 
 our sakes. A Christian's question is no longer with 
 himself and his ability to keep his own soul safely 
 for the day of hope ; he has to do with the power, 
 and faithfulness, and truth of Him who has said, 
 " Blessing I will bless." He is invited to stay him- 
 self on God with full and joyful affiance, seeing that 
 what was once only promise, is now both a present 
 Testimony, and a never-failing Hope. For He who 
 will bless, hath already blessed. God, who uttered 
 from heaven His promissory oath to Abraham, from 
 the same heaven now announces its fulfilment, in 
 speaking to us by His Son. He preaches peace by 
 Him. He has already blessed the children of His 
 counsel in heavenly places with all spiritual blessings 
 in Christ.^ In revealing Jesus at His own right 
 hand, God aims at settling His people on the firm 
 and solid footing of a complete intelligence with 
 Himself. To doubt the fulness and endurance of 
 His love, when thus commended on the double 
 evidence of word and oath, is to grieve the gracious 
 Spirit of His truth. Our consciousness of inward 
 evil and weakness is a natural suggestion of these 
 doubts. Looking at Jesus in His perfection as our 
 
 1 Eph. i. 3, 4. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 165 
 
 Great High Priest, alone suffices to dispel them, and 
 to bring back confidence and joy. 
 
 Verses 19, 20: "Which hope," &c. We have, 
 then, in the hope of the Gospel, that which is as an 
 anchor of the soul. By it the buffeted believer may 
 ride out every tempest of affliction, and endure the 
 stress of all that sea of tribulation which is the 
 appointed portion of the children here below. The 
 entrance of Jesus as our Forerunner, has settled fast 
 this anchor of the soul, ivitliin the vail. An assur- 
 ance of the unceasing and effectual intercession 
 which is there being made for us can alone sustain 
 the soul in peace, while sensible, by daily experience, 
 of its own intrinsic wretchedness. Despair, which 
 is the natural result of any excursion of the thought 
 in contemplation of God's holiness within the vail, 
 is turned to hope by seeing Jesus there. In the full 
 glory of the Melchisedec title He is there for us, not 
 in figure or in promise, but as the End of promise, 
 in living Truth and Power. The Eesurrection and 
 the Life is the efficient minister of consolation to 
 our troubled souls. Amid the sorest trials of spirit, 
 and the fiercest opposition of the things which are 
 against us, we have in Him a stay for our souls 
 which does not move. That anchor neither yields to 
 adverse pressure, nor is ever shifted from its place 
 by Him whose love has cast it so deep and abidingly 
 for our sakes.^ The victory therefore of the believer 
 over the world, as well as over his own flesh, is, to 
 be habitually in spirit where his anchor is.^ Chris- 
 
 " Such appears to me to be the moral force of the epithets, kcripaXr, 
 Ts Kai ^t(3aiav which are applied to the believer's anchor of hope. 
 3 John V. 4. 
 
166 KOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 tians are worshippers within the vail. The force of 
 the figure here employed is not only to assure us of 
 our eventual security as believers, but to show us 
 where that safety lies — to remind us that our faith 
 is not concerned with truth remotely, but by near 
 and present contact. Our calling is to have to do 
 with God. We learn Him without dread in Jesus. 
 The glory of the Son of G-od, so distant as it yet 
 remains from sight, is expounded to us by the Spirit 
 as a present verity, and revealed to us distinctly 
 as the corner of our hope. The knov/ledge of the 
 Son is the enjoyment of the Father. The Messed 
 God^ shines, steadily and without cloud, in love 
 upon His children, from the face of Jesus Christ. 
 He blesses them according to His riches in glory 
 by His Son. The comfort of the Father's coun- 
 tenance is not withheld from any heir of promise ; 
 but to find our blessings we must seek them.^ Our 
 enjoyment therefore of the filial standing will be as 
 the measure of our knowledge of the Forerunner, 
 who is for us entered into that within the vail, to 
 be our everlasting Minister of grace and truth. 
 
 MTim. i. 11. sjlatt. vii. 7. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBEEWS. 167 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 That the High -priesthood of Jesus is "after the 
 order of Melchisedec/' lias already been three times 
 emphatically affirmed. In this character He has 
 just been presented to the believer as the strength 
 and security of that bold but certain hope which 
 entereth into that within the vail. And now, to 
 justify the stress laid on this title, and, by declaring 
 its significance, to wed the souls of his Hebrew 
 brethren more closely to the substance of their hope, 
 he proceeds, in the present chapter, to expound the 
 special characteristics of this new and more excel- 
 lent " order " in comparison with that of Aaron. 
 
 And first, Melchisedec, the pattern of the Son of 
 God,' is described both in his person and his office 
 (verses 1-3). His name, with its adjunctive title 
 of royalty, is expressive of those intrinsic personal 
 qualities upon which, in the case of the Divine 
 Antitype, the honour of its priestly office rests as its 
 
 1 In the language of this chapter, the type is with difficulty to he 
 distinguished from its Eternal reality. It is in vain to speculate as 
 to the proper identity of Melchisedec, king of Salem. That such a 
 personage existed is certain. That the receiver of Abraham's tithes 
 was the Son of God in person, I do not believe. In verse 3 he is 
 said to be " made like unto the Son of God," while at verse 15, it is 
 said, that there ai'iseth another Priest offer the similitude of Mel- 
 chisedec. 
 
168 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 foundation. He is Melchisedec, or by interpretation, 
 king of Salem, which is "king of righteousness." 
 After that, he is also king of peace. For peace is 
 the natural domain of righteousness. The manner 
 and effect of his dominion is according to the charac- 
 ter of His person. He is, then, a king, — the possessor 
 and administrator, both of peace and righteousness. 
 He is, further, "priest of the Most High God" — a 
 title paramount to any strictly Jewish relation. For 
 Aaron's ministry never transcended the narrow 
 limits of the nation for which he acted. He was 
 the priest of Jehovah as the God of Israel. Mel- 
 chisedec is priest of the same Jeliovah under His 
 fuller title of the Most High God, Possessor of 
 heaven and earth.- According to the fulness of the 
 Divine sovereignty is the range and efficacy of his 
 priestly function. This royal priest appeared but on 
 one occasion, and performed but a single act of office. 
 He met Abraham returning from the slaughter of 
 the kings, and blessed him. 
 
 Both the juncture and the action are expressive, 
 prophetically, of far mightier things. For a day of 
 decision must come, when righteousness will be 
 arrayed in power against iniquity. A day of great 
 slaughter, and of falling to the towers of human 
 confidence, is appointed, when a short work will be 
 made in righteous judgment in the earth — when the 
 power of confederated wickedness will be laid low 
 before the avenging presence of Him who judges and 
 makes war in righteousness — when the sceptre of 
 the wilful king will depart for ever from his grasp, 
 that the true Heir of the world may enter openly 
 
 2 Gen. xiv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 169 
 
 upon His reign.^ It is upon a preparation of effec- 
 tive judgment that the Light and Desire of the 
 creature will shine forth, and the reign of blessing 
 will commence in the manifested kingdom of the 
 Possessor of heaven and earth. The true Mel- 
 chisedec will then, as a Priest upon His throne,* 
 pronounce a blessing which shall not remove. But 
 the present chapter is intended to illustrate the 
 personal glory of the Melchisedec Priest, rather 
 than to describe the manner of his eventual adminis- 
 tration. For, though clothed with all the majesty 
 of this title now, and shown thus to the Church, 
 whose calling is to inherit a blessing, it is not now, 
 but in the coming dispensation of the fulness of 
 times, that Christ's high -priestly office will be mag- 
 nified in the effective display of all its glory.^ Let 
 us here only remember, that whilst Aaronic ministry 
 (according to which type the Lord now acts for us 
 in heavenly intercession) was, characteristically, the 
 gracious expression of Divine forbearance to the 
 covenant people of God, wdio stood in the enjoyment 
 of His favour by virtue of the priestly ordinance ; 
 that of Melchisedec is immediately associated with 
 the manifestation of Jehovah's glory as the Judge 
 and Governor of all the earth. 
 
 It was upon the friend and servant of the Most 
 High God that Melchisedec pronounced his bene- 
 diction. To the believer in the God of gracious 
 promise, he was the witness and security of blessing ; 
 for he was the mediate expression of that righteous- 
 ness and peace which Abraham reckoned on in God, 
 
 3 Isa. xxviii. 17, xxx. 25-33 ; Rev. xvi. xix. 
 
 * Zech. vi. 13. ^ Eph. i. 10. See JN'otes on the Ephesians, in loc. 
 
170 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and did not look for in himself. Against the un- 
 believing enemies of Abraham, he was an approving 
 witness of the judgment of the Most High God. 
 Blessing had been the burden of God's word to 
 Abraham since first He called him from his country, 
 and took him from his natural associations to be 
 the chosen vessel of His favour. The appearing of 
 Melchisedec was as a disclosure to him of the 
 effective channel through which alone the promises 
 of God can reach, and eventually rest in blessing 
 on their object. In presenting tithes to Melchise- 
 dec, Abraham recognized, discerningly, the principle 
 of mediation. God blessed His favoured and ac- 
 cepted servant through His own mysterious and 
 abiding priest. There was, moreover, in this act of 
 Abraham, an emphatic ascription of his victory to 
 the grace and power of God. By the gratulations 
 of Melchisedec, he had been reminded of Him to 
 whom the battle really appertained. The spoils 
 which faith may win are gotten by no strength of 
 man. The believer's warfare is in the Name and 
 against the enemies of God. 
 
 In considering the language of verse 3, in which 
 the mysterious individuality of Melchisedec is so 
 strikingly presented to our view, it is necessary to 
 bear in mind that what is described is the shadow 
 and similitude of an Eternal Person. Hence expres- 
 sions are employed which, though true and exact in 
 their application to the shadow, are incorrect and 
 insufficient exponents of the nature of the Person.^ 
 
 6 E. g. Melchisedec is said to be (nraTia^y afiijTojpf and dyevtaX- 
 oyrjTog; neither of -whicli are strictly true of Jesus. From ever- 
 lasting to everlasting He is the Father's Son. He is, moreover, and 
 will not cease to be, the -woman'a seed. He is the man Christ Jesus, 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 171 
 
 For the Person must be regarded with reference to 
 relationships which are characteristic of Himself, 
 and which, because the Person is Divine, admit only 
 of a very imperfect typical reflection — yet is the 
 type both suited and sufficient in its place. The 
 abrupt and singular presentation of Melchisedec in 
 the book of Genesis — one mightier than Abram, yet 
 of no declared descent — known to no man in his 
 origin, and traced by no man to his end — appearing 
 and disappearing under the same character, as priest 
 of the Most High God — affords an apt similitude of 
 Him whose goings forth have been from everlasting, 
 and who, as the God of truth, has lifted up His 
 hand and said, " I live for ever ! " Accordingly, he 
 is said to be " made like unto the Son of God." The 
 principal sentence, the expanded complement of 
 which fills the remainder of the first three verses is : 
 " This Melchisedec abideth a priest for ever." Con- 
 tinuance is the essential peculiarity of the order after 
 which the Son of God receives His consecration. 
 The priestly title, as we have already seen, attaches 
 first to Jesus at His resurrection from the dead 
 But He who is thus entitled is the eternal Son of 
 God, The perpetuity of His of&ce, in all its varied 
 ministrations, is according to the essential nature of 
 His Person, and is the truth which, by an accumu- 
 lated demonstration, is asserted in the sequel of this 
 chapter for the more effectual stablishing of tlie 
 believer in his new and better hope. 
 
 whose genealogy as touching the flesh, the Holy Ghost has carefully 
 recorded. It is true, that in resurrection He is " the beginning^ the 
 first-bom from the dead," &c. But all the above expressions ai'e 
 amiss in a real (iescription of His Person. What is rather presented 
 in verse 3 is an abstract figure of the proper aurdpKeia of God's 
 lame and acceptable Priest. 
 
 I 2 
 
172 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Verses 4-7. "Now consider how great was this 
 ma'n," &c. To degrade the Levitical priesthood, and 
 the covenant which it accompanied, from the excel- 
 lency which the mind of every Jew so naturally 
 ascribed to them ; and to show that Aaron was hut 
 a secondary and partial type of God's true priest — 
 exemplifying a portion of His gracious office, but no 
 true pattern of his proper dignity and glory — was a 
 difficult though necessary task to one who laboured 
 for the advancement of his brethren in the perfect 
 way of God ; a task which he now endeavours to 
 accomplish by means of an appeal to the former 
 testimony of Scripture respecting Melchisedec, and 
 a comparison (drawn from the same authority) of 
 the Aaronic order, in its principal features, with that 
 earlier and far higher, although much -forgotten 
 office. They are called on to consider the greatness 
 of Melchisedec, to whom the patriarch Abraham 
 gave the tenth of the spoils. Leading their minds 
 back to the very root and fountain of the nation, he 
 shows them its founder, in whose name was all the 
 nation's boast, in the attitude of homage to the priest 
 of the Most High God. By the reception of the 
 blessing, as well as in the offered tithing of the 
 spoils, the father of the nation had confessed sub- 
 jection to this greater priest. For, as is presently 
 added, "without all controversy, the less is blessed 
 of the greater" (verse 7). 
 
 But this admitted fact has its own consequences; 
 the first of which is immediately stated in what 
 follows. The priests of the Levitical family are 
 honoured in their place, according to the sanction 
 of the legal ordinance, by their hretJiren; albeit 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 173 
 
 these last are not less children of Abraham than 
 themselves (verse 5). Levitical priesthood, then, is 
 an exalted office by this witness and token, that it 
 tithes the seed of Abraham. Now the father is 
 before the children, and the possessor is greater 
 than the heir. But Abraham himself gave tithes 
 to one who, though a priest of God, held office by- 
 virtue of no Levitical pedigree (verse 6). The 
 possessor of the promises which Israel claimed as 
 their inheritance, because the nation sprang from 
 him, had accepted blessing from another priest. By- 
 plainest reasoning, therefore, this earlier order was 
 of greater hononr than the priesthood of the sons 
 of Levi. 
 
 The honour of the priest is as the dignity of the 
 worshipper. On this principle the pre-eminence of 
 Melchisedec has been already shown. But (verse 8) 
 these separate orders of priesthood are now compared 
 together in another balance. Dying men take tithes 
 from Israel. But the receiver of Abraham's offering 
 knows no end of life. "It is witnessed that he 
 liveth." By how much, therefore, life is better than 
 mortality, and continuance greater than decease, by 
 so much does Melchisedec, and He whose priesthood 
 is according to that order, excel the anointed minis- 
 ters of Levi's house. 
 
 Nor is this all (verses 9, 10). By the very token 
 which attests his priestly dignity (the reception of 
 tithes), Levi is himself a witness of the superior 
 honour of that former priest. For Abraham, the pa- 
 triarchal fountain of the race, carried all his unborn 
 seed within him when he met Melchisedec. Levi, 
 then, did homage also when his father bowed And 
 
174 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 SO the very taker of his brethren's tithes paid earlier 
 tribute to one greater than himself. 
 
 "If therefore perfection," &c, (verses 11, 12.) 
 Having demonstrated, as above, the intrinsic in- 
 feriority of Levi to Melchisedec, the subject is now 
 re-examined from a different point of view. The 
 Law itself had prophesied of another priest who 
 should arise after the order of Melchisedec, and who 
 should not be called after the order of Aaron. Now 
 this, the apostle argues, was the strongest imaginable 
 proof of the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood. 
 For had perfection been found there, no need Avould 
 have existed for a change. But the Levitical priest- 
 hood cannot be considered now in the abstract. It 
 had been given to the nation with special relation to 
 the Mosaic covenant. "For the people had been 
 placed under law with reference to it." "^ The priest- 
 hood was the sustaining medium by which alone the 
 people, who broke the commandment in its chiefest 
 point ere it was well delivered,^ could be tolerated as 
 Jehovah's nation. It was, in all its ordinances, the 
 witness of imperfection, while it spake in figure of 
 good things to come. If, then, the Holy Ghost had 
 spoken in David of another priest, and, passing 
 Aaron and his order by, had chosen Melchisedec as 
 the type of Him who should abide for ever, there 
 
 7 'O Xabg yap ett* dvry vfvo^oOirijTO. Some confusion is apt to 
 arise in the reader's mind in considering this part of the chapter 
 (verses 11-16), from the different senses in which the term "law" 
 appears to be employed. In Terse 11, I understand it to signify the 
 Mosaic economy in general. In verse 16, it seems rather to be con- 
 fined to the limited and technical meaning of priestly appointment 
 and consecration. The law of consecration is also included in the 
 general thesis contained in the twelfth verse, though much more is 
 intended, as is stated above. 
 
 8 Exod. xxxii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 175 
 
 was involved in tins prophecy a prospective change, 
 too, of the Law. The people were not always to be 
 under Moses. With the cessation of the priestly 
 ordinance which he had framed at the command- 
 ment of Jehovah, there would likewise terminate 
 that covenant to which alone the ministry of Levi's 
 sons belonged. The Giver of the Law would like- 
 wise, by fulfilment, take it from the people's necks.' 
 The connexion between priesthood and covenant will 
 be made more manifest as we proceed. Meanwhile, 
 (Verses 13, 14,) the words of prophetic testimony 
 had been spoken of " our Lord." But it is evident 
 that He proceeded from a tribe of which Moses had 
 said nothing concerning priesthood. For He sprang 
 out of Juda, Nevertheless, the coming of Jesus 
 Christ in the flesh, and therefore the advent of Him 
 of whom these things are spoken has removed from 
 Levi his hereditary honour. Priesthood is thence- 
 forth annexed to royalty, and Juda is the royal 
 tribe, the stock of God's Messiah as touching the 
 flesh. This transfer of the priestly honour to another 
 tribe is quite at variance with the former law. But 
 that the law must change with the priesthood is 
 made still more evident (verses 15-17) by a con- 
 sideration of the terms of the prophetic testimony. 
 For it is after the order of Melchisedec that there 
 arises another priest, "who is made not after the 
 law of a carnal commandment, but after the poiver 
 of an endless life." Now Melchisedec was unknown 
 to Moses as the legal mediator, and was no priest of 
 the tabernacle which man had pitched. Nor can the 
 carnal commandment which ordained the Aaronic 
 
 9 Col. ii. 14; Acts xv. 10. 
 
176 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 priests abide in force when once that other Priest 
 has come, whose official title is held in the power 
 of an endless life. For the Levitical institution was a 
 thing of time and change. It was to endure, there- 
 fore, only until the establishment of a new and 
 changeless order, at the arising of that other Priest. 
 And He has now arisen. The exalted Son of God 
 is greeted in heaven, and witnessed by the Spirit 
 upon earth, as "a Priest for ever after the order of 
 Melchisedec." The priesthood, therefore, has been 
 changed. So, likewise, has the law, in each and 
 every sense. It is totally new in form and character. 
 By all the difference that subsists between the King 
 of righteousness and the servant of sin, there has 
 been a change effected in the law. The law or 
 principle of faith has now succeeded to the law of 
 works. The Pronouncer of blessing, as the King of 
 peace, now stands in the stead of the annual remem- 
 brancer of unremoved transgressions. But more of 
 this hereafter. 
 
 Verses 18-19. The conclusion and general result 
 of the foregoing reasoning are now declared : " For 
 there is, verily, a disannulling of the commandment 
 going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness 
 thereof (for the Law made nothing perfect); but 
 there is the bringing in of a better hope, by the 
 which we draw nigh unto God."^ The former com- 
 
 1 'ABirriaiQ fitv yap STTEKTayioyt) ds. k. X. The English 
 
 version of this passage is peculiarly unhappy. The margin is by all 
 means to be preferred. Compare JDe Wette. " Die Attfhebung des 
 
 vorigen gehotes geschiehet die einfuhrung dagegen einer hessern 
 
 Hoffmmg.*' it. s. w. It is wonderful that, perceiving, as they seem 
 to have done, the true construction of the passage, the authorized 
 translators should have placed its obvious rendering in the margin, 
 instead of in the text. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 177 
 
 mandment has been disannulled because it could not 
 work the work of God. Perfection is God's end. 
 But the Law made nothing perfect. It was weak 
 and unprofitable for the final purposes of God ; 
 though mighty, as a minister of holiness, to crush 
 all human, hope, and drive the sinner far away from 
 peace. But God had desired to bring His children 
 nigh. The Law could not do this. It made the 
 enjoyment of His presence an impossible thing, 
 because it only dealt with that which intrinsically 
 is unfit for God. It spoke with the natural man in 
 righteousness, and thus forbade all hope to those who 
 understood its language. If hope, therefore, existed 
 in a subject of that covenant, it was either owing to 
 his being a partaker of the faith of Abraham, or else 
 it was a fallacious hope, fed only upon ignorance 
 of what the law required. It fled away before the 
 light of knowledge, leaving terror and confusion in 
 its place.^ But God has Himself wrought that per- 
 fection which the Law could not effect. In the 
 person of His blessed Son, He has supplanted the 
 weak and profitless commandment by the mighty 
 Strength of His salvation. In the anointing of the 
 true Melchisedec, there is the bringing in of a better 
 hope. For He who is thus entitled was first de- 
 livered for our offences, and has been raised again 
 for our justification. This is a hope which maketh 
 not ashamed. By this we now draw nigh unto God, 
 having access with boldness by the faith of Him. 
 
 "And inasmuch as not without an oath," &c. 
 (verses 20-22.) A priest is, by his office, a mediator 
 also. He owes his official existence to the covenant 
 
 2 Roin. vii. 
 
 I 5 
 
178 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 which ascertains the respective relations of God and 
 tlie people for whom he acts, in things pertaining to 
 God. Hence, priest and covenant must stand or 
 fall together. This has already been intimated in 
 general terms (verse 12). The weak and unprofit- 
 able commandment had been accompanied by its 
 appropriate priesthood. The new and changeless 
 order of eternal priesthood has brought in a better 
 hope, because the holder of that office is the Surety 
 of a better covenant.^ The value of the covenant 
 is determined in this passage by the presence or 
 absence of the oath of God. Now the Levitical 
 priests were made without an oath, for they attended 
 a transitory office of imperfection and decay. The 
 law which made them was itself a feeble and un- 
 profitable thing (verse 18). But an oath is some- 
 thing final and determinative in its nature. God 
 would not therefore bind it to an ordinance of 
 vanity. It is when He attains ferfcction that the 
 God of truth confirms it by an oath. In the pre- 
 ceding chapter we have had an exemplification of 
 this.^ So, also, now. In Jems God has won the 
 end of all His counsel. His oath is uttered to in- 
 augurate the Saviour as the everlasting Priest of 
 our profession. And, therefore, by all the value of 
 that oath of God, is the covenant which is now 
 administered by His Son, of greater sanction and of 
 better trust than that which Aaron served. Salva- 
 tion^ is God's perfect truth. This is the faithful 
 
 3 AiaOt'jKijg. I prefer translating this word "covenant" in the 
 present passage, though I by no means accept this as a universally 
 appropriate rendering. Infra, chap. ix. 
 
 * Ante, chap. vi. 16-18. 
 
 s Which word expresses, not only deliverance from wrath, hut the 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 179 
 
 and most blessed assurance wMcli the priestly unc- 
 tion of the Son of God has thus made doubly sure. 
 The oath of God sets fast in Jesus Christ for ever 
 the effected counsels of His love. 
 
 Lastly, and to close the present process of com- 
 parison, we have in verses 23, 24, the long and ever 
 vain succession of a mortal priesthood contrasted 
 with the intransferable honour^ of Him who is alive 
 for ever and ever. The former priests were many. 
 For among them all not one was found superior to 
 death. Aaron was mortal when he stood to minister 
 before the Lord, although arrayed in vestments of 
 glory and of beauty. Death made* and unmade his 
 successors in the priestly office. Each dying minis- 
 ter of that first tabernacle bare witness in his place 
 to the weakness and insufficiency of a ministry 
 which ended in the grave. Decked outwardly with 
 garments of salvation, they possessed in themselves 
 no ability to save. No man might rest in such, and 
 be at peace. For, though officially separate from 
 sinners, they must personally take the lead in every 
 national acknowledgment of sin. Their own con- 
 dition was as that of the people for whose sake they 
 served. In their office only, as a witness of some 
 better thing to come, might faith discern encourage- 
 ment and hope. But Jesus, because He is eternal 
 life, remains ; and, because He remains. His priestly 
 title never can remove. It rests on Him abidingly 
 in token of the personal perfection of its wearer. 
 Death, which displaced the former priests, has no 
 
 eternal blessings which the saved are to enjoy. Ante, i. 14. Compare 
 1 Pet. i. 4, f); Eev. vii. 10-17. 
 
 6 'A7rapd(3aTOV £\;£t rrjv 'upuKXvvrjv. 
 
180 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 dominion over him who has arisen from the dead. 
 He dieth no more/ His everlasting priesthood is a 
 portion of His crown as the victorious destroyer of 
 both sin and death. 
 
 " Wherefore He is able also to save them to the 
 uttermost that come unto God by Him/' &c. (verse 
 25.) Power resides in Jesus. It belongs to Him 
 who is, by personal description, both the wisdom 
 and the power of God ;^ and the manner of its exer- 
 cise towards His people is salvation. The doctrine 
 of acceptable sacrifice will presently be stated in its 
 close and deeply interesting connexion with this 
 subject ; we are here engaged only with the very 
 important truth, that an essential part of that work 
 of God which the Scripture calls ''Salvation" is 
 effected through the ministry, in heaven, of God's 
 great High Priest. His presence at the right hand 
 of the Father is a continual intercession for the 
 brethren whom He is not ashamed to own. Por 
 as He once died, so also does He live, for ever for His 
 people's weal. Always, and to the utmost end,^ He 
 is their Saviour. According to His own appreciation 
 of the priestly honour, He fulfils its gracious and 
 holy ministry for our sakes. He does this to the 
 glory and eternal praise of Him who has confirmed 
 Him in His office by an oath ; thus anew glorifying 
 the Father who has first glorified the Son.^ God is 
 now fitly represented by His Priest to those whose 
 holy calling is to know Him, and to have to do 
 with Him. The Priest is, moreover, suited to the 
 worshippers. And so it is added, 
 
 7 Rom. vi. 9. 8 1 Cor. i. 24. 
 
 ^ Elq TO TTavTtXsg. " Ganzlich." — De Wette. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 181 
 
 (Yerse 26,) "For such a High Priest became us" 
 &c. The calling of believers is perfection. They 
 are " holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly call- 
 ing." Moreover, " to bring many sons to glory," is 
 the purpose of Him who has called them. A fitness, 
 therefore, must be found in them to dwell unblame- 
 ably and joyfully with God ; and we have already 
 seen that it is the grace of Divine redemption that 
 thus brings them nigh. But according to the holy 
 nature of the people's calling must be the personal 
 qualities of Him who is their Priest. For in Him 
 they stand and are accepted in the sight of God. 
 The manner, therefore, of their blessing must consist 
 with the value of His mediate ministry on their 
 behalf. But nothing which is below the standard 
 of His own perfections can find personal acceptance 
 in the presence of the Father of Lights. His Priest 
 must be, in person and in station, the exact reflection 
 of Himself. This Jesus is intrinsically. He is 
 "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin- 
 ners." As it respects His official dignity, He is 
 " made higher than the heavens." By virtue of His 
 personal perfection, He has obtained that peerless 
 excellence of place. He thus becomes a suited and 
 sufficient Mediator for the people who are called to 
 a hope of heavenly inheritance. 
 
 In this enumeration of the virtues and paramount 
 glory of the true High Priest, the simple-minded 
 saint may view with wonder and with joy the moral 
 portraiture of his own imputed place and acceptation 
 in the sight of God. For Jesus is the Forerunner 
 and Exemplar of His brethren. If the believer 
 reflects on his own natural character, he finds him- 
 
182 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 self a perfect contrast to his Priest. But faith's 
 triumph is to know that God ivill not regard him as 
 he sees himself G-od loves His children in His own 
 Beloved. He views and estimates His people in 
 their everliving Priest. As He is in heaven in the 
 presence of the Father, so are we even in this world.^ 
 Oppressed in conflict, often overcome by enemies 
 too strong for our weakness, or too vigilant for our 
 faulty carelessness and sloth, we are yet sustained, 
 and shall be to the end, by Him who is the sleep- 
 less Intercessor for His people in the efi&cacy of 
 His all-prevailing Name.^ 
 
 "Who needeth not daily," &c. In verse 27 (which 
 stands in connexion with chap. v. 1), we have special 
 mention made of sacrifice, a subject which receives 
 a very full elucidation in the sequel, but which is 
 here introduced as a natural and requisite accessory 
 to the foregoing portraiture of sacerdotal perfection, 
 inasmuch as it is upon a sacrificial basis that the 
 varied priestly functions of active, sympathetic 
 grace proceed. N"or is the force of contrast less 
 strikingly displayed in a comparison of the sacri- 
 ficial work of the acceptable High Priest with that 
 of His carnal and shadowy predecessors, than has 
 already been shewn in relation to His Person. The 
 High Priest who so becomes His brethren, has no 
 need to do frequent sacrifice for sins. The minis- 
 ters who served the earthly tabernacle, because they 
 were but mortal men, must offer daily, for them- 
 
 2 Jolin iv. 17. 
 
 3 For His people's sakes it is that He has sanctified Himself and 
 gone on high, that they also might be sanctified by the truth, when 
 by faith they see Jesus thus in priestly intercession on the throne. 
 (John xvii. 19.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 183 
 
 selves as for the people. They could not bring 
 the people nearer than they stood themselves. But 
 their natural standing \yas afar from God. They 
 might not see His face and live. Once, and once 
 only in the year, with blood of others, they might 
 pass within the vail. But sin never could be thus 
 removed. There was, therefore, no foundation laid 
 on which a ministry of saving grace could be es- 
 tablished. But Jesus, by the giving of Himself, 
 has made acceptable offering for His people's sins. 
 He has done this once for all. He needed not to 
 offer for Himself, being Himself the righteousness 
 of God ; but by willing grace He gave Himself for 
 our sins, that we might thus be made God's right- 
 eousness in Him. We have need of such a Priest, 
 and of the gracious services which He now fulfils 
 for us! For in many things we all offend. God 
 knows this ; and it is to comfort and sustain the 
 contrite heart that He reveals His perfected High 
 Priest. He is presented by the Spirit to our faith 
 for the establishing of our confidence, and the 
 holding fast of our joy in Him. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is summed 
 up in the verse which ends the present chapter. 
 The Law makes mc7i high priests who have infirmity. 
 But the weak and unprofitable commandment was 
 not God's final truth. It must pass away, together 
 with the fading shadows which it made. In contrast 
 to this, the word of the oath, which is since that 
 Law, establishes the Smi who is perfected^ (or con- 
 secrated) for evermore. To the weakness of natural 
 humanity there has succeeded the Lord of all power 
 
 ^ Ti.TeXei(i)[xsvov. 
 
184 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and niight. Instead of the necessary and impassable 
 distance between the sinful creature and the Creator 
 in His holiness, there is, in the second Priest, the 
 necessary nearness of essential relationship. The 
 appointed Minister of things pertaining to God per- 
 forms that service with the perfect zeal of filial 
 affection and delight. And this He does for us. In 
 all His grace and power He is the devoted and 
 unfailing Helper of our need. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 185 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 The foregoing chapter lias demonstrated the personal 
 perfection and official glory of the High Priest after 
 the order of Melchisedec. In the brightness of that 
 glory the lesser dignity of Levi's house has vanished 
 as a shadow. Having thus treated of the Priest and 
 His position, he prepares now to take in hand the 
 subject of His ministry. In connexion with this 
 subject, we have unfolded to us, in this and the two 
 following chapters, a full view of the nature and 
 extent of that "change of the law," which has 
 already been declared to be necessarily involved in 
 the change of the high-priestly order. ^ But con- 
 sistently with his method hitherto, the doctrines 
 now to be examined, whether of the new covenant 
 as the recognized basis of the people's blessing, or 
 of the sacrificial and intercessory ministrations of 
 the priestly function, are viewed in their immediate 
 relation to the Person of Him who is both the 
 mediator of the one, and the effectual accomplisher 
 of the other. 
 
 Accordingly, the present chapter opens with a 
 resume of the doctrine just before laid down, in 
 
 1 Chap. vii. 12. 
 
18G NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 which especial stress is laid upon the present 
 heavenly ministry of Jesus for our sakes. " We 
 have such an High Priest," &c. (verses 1, 2.) This 
 was the very point and emphasis'^ of what he had 
 been saying. For in handling the subject of priest- 
 hood, he was not defining an abstraction, but dis- 
 closino^ to the hearts and consciences of his Hebrew 
 brethren the fulness of God's "great salvation." 
 His desire and endeavour was to give a right 
 direction to their present faith. He would have 
 them know, that if by their confession of the cruci- 
 fied Messiah, they were outcasts from the common- 
 wealth of Israel, and no longer worshippers within 
 the earthly courts, they were not without present 
 access to the living God. The great High Priest of 
 their confession is the Minister of a sanctuary which 
 is worthy of the " order " after which He has been 
 called. 
 
 To draw, therefore, their minds and their affections 
 thither, and to fix them upon Jesus as the proper 
 refuge and desire of their souls is henceforth the 
 chief aim of the Spirit. " The throne of the majesty 
 in th.e heavens," is now to be contemplated no longer 
 from a distance, and in the spirit of a servile dread, 
 but in the conscious nearness of filial interest. For 
 He who is not ashamed to call them brethren, finds 
 now His exalted place of honour on that throne. 
 Yet, not to rest there only in the personal enjoyment 
 of His glory, but to fulfil, for their sakes still, the 
 gracious work of priestly mediation. His exaltation, 
 
 2 Ki^aXatov ^t trri Tolg XeyofisvoiQ. k. X. "Sum" is an in- 
 adequate expression of what appears to me the writer's meaning. 
 De Wette seems to have caught his spirit better : " Haujptsache aber^ 
 bei deni was wir sacjen^ isty u. s. w. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 187 
 
 no less than His previous humiliation, is "for our 
 sakes."^ To sustain true Christian worship at its 
 just pitch of heavenly elevation, is a constant labour 
 of the Spirit in the Church. 
 
 The descriptive quality and position of the sanc- 
 tuary of our worship are stated in verse 2. First, 
 it is the true Tabernacle. Secondly, it w^as pitched 
 not by men, but by the Lord. Thirdly, its place is 
 heaven, and not earth. There has been a tabernacle 
 upon earth. God walked in it, when He went about 
 to lead His people to the land of promise. Moses 
 prepared that tabernacle to receive Jehovah as a 
 gracious Visitor from heaven. In the order of the 
 former dispensation, God descended to abide with 
 that one people which He had taken as His own 
 among the nations upon earth. While, therefore, 
 faith could never measure its eventual hope in God 
 by a visible and perishable work of human hands, 
 but remembered always that the end of promise 
 was to be attained with Him in heaven, the national 
 distinction and glory of Israel was that God was 
 among them upon earth. Their worship, therefore, 
 was essentially an earthly worship, though in the 
 pattern of its service it might testify of heavenly 
 things. The Aaronic priesthood was the effective 
 medium and instrument of national and earthly 
 worship ; but that priesthood has been changed. 
 Another priest, and of a different order, has been 
 consecrated. The great High Priest of our pro- 
 fession is set down on the right hand of the Majesty 
 in the heavens. There he remains throughout the 
 fixed, but unknown period of His Church's patience 
 3 2 Cor. iY. 15. 
 
188 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 upon earth. But where the Priest ministers, the 
 people worship. The earthly people savj the taber- 
 nacle which contained the presence of Jehovah. 
 Their eyes beheld the sacrificial ordinance, and they 
 were personally present in the courts of God, until 
 the high priest, who presented their oblations in the 
 holy place, came forth again to bless them in His 
 name.^ In like manner, but in another power, the 
 Christian is a worshipper of God. Faith brings him 
 in spirit to the shrine of living and Eternal Truth. 
 Instead of descending by a visible token to abide 
 with men, God raises now His children to the place 
 of His abode. He has, indeed, descended first to 
 bring them hither, and by the Spirit He inhabits, 
 even here below, the Church of His redemption.^ 
 But it is by that Spirit also, that the children now 
 have access through their Mediator to the Father. 
 The true worshippers worship the Father in Spirit 
 and in truth. The hour which the Son of God an- 
 nounced to be at hand, when Jerusalem should be 
 no longer the resort of God's true Avorshippers^ has 
 now arrived. 
 
 The Apostle of our profession has pitched in 
 heaven another and an abiding Tabernacle.^ In that 
 Tabernacle He fulfils for us to God- ward the faithful 
 and perfect ministry of holy things, and thither, 
 consequently, by the Spirit which is given them, are 
 
 * I am drawing here a general comparison merely. The particular 
 import of the Levitical observances, and their spiritual analogies, 
 will be considered farther on. 
 
 6 Eph. ii. 20-22. ^ John iv. 
 
 7 A tabernacle, rather than a temple, because, as has been well 
 observed, it is during the wilderness experience of the Church that 
 Jesus acts for them according to the Aaronic type of intercessional 
 ministry. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 189 
 
 God's believing worshippers invited to repair. The 
 practical effects which flow from this transfer of the 
 scene of worship from earth to heaven will be stated 
 more fully as we proceed ; meanwhile, let the Chris- 
 tian reader note carefully and keep in lasting remem- 
 brance, the principle involved in this doctrine of our 
 Lord's Melchisedec priesthood, which is this : Tlu 
 fundamental and essential contrast between the former 
 and the latter things is, that the discernment, hy faith^ 
 of things invisible is noio the alone condition of true 
 ivorship. Believers in Jesus can have no terrestrial 
 sanctuary, because He whose presence makes the 
 sanctuary, is bodily and specifically in heaven.^ To 
 attribute, therefore, especial sanctity to any earthly 
 place, is to dishonour that true tabernacle wherein 
 alone the Father's glory shines. To attach, more- 
 over, to Christian ministry a sacerdotal character 
 and value, is to disallow the exclusive glory of the 
 anointed Son of God.^ To present ourselves now as 
 worshippers of God, in the performance of a ritual 
 of human institution, and in reliance on the efficacy 
 of external acts, is to grieve the Holy Spirit who is 
 given to the children as the witness of that better 
 hope by which they now hj faith draw nigh to Him. 
 
 ^ That believers are, in another sense, a temple or sanctuary of God, 
 is a truth not to be confounded with the apostle's doctrine in this 
 epistle. See further on this point, JS^'otes on the Ephesians, chap, 
 ii. ad Jin. 
 
 3 In another point of view, believers are all priests. The Church 
 of God is a royal priesthood. They are priests to God, offering in 
 Jesu's name an acceptable offering of unceasing praise. But as alike 
 brought nigh by the blood of Jesus, none occupies an intermediate 
 place betwixt his brethren and the Object of their worship. Gifts of 
 the Spirit, bestowed in His sovereign distribution, for the nurture 
 and edifying of the body in the unity of a faith which sets that body 
 in heavenly places, in living union with its Head, bear no sort of 
 analogy to that priestly office, the holder of which is severed by his 
 consecration from the worshippers for whom he acts. 
 
190 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Verse 3. " For every high priest," &c. The titles 
 conferred upon our heavenly intercessor are not an 
 empty sound. There is a ministry of ever -active 
 and all-gracious energ}' attached thereto. Of necessity 
 God's perfect Priest must bring an offering. As ^Ye 
 have had Him already commended to our faith as 
 the common depositary of His brethren's griefs, and 
 the sole medium of all their worship, so are we 
 presently to contemplate Him as the effective con- 
 trast, in the presentation of His one acceptable 
 oblation to His shadowy precursors. It is the very 
 law of His appointment to make an acceptable pre- 
 sentation for the people's sakes. What the Levitical 
 and earthly minister assayed to do for Israel, as the 
 rectifier of the people's errors, and the restorer of 
 their ways, is now performed effectually by the Son 
 of God, who stands between His people and their 
 sins. The following chapters will treat more dis- 
 tinctly of the nature and value of what He has to 
 offer. At present it is asserted only that the conse- 
 crated Son of God is for us, with an offering, in the 
 true and heavenly Tabernacle. There, and there 
 only, does He act in His high-priestly character. 
 
 "For if He were on earth. He would not be a 
 priest in any sense "~ (verses 4, 5). This passage is 
 doubly interesting and important. First, it was to 
 those to whom this epistle was immediately ad- 
 dressed, a forcible demonstration of the irreconcilable 
 contrariety of carnal ordinances to saving faith. For 
 as yet the priests of Levi's house remained. They 
 
 2 Ou5' av yjv ispivg. "He would not even be a priest." "-So u-dre 
 er nicht einmal Friester.'' — De Wette. He would be no priest at 
 €iU. The E. V. is feeble, rather than faulty, in this place. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 191 
 
 continued to perform their daily office in the temple 
 at Jerusalem/ which, though doomed of God, had 
 not yet fallen. But in the clear brightness of the 
 Son's Melchisedec glory, these hereditary and osten- 
 sible ministers of holy things, together with the place 
 and ritual of their service, are perceived to be but 
 an obsolete and empty shade. For the God whom 
 they professed to honour, had gone back from earth 
 to heaven, and had there set up the eternal Sanctuary 
 of His presence. Yet though in themselves both 
 vain and lifeless, these old familiar ordinances had 
 their value still as patterns and examples of the 
 heavenly things. Thus he would turn them to 
 account. He would show his brethren, that in the 
 heavenly ministry, which Jesus now performs, the 
 substantial antitype and living reality of each and 
 every act in the mimetic ritual was fulfilled for them 
 abidingly with God. 
 
 But, secondly, the doctrine of these verses has 
 an application of a wider and more enduring value. 
 The subject of earthly priesthood is regarded, in 
 verse 5, from a new and important point of view. 
 ISTot only is the Levitical order shown to be the 
 only priesthood which God sanctioned upon earth, 
 since Moses appeared as the servant and witness of 
 Him that was to come, but we are reminded that 
 the entire fabric and appointment of that former 
 tabernacle was the faithful copy in all its details 
 of a celestial archetype. The normal truth was 
 shown to Moses in the Mount, and a reflection of 
 
 8 This I understand to be the shadow and example especially meant 
 in the expression: O'lTivtg vTrodtiyfiari Kal CKiq, Xargtvovaiv. 
 K. \. "They serve the example and shadow of heayenly things." 
 They perform their service there. 
 
192 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 that glory was to be presented to the earthly w*or- 
 shippers. The Mosaic tabernacle was consequently 
 an imitative work. Man was its builder, though 
 under a Divine direction, and according to a pattern 
 which the Lord had shown. And legal priesthood 
 was the effective ministry of that tabernacle. Thus 
 the earthly sanctuary and its ministry were cast as 
 a shadow before the coming and (by faith) expected 
 Truth. It had, therefore, no essential continuance; 
 at the revelation of the Substance, it must fade away 
 and vanish. All its meaning and its temporary 
 efficacies cease on the disclosure of the spiritual and 
 perfect Eeality from which its name and figure had 
 been borrowed. It follows, therefore, of necessity, 
 that if God's earthly priesthood be confined to Levi, 
 and if that Levitical honour was but a type and 
 figure of His Christ, then, by the extinction of the 
 legal priesthood in the consecration of the Son of 
 Godi all priestly title is (for the present dispensa- 
 tion, while Jesus sits in heaven alone), exploded 
 and dismissed from earth. All the requirements of 
 God's true holiness are met approvingly by His 
 anointed Son. All the necessities of those who are, 
 by faith, the people of God, are effectually under- 
 taken by that same High Priest, as the unfailing 
 Minister of grace and mercy. Any assumption, 
 therefore, noio by men, of priestly place* or title 
 upon earth, is seen to be at boldest variance with 
 the truth of God. To assimilate the order of 
 Christian worship to the ancient Jewish model, be- 
 trays an entire ignorance or forgetfulness of the 
 
 * Except as all Christians are priests. As to this, see the note at 
 p. 189, and the remarks relating to worship on vv, 19-22 of chap. x. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 193 
 
 leading doctrines of this epistle. A Christian priest- 
 hood upon earth is a vain but presumptuous attempt 
 to re-establish that which God has set aside. It is 
 a bold but insane device of man. Satan, not God, 
 has furnished the pattern of this fatal counterfeit 
 of truth. .In its essence it is a nonentity — the 
 shadow of a shade. For the revelation of the Son 
 of God in heavenly and eternal priesthood has dis- 
 solved the shadow, which God once did sanction^ 
 from the view of the believer. But in its pretension 
 it is a most haughty sin. For it exalts itself against 
 the peculiar glory of the Son of God. It is a de- 
 lusion suggested by the father of lies, who seeks 
 thereby to spoil the souls of men of saving know- 
 ledge, while their conscience is beguiled by names 
 to unsuspecting sleep. 
 
 Verse 6. "But now hath He obtained a more 
 excellent ministry," &c. The mediator of the legal 
 covenant had constructed the earthly tabernacle by 
 Divine injunction, as a type of heavenly things. 
 The ministry of Aaron and his sons must be 
 estimated, therefore, according to the value of the 
 covenant to which it was attached. But imper- 
 fection has been shown to be characteristic of that 
 former covenant. The Law made nothing perfect. 
 We are called now to a consideration of the new 
 and altogether different covenant by which the Law 
 has been succeeded and supplanted. The excellency 
 of the priestly ministry of Jesus is to be asserted, 
 therefore, with reference to the quality of the covenant 
 of which He is the Mediator. It is affirmed to be, 
 first, a tetter covenant intrinsically; and, secondly, 
 it excels the former in the stability of its endurance, 
 
 K 
 
194 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 It is founded on better promises. It is preferable to 
 tlie former covenant by all the superiority of grace to 
 law, of promise to exaction, of righteousness to sin, 
 of blessing to cursing, and of life to death. It was 
 delivered upon letter promises, inasmuch as the bene- 
 fits which it secures are independent of conditional 
 stipulations, and rest solely on the pledged assurance 
 of the God of grace. The former covenant was 
 established on the people's word. It could not be 
 ordained without their free consent. It was a com- 
 pact of agreement in which they were a contracting 
 party. They made promise of obedience, and Jeho- 
 vah's blessing was their assured possession only 
 upon their fulfilment of that word. Their breach 
 of promise, by one act of disobedience destroyed 
 for ever all hope of^reaching that conditional good 
 of which the covenant was the security. It vacated 
 all the blessing, and established hopelessly the curse.^ 
 But Jesus was not the Mediator of that covenant. 
 There is no salvation in a bond of human works. 
 Christ never was, and is not now, "the Minister 
 of sin.^ It was administered through a mediation 
 
 5 Gal. iii. 10; Jas. ii. 10. 
 
 6 Gal. ii. 17. As the expression above quoted is not always clearly 
 understood, it is worth while to add a word of explanation. Peter, 
 who at Jerusalem had filled the honoured place of a bold and uncom- 
 promising assertor of pure gospel truth, against the vain pretensions 
 of the flesh, is nevertheless betrayed at Antioch, through the fear of 
 man, into dissimulation of the most unworthy and perilous kind. 
 As an apostle of Christ, he dishonoiirs his office by sanctioning those 
 very claims of self-righteous legalism which he had so recently 
 rejected and denounced. Paul, who by the grace bestowed upon 
 him, was aware of the devices of Satan, and saw clearly that the 
 gospel was destroyed, if Peter's sinful weakness became the standard 
 of conformity, instead of the sure testimonies of the Spirit, with- 
 stands him to the face. But not content with blaming the act of 
 tergiversation (the effect of which had already been to involve many 
 others in the Hke condemnation, verse 13), he goes on to show that 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 195 
 
 worthy of itself as an imperfect thing. Both sin 
 and death were in its mediator and its priest. It 
 slew the very servant by whose hand it was or- 
 dained. It was a covenant of death, and not of life. 
 But such a covenant, though holy, just, and good, 
 was inadequate to meet the ends of Love. It was 
 not faultless in the sight of God (verse 7). This 
 description is applied to the first covenant, with 
 reference, not to its essential quality as an exponent 
 of Divine holiness, but to its fitness for the accom- 
 plishment of God's ulterior purpose. It was wholly 
 inadequate to this, since, by making sinful ma.n a 
 party, it stood as an obstruction in the way of tlie 
 fulfilment of Divine 2^^omise. The blessing which 
 was in the purposes of God must necessarily be 
 deferred, so long as the Law, once imposed, continued 
 unfulfilled. For, from its very nature, law must 
 
 the true soiu'ce of all such dissimulation is a shallow and insufficient 
 apprehension of the very nature of the gospel. For their sakes, 
 therefore, and for ours, he sets forth anew the contrasted principles of 
 law and grace, shewing that a return on the part of a Christian to 
 circumcision in any shape, was a return from liberty to bondage, and 
 from righteousness to sin. For the law knows man only as a trans- 
 gressor. It is characteristically (in its operation upon fallen nature) 
 " the ministration of condemnation." (2 Cor. iii. 9.) If a believer, 
 therefore, replaces its yoke upon his conscience, he is (though nomi- 
 nally seeking to be justified by Christ) "found to be a sinner" stiU 
 (verse 17) ; because by the law is the knowledge, not of righteousness, 
 but of sin ; a legal conscience is a defiled conscience necessarily. 
 (Comp. Rom. vii. 7-24.) But if so, he proceeds, " Is therefore Christ 
 the minister of sin .^" A startling question, put for the very purpose 
 of showing, in more glaring colours, the grossness of the fallacy with 
 which the devil seeks to mock and impoverish the sheep of Christ, 
 when he practises his devices against them under the semblance of 
 an angel of light. (2 Cor. xi. 13-15.) Then, after justifying his 
 question in verse 18, he goes on to re-establish the shaken foundation 
 of true Christian trust, by demonstrating the total cessation of legal 
 bondage for the believer, through the exhaustion of the law's judicial 
 powers in the cross of Christ. " I, through the laiv, am dead to the 
 law," &c. (fee. Henceforth, therefore, it is no longer J, but Christ 
 (verses 20, 21). 
 
 K 2 
 
196 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 deal with men on their own merits, and could only, 
 therefore, curse them as a damnatory witness of 
 their sin. Another covenant must, therefore, be de- 
 vised, which should supplant the first. The Law 
 had done its work, indeed, in demonstrating to the 
 full the moral wretchedness of man. God had been 
 glorified by its administration as the Just and Holy 
 One. But it drew thick clouds around the face of 
 God. The perfection of His character could not be 
 thus expressed. If rays of grace and mercy broke 
 through that cloudy vail at times, to light up liope 
 in the believer's heart, it was by means of the 
 prophetic word of pronnse, which by anticipation 
 disallowed the former things, and showed Salvation 
 in the light of coming Truth. 
 
 God was dissatisfied with a covenant which was 
 no complete exponent of Himself By necessity of 
 His holiness. He is the Censor of His people's ways. 
 In the desires of His mercy. He finds fault with that 
 which only proves their sin'' (verse 8). He will 
 make, therefore, a New Covenant, which shall be 
 unlike the old (verses 9-12). The first thing to be 
 remarked in considering this passage is, that the 
 specified objects of the latter Covenant, as well as 
 of the former, are the house of Israel and the house 
 
 '' Meix(})6fitvog yap, avTotg \«y£t. " Denn tadelnd sagt Er zu 
 ihnen."—I)B Wette. Just above, the first covenant is declared not 
 to have been faultless {dfiefiTTTog). Although the arrangement of 
 the words seems rather in favour of the usual rendering (finding 
 fault with them), yet, considering the general drift of the context, I 
 prefer to take 5ia9r]Kr]v as the suppressed object of the participle, 
 placing a comma after yap. " For finding fa\ilt [with it], he saith 
 to them," &c. It should be observed, however, that for avrolg 
 Tischendorf reads avrovQ. But this can hardly be taken as con- 
 clusive. That Jehovah did find fault with His people, and with too 
 much reason, is most sure ; the question here only is as to the drift 
 of the Spirit's meaning in this place. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 197 
 
 of Judah. The covenants — of promise, even as of 
 debt — are theirs.^ They had broken the first com- 
 pact by their sin. God would establish the second 
 for their sakes in pardoning mercy. Days will 
 come, in which the ancient hope of Israel will be 
 realized. Meanwhile, by the death of Jesus for that 
 nation, the blessings of the second Covenant are 
 abidingly secured to Jacob, though he knows it not. 
 They are preserved in Him who is the Shepherd and 
 the Stone of Israel, in readiness for application to 
 their destined objects at the time appointed of the 
 Father.^ But while Israel, as concerning the Gospel, 
 is an alien to the election both of Jew and Gentile, 
 the riches of the better Covenant are now laid freely 
 open. For all the promises of God in Christ are 
 yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God hy us} 
 Let us, therefore, while watchfully avoiding that 
 dangerous wisdom of self-conceit which has led the 
 Gentile branch to vaunt itself in high-minded for- 
 getfulness of God's still unrepented purpose towards 
 Israel, claim boldly as our own, and examine dili- 
 gently as the inestimable bond of all our hope, — the 
 warranty of all our confidence and rejoicing in the 
 Lord — this new and better Covenant thus founded 
 for us upon better promises. 
 
 The general description of the New Covenant is, 
 that it does not resemble the Old. But the first 
 covenant was not faultless ; the second is, therefore, 
 
 8 Rom, ix. 4, Let the reader who doubts this read attentively Jer. 
 xxx.-xxxiii., and then consider whether any other than hereditary 
 Israel is meant in the promises there expressed. It is by special 
 election that the remnant will be saved which will afterwards become 
 a mighty nation. But that remnant is of Abraham's natural lineage. 
 (Micah iv. 7 ; v. 7, 8; Isaiah xxvii, 6.) 
 
 9 Acts i.; Eom. xi. i 2 Cor. i. 20. 
 
198 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 perfect. Tlie first was of temporary validity, being 
 made with reference to another which was to come. 
 The second, being come, stands fast for ever. It is 
 the lasting memorial of the only wise God — the 
 perfect and enduring expression of the grace and 
 power of the Lord Almighty. It is this that forms 
 the leading feature of distinction between the New 
 Covenant and th(^ Old. In both alike the vdll of 
 God was manifested. But in the covenant of works, 
 that will looked for its fulfilment to the creature. 
 In the better Covenant, God is bound by word and 
 oath to the doing of His own good pleasure in ac- 
 complishing the ivliole work of His people's peace. 
 All the conditions of their blessing God has taken 
 on Himself for ever. He is the sole Contractor in 
 this bond ; the obligation of His promise makes the 
 risk and burden of salvation exclusively His own. 
 The emphatic words which gave its tone to that 
 first covenant were, ^' thou shalt," and "thou shalt 
 not." The life and power of the better bond is in 
 the words " / will," and " I will not." All men are 
 naturally liars, because nature, though ever willing 
 to promise what is good, is powerless to do. And so 
 the Law, which was established on the people's pro- 
 mise, was presently vacated by their sin. As an 
 instrument of blessing, all its power was destroyed. 
 But if to be a " covenant-breaker " is a part of that 
 stigma of repudiation which the Spirit of truth has 
 fixed indelibly on fallen humanity, to be a " keeper 
 of covenant" is, on the other hand, one of the dis- 
 tinctive glories of Him with whom is no variableness 
 nor shadow of turning. The Covenant which Jesus 
 mediates, being the undertaking of the righteous 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 199 
 
 God of Truth, makes all its promises of blessing 
 good in the sufficiency of perfect and almighty Love. 
 Looking more closely at the specialties of this 
 New Covenant, we find that they are but an ampli- 
 fication, in detail, of God's purpose of electing grace. 
 He would have a people who should know Him as 
 their God, and His people should be worthy of 
 Himself. By an abundance of grace, and through 
 the gift of righteousness. He would mctke Himself a 
 people of whom He would not be ashamed.^ The 
 laws which He had once engraven upon stones, that 
 Israel might outwardly perceive His holiness and 
 learn His fear, shall now be put within His people's 
 mind, and written on their hearts (verse 10). The 
 letter written upon stones declared, to him that read 
 it rightly, how far and hopeless was the distance 
 which divided him from God. By now revealing 
 Christ within His people's hearts, as the end of all 
 His laws for righteousness, God has filled their mind 
 with wondering delight, to find themselves brought 
 nigh in Him.^ Nothing but perfect holiness can fit 
 God's people for His presence. He has wrought for 
 them that fitness, in making His own Son their 
 sanctification.* By the Spirit of the living God there 
 is impressed indelibly on each believer's heart the 
 lineaments of life and righteousness. For Christ is 
 there. By faith He dwells there ; — richly or feebly, 
 as the measure of the faith which apprehends Him, 
 — yet there He is, and there He will abide. The 
 heart which once has truly opened to receive Him 
 can never let Him go. For the faith of a believer is 
 the gift of God ; it is the prime instinct and essential 
 2 Eom. V. 17. 3 Eph. ii. 13. * 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
200 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 quality of that second and eternal life which God 
 bestows upon His people, through His quickening 
 word of truth. Love is the end of all command- 
 ment ; and love has its resting-place in the believer's 
 heart. God's love is shed abroad there by the Holy 
 Ghost ; and in the knowledge and enjoyment of that 
 love the soul's true love to God-ward has its birth.^ 
 And obedience is the natural effect of love. If 
 Christ be in us, there is in us an unfailing spring of 
 both godly desire and obedient purpose. Grievous 
 obstructions may, indeed, oppose themselves to every 
 gracious affection of the inner man. But holiness is 
 the desire of each quickened soul. Because the truth 
 of God is in His people's minds. His fear is likewise 
 there. The intentions of the sinner saved by grace, 
 are to live no longer to the lusts of men, but to the 
 will of God. If for a season driven or enticed from 
 the pure way of righteousness, his sense of peace 
 will surely wane, and may for a season entirely for- 
 sake him, until restoring grace has brought him back 
 to God. But the man that is conscious of no 
 wretchedness, when practically far from God, or who 
 has never found tlie knowledge of the name of Christ 
 to excite desires of holiness in his heart, may assure 
 himself that, though acquainted with the form and 
 letter of the New Covenant, he has never yet been 
 brought within its bond. 
 
 As a preface to the covenant of works, Jehovah 
 announced Himself as Israel's God.*^ The fruit of 
 that covenant was the nation's disherison, and the 
 turning of His wrathful curse upon a sinful and 
 rebellious house. The better promise of the second 
 
 5 1 John iv. 16-19. e Exod. xx. 2. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 201 
 
 Covenant is, "/ will he their God." But this once- 
 prophetic (and, to its natural objects, yet unfinished) 
 word of grace, has now become to the believer an 
 established and eternal truth. The beginning of 
 that perfect law of liberty which God has put into 
 His people's minds, is the knowledge that Jesus 
 Christ is Lord. But where the heart believes unto 
 righteousness, confession is likewise made unto sal- 
 vation. And this confession of the name of Jesus 
 is to the glory of God the Father. God acknoiuledges 
 His people by this token. Thus, also, is He known of 
 them, who see the brightness of His glory in the 
 face of Jesus Christ. God has a people now, though 
 Israel be not gathered; and Jehovah -Jesus is that 
 people's God. He is their Lord and their God.'' 
 Viewed, however, in His special relation to the 
 better Covenant, He is its ever- blessed Mediator. 
 Characteristically, therefore, it is not Jehovah that is 
 to us the peculiar memorial of God as the Author 
 and FulfiUer of the Covenant of promise.^ " To us 
 there is one God, the Father."^ Our God is He 
 who has brought His people, not out of bondage for 
 an earthly Canaan, but out of darkness into His 
 marvellous light ;^ — delivering us from the power of 
 darkness, and translating us into the kingdom of the 
 Son of His love.^ The hope of a believer is the 
 birthright which belongs to him as begotten again 
 by the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.' 
 
 7 Jolin XX. 28. 
 
 8 Although it is Jehovah- Shaddai whose sons and daughters are 
 now brought to joy in Him by Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. vii. 16-18.) His 
 titles are eternal. He does not divest Himself of those formerly 
 revealed, when making new and still more wondrous manifestations 
 of Himself. 
 
 9 1 Cor. viii. 6. i 1 Pet. ii. 9. 2 Col. i. 13. ^l Pet. i. 
 
 K 5 
 
202 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 In the fellowship of a Divine adoption, we are called 
 by the Spirit to the knowledge of the Father's love. 
 We have Him in the Son. The fulness of the God- 
 head dwells bodily in Him who, as the Surety of 
 this better Covenant, has based for us, on that foun- 
 dation, the sanctuary of eternal peace. 
 
 We see thus how Jesus the Lord, who is also 
 the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, has 
 pitched the tabernacle of His heavenly ministry 
 upon the settled ground of finished and established 
 promise. There can be no repudiation of a people 
 thus brought nioh. For never can the God of truth 
 deny Himself. He could not continue to be Israel's 
 God, because they broke His covenant, and forsook 
 His truth. He cannot cease to be the God of His 
 believing people ; for by an infrangible Covenant of 
 life and righteousness He has built up truth for ever 
 in His Christ. He has bound His people to Himself 
 in Him. He is the God of the believing sinner ; to 
 justify, to sanctify, to glorify him ; to keep him safely 
 all his journey through, and to present him fault- 
 less before His presence with exceeding joy. This 
 He is, according to the unfaltering purpose of His 
 mercy, which made Christ the sure Holder of His 
 people's life before the world began.^ Believing sin- 
 ners are His acceptable people ; to continue such for 
 ever, to the praise of the glory of His grace, who 
 has appointed their inheritance. They are His in 
 the life below, to prove the exceeding riches of that 
 faithfulness and mercy which sustains them day by 
 day; to learn His holiness, and to glory in His 
 grace. They are His worshipi^ers, His servants, and 
 
 4 2 Tim. i. 9, 10. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 203 
 
 His sons. God will dwell among His people ; and, 
 with the Lamb who has redeemed them, He will be 
 their Light and their unending praise, in the place 
 which He has built in heaven for His everlasting 
 Eest.^ 
 
 In verse 11, another emphatic point of dissimi- 
 larity to the former covenant is mentioned. Igno- 
 rance of God was a continual reproach of the natural 
 people. " Israel doth not know, my people doth not 
 consider," is the pregnant conclusion of Jehovah, 
 when in grateful intelligence of the hand that fed 
 them, He finds the children of that covenant below 
 the beasts that perish.^ Light shined within the 
 hearts of that small remnant which the Lord of 
 hosts reserved ; but from Egypt downwards the 
 nation was a foolish and a sinful nation. God gave 
 them up as such^ from the hour when they gave His 
 glory to the gods of Egypt. That they knew Him 
 not really, was as manifest to Him who tries the 
 hearts, when they multiplied their outward sacrifices 
 and waited sedulously in His courts, as when they 
 openly avowed their shame, and gave their sons and 
 daughters unto devils. This national ignorance 
 attained its lowest deep, when, not knowing what 
 they did, they crucified the Son of God, and made 
 their own Messiah die a felon's death. Eor the same 
 reason is the Holy Spirit of grace and truth, who 
 glorifies by His testimony that worthy name, a liar 
 and deceiver in their eyes. Mistaking sin for right- 
 eousness, they remain till now in ignorance of God. 
 Yet for the house of Israel and the house of Judah 
 is it promised and provided, for the days which are 
 5 Kev. xxi. 22, 23. 6 Isa. i. ? Acts vii. 42. 
 
204 NOTES QN THE HEBREWS. 
 
 to come, that all that nation, from the smallest to 
 the greatest, shall truly know the Lord.^ 
 
 In the meanwhile, this verse has an important 
 moral bearing on God's noiu professing people. For 
 it expresses the discerning test which distinguishes 
 and severs the true people of God's covenant from 
 those who only have a name to live. God is the 
 Teacher of all who truly know Him in His Son.^ 
 Such knowledge is, to its possessor, everlasting life.^ 
 But all who have faith know God ; for the Son of 
 God who came into the world for their redemption, 
 has also given them an understanding to know Him.^ 
 The babe just born, through the reception of the 
 word, already knows the Father. For the Gospel of 
 His grace declares His love in Jesus ; and, to the 
 believing sinner, that report is both the light of 
 knowledge, and the seed of life. With a maturer 
 knowledge, the man who has grown old in Christ, 
 full well aware what hand has led him through the 
 long journey of his faith and patience, abides trium- 
 phantly in that which first shed joy and peace within 
 his soul.^ Nature may learn God's sayings in the 
 letter, and may lay presumptuous hands upon the 
 children's portion as its own. Thinking the Holy 
 One to be even as themselves, men whom God's 
 Spirit never quickened may say they know Him, 
 while delighting still in sin. But the believing 
 sinner tastes that He is gixicious. This nature never 
 does. For nature is ignorant of its real condition, 
 and therefore cannot know the grace of God in truth. 
 
 8 This subject has been examined at length in my Notes on the 
 Romans^ chap. xi. 
 
 9 John vi. 45. ^ John xvii. 3. 
 2 1 John V. 20. 3 1 John ii. 13. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 205 
 
 God's depths are only searchable by God's own 
 Spirit ; but the natural man sees nothing and knows 
 nothing of the Spirit's things/ Christ is the fulness 
 of God's perfect love. None know Him thus but they 
 who first have known themselves as wanderers amid 
 that darkness into which the Gospel sheds its Light. 
 The children of the Covenant are conscious of a 
 change, not in the natural qualities of their flesh, but 
 in their estimate of God and of His things. They 
 love Him, while they hate themselves. Who and 
 what God is, is discovered to them, not by the vain 
 and fruitless efforts of the intellect, but in the foolish 
 preaching of the Cross. They learn Him there in the 
 perfection of His holiness, and the matchless glory of 
 His grace. They begin a knowledge from the day 
 of their believing, which only in eternity will reach 
 its perfect growth. They may have conflicts ; and, 
 through Satan's wiles, may often be deceived and 
 harmed. But though feebleness of faith may suffer 
 doubts to spring and grow within their hearts, and 
 though they may testify the smallness of their know- 
 ledge of the Father by the scanty measure of their 
 present joy, yet never can they know another in the 
 stead of their own Eock. They know that grace, 
 and grace alone, can save them ; and they know that 
 only through the manifested love of Jesus, the true 
 Shepherd, does that saving grace bring peace into 
 their souls. 
 
 The means of this knowledge is the Spirit's 
 
 demonstration of Eedemption. For it is in saving 
 
 mercy that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 
 Christ has revealed Himself to the receivers of His 
 
 4 1 Cor. ii. 
 
206 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 truth. Accordingly, tins recital of the new and 
 better Covenant is closed by an unqualified promise 
 of entire forgiveness (verse 12). ''For I will be 
 merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins 
 and their iniquities will I remember no more." 
 The performance of God's perfect work of truth 
 and mercy is thus laid as the basis of His people's 
 knowledge of Himself. How this exceeding great 
 and precious promise has been brought to pass, will 
 be demonstrated fully in the tenth chapter of this 
 epistle. We must here contemplate it simply in its 
 force and intention as a chief article of this our 
 better Covenant. Two things are promised; first, 
 mercy to unidghteousness ; ^ and, secondly, an eternal 
 oblivion of iniquities and sins. In both its clauses 
 it is equally absolute. Viewing His people in them- 
 selves, God saw unrighteousness to be their born 
 condition, and their natural estate. If their loorks 
 are valued in His sanctuary, they are found to be 
 iniquities and sins. In the riches of His mercy. He 
 has met their personal unrighteousness by an un- 
 upbraiding and complete forgiveness. In His re- 
 membrance of the one obedience of Jesus for their 
 sakes. He lias clean forgotten their iniquities and 
 sins. In the truth and sufficiency of His own 
 eternal righteousness. He has glorified the pure 
 desires of His love. He set His love on an un- 
 worthy people; and, by the work of their redemp- 
 tion. He has made them worthy of Himself. They 
 are His righteousness for ever in Him who was once 
 
 5 Strictly, to their unrighteousnesses raig ddiKiaig avribv. A man's 
 actions are but a multiplied expression of himself; but, that there is 
 "none righteous," is the opportunity of God's abounding grace. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 207 
 
 made sin on their behalf.^ If God therefore be truly 
 known in Covenant, it is as the sovereign Forgiver 
 and Forgetter of His people's sins. Peace must 
 result from such a knowledge — that peace of God 
 which passeth knowledge. For all that might 
 challenge peace God takes away, and banishes from 
 His remembrance. When Christians are deficient 
 in this peace, it arises from an imperfect apprecia- 
 tion, either of their own personal condition, or of 
 the absoluteness of the Divine mercy in this new 
 and better Covenant. With a shallow perception of 
 indwelling sin, there must be a slight and inadequate 
 intelligence of mercy. When the Holy Ghost is 
 heartily justified in those strong sayings of unsparing 
 truth which take away from nature all its come- 
 liness, and leave no furniture but sin within the 
 leprous chambers of the human heart, that blessed 
 Spirit can show freely forth the riches of the grace 
 of God. We must have ceased from our own vain 
 works, before we can appreciate the perfect work of 
 God. When Israel shall be brought within the 
 bond of this New Covenant, it will be in answer 
 to an unreserved confession that themselves are as 
 an unclean thing, and that all their righteousnesses 
 are as filthy rags.'^ So is it with the Christian now. 
 Christ is worthily enjoyed as God's unspeakable gift, 
 only when self is seen quite through, and reckoned 
 at its proper estimation, in the bruised and contrite 
 heart of faith. 
 
 God has provided thus for Israel and Judah 
 a covenant of better promise. By calling it a New 
 Covenant, He has already antiquated the former and 
 
 6 2 Cor. V. 21. 7 isa. Ixiy. 6. 
 
208 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 imperfect bond. The making of the new has cured, 
 for faith, the mischief of the old. For that very 
 purpose it was made ; and therefore are its terms so 
 unlike those of its precursor ; it is in all respects its 
 ever-blessed and prevailing opposite. Faultless in all 
 its parts, it is no more to be questioned or annulled. 
 Eesting for its fulfilment solely on the will of God, 
 and not of man, it remains an eternal security to the 
 believer of all that God in grace can give, and the 
 favoured objects of pure mercy can enjoy. As an 
 instrument of efficacious grace, it fills His people s 
 hearts with holiness, and their lips with truth ; even 
 as the former covenant, as the instrument of sin, had 
 tilled their mouths with falsehood, and their hearts 
 with guile.^ The Holy Ghost had given utterance to 
 this promise in the prophetic word which God spake 
 to the fathers, and already to the believing Israelites 
 to whom He writes, the Son of God was the Fulfiller 
 and fulfilment of that word. The former bond was 
 cancelled at the cross. It had expired. It was to be 
 forgotten, therefore, with the sins which it had 
 brought to light. It is said, at the close of this 
 chapter, to be "ready to vanish away."^ There is, 
 perhaps, in this expression, some allusion to the ap- 
 proaching destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, 
 and the consequent cessation of legitimate Jewish 
 ritual. But its proper reference is rather to the 
 coming time for the removal of the vail of unbelief, 
 and the discovery to Israel of the better Covenant, 
 
 8 Isa. lix. ; Rom. iii. 
 
 ^ 'Eyyvg d(pavi(T[iov. To the Churcli, tlie old things have already- 
 passed away. All is become new to them that are in Christ. (2 
 Cor. V.) The Light, which faith alone now sees, is ready to be re- 
 vealed to every eye. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 209 
 
 in the apparent glory of Messiah. Until that time, 
 the former covenant must be the law of them who 
 walk in darkness, and are blinded still, amid the 
 shining of the day. The shades of night will not 
 remove from Israel's rugged path until the Sun of 
 Eighteousness arise on them with healing in His 
 
 1 Mai. iv. It is clear, that they who in the near prospect of the day 
 of recompenses sustain their souls upon prophetic promise, stand fast in 
 the Mosaic ordinance until the appearing of the nation's hope. The 
 moral condition of the remnant who awaited the first advent of 
 Messiah, resembles that of those who, in the true fear of Jehovah's 
 name, will be found expecting Him, when, as the Deliverer of pro- 
 mise, He shall come again to Zion, the administrator of both judg- 
 ment and mercy, according to the glory of His power. (Mai. iii. iv. ; 
 Isa. Hx. 18-20, &c.) 
 
210 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 In the early part of the chapter which we have just 
 quitted, the presence of Jesus, in the perfection of 
 His Melchisedec glory, at the right hand of the 
 Majesty in the heavens, was affirmed to have a 
 direct ministerial relation to His believing people 
 here below. Having in the remainder of that 
 chapter reminded us of the connexion which sub- 
 sisted always between priesthood and covenant, and 
 declared the nature and tenor of that new and better 
 Covenant to which the everlasting priesthood is at- 
 tached, the way has been thus prepared for entering 
 specifically on the subject of Christ's ministry for His 
 brethren in the heavenly courts. This is accordingly 
 done in the present chapter, which, like its prede- 
 cessors, is pervaded by comparisons, and exhibits 
 contrasts of the strongest kind. The last of those 
 which have been already presented to us, was the 
 essential contrariety of Law to Promise; the differ- 
 ence between the vanity of that which looked for its 
 accomplishment to the natural man, and the abiding 
 glory of that which has been built by mercy on the 
 finished will of God, The description of the Seme- 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 211 
 
 tuary, and its ministry, follows naturally the recital 
 of the Covenant on which that ministry is based. 
 
 Yerse 1. " Then verily," &c. The former covenant 
 had its appointed ordinances of Divine service, and 
 its appropriate sanctuary.^ That tabernacle was a 
 material and visible erection. In its structure and 
 appurtenance it was characteristic of the relation 
 which subsisted between Jehovah and the earthly 
 nation, in the midst of which His presence dwelt. 
 In the verses immediately following, the building 
 and its internal furniture are described, with just 
 such minuteness of detail as may enable the apostle 
 to present in more effective contrast the heavenly 
 realities, of which they are the type. We may notice 
 briefly this description before passing to the main 
 subject of the chapter. 
 
 Verses 2-5. The tabernacle was the place of 
 Jehovah's earthly dwelling as the God of Israel's 
 covenant.^ He would meet His people there, through 
 His appointed medium of priestly ministry. The 
 glory of His presence should be enshrined there in 
 the midst of the nation which He had redeemed as an 
 inheritance for Himself.^ But while the tabernacle 
 was in itself a gracious token of Jehovah's presence 
 with His people, it was in its form and service a con- 
 tinual witness of the moral disparity which existed 
 
 1 To re ayiov kogiukov. "A worldly sanctuary." E. V. "i)«s 
 irdische Keiligthumy — De Wette. This translation (as to the 
 soundness of which I hesitated in the first edition) is, I now feel 
 assured, the true one. It is a Vt^orldly sanctuary, for a people whose 
 place of supremacy was on the earth, in contrast to the heavenly 
 courts now opened to the " holy brethren." The critical reader may 
 find some good remarks on the language of this passage in Alford's 
 Greek Testament, in loc. 
 
 2 Exod. XXV. 8. s Exod. xxix. 43 - 46. 
 
212 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 between the people and their God. The broken 
 covenant had already determined the character of 
 the nation among whom the Holy One consented 
 thus to dwell. It was amidst "a stiff-necked people" 
 that Moses raised the tabernacle of Jehovah's pre- 
 sence at His word.'^ But His coming into immediate 
 contact with such a people must have made His 
 glory known, not as a Saviour, but as a Destroyer 
 and Avenger of unrighteousness ; for, by their breach 
 of covenant, they had already forfeited all claim to 
 blessing, and exposed themselves to the cursings of 
 the Law. It was, therefore, only by the ordered 
 system of mediate priestly service that the nation's 
 standing could possibly be preserved, consistently 
 with the unchanging holiness of God. But, in 
 addition to this, the tabernacle and its furniture 
 was, to the eye of faith, a dawning indication of 
 God's marvellous, but yet unrisen Light. It was an 
 adumbration of the manner of that grace whereby 
 God's holiness might rest in perfect blessing on a 
 creature thoroughly renewed. Named, appropriately, 
 according to its double purport, " The Tabernacle of 
 Witness,"^ it gave in all its details, expressive inti- 
 mation, not only of a holiness in the Divine presence, 
 which was intolerable to man in his born condition 
 of natural sinfulness, but also of the purpose of the 
 Holy One to compass, in His own sufficiency, the 
 means of uniting His people in effectual blessing to 
 Himself. 
 
 The holy place and the most holy, contained each 
 its characteristic furniture. The latter, which was 
 
 * Exod. xxxiv. 9. ^ Acts vii. 44. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 213 
 
 separated from the former by the vail,^ was the 
 especial sanctuary where Jehovah's glory dwelt. In 
 its furuiture are symbolized the varied attributes of 
 the Divine Perfection. The ark of the covenant was 
 there, containing within it the tables of the covenant. 
 This, with' its covering mercy-seat, and the over- 
 shadowing cherubim of glory, speak wondrously of 
 God to the believer, who reviews them in the steady 
 light of Gospel truth. To these were added, besides 
 the censer which once a-year bore incense (when the 
 vail was passed by Aaron to present within the 
 holiest the memorials of atonement), the golden pot, 
 wherein the bread which fed the people in the desert 
 was laid up, and lastly, Aaron's budding rod, an 
 emblem both of judgment and of the patient mercy 
 which should eventually prosper through the accept- 
 able priesthood of Jehovah's choice.'^ All these 
 things, so rich in spiritual meaning to the Christian, 
 are here regarded in their simple and primary cha- 
 racter, as appurtenances of the first and perishable 
 tabernacle. What was intended by these holy and 
 beautiful, though shadowy symbols, will in part 
 appear as we proceed. But a particular interpre- 
 tation of them is not the Spirit's object in this place 
 (verse 5). 
 
 6 Called, in verse 5, " the second vail," to distinguish it from the 
 hanging at the door of the tabernacle, which bore some resemblance 
 to it in its materials and general pattern. (Exod. sxviii. 31, 36.) 
 
 " The difficulty (of which a most extravagant estimate appears to 
 have been formed in some quarters) arising from an apparent incon- 
 gruity between verse 3, and what we read elsewhere, as to the 
 furniture of the Holy of Holies, disappears entirely when the true 
 force of the apostle's language is perceived. For it is not affirmed 
 of all or even ani/ of these things, that the sanctuary contained them, 
 but that it had tliem (e'xovo-a) ; i. e. that they attached in a special 
 sense to that part of the Tabernacle. The whole question has been 
 fairly discussed by Alford in he. 
 
214 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Verses 6, 7. " Now wlien these things were thus 
 ordained," &c. In the tabernacle thus prepared and 
 finished, the priests accomplished their appointed 
 service. A sacrificial ministry of daily repetition 
 was performed at the altar of burnt-offering, and in 
 the holy place there was a corresponding offering of 
 incense. But no simple priest could ever pass the 
 vail. Once only in the year the high ^jricst went 
 alone within the holiest place. The occasion of his 
 entrance was the annual day of atonement. His 
 pass-port of admittance was the blood of the sin- 
 offering which on that great day was brought within 
 the secret of God's presence. He who brought it 
 thither, and sprinkled it upon the mercy-seat and 
 before the mercy-seat, did so not only for the people's 
 sake, but likewise in solem^n acknowledgment of his 
 own transgressions.^ It was offered by him "for 
 himself and for tlie errors^ of the people." The 
 value and effect of this sacrificial ministry as a 
 means of purification are more fully discussed in 
 the next chapter, which treats the subject of sacrifice 
 in its practical relation to the standing of the wor- 
 shipper in the sight of God. The order of the 
 
 8 Levit. xvi. passim. 
 
 9 'Ayvorjuara. " Sins of ignorance," or " oversight," such is the 
 general term which the Spirit of God here uses to describe all that 
 multitude of unheeded or unconscious derelictions from the literal 
 standard of legal perfection, which had accumulated on the nation 
 since the day of atonement in the year preceding. But when these 
 "errors" are examined in the holy light of the Divine presence, they 
 are judged according to the estimate formed there of the natural will 
 of man, which is the parent of all sin. Hence, in the ordered ritual 
 of the day of atonement, the same Spirit specifies the national neces- 
 sities which that ordinance was framed to meet under a varied de- 
 scription, indicative of the true condition of a fleshly people in the 
 sight of God. Uncleanness, transgressions, iniquities, and sins, are 
 things provided against in that gi'eat Harbinger of better things. 
 (Levit. xvi.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 215 
 
 imperfect ministry, in its significant but ineffective 
 ritual, is here presented with a view to its com- 
 parison with the more excellent and heavenly 
 Antitype. 
 
 Verses 8-10. " The Holy Ghost this signifying," 
 &c. We have now the Spirit's explanatory comment 
 on this ancient structure of His own device.^ While 
 to every eye, but that of a prophetic seer, the future 
 destinies of Israel were covered by a cloud, which 
 baffled search, one thing was made plainly evident 
 to all through the ministry of the Levitical taber- 
 nacle ; the moral distance, namely, of the people 
 from the object of their worship. The way into the 
 holiest was not yet manifested while that tabernacle 
 stood. It was a figure for the time then present, and 
 spoke forcibly, to the enlightened worshipper, of the 
 means by which alone Divine acceptance must be 
 sought. But the blood of annual atonement made 
 no man fit for fellowship with God. Whatever help 
 a Jewish worshipper might find to true communion 
 through these ordinances was by virtue of a faith 
 which kept its hold of earlier promise, and therefore 
 turned to their true use the figurative tokens of a 
 hope to come. Faith is the essential condition of 
 Divine communion. But the Law is not of faith; 
 and the visible tabernacle corresponded to the cove- 
 nant to which it was attached. As that covenant 
 was with the natural man, so was the sanctuary, 
 with its furniture, a thing of sight and touch. Its 
 ministry was not spiritual, but was accomplished by 
 the literal performance of external rites. The taber- 
 nacle and its ordered services thus became a standing 
 
 1 Exod. xxxi. 
 
216 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 witness, first, of the unapproachable holiness of God 
 ■ — His presence being accessible to His people only- 
 through a sacrificial medium; and secondly, of the 
 permanent insufficiency of Levitical sacrifice to fur- 
 nish such a medium. No lasting joy or satisfying 
 blessing could come through an iterative ordinance, 
 which bore continual witness to the moral insolvency 
 of those whose souls were jjledged to the performance 
 of Jehovah's will. God, as He really is, could never 
 be enjoyed while distance from His presence was an 
 imperious necessity of His people's covenant-stand- 
 ing. Rest for the conscience was impossible to the 
 worshipper who, with a consciousness of his liabi- 
 lities as under Law, possessed no better knowledge 
 of the God whom he desired to approach, than was 
 presented to his senses in the ritual established by 
 the hand of Moses. 
 
 The peculiar structure of the tabernacle, as well 
 as the prescribed order of the Levitical ministration, 
 alike enforced these leading truths. But although 
 exclusion from God's presence was expressed so 
 sternly, as a present necessity of His people's con- 
 dition,^ yet the tabernacle was essentially expressive 
 of the grace of God. As a companion to the cove- 
 nant of works, it indicated how that deep distress 
 was to be effectually met, which it was the office of 
 that covenant to bring to light. To the eyes which 
 saw it, it was presented as a parable of promise, as 
 well as a present medium of national blessing^ 
 (verse 9). The glory and magnificence of its internal 
 furniture, as well as its varied and emblematic forms, 
 
 2 Le^rit. xvi. 2. 
 
 ^ TjTtQ Trapa^oXrj uq tov icaipbv tov kveaTijKora. k. X. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 217 
 
 all spake, with more or less distinctness, of the rich- 
 ness of that portion which was to be one day- 
 enjoy ed by w^orshippers who, with consciences clean 
 purged from all defilement, might attain the holy 
 liberty of God's own presence. For the time then 
 present there was, indeed, an efficacy in the gift and 
 sacrifices which were offered there. They met, that 
 is, the requirements of God's ostensive relations with 
 His people. But it was wholly a factitious efficacy. 
 They were altogether powerless to remove the burden 
 which an enlightened conscience felt beneath the 
 obligations of the Law. Blood might be sprinkled 
 on the mercy-seat, and God might act from thence in 
 national blessing towards His people. But no wor- 
 shipper might see that presence, or know that he 
 was morally brought nigh to God. He remained a 
 sinner, though externally sanctified according to the 
 manner of the carnal rite. The very priest who did 
 the service in the holiest place, lost no particle of 
 personal defilement through the exactest fulfilment 
 of his trust. 
 
 It is clear that a system of ordinances originally 
 framed for a temporary purpose, must absolutely 
 cease with the period and circumstances for which it 
 was designed. Nor is there anything imaginable 
 more empty and insignificant than an obsolete ritual. 
 This is strikingly expressed in the language of verse 
 10. Things which were w^eighty once with all the 
 sanction of Jehovah's name, are in the retrospect 
 but impotent and empty vanities. The services of 
 that first tabernacle were, ''only meats and drinks, 
 and divers washings, and carnal ordinances." In all 
 that solemn ritual and those difficult observances. 
 
218 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 there was notliing intrinsically worthy of God's 
 name. None of these things commended any man 
 to Him. He had imposed them on the fleshly 
 nation, while the time of pupilage endured.^ They 
 riveted the yoke of bondage which the former cove- 
 nant had forged. They were at once its temporary 
 and ]3ractical mitigation, and a continuing witness 
 of the unimpaired validity of all its claims. But 
 when once the time of reformation has arrived, and 
 Truth, no longer hidden under figures, is disclosed 
 in its essential glory and vitality, the former things 
 not only are no longer truth, but are no more even 
 truth's resemblance. From the place they once held 
 lawfully, they have been removed for ever. The 
 promised Keformer has been manifested, and has 
 brought to perfection His appointed work. A visi- 
 ble and ordered ceremonial of worship, now that 
 the Son has entered on His heavenly priesthood, is a 
 lie, and has no tincture of the truth of God.° For 
 God's set time for the endurance of the carnal rite 
 has passed. To approach Him now through such a 
 medium, is to come before His presence with a con- 
 tradiction of the glory of His Christ. 
 
 Verses 11, 12. "But Christ being come," &c. To 
 the former covenant and its dishonoured sanctuary 
 are now opposed the blessed realities of eternal 
 things. These verses contain a general affirmation, 
 first, of the accession of Christ to the High-priest- 
 
 4 Gal. iv. 
 
 5 I speak of the present dispensation and of the partakers of the 
 heavenly calling. Our access is now by the Spirit into heavenly 
 places. The true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in 
 truth. In the coming millennial age, it is not improbable that sacri- 
 fices, commemorative of the one great work of atonement, may be 
 offered in the earthly courts. (Ps. H. 18, 19 ; Ezek. xliii. xlvi. &c,) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 219 
 
 hood of promise, and secondly, of His complete 
 fulfilment in His own Person of an acceptable sacri- 
 ficial atonement. He is come,^ an High Priest of 
 good things no longer to be waited for, but declared 
 to the believer as a present truth.' Through a 
 greater and more perfect tabernacle, He has entered 
 the true Oracle. By passing through all heavens. 
 He has reached the throne of God. The former 
 and imperfect tabernacle, therefore, ceases. But the 
 earthly building had contained God's only institution 
 of outward ritual and work -worship. Being now 
 supplanted by that which is not made with hands, 
 the shadowy creation disappears. Nothing remains 
 discernible to natural sense, while faith sees the 
 beauty of Jehovah in the heavenly and greater 
 Sanctuary. Thus a positive antagonism in principle 
 is declared between ritualism and spiritual worship. 
 The only performer of acce-ptabU rites is Jesus. The 
 only material of acceptable worship is the faith 
 which discerns Him within the eternal Sanctuary as 
 the effective Propitiator of the Divine holiness. He 
 has fulfilled the High Priest's most momentous 
 charge by entering into the holiest place. Like the 
 Levitical shadow. He has .entered in ivith Mood. His 
 finished sacrifice is the warrant of His access in this 
 character. By His own blood He has gone in to see 
 God's face for us. What Aaron did repeatedly — 
 
 •5 UapayBvontvoQ. This word refers, not to His personal advent, 
 but to His objective presentation to our faith as the great High Priest 
 of onr profession. 
 
 " Instead of t&v fitWovriov ayaQivv, Tischendorf edits in v. 11, 
 tS)V yevofikviov dyaOiov. This is possibly the true reading. But 
 no stress need be laid upon it ; the advent of the Minister of promised 
 blessing turns, of course, the prospective ' good things ' of the Law 
 into present realities and accomplished truths. 
 
 L 2 
 
220 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 bringing annual proof of ineffectual sacrifice within 
 the vail — Christ has done once for all.^ For in the 
 precious blood of His own sacrifice He has found ^ 
 for his people an eternal quittance of all sin. That 
 blood being recognized of God at its intrinsic value, 
 there is a cessation for ever of propitiatory oblation. 
 The vail of God's secresy has been, therefore, done 
 away. From thenceforth He is known and under- 
 stood of them that draw nigh by faith in Jesus to 
 the throne of grace. Accordingly, the next two 
 verses declare the results comparatively of the for- 
 mer and the latter sacrifice, in their bearing on the 
 standing of the worshipper. 
 
 Verses 13, 14. " For if the blood of bulls and of 
 
 goats, and the ashes of an heifer sanctifieth to 
 
 the purifying of the flesh," &c. Under the single 
 word "purifying," there are here contained the two 
 distinct ideas, first, of sacrificial atonement, and, 
 secondly, of personal and practical sanctification. 
 The sanctification of the Israelite through the offer- 
 ing on the day of atonement was but inceptive. It 
 had to be followed up and virtually renewed by the 
 application of the lustral water of purification, as 
 often as any external defilement was contracted^ 
 Nothing is more expressive of the holy nature of 
 Divine communion than the ordinance of special 
 purification. Nothing, likewise, indicates more strik- 
 ingly man's natural helplessness, and his impotency 
 to maintain himself in an acceptable position before 
 God, through the mere force of the circumstances in 
 the midst of which he lives. Among the numerous 
 rites of the Levitical institute, these two only (the 
 
 8 'E^aTra?. ^ Amviav Xurpwcrtj/ ivpayLivoQ. ^ Numb. xix. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 221 
 
 day of atonement and the lustration by the ashes 
 of the heifer) are here mentioned, because it is by 
 them that the complete process of sanctification 
 was effected. There is thus a broad and clear dis- 
 tinction to be observed between the two parts of this 
 sanctification which, as a whole, is described as a 
 "purifying of the flesh." "There is, first, that is, 
 the original cleansing of the person of the worshipper 
 by the acceptable offering on the day of atonement. 
 By the annual remission of his iniquities, he was 
 annually restored to an acceptable standing before 
 God. He is sanctified, secondly, according to the 
 exigencies of his ordinary life, by the after provision 
 of the water of purification. He needed this prac- 
 tical preservation and renewal of his way, as one 
 called of Jehovah to be liolij. 
 
 But the sanctification thus acquired and main- 
 tained was purely external ; it was absolutely in- 
 operative as it respected the conscience. There was 
 a purifying of the flesh, without any necessary 
 reference to the inward man. Hence, these ordi- 
 nances were adequate to the occasion, only because 
 the manner of God's present dispensation was ex- 
 ternal and according to th'e natural condition of the 
 fleshly nation with which He dealt. To a godly 
 Israelite they had a significance beyond themselves. 
 Meanwhile, they possessed a definite, present value. 
 They sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. But 
 if so, 
 
 " How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, 
 through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without 
 spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, 
 to serve the living God?" (verse 14.) The Law had 
 
222 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 impressively declared the necessity of sanctification, 
 and, by its unavailing ordinances, had pointed to the 
 means of its attainment. Blood flowed, and did not 
 cease to flow, because the deep necessities of human 
 sin, and the requirements of perfect holiness, de- 
 manded other blood than that of bulls and goats. 
 But that which was but outward and ceremonial, 
 when performed by Aaron's hands, is, in Christ, a 
 perfect and essential reality. He is our sanctifica- 
 tion. His one offering has produced that precious 
 blood, which, because it has already met and satisfied 
 the holiness of God, is estimated in the secret of 
 His presence as an eternal redemption. The eternal 
 Spirit, through whom He offered Himself thus ac- 
 ceptably^ to tlie Father, conies forth now from the 
 true sanctuary of Jehovah's presence, to declare to tis 
 the value of that blood. It is very important, as it 
 respects the stability of the believer's peace, to re- 
 member that, in the gospel of the grace of God, the 
 Holy Ghost bears testimony as GocCs witness to the 
 perfectness of the propitiation w^hich tlie blood of 
 Christ has wrought. It is God Himself who thus 
 bears record of His Son.^ The believing sinner finds, 
 to his astonishment as well as his delight, that the 
 entire question of his sins and his iniquities has been 
 settled in the heavenly Sanctuary before ever he is 
 called to listen to the good report. Perfect peace 
 is the result of our conscience being brought by faith 
 
 ■^ In the reference to the Spirit in this verse we have not only pre- 
 sented to us the concmTent operation of the Godhead in its tri-personal 
 fulness, in the mighty work of our redemption, but it intimates 
 specially the obedience of Jesus unto death. The same Spirit who led 
 Him into the wilderness also led Him as a willing victim to the cross. 
 
 3 1 John V. 9, 10. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBEEWS. ^ 223 
 
 into immediate contact with that which has already 
 been presented for us acceptably before God. 
 
 But this perfect offering and its effects demand 
 some further consideration. As to its nature and 
 description, it is the life of Christ. Through the 
 Eternal Spirit that oblation was once made. It was 
 offered with entire acceptance to the Father, who had 
 fore-ordained it in His counsel, and both expected 
 and received this last token of His Son's devoted 
 love. The point kept before us in the present 
 passage is the superlative validity of such an offer- 
 ing, in comparison with the former unavailing sacri- 
 fices. All, therefore, is referred to the intrinsic 
 excellency of the Sufferer, who appears, therefore, 
 not only as the passively consenting victim of 
 Jehovah's pleasure, but as the voluntary accom- 
 plisher, in His own conscious sufficiency, of the work 
 of sacrificial atonement. The ever-blessed Person 
 whose blood is thus provided for the purging of our 
 conscience, offered Himself without spot to God. 
 Both parts of the "mystery of godliness" are thus 
 brought into equal prominence and distinction. The 
 Giver of His people's ransom was the Son of man. 
 Led unresisting to the slaughter, He was, as the 
 Lamb of God, in willing substitution for His own. 
 His sacrifice was human, but the human victim was 
 the Word made flesh. It was the Christ, the Son 
 of the Blessed, who thus gave Himself to death. 
 While, therefore, it was a human life-giving, a 
 human blood -shedding, a sacrificial atonement, thus, 
 of life for life — of man for man — and therefore an 
 exact substitution, in the manner of it, for the thing 
 to be redeemed, yet liow much more than this! Had 
 
224 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 He been perfect man alone, that pure, unspotted life 
 was not His own to give. God is the owner of His 
 creatures' lives ; and human perfection cannot over- 
 step itself, and be for others that which in itself it is 
 to God. The true humanity of Jesus was indeed a 
 meet and necessary sacrificial substitute for men — 
 one which in its perfectness the just God might 
 accept. But all the effective virtue of that sacrifice 
 proceeds from the essential Divinity of Him who, 
 having such a life of perfectness to manifest among 
 men to the Father's praise, could present it without 
 wrong to God for sinners' sakes, since for them He 
 had assumed it, when He changed His outward glory 
 to the fashion of a man. In perfect grace He had 
 begun that human life ; in full obedience He had 
 glorified it.^ In perfect fulness, both of grace and 
 obedience. He had laid it down in our stead. He 
 laid it down with power of resumption. The Just 
 One's life was at His own disposal ; for it was the 
 Son of God who died. No man might touch it but 
 at His own will.^ And having compassed by His 
 death the purpose of His life below. He now displays 
 in His ascended glory the efficacious tokens of that 
 finished work. 
 
 The general assertion of the Holy Ghost upon 
 these blessed facts is, that the knowledge of them 
 ought to purge the conscience of believers. Having 
 been personally privy to the work. He is competent 
 to reason on its value. Moreover, He is the authen- 
 tic Witness of the Father to the same effect. His 
 estimation of the carnal ordinance is, that it makes 
 the outside clean, and goes no further. His testi- 
 
 * John xiii. 31. « John x. 17, 18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 225 
 
 mony to the living Truth is, that it purifies the 
 conscience in the sight of God. Sin is the defilement 
 of the human conscience. This is no accidental 
 taint, but an inborn corruption, extended and aggra- 
 vated in effect by means of transgression, but not to 
 be confounded with it. The only Judge of sin is 
 God, and He also is the Light by which its presence 
 and true nature are discerned. According to the 
 measure in which a man is made to feel the searching 
 power of the luord of God, is his apprehension of his 
 personal defilement ; and it is by the Holy Spirit of 
 truth that the word is thus made to do its faithful 
 of&ce. Our knowledge of sin, therefore, as that 
 which disqualifies us for God's presence, is not an 
 intuitive perception, but is imparted to us by the 
 Holy Ghost. Natural conscience is cognizant more 
 or less extensively of sin, and dreads its conse- 
 quences as a provocation of Divine judgment. But 
 because the mind of nature is alien from God, and 
 the desire of His holiness is a stranger to the heart 
 of unregenerate men, the bitter sense of distance 
 from His presence as the only place of blessedness 
 and joy, as well as safety, is never tasted, in this life^ 
 but by a soul already quickened by the Spirit. A 
 sense of thorough personal unworthiness is only 
 wrought within the soul by Him. The conscious 
 privity of God, as a Judge in His holiness, to the 
 inmost working of the heart's native evil, is a neces- 
 sary extinction of all peace within the soul. Con- 
 science, which acknowledges the just requirements 
 of holiness, confesses sin to be the triumphant ruler 
 of the natural will.^ It is to the believer, in this 
 
 s On the subject of indwelling sin and its effects, see further in 
 chap. vii. of Notes on the Romans. l 5 
 
226 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 truthful state of conscience, that the Comforter 
 addresses the heart -assunng words of this most 
 blessed and decisive appeal. By a statement of the 
 intrinsic value of the Sacrifice, He demonstrates the 
 removal of the sin. Defilement, therefore, of con- 
 science is removed, and changed to perfect purity, 
 the moment the reality of Christ's atonement is 
 perceived by faith. In guilty remembrance, and in 
 the present consciousness of indwelling sin, the 
 believer continues as lie was before. But in the 
 blessed certainty that God's own Son has borne the 
 sinner s curse, and made an end of sin in death, he 
 overrules sensation by Divine conviction, and gladly 
 submits himself to the righteousness of God. Con- 
 science, which in ignorance of that atonement could 
 only bear mournful witness of nature s* leprous un- 
 cleanness, is now become the faithful echo of His 
 voice, who preaches peace by Jesus Christ. No 
 longer the mirror to the soul of its own wretched- 
 ness and helpless ruin, it reflects upon it the pure 
 light of God in Christ. 
 
 The conscience thus made free from sin, and 
 filled with everlasting;' riohteousness, is to the be- 
 lieving sinner the sanction and witness of abiding 
 peace. By the blood of Jesus he is sanctified to 
 God. But this purgation of his conscience is, for the 
 Christian, not only a removal of the former senti- 
 ment of guilt and distance ; it is an emancipation 
 likewise from the old responsibilities, and therefore 
 from the grievous yoke of legal service. The just 
 effect of the blood of Christ on the believing wor- 
 shipper is here said to be "to purge his conscience 
 from dead vjorks to serve the living God." This is 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 227 
 
 a liiglily characteristic expression. By the works 
 in question we are not to understand acts of sin 
 merely. " The works of the flesh," elsewhere enume- 
 rated/ come doubtless within the general language 
 here employed. But in addition to the guilty ex- 
 perience which is found in all men whose conscience 
 is awakened to a knowledge of themselves, there 
 was in the Jewish worshipper a religious sentiment 
 which was not immediately connected with his per- 
 sonal necessities as a sinner. As a confessor of the 
 Law, he was professedly a servant of God. The 
 rule of his obedience was the written precept. The 
 statutes, the judgments, and the ordinances, which 
 gave minute expression to the will of God, were to 
 be laid up within the people's memories, and hal- 
 lowed, for exact observance, in their hearts. The 
 presence of true faith in God's ^ elect, while it stayed 
 the child of Abraham upon the father's Hope, and 
 showed him coming goodness in the present figure, 
 so far from diminishing the sense of legal obligation, 
 served rather to stimulate them to a more scrupulous 
 obedience to the literal tradition. Works were the 
 fruit of this obedience. These works were a punc- 
 tilious compliance with ' precise injunction. Thus 
 only could they honour Him to whose obedience 
 they were sanctified, so long as the first covenant 
 endured. Debt, and not grace, was the tenor of 
 their relation to Jehovah. The Jewish conscience, 
 as the depository of legal truth, was a necessary 
 witness of this standing obligation. 
 
 But the claims thus owned were hard to satisfy. 
 It was a weighty yoke that pressed upon the zealous 
 7 Gal. V. 19-21. 
 
228 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 servant of tho Law. Still, it was a practicable thing 
 to honour the precept with an outward obedience. 
 A scrnpulous and painful vigilance might entitle a 
 man to hold himself "blameless as touching the 
 righteousness which is in the Law."^ To the man 
 yet unenlightened by the Light of life, this rigid 
 and successful conformity to the letter might seem a 
 gainful burden. His works were, to his ignorance, 
 a steady though gradual liquidation of his bond. 
 The entrance into life might seem to such to grow 
 nearer and more accessible, as he fulfilled his toil- 
 some days of legal servitude ; ^ yet this approximative 
 process never brought the legal worker out of bond- 
 age. But with the change of covenant, there is also 
 a change in the manner of the worshipper's obe- 
 dience. The Christian conscience is no more a regis- 
 ter of personal responsibilities, but a reporter of full 
 deliverance from all that former debt. By Another's 
 obedience, he is just with God.^ His sanctification 
 is " unto obedience " as before. But it is to be ren- 
 dered in a different spirit, and after another manner 
 than the former bondage. From every jot and tittle 
 of the ordinance which Christ has nailed in triumph 
 to His cross, the believer's blood-cleansed conscience 
 may regard itself as freed. 
 
 As works are a certain token of vitality in faith,^ 
 so works which are not of faith are dead works ever. 
 But the Law is not of faith ; nor are its works, 
 though faithful men might strive to do them. In- 
 trinsically they are dead and ineffective things, when 
 referred to a doer whose natural condition is ungod- 
 
 8 Phil. iii. 6. 9 Luke xviii. 18, 19. 
 
 1 Eom. V. 19. 2 jas. ii. 26. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 229 
 
 liness and sin. Since neither life nor goodness is 
 inherent in the flesh, neither merit nor vitality belong 
 to works of human debt. Moreover, the attempted 
 discharge of legal duties is a confession of servile 
 obligation. But freedom is the born condition of the 
 child of God. In the liberty of Christ he is made 
 free indeed.^ Eepentance from dead works and 
 faith toward God have already been enumerated 
 among the principles of the doctrine of Christ.* 
 The complete purgation of the believer's conscience, 
 both from the defilement of sin and the burden of 
 carnal ordinances is now pronounced to be the effect 
 of his acknowledgment of the once -shed blood of 
 his Eedeemer. 
 
 Sanctification and purification are different de- 
 scriptions of the same effect. This has been already 
 indicated in verse 13. The former affirms the fitness 
 of the worshipper for the Divine presence. The lat>- 
 ter expresses his conscious freedom from defilement. 
 Both these things result immediately from the same 
 effective cause ; from the performance, that is, of a 
 sacrificial work which meets in equal completeness 
 the exigencies of the sinner's need, and the inflexible 
 requirements of Divine holiness. From the nature 
 of the case, the former blood -shedding was, as we 
 have seen, but inceptive in its effect upon the wor- 
 shipper. Sanctification was the general effect of 
 both blood -shedding and lustral sprinkling. The 
 combination of these ordinances effected a complete 
 sanctification, of an external and fleshly kind. The 
 blood of Christ is opposed in its results to all the 
 former ordinances. Absolute sanctification is its 
 
 3 John viii. 36. * Infra^ chap. vi. 1. 
 
230 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 immediate effect on the believer in the sight of God. 
 For Christ is made to us of God, not only Eedemption 
 and Eighteousness, but also Scmdification. To be 
 reconciled to God by the death of His Son, is to be 
 sanctified as acceptable worshippers by His precious 
 blood. It is well for the believer to remember that 
 this sanctifi cation is as lasting as the virtue of the 
 blood which has accomplished it. A Christian is a 
 saint for ever in the sight of God. For his sanctifi- 
 cation is the blood of an eternal redemption. He 
 stands within the holiest in the acceptable Person 
 of his Forerunner and great High Priest. On the 
 other hand, his sense of personal purification may 
 be and must be indefinitely influenced by his actual 
 conduct here below, and by the strength or weakness 
 of his faith. Defilement may be contracted by a 
 Christian in a thousand ways. To keep a conscience 
 void of offence is to be the watchful aim of him 
 whose redemption is with that which is of richer 
 price than gold or silver.^ Where defilement is 
 acknowledged, the resort of the believer is to no 
 new ordinance, but to the once -shed blood of Jesus.^ 
 That cleanseth from all sin. The lustral water had 
 no virtue save as an accessory to the annual atone- 
 ment, while the latter was efficacious only within 
 the term of its prescribed validity. There is a 
 similar analogy in the Divine realities. The daily 
 recurrence of the Christian to the blood which gives 
 refreshment to his spirit,^ is on the basis of that one 
 atonement whose validity is not for one year only, 
 but for ever. 
 
 The moral end of this completed personal sanctifi- 
 
 5 1 Pet. i. 17, 18. 6 I John i. 7 John yi. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 231 
 
 cation is unreserved devoteclness to God. "To serve 
 the living God" is the declared calling and privilege 
 of the believer, whose conscience has been purged 
 from dead works by the blood of Christ. It is thus 
 that justifying faith converts a sinner into a pure 
 and williiig worshipper. The living God can take 
 no pleasure in dead works. But "newness of life" 
 is the order of a Christian's walk.^ Being settled in 
 unimpeachable blessedness as a partaker of Christ, 
 he is to know the service of the God of peace. 
 Grace, and not debt, being the tenor of the covenant 
 in which he stands, he serves no longer an exactor, 
 but a Giver. The object of his service is the God of 
 his delight.^ That a son should serve his father is a 
 principle of natural piety acknowledged even among 
 men,^ and it is to filial obedience that the saint is 
 called. His worship is rendered to the Father, whom 
 he loves according to his -perception of the manner 
 of His love.^ Personal devotedness is a reasonable 
 service to those who are set free from dread, and 
 compassed for ever by the love of God in Christ, 
 through a demonstration of the riches of completed 
 grace.^ 
 
 Faith only works by love.^ As self-interest was 
 the governing principle of legal service, so the de- 
 lighted consciousness of eternal safety and imputed 
 holiness, as well as of all blessedness in God through 
 Jesus Christ, is the beginning of true spiritual wor- 
 ship. He whom the quickened soul had thirsted for, 
 even while most conscious of its wretchedness, as 
 under sin, is now become the tasted portion of its 
 
 8 Eom. vi. 2MSSWI. ^ Rom. v. 11. ^ Mai. iii. 17- 
 
 2 1 John iii. ^ i>oni. xii. 1. * Gal. v. 6. 
 
232 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 cup of blessing. The moving power of that obedi- 
 ence for which the believer has been sanctified to 
 God, is the Holy Ghost who dwells within him as 
 the Spirit of adoption. Freedom from sin is the 
 beginning of service to God.^ While Christians 
 remain unsettled in the faith, and unestablished in 
 the grace of God, their religious duties are of the 
 nature of dead ivorks. For a spotless conscience is a 
 needful prerequisite for the service of the living God. 
 Good works have been before ordained of Him to be 
 the w^ay of them that are newly created in Christ 
 Jesus. It is with feet which, through faith, are shod 
 with the preparation of the gospel of peace that we 
 alone can keep that way.® True Christian service in 
 this present world (how faulty and defective soever, 
 through the weakness of the flesh) is, in its essential 
 character, identical with that which is to be the 
 never-ending joy of those who see the face of God.'' 
 Verse 15. We reach at this point the opening of 
 a new branch of our general subject. The work of 
 Christ and its effects have lately been considered in 
 their relation to the greater and more perfect taber- 
 nacle. He has been seen in His high-priestly 
 character within the holiest for His people's sakes. 
 With the price of an eternal redemption. He has 
 passed, with full acceptance, into the presence of 
 the living God. The just effect of this on our 
 faith has also been declared (verses 11-14). The 
 same subject has now to be reviewed in its con- 
 nexion with the title of Mediator of the new or 
 better Covenant, already ascribed to Him.® Accor- 
 
 5 1 Pet. ii. 16; iv. 1, 2. e Eph. ii. 10; vi. 15. 
 
 ■^ Rev. xxii. 3, 4. ^ Supra, vii. 22, and viii. 6. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 233 
 
 dingly he proceeds : " And for this cause He is the 
 Mediator of the New Testament," &c. That they 
 which are called might receive the promise of eternal 
 inheritance, is here made the reason of the Lord's 
 assumption of this character. But to effect this 
 purpose He must die. For thus only might the 
 transgressions of the former compact be redeemed. 
 The scope of the present verse is, therefore, very 
 wide. In its moral bearing, in which the Law may 
 be looked at in its lawful use as the discoverer of 
 human sin,^ it will comprise within its meaning the 
 entire fruits of redemption. It is, however, rather 
 to be considered here in its stricter application to 
 God's believing remnant of the circumcision. " The 
 called," therefore, would include, in the first place, 
 the Hebrews immediately addressed, although the 
 word applies in its present connexion more especially 
 to those who had both lived and died within the 
 bond of the former covenant. It is, in fact, a similar 
 though more limited expression of the retrospective 
 virtue of the Cross, to that which the apostle has 
 elsewhere given, when arguing at large the great 
 question of justification.*^ The possession of the 
 promise, in the hope of which the fathers had lived 
 as strangers on the earth, could be assured to them 
 only by the death of Christ. The just men of old, 
 who died in faith, are only thus made perfect. 
 Though under Law, they passed their lives in faith. 
 And so the Law which condemned them by its 
 letter, had cheered them by its shadowy prophecy of 
 better things. Their desire was to see the day of 
 Christ — to see Him who was all their salvation, as 
 1 1 Tim. i. 9. « lioj^. in. 25. 
 
234 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 well as all their desire.^ And now tlie Spirit is the 
 witness to the value of their good confession, who 
 writes them down as heirs of God's sure promise, 
 through the death of Jesus, albeit in their earthly- 
 days they lived as servants, not as heirs. 
 
 This moral necessity of the Mediators death, 
 which arose from the natural hopelessness of His 
 people's condition as transgressors, having been 
 stated, the same blessed event is now referred to that 
 more absolute necessity by which His death as a 
 Testator was essential to the active validity of that 
 gracious disposition of His wealth which He had 
 made while yet remaining in the world (verses 16, 
 17).^ Availing himself of the well-known double 
 meaning of the word which he employs, which, in 
 its literal force is simply "a disposition," and which 
 was in commonest use to signify a "will;" the 
 apostle employs a maxim of universal recognition in 
 human affairs, in order to illustrate and to commend 
 to our faith one of the most striking features in the 
 
 3 2 Sam. xxiii. 
 
 ^ It would be quite inconsistent with the objects of the present 
 work to enter upon a critical discussion of the language of this 
 remarkable passage. Much has been written in a purely critical 
 spirit both in favour of and against the common version. The ablest 
 advocates, however, of the latter view are constrained to acknowledge 
 the presence of difficvilties which admit of little, if an}^, alleviation 
 on the ordinary principles of Greek construction. As to the legiti- 
 macy of the authorized version in a grammatical point of view, there 
 can be no question. The grounds on which my own full assent ia 
 given to it are principally the three facts following. First, SiaOi'jKi} 
 is at least as common in the sense of "testamentary disposition" as 
 in that of " Covenant." Secondly, the expression sttI vsKpolg cannot, 
 I think, justly be referred to animal sacrifice, since, although in the 
 later Greek, viKpog is sometimes used as an adjective, it is never, I 
 believe, applied to sacrificial victims. Lastly, and in my judgment 
 decisively, the participle 6 diaOsfitvog cannot, without plain violence, 
 be made to mean anything else than the disposer of that which is the 
 subject of the transaction in question. To understand it in the sense 
 of "mediating sacrifice" appears to me quite inadmissible. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 235 
 
 mystery of the love of God. For the Sou of Gocl is 
 not only the mediator of the New Covenant. He is 
 also the testator of His own gift. As Mediator, He 
 stands between the people and their God ; His 
 humanity is prominently visible in this character. 
 As it is said, "There is one God, and one Mediator 
 between God and men, that 3Ian Christ Jesus." ^ 
 He mediates the covenant of God; His work of 
 death was at the Father's will. But as the alone 
 Heir of promise, Himself the rightful Lord and 
 Possessor both of life and glory. He could dispose of 
 His own things. This He did, when in the days of 
 His flesh He spake the word of life to His disciples. 
 Of His own sheep He could say, "/ give unto them 
 eternal life."^ Upon the chosen objects of His love 
 He could bestow the treasures of the Father's house.^ 
 He gave them, and avouched the Father as the 
 Witness of His gifts. To the companions of His 
 temptations He could say, "I ojp^oint^ unto you a 
 kingdom, even as my Father hath appointed me."^ 
 But none of these sure sayings were of active force 
 while Jesus lived. His death was absolutely neces- 
 sary to give effect to His appointment. Dying for 
 His people's sakes and in their stead. He confirms to 
 the heirs of promise the sure title of their hope. 
 His oivn title becomes thus vested in them whom He 
 has made as Himself in the presence of the Father. 
 Thus Jesus died to give effect to His own word of 
 grace and promise. In His resurrection He becomes, 
 through the Spirit, the active administrator of His 
 own testament. In Himself He is the crown and 
 
 5 1 Tim. ii. 5. '^ John x. 28. '^ John xiv.-xvii. 
 
 ^AiariOfftai vyuv, ^ Luke xxii. 28, 29. 
 
236 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 fulness of all that blessing which by His death Hq, 
 has secured for ever to His own. 
 
 But God was in Christ. The love which has thus 
 willed gifts unspeakable, and of an eternal enjoy- 
 ment, was Divine. As the Testator, therefore, of the 
 New Testament, the Son of God stands in a pecu- 
 liarly striking light as the God, as well as Saviour, 
 of His people.^ Nor had this mighty mystery of 
 love been brought to its accomplishment without a 
 previous foreshadowing in the word of truth. From 
 the beginning, a testamentary character had been 
 impressed upon God's covenants of promise. The 
 burning lamp, which passed in Abram's vision be- 
 tween the pieces of his sacrifice, had indicated in 
 whose Person the death by which alone God's pro- 
 mises could reach their sinful object must take 
 place.*^ The blood of the Divine pronouncer of the 
 promise could alone substantiate, in finished mercy, 
 the sure covenant of truth. The following verses, in 
 which reference is made to the ratification of the 
 Mosaic covenant by blood, set the same principle in 
 a stronger and still clearer light. 
 
 Verses 18-20. "Whence not even the first [cove- 
 nant] was dedicated without blood," ^ &c. In the 
 former covenant the people were contracting parties. 
 The blood, therefore, which was sprinkled, was a 
 witness against them "that life was forfeited by the 
 slightest failure on their parts to fulfil its obligations. 
 
 1 Titus ii. 13. 2 Gen. xv. 
 
 ^"09iv ovSk r) Trpwrrj X'^P'C ci'inarog lyKtKaivKTTai, In this, and 
 the following verse, I prefer "covenant" to "testament," because, 
 although the Spirit enables us, in the brightness of the true Light, 
 to perceive retrospectively its testamentary character, yet it never 
 was thus presented to the people. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 237 
 
 The sprinkling here referred to is that which was 
 performed by Moses immediately after the first pro- 
 mulgation of the covenant, and previously to the 
 reception of the tables, or the erection of the taber- 
 nacle.* Its import, as it respected the people, was 
 declared to them by the words of the Lawgiver, 
 who had just before rehearsed in their audience the 
 commandments of Jehovah. "This is the blood of 
 the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you." 
 It was the solemn and significant adjustment of that 
 yoke of bondage, from which the blood of human 
 life alone might set them free. But it implied much 
 more than this. The God who had invited Israel to 
 this compact was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
 and of Jacob. By promise He had long before 
 bound Himself to Israel for his eventual blessing; 
 and it was after a partial fulfilment of His earlier 
 promise,^ that He had enjoined upon them this fresh 
 covenant of debt. The intervention, therefore, of 
 the legal covenant, although its effect was to post- 
 pone the completion of the older word of promise, 
 was in no way to detract from its validity. The 
 covenant of Moses was, as we have seen, a prepara- 
 tion for a better and eternal bond. In the very 
 ceremonial, therefore, of its ratification, there was an 
 act performed which gave typical expression to the 
 mamier of His grace who, having enclosed the 
 objects of His promise in a covenant of death, 
 would yet make life and everlasting peace their 
 sure possession through His own assumption of the 
 debtor's place. In the historical record of this trans- 
 action, mention is only made of sacrificial blood, 
 
 * Exod. xxiv. ^ Gen. xv. 14. 
 
238 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 as that which Moses sprinkled.'' In the present 
 passage there are enumerated, in addition to the 
 blood of calves and goats, " water, and scarlet wool, 
 and hyssop." These things, the use of which in the 
 purification of the leper ^ is well known, point not 
 indistinctly to the personal excellency and marvel- 
 lous grace of Him, whose precious blood-shedding 
 should one day cause the Law of condemnation to 
 become a consenting witness to His people's freedom 
 from all sin. 
 
 This sprinkling of the book and of the people by 
 the Mediator of the former covenant had thus a two- 
 fold signification. It firmly established the validity 
 of Jehovah's utmost claim upon the obedience of His 
 earthly people ; the fatal penalty of Law attaching, 
 by this solemn witness, to the nation on its first 
 departure from the commandment. On the other 
 hand, it was a token of assurance that the obedience 
 which could alone attract the blessings of the Law 
 should not be always sought in vain. God's words, 
 indeed, must stand ; and so that covenant must still 
 abide, until fulfilled to the minutest tittle of its 
 terms. But He who desired Uessing for His people 
 would in due time remove, by a strange yet absolute 
 fulfilment, the covenant which bound their souls 
 beneath a carse. He would make the Law a joy, 
 and not a terror, when, through the blood of Him 
 who is Jehovah, and yet Man, its cursing should be 
 turned to blessing, because its end of righteousness 
 had been attained.^ Thus even to the Law of 
 works a testamentary character may be said to have 
 attached, although its meaning might be hid from 
 
 6 Exod. xxiv. 5, 8. ^ Levit. xiv. ^ Rom. x. ; Gal. iii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 239 
 
 those to wliom the end of the existing revelation 
 was a hidden thing. ^ 
 
 Still more apparent was this mystery to the eye 
 which read aright the prophetic semblance of good 
 things to come, which was presented by the earthly 
 sanctuary — and its ministry. Upon the tabernacle, 
 and on all the vessels of the ministry, there was a 
 similar sprinkling of sacrificial blood (verse 21). 
 But before this second sprinkling took place, the 
 first great national transgression had occurred.^ The 
 tabernacle was itself established, as an ordinance of 
 mercy, in the midst of a people whom the Law 
 already had condemned. And blood was sprinkled 
 upon this. It was not hallowed for its destined use 
 and purpose as the shrine of Jehovah's presence, 
 until it had received a purification which gave inti- 
 mation of Divine redemption, as that only basis 
 upon which the creature's fellowship with the Crea- 
 tor could enduringly subsist. Consistently with 
 this inauguration of the Aaronic tabernacle, we find 
 that blood was in constant requisition in the lustral 
 ordinances of the Law (verse 22). Its use, as the 
 great legal purifier, was a witness to the people of 
 the pervading presence of sin. Wherever it flowed, 
 it was a memorial of atonement. That without 
 shedding of blood there is no remission, was a 
 maxim not only recognized annually at the great 
 national assembly on the day of atonement, but the 
 force of w^hich was continually revived in every 
 man's remembrance who had respect to the estab- 
 lished ritual of the tabernacle. For the Levitical 
 ceremonies in their detail were but an extended 
 
 9 2 Cor. ui. 13. i Exod. xxxii. 
 
240 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 application of that fundamental principle. The 
 value of this maxim, and its present bearing on 
 the conscience of the Christian, will be noticed 
 more fully in the chapter which follows. It is 
 enough that we here attentively observe the close 
 connexion which subsists between the two ideas 
 of purification and remission. Blood is the sole 
 effectuating means of both. Fitness for God, as 
 well as deliverance from sin, are results of accept- 
 able blood -shedding alone. 
 
 Verses 23, 24. "It was therefore necessary," &c. 
 A sanctuary ordained for human worshippers could 
 be owned of Jehovah only through a bloody purifi- 
 cation. The places and the things with which the 
 name and condition of sinful man were associated, 
 must thus be sanctioned in the sight of God. For 
 the cleansing of the earthly tabernacle there was 
 a sufficient virtue in the blood of bulls and goats, 
 because merely represeiitative oblations were suited 
 to an institution which, in its nature and design, was 
 only temporary and external. But what was visibly 
 presented to the eyes of Israel was in all its parts a 
 pattern of the heavenly things. Not only, therefore, 
 must the holy places made with hands be cleansed, 
 but the lasting reality which the figure represented 
 must undergo a corresponding preparation. The 
 better sacrifice, which works for the believer an 
 eternal redemption, must also be the purification of 
 the heavenly things themselves. That God may re- 
 ceive His worshippers with peace, the sanctuary of 
 His presence must be pervaded by the savour of 
 Eedemption. Heaven therefore, itself, must be puri- 
 fied by blood (verse 24.) For creation, which was 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 241 
 
 God's first work, had undergone no partial pollution 
 through the first transgressor's sin.^ In heaven, as 
 well as upon earth, the taint of sin was felt. Judg- 
 ment had cast forth from thence the angels who 
 kept not their first estate, and this expulsion of the 
 offenders left, it may be supposed, no remaining 
 trace of the offence. But the corruption and fall 
 of God's created image, whom His Maker had des- 
 tined for dominion as well as honour, was felt in its 
 effects in heaven as well as upon earth. The last of 
 God's works was the beginning of His counsel ; and 
 his fall affected, more or less, the entire range of 
 creation. It is by virtue, therefore, only of Divine 
 Eedemption that the heavenly places are made fit to 
 be God's meeting -place with man. The entrance 
 thither by the great High Priest dispels and oblite- 
 rates all traces of their former taint. The heavens 
 now are clean, through Jesus' blood ; ^ although they 
 were not always so. 
 
 2 " The devil sinneth from tlie beginning." (1 John iii. 8.) The 
 Spirit of God, while declining to adjust the word of revelation to the 
 t;ravings of the intellect, declares with plainness the original source 
 of evil. 8in begins with Satan, because evil is in him. He is the 
 evil one. To enquire beyond this, is only to waste and desecrate the 
 mental faculties in fruitless and forbidden speculations. But if 
 sin had a beginning, judgment is eternal., and the first act of sin is 
 committed against the Majesty of Him, who already is its Judge. 
 Moreover, though angels are "greater in power and might" than 
 natural men, it is man for whom the place of supremacy has been 
 ordained. The judgment of the great day, for which the apostate 
 angels are reserved, will be administered by those whose union with 
 the only Lord confers on them the participation of His throne. 
 (1 Cor. vi. 3, 17.) Meanwhile, the blood of redemption has purified 
 those heavens, which were eternally fore-ordained to be the dwelling 
 place of God's sons, and which were unclean in the estimation of the 
 Holy One, so long as their destined inheritors continued "under sin." 
 It is in this full and more abundant sense, that the remainder of the 
 verse quoted at the beginning of this note, receives its accomplish- 
 ment: "for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He 
 might destroy the works of the devil'* 
 
 3 Compare Job xv. 15. 
 
 M 
 
242 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 But it is in immediate connexion with tlie be- 
 liever, as a partaker of the heavenly calling, that 
 this purification of the heavens is now declared. It 
 is for us that Jesus has entered into heaven itself. 
 As a counterpart of the work of personal sanctifi- 
 cation, which qualifies the Christian for the service 
 of the living God, the preparation of the heavenly 
 places for the welcome access of the children is 
 referred to the same precious blood. Heaven is 
 made ready for God's many sons through the same 
 sacrifice which makes them meet for heaven. God 
 always meant it for His people's rest. His light 
 should shine for ever there upon His holy heirs of 
 blessing.* But until Jesus died, man could not be 
 dissociated, in God's present estimate, from sin. 
 Defilement may be said thus to have intruded itself 
 within the destined habitation of the children. God's 
 purposes of blessing were obstructed in their course 
 until that blood was shed, by means of which they 
 who are naturally only sin, are made, in Christ, the 
 righteousness of God. The appearance of Jesus in 
 the presence of God for us, is the admission of the 
 First-born to the inheritance, as the Forerunner of 
 His many brethren. 
 
 Verses 25, 26. "Nor yet that He should offer 
 Himself often," &c. Having once entered in by 
 blood, Christ's sacrificial work is finally complete. 
 The annual repetition of the former sacrifices was 
 because of imperfection both in the priest and his 
 oblation. Men having infirmity can do no perfect 
 work ; by frequent iteration they confess the ineffi- 
 cacy of their ministry. What God does once, is 
 
 4 Col. i. 5, 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 243 
 
 done for ever. There can be neither repetition nor 
 amendment of His perfect work. The import of 
 the conclusion stated in verse 26 is plain. It has 
 been shown that nothing is effectual to work atone- 
 ment but the blood of Christ. That the shedding 
 of that blood procures remission is manifest, since 
 it is by His own blood that the great High Priest 
 has entered acceptably within the holiest place. But 
 if remission were a limited effect, of virtue only for 
 a generation or a life, then must the blood which 
 can alone procure it have been often shed from the 
 foundation of the world. For God has had His 
 people from the first, and to cleanse His people from 
 their sins has been His declared intent ever since 
 sin entered and defiled His former work. But it 
 was not thus that God would deal with sin. Sustain- 
 ing His people's souls, not by successive acts of 
 efficacy, but by repeated promise of good things to 
 come, He reserved the doing of the 07ie work of 
 redemption for the set time of His own appointment. 
 Jehovah's arm should be revealed in saving power 
 in His time. Accordingly, the Christ who long had 
 hid Himself in type and figure, has now, once for 
 all, at the conclusion of the ages, been manifested 
 for the abolishing of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.^ 
 The point to be regarded chiefly in this passage, 
 is the statement, which is so precisely declared, of 
 the end and purpose of the first manifestation of the 
 
 5 Nuvi de uTra% kiri cwTtXtig, twv alojvojv elg dOeTr]<Tiv 
 aixapriag ^la rrjg Qvaiaq avTOv TTtcpavspojTat. The English version, 
 "now once in the end of the world," &c., is too loose and general. 
 With respect to the moral force of the expression "end," or "con- 
 clusion of the ages," the reader is refen-ed to the remarks already 
 offered on the somewhat similar phrase which occurs in the opening 
 verses of this epistle. 
 
 M 2 
 
244 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Son. He appeared "for the putting away of sin." 
 The intention of His coming was definitive. The 
 means of its accomplishment was the sacrifice of 
 Himself. By being made sin,^ He has abolished sin. 
 By becoming, once for all, a sacrificial substitute for 
 sinners, He has, once for all, annihilated all the 
 guilt of those who acknowledge sin to be their 
 natural condition, and look with a believing heart 
 upon the Lamb of God. Let the timid Christian 
 think of this. Faith sees in Christ the Aholishcr of 
 sin. For the behever, it has no more place with 
 God; for Christ is there who has displaced it, after 
 having obliterated its remembrance by the sacrifice 
 of Himself With a retrospective efficacy, that de- 
 cisive act annuls the long arrears which God's poor 
 prisoners of hope had left unpaid, while the know- 
 ledge of it, as a " present truth," convinces the living 
 saint that the only thing he hates and dreads is no 
 longer a reality for liim."^ It is an expiated and for- 
 gotten thing. Truth, which once overwhelmed him 
 by its evidence of sin, now announces its complete 
 removal from the sight of God. Full of all evil in 
 himself, and groaning much because of the vile body 
 of his flesh, he knows that search may be made in 
 vain for sin in Jesus, and that in Him he stands 
 unblamable before the face of God.^ 
 
 The breadth and absoluteness of the language of 
 this verse, wherein Christ is said to have abolished 
 SIN, is easily distinguishable from that of the follow- 
 ing chapter, in which the subject treated is the 
 putting away of sins. His work is here reviewed 
 
 « 2 Cor. V. 21. 7 Eom. iii. 25, 26. 
 
 8 1 John iii. 5 ; Col. i. 22. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 245 
 
 with reference to Himself, and His sufficiency as the 
 Abolisher of sin. It is well for the believer to regard 
 the Cross in this its wider aspect. Placed near to 
 God, within the Eock of life/ the forgiven sinner 
 forms thus a new and far more comprehensive judg- 
 ment of the work of God. To look upwards to the 
 cross from the low place of our daily need, which 
 nothing but the flesh and blood of the uplifted Son 
 of man can meet,^ is as it were the natural instinct 
 of the quickened soul. To look downwards on it 
 from the place where the same Son of man now sits 
 in glory, is to view it, not only as the eternal security 
 of our personal salvation, but as the consummation 
 of God's holy purposes of love, — the attainment of 
 His vast designs of blessing — the basis and the 
 satisfying fountain of creation's promised joy. 
 
 Verses 27, 28. "And, as it is appointed," &c. The 
 d ~> C'trine so broadly stated in the foregoing verse is 
 now narrowed to the limits of its effective operation 
 in the way of faith. The former manifestation of 
 the Son of God was for the putting away of sin. 
 But sin had wrought death, as its effect upon the 
 creature. God's people, therefore, were amenable to 
 death. But by the abolition of the cause, the dread 
 result is also done away. That looking for of judg- 
 ment, which is the sinner's natural prospect, is 
 changed for the believer to the blessed expectation 
 of complete salvation, when the Saviour shall a 
 second time appear. Such is the conclusion of the 
 general argument of this remarkable chapter. The 
 language of these closing verses well deserves our 
 close attention, 
 
 9 Exod. xxxiii. 22, i John yL 
 
246 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Deatli is here viewed in immediate connexion 
 with its procuring cause. "It is appointed unto 
 men to die." That mankind who knew nothing sub- 
 jectively of their own nature, but in its fallen and 
 ruined state, should speak of death as a natural 
 event, is consistent with the easy forgetfulness of 
 man's true origin and history, which is character- 
 istic of a mind alienated from God. But if it be 
 natural, it is because the course of that life which it 
 extinguishes is at variance with the will of Him 
 who first bestowed it on His own created image. Life, 
 and not death, is the normal condition of unfallen 
 humanity. Man's death is a judicial ordinance of 
 God. It entered at His bidding, as the unwelcome 
 consequent of sin. Yet it is not in this natural 
 decease of life that God declares His judgment on 
 the ways of men. For death is the term and limit 
 of corrupted human life, without all reference to 
 personal transgressions. Mankind are born to die, 
 because of sinful origin and birth. By a general 
 appointment men die once. Judgment comes after 
 this. Death to the natural mind is but the closing 
 of an earthly career, the quality and ultimate results 
 of which have yet to be determined. Eternal judg- 
 ment will award, in righteousness, a worthy sen- 
 tence to the man who meets death's stroke with n( 
 acknowledgment of Him who has appointed it, and 
 who turns away his ear, while mortal breath re- 
 mains, from the word of reconciliation and eternal 
 life. To such as close their earthly days in willing 
 ignorance of Jesus, there remains another death,^ to 
 be encountered in that day of fear when Christ shall 
 
 2 Rev. XX. 
 
ISOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 247 
 
 search the pages of the book of life, and find no 
 names there, but of those who knew Him, and con- 
 fessed Him, ere their former life was passed. 
 
 But, for the believer, the appointed certainties of 
 death and judgment are changed in Christ to the 
 Divine realities of salvation and eternal life. ISTot 
 yet exempted from the operation of the sentence 
 upon his mortal body, he is enabled, while waiting 
 for the adoption,^ to rejoice in the assurance of com- 
 plete deliverance in the person of the great 'High 
 Priest of his profession. Accordingly the finished 
 work of Christ, and its results, are here contrasted 
 by the Spirit of God to the original appointment of 
 the God of judgment. To the natural death of 
 sinners unabsolved by grace, is opposed the sacri- 
 ficial death of Jesus, the believing sinner's substi- 
 tute. He has been offered to bear the sins of many. 
 God's sons are many, and by this one offering have 
 all their sins been purged. There is a necessary 
 limitation when sacrifice is spoken of with reference 
 to its effective results. It is not said that Christ has 
 borne the sins of all} For that precious offering 
 is barren of effect, notwithstajiding its intrinsic 
 adequacy to the removal of all sin, where it is not 
 appropriated on the sinner's part. Believers only can 
 afiirm of Jesus that " His own self bare our sins 
 in His own body on the tree."^ Sovereign grace 
 alone puts faith into a sinner's heart to venture all 
 
 3 Rom. viii. 23. 
 
 * For a further illustration of the Spirit's method of limitation in 
 the practical application of the general doctrine of grace, see Notes on 
 the Romans^ chap. v. 16-19. 
 
 5 1 Pet. ii. 24. The force of the expression "many" is commen- 
 surate with the election of God, without reference to dispensational 
 differences of any kind. 
 
248 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 on Jesus. All, therefore, have not faith. But to 
 the unbeliever there is no sacrificial virtue in the 
 cross. The blood of Christ is a token, not of salva- 
 tion, but of perdition, to the man who will not trust 
 it as the needed ransom of his soul. Where it is not 
 sprinkled on the conscience through the faith of 
 God's elect, it remains a crowning evidence of the 
 world's inexpiable guilt.^ For the disowning of 
 Jesus, as the Larrib of God, attaches to the de- 
 spisers of His grace the charge of having crucified 
 the Lord of glory. God sees no iniquity upon His 
 people, because their sins already have been borne 
 by Jesus. His people know this, and rejoice in 
 Him. God is to them more visible than man, in 
 that strange work where only man and Satan seemed 
 to be. For it was by the Father's appointment that 
 Jesus died — the Just in place of the unjust, God 
 would thus bring His people to Himself.^ Wrath is 
 the natural heritage of sinful man ; but to His 
 children, God has not appointed wrath, but mercy 
 and salvation. To His own eternal glory, He has 
 called, through Jesus Christ, the chosen vessels of 
 His grace.^ 
 
 Death, therefore, is no longer the believer's pros- 
 pect, as judgment is no more his fear.'' For there is 
 neither death nor sin in Him who is His people's 
 life as well as righteousness. In Christ His brethren 
 
 6 John xvi. 8-11. 7 i Pet. iii. 18. 
 
 8 1 Thess. V. 9; 2 Thess. ii. 13-17; 1 Pet. v. 10, &c. 
 
 ^ There is a judgment-seat where Christ will sit to estimate the 
 works of those who are confessedly His servants here below. Salva- 
 tion, as by fire, may be the experience of the careless Christian, who 
 beholds his unprofitable works go up as smoke before that searching 
 light. But no Christian can ever again come into judgment as a 
 man. I have examined this subject more at length in my Notes on 
 tJie Epistle to the Romans, chap. xiv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 249 
 
 have already passed from death to life. A Chris- 
 tian's natural decease is now no more a preparation 
 for the judgment ; for judgment has, for him, already 
 done its work. The curse which holiness awards to 
 sin has met its object in the stricken Lamb of God.^ 
 The life eternal, which is the reward of righteous- 
 ness, has already been bestowed upon the believing 
 sinner by the God of grace.^ Death is no longer, 
 then, to such, the king of terrors. He is Christ's 
 welcome messenger of peace, whenever sent to close 
 the saint's rough pilgrimage in quiet sleep. To 
 loose from mortal life^ and be vdth Christ, is better 
 far than to continue in the flesh. 
 
 But d}ing in the Lord, though preferable to re- 
 maining here, is not the proper hope of the believer. 
 To be clothed upon from heaven, and to have mor- 
 tality absorbed in life, is better than to be unclothed.* 
 God, who has wrought us for this self- same thing, 
 has set before His people the glorious appearing of 
 the Saviour as their " blessed hope." To wait, there- 
 fore, for the Son of God from heaven, is presented 
 by the Spirit as the natural and commendable atti- 
 tude of them whom Jesus has delivered from the 
 wrath to come.^ To those whose faith discerns the 
 Saviour, while now invisible within the vaU assur- 
 ance of His certain re -appearance is given in the 
 present verse. "To them that look for Him, He 
 shall aiopear^ the second time, without sin, unto 
 salvation." As Aaron disappeared within the taber- 
 nacle from the people's sight, when entering to make 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 2 ^om. vi. 23; 1 John v. 11. 
 
 3 'AvaXvcrai. Thil. i. 23. ^ 2 Cor. v. 
 5 1 Thess. i. ^ '0(p9r)cnTai, 
 
 M 5 
 
250 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 annual atonement for their sins, and showed himself 
 again in robes of glory and of beauty, in token of 
 atonement made, so Jesus now is hid in heaven from 
 His people's view, although by faith they see Him 
 still. But He has not retired thither never to return. 
 He will come forth again in like manner as He went 
 from earth.'^ His presence there, meanwhile, is sure 
 salvation to the many whose iniquities He once has 
 borne. They are saved, but saved hy hope; until, by 
 His appearing. He shall make salvation visible in 
 glory.^ 
 
 He has been seen by few as yet, since first His 
 precious blood found acceptable entrance to the 
 holiest.^ Since His visible ascension into heaven, 
 the brightness of His glory has been openly beheld 
 by three only of those who waited still upon the 
 earth. To His dying martyr, Stephen ; to the elect 
 vessel of His grace, the last, and in one sense, 
 chiefest of apostles ; and to John, the beloved dis- 
 ciple, He has already shown Himself, as He will 
 presently be seen by all who look for His appearing. 
 His last words to the last of these were, " Surely, I 
 come quickly."^ They who believe His words will 
 wait for Him. To them His second coming will not 
 be to cancel sin, but to fulfil salvation. The hope 
 which God now keeps alive within His people's 
 hearts through faith, will then be justified. For He 
 will come to be glorified in His saints, and to be 
 admired in all them that now believe. It will then 
 be manifested to the most incredulous, that the pre- 
 cious promises which nourish in the day of patience 
 
 7 Acts i. 11. » Rom. viii. ; 1 Pet. i. 5. 
 
 9 John XX.; 1 Cor. xv. 5-8. ^ Rev. xxii. 20. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 251 
 
 the hearts of those who look for Jesus, are no wild 
 fable, but the faithful word of God. The world 
 knows nothing of these things. His second coming 
 is no hope to those who do not now rejoice in God 
 by Him. He will come, indeed, to such ; not as a 
 Saviour, but as a Destroyer. Because of sin, He will 
 do judgment on the unbelieving world, even as with- 
 out sin He will come to give a crown of righteous- 
 ness to all who look for His appearing.^ 
 
 2 2 Tim. iv. 8. The Son of God will come forth to bless, in the 
 full results of His one offering for sin, those who now hope in Him 
 as the High Priest of their profession. The entire dispensation is 
 presented in this epistle as an antitype, to the believer, of the Levi- 
 tical day of atonement. But it is not for the Church alone that 
 Christ is now within the holiest. He died for Israel. (John xi. 51.) 
 His precious blood is, moreover, the effectual security of all the 
 promises to the creation, whether in heaven or in earth, which is to 
 be united, in the age to come, beneath the Headship of the King and 
 Priest. (Eph. i. 10.) His re-appearance, therefore, will not only be 
 the consummating of the joy of those who now with patience wait 
 for Him, as partakers of the heavenly calling, though it is to them 
 that He will first appear. The Holy Ghost has framed, prophetically, 
 in words of yearning importunity, the strong desire of the remnant 
 of His eai-thly nation, who, in the bitter day of Jacob's trouble, will 
 urge Jehovah to appear. They will entreat the Hope of Israel to 
 rend the heavens and come down. (Isa. Ixiv.) Nor will He disregard 
 their cry. The Redeemer will return to Zion, and purge away un- 
 godliness from Jacob. (Rom. xi.) "With joyful acclamations, mixed 
 with poignant and repentant giief, He will yet be greeted by the city 
 which has once refused His gracious love. (Ps. cxviii. ; Matt, xxiii. 
 39; Zech. xii.) His manifestation to Jerusalem is in immediate 
 connection with His judgment of the Beast, and the apostate nations 
 whom he leads to their destruction. (Rev. xix.) Not till the fearful 
 work of judgment has been done, will Jesus stretch the sceptre of 
 full Melchisedec blessing and dominion over aU the nations of the 
 earth. The government will then be manifestly on the shoulder of 
 Him who is already bom to be the Hope of Israel. (Isaiah ix. 6, 7 ; 
 Rev. xii.) All these results connect themselves with the revelation 
 of the Lord from heaven. But in the text above, the subject is pre- 
 sented in its special application to the "holy brethren" who now 
 discern His ministry within the vail. 
 
252 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The earthly tabernacle and its ordinances have now 
 been contrasted with the heavenly things of which 
 they spake. By an exhaustive process of compari- 
 son, the manifold details of Jewish ritualism have 
 been dispelled as empty shades before the light and 
 power of the Lord of life. In the foregoing chapter, 
 we have had the eternal reality of Divine atonement 
 declared both in its intrinsic excellency, and with 
 reference to its moral effects upon the believing 
 worshippers of God. Having shown them the com- 
 plete acceptance of the offering within the vail, and 
 testified the re-appearing of the Saviour as a present 
 and joyful expectation to His waiting people, the 
 apostle now resumes the subject of sacrificial purifi- 
 cation in its immediate bearing on the conscious 
 position of the Christian. The effectual settlement 
 of the believer in his standing and privileges as a 
 purified and acceptable worshipper within the hea- 
 venly courts, while waiting for the revelation of the 
 Blessed Hope from thence, is the main intention of 
 the present chapter. Already he had shown to the 
 believing Hebrew, that in abandoning the shadow 
 for the Substance, his apparent loss was his immea- 
 surable gain. For he possesses now in reality what 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 253 
 
 he only seemed to have before. Both Priesthood 
 and Covenant remain, but of a tetter order, and of 
 everlasting force. The heavenly places were already 
 purified, and atonement was completely made, when 
 Jesus passed for us within the holiest. But for the 
 full enjoyment of these better things, it is needful 
 that the emancipated worshipper should consciously 
 possess a perfect fitness for the presence of God. 
 The purifying virtue of the Sacrifice must be under- 
 stood in its effect upon himself, that he may cease 
 to regret the visible rite which gave him annual 
 renovation, and fresh liberty of access to the earthly 
 courts, through a just discernment of that one 
 Atonement which sets the true children of the cove- 
 nant at everlasting peace with God. 
 
 To assert the children's perfect and unalterable fit- 
 ness for the Father's presence, and to strengthen thus 
 the fainting heart of the believer, and embolden him 
 to an experimental access to the grace wherein he 
 stands, is the present object of the Spirit. Unquali- 
 fied purity and everlasting perfection are shown 
 demonstratively to attach to the once purged wor- 
 shipper through the sacrificial worthiness of Christ. 
 By righteous necessity of truth, the believing con- 
 fessor of the name of Jesus is eternally absolved of 
 God. It is for this reason that the weak and hesi- 
 tating Christian has so often been stablished and 
 comforted by a recurrence to this chapter. For the 
 doctrine of accepted Sacrifice, when justly appre- 
 hended in simplicity of faith, is a termination of 
 all personal misgivings, and a dismissal of all secret 
 fear. We are thereby made to know assuredly that 
 the eye of God is fixed no longer on our sins, but, in 
 
254 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 willing forgetfulness of them, rests now, with full 
 delight upon the Lamb of our propitiation, and that 
 in Christ the heaven of His holy presence is become 
 the home and eternal refuge of our souls. Let us 
 now endeavour to follow the general argument of 
 the chapter. 
 
 Verse 1. "The Law having a shadow of good 
 things to come, but not the very image of the 
 things,"^ &c. This was a part of its use and inten- 
 tion, as he has before explained. But a shadow 
 cannot balance a reality. The reality of man's 
 natural state is sin ; and for this reason his con- 
 science, when alive to truth, is a defiled and un- 
 happy conscience. Nothing, therefore, which did not 
 thoroughly extinguish sin could give perfect peace of 
 conscience to a worshipper who acknowledged his 
 condition according to the truth of God. The 
 annual sacrifice on the day of atonement conferred 
 on the believing Israelite a momentary ease. As 
 an ordinance of God, there was a blessing in its 
 observance ; for it brought to the worshipper, who 
 marked its meaning, an external witness of Divine 
 forgiveness. But it could not free him from the 
 burden of an evil conscience. He could not, that 
 is, place those sacrifices betwixt his soul and God 
 in truth. There was nothing in their nature that 
 could give him an assurance that through them he 
 was made personally fit for God. The very manner 
 
 1 OvK avTijv rijv eiKova tCjv Trpayfidroiv. The Levitical sacrifice 
 was not only not the substance of the good things. It was not even 
 an exact similitude. Animal sacrifice is no fac-simile of true atone- 
 ment. Human and more than human sacrifice was requisite for this. 
 'EiKh}Vy however, is here equivalent to reality: "not the actual pre- 
 sentation of the things." (Compare, for this use of the word, Col. 
 i. 15.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 255 
 
 also of the ordinance declared its insufficiency; for 
 repetition is an argument of imperfection in tlie 
 work. These, then, were no perfect sacrifices, be- 
 cause they did not adequately represent those for 
 whose sakes they were devoted to the altar. Had 
 they been intrinsically acceptable, one would have 
 sufficed to free the offerer from a sinful conscience. 
 And so he proceeds : 
 
 Verse 2. " For would they not have ceased to be 
 offered?" &c. The doctrine involved in this ques* 
 tion is as important as it is obvious. The purging 
 of the worshipper is the removal of his sins. It is 
 his person and his conscience which have become 
 defiled by sin. N^cmher is not here of any account. 
 What is met by sacrifice is the personal need of the 
 sinner. What sacrificial blood atones for is the 
 soul itself.^ Such is the manner of God's estimate. 
 Accordingly, the inefficacy of Levitical sacrifice is 
 demonstrated in the present verse by the circum- 
 stance of its annual repetition. For a genuine 
 atonement would have been commensurate in its 
 effect with the utmost limit of the worshipper's 
 need as a sinner. "The worshipper, purged once 
 for all, would have no more conscience of sins." 
 It is well for the Christian to attend to this state- 
 ment of God's law of sacrifice. Atonement once 
 effected respects the person, and cancels the entire 
 multitude of all his sins. 
 
 So far was the shadowy atonement from setting 
 the conscience permanently free, that it was in itseK 
 an annual remembrancer of unforgiven sins (verse 
 3). The assembling of Israel on the tenth day of 
 
 ^i^evit. xvii. 11. 
 
256 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the seventh month was expressly intended as a 
 yearly recognition on the people's part of defile- 
 ment, and personal unfitness for Jehovah's presence. 
 While, therefore, the Law exhibited a shadow of 
 good things to come, it bore witness of a substantial 
 and never-ceasing reality of unremoved and ever- 
 growing sin. The necessary reason of this is stated 
 in the following verse. 
 
 Verse 4. "For it is impossible that the blood of 
 bulls and of goats should take away sins." The im- 
 possibility of the benefit results from the inadequacy 
 of the work. Animal sacrifice, as an atonement for 
 human sin, is both unequal and untrue. There could 
 be nothing acceptable to the God of judgment in 
 the blood of beasts, for the human obedience of 
 which He had been defrauded must have a different 
 compensation than the life of a creature by nature 
 incapable of knowing His will. The pouring out in 
 death of such a life was therefore of no power to 
 redeem from sin. God had no controversy with the 
 beasts that perish; the law of His commandments 
 had been enjoined upon His 'peojpU. Its curse could 
 never fall, in their stead, on an unconscious animal 
 that never knew the voice of truth. 
 
 ISTevertheless, sacrificial atonement was in the 
 eternal counsels of the God of grace. He had 
 ordained for Himself a Lamb before the foundation 
 of the world. The incarnation of the Son of God 
 was the preparation of an offering which should not 
 be in vain. This is expressed in verse 5: "Where- 
 fore, when He cometh into the world," &c. It was 
 for death that Jesus came into the world. His 
 Spirit, which revealed Him as the Lamb of God to 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 257 
 
 His forerunner, when first His eyes were opened to 
 behold the Hope of Israel,^ had rehearsed propheti- 
 cally the wondrous part which, when time was ripe, 
 He should accomplish in His own most blessed 
 Person. Accordingly, the Lord is represented in 
 this passage as announcing at His incarnation the 
 fulfilment of the prophecy which spake before- 
 hand of an acceptable Doer of the will of God: 
 " Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, hut a hody 
 hast thou prepared me."^ God was ill-pleased with 
 sacrifices and burnt -offerings (verse 6). For while 
 the blood thus shed could never purge the sinner, 
 the sacrifices might be offered as a show and sem- 
 blance of contrition and repentance, while the heart 
 remained far off from Him. From the provocations 
 of the wilderness to the times of Caiaphas, Jehovah 
 found no acceptable savour from the offerings which 
 by the law of carnal commandment were offered to 
 His name.^ No faith was needed for the presenta- 
 
 3 John i. 29-31. 
 
 ^ 2wjtia St KarrjpT'KToj {.lot. It is thus that the Lxx. have rendered 
 the original of Ps. xl. 6, which is »7 H'^D D'JTi^ "thou hast digged 
 ears for me," as the marginal translation literally renders. The 
 ancient translators, justly appreciating the expression as a metaphor 
 of personal devotedness (comp. Exod. xxi. 1-6), unwittingly furnished, 
 in their very free version of this passage, the exactest expression of a 
 truth far hidden from their sight. The Holy Ghost, accordingly, adopts 
 it here as a fit interpretation of His own prophetic words. For sacri- 
 ficial death was the consummation of the willing devotedness of the 
 obedient One. He might have gone forth free from every claim. But 
 He loved the Father; and would perfect all His will. (John xiv. 31.) 
 He loved, too, the wife and children which were given Him of God. 
 (Eph. V. 25-27; Heb. ii. 13.) The yoke which He had taken He 
 ■would wear for ever in His still abiding love. 
 
 5 Acts vii. 42, 43. The cloud might fill, first the tabernacle in the 
 wilderness, and afterwards the temple of Solomon; for God had 
 respect to His own ordinances of better promise, but He soon forsook 
 His sanctuary, and refused to dwell among a people who were only 
 sanctified externally, but whose hearts were still unwashed from 
 their iniquities. 
 
258 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 tion of tliose offerings. God, who read diligently all 
 His people's thoughts, soon found that the ordinances 
 which were meant to school them in a deeper know- 
 ledge of their own unworthiness, and make them 
 more athirst for saving truth, were mistaken by the 
 nation for realities, and rested on securely as an 
 availing composition with the Holy One for sins 
 which nature loved too well to leave. Hence the 
 praises of Israel, which once had been the worthy 
 habitation of the Kock of their salvation, were as a 
 loathing and a weariness when with costly sacrifices 
 they approached His courts, in a spirit of vain and 
 self-satisfied confidence which made them think 
 Jehovah even as themselves.^ 
 
 God has no pleasure in iniquity. He could there- 
 fore take no rest in a ceremonial which annually 
 brought His people's sins to mind. But forgiveness 
 and reconciliation were in His purpose. His will 
 was peace, but peace can only be the effect of right- 
 eousness. That he might, therefore, take away His 
 people's sin, and make full demonstration of His 
 own righteousness, He prepared a body for His Son ; 
 and when the time was fully come. He sent Him 
 forth. And Jesus came, the Son of God, indeed, 
 but made of a woman, and born under Law.*^ His 
 coming and its purpose are here announced in im- 
 mediate conjunction with His testimony to the dis- 
 allowing of the former sacrifice (verse 7). "Lo, I 
 come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) 
 to do thy ivill, God." The two verses immediately 
 following are an explanatory comment on the pro- 
 phetic quotation just before adduced. 
 
 6 Ps. -1. ; Prophets, passim, '' Gal, iv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 259 
 
 The leading feature in tliis passage is the opposi- 
 tion of the former sacrifices to the loill of God (verse 
 9). Levitical offering could never satisfy the will of 
 Him who had ordained it. His will was holiness, 
 and mercy His delight. Eedemption was His pur- 
 posed way of blessing. But none of these things 
 w^ere found within the compass of the Law. It was 
 too weak to bless. It spoke angrily and with mortal 
 threatenings, because it took notice onl}^ of sinners 
 and their righteous liabilities ; while, as a detector 
 of human evil, it must condemn the sin which it 
 revealed. When Jesus, therefore, thus appears. He 
 puts Himself in contrast with the former things. 
 Knowing the Father, He understands his will. Full 
 well aware of what that will involved. He under- 
 takes its fuU accomplishment. Of old it had been 
 written of Him in the volume of God's counsel. 
 By an ancient bond He had consented to fulfil all 
 truth, that God's full thoughts of blessedness might 
 be perfected to endless joy. And man was the 
 object of those precious thoughts. In the form, 
 therefore, of man, and with the Law within His 
 heart, the Saviour now comes forth to be the only 
 Doer of the will of God. He attracts all God's 
 attention to Himself — "Lo, I come," is His fair 
 challenge, who, being man, steps forth to work the 
 work of God. "Behold my servant," is Jehovah's 
 recognition of the Perfect One, in whom His soul 
 alone could find delight.® " This is my beloved Son, 
 in whom I am well pleased," was the Father's attes- 
 tation that in Jesus He had found One who was 
 both willing and able to fulfil His word. He had 
 
 8 Isa. xlii. 
 
260 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 no pleasure in burnt -offerings of beasts. His soul 
 was satisfied by the obedience of Jesus unto death. 
 
 Two things were effected by the first coming of the 
 Son of God. The carnal ordinance -v^'as set aside, and 
 the will of God was settled in its place. " He taketh 
 away the first, that He may establish the second*' 
 (verse 9). The removal of the former was on ac- 
 count of its inadequacy to give to the worshipper a 
 perfect conscience. The establishment of the second 
 is the witness to the believer of complete deliverance 
 from sin. That man should do the will of God, was 
 the accepted proposal of the Law of works. Its 
 acceptance was to demonstrate, in its result, the per- 
 fect ruin of corrupted nature. The Law of God was 
 holy, just, and good. It exacted from the creature no 
 unreasonable service to the Creator. But because it 
 was imposed on man, already fallen, it wa^ a minis- 
 tration, not of life, but of death. It made sin the 
 permanent condition of the people. For no con- 
 science can be truly pure with a remembrance that 
 the will of God remains in any point undone.^ On 
 the other hand, the knowledge that His will is fully 
 met, relieves the conscience from all sense of sin. 
 For sin is the dereliction of God's holy will. A 
 defective measure of obedience, through the weak- 
 ness of the flesh, is not less fatal to the claim of 
 legal perfectness than the wilful transgression of 
 some plain command. ' Thou shalt not covet ' gives 
 a death -wound to all hope within the heart that 
 truly estimates the spiritual power of the Law.^ 
 
 But our Captain of salvation has fulfilled the will 
 of God. Having invested Himself by incarnation 
 ^ Jas. ii. 10, 1 Rom. vii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 261 
 
 with human responsibilities, He has triumphantly 
 discharged them all. God's rights as the one Law- 
 giver have been fully satisfied by the unsullied and 
 complete obedience of Jesus. He magnified the Law 
 which man had broken and dishonoured. Having 
 fulfilled it in His life, He gave Himself to death, 
 that He might silence for ever its demand of the 
 believing sinner's life. By man and for man the 
 will of God has been fulfilled. In the life and 
 death of Jesus the entire measure of both grace and 
 truth has been attained. God's will was the redemp- 
 tion of His people. But that His grace might 
 triumph, His perfect holiness must first be satisfied ; 
 and the cross of Jesus has effected this. God's will, 
 when finished, is thus found to be atonement. Blood 
 has been shed, in obedience to His commandment, 
 which is of virtue to remove all sin. It pleased 
 Himself to bruise His Son for sinners. He has laid 
 upon His chosen Lamb the whole iniquity of all His 
 people.^ By maldng Him an offering for sin, He has 
 finished His intention of salvation; He has estab- 
 lished grace in perfect righteousness. Through that 
 propitiation He has made Himself accessible in 
 ready and unbounded mercy to the soul that comes 
 to Him by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Verse 10. The effect upon the believer of tliis 
 finished will of God is now declared. "By the 
 which will we are sanctified." God is the Sanctifier 
 of His people. That they should be holy and un- 
 blamable before Himself in love, was His eternal 
 purpose, the righteous attainment of which was 
 "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ 
 
 » Isa. liii. 
 
262 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 once for all." As is elsewhere said, it is "in tlie 
 body of His flesh through death," that Jesus has 
 done for the believing sinner the efiPectual work of 
 reconciliation.^ What the legal worshipper endea- 
 voured vainly to acquire by a diligent performance 
 of the carnal ordinance, the believer now receives on 
 his confession that the will of God is done. Christ, 
 as the Doer of that will, is Sanctification to the 
 willing receiver of the grace of God. There is, 
 therefore, a complete reversal of the former things. 
 Whereas it was not possible that sin should leave 
 the conscience of the former worshipper, who brought 
 no better offering for sin than bulls and goats, so now 
 it is impossible that the worshipper, once purged by 
 Jesus' blood, should bear the burden of a sinful con- 
 science any more. Faith recognizes in the cross of 
 Jesus a competent atonement for the human soul. 
 By the equality of perfect justice the believer finds 
 himself absolved (verse 2). The very consciousness 
 of personal worthlessness is to the Christian an 
 assurance of his sacrificial peace. He is his own 
 witness of the need of an atonement. God is his 
 witness, in the Gospel of His truth, tliat He has 
 willed and compassed that atonement in His Son. 
 
 Under the former covenant the worshipper, in spite 
 of the Levitical oblation, remained a sinner still. 
 With an unpurged conscience, he could not be truly 
 sanctified.* But the believing sinner is characteris- 
 
 3 Col. i. 21, 22. 
 
 4 In another, and altogether lower sense, a sanctity attached to 
 Israel. Legal ordinances sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. 
 They were kept thus nationally in nearness to God, in contradis- 
 tinction to the Gentiles, who were far off. I speak of the effect 
 of sacrifice, not of the standing which the children of promise 
 occupied by faith. The latter came to God, and not only to the 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 263 
 
 tically a saint He is sucli by necessary consequence 
 of the finished work of Christ. For, according to 
 the value of the sacrifice is the condition of the 
 worshipper in the sight of God. The Holy Ghost, 
 accordingly, the Witness and Announcer of com- 
 pleted sacrifice, addresses Christians luiivcrsally as 
 saints. He reckons a believing sinner holy, because 
 of that precious blood which once for all has purged 
 his sins. Men connnonly attach the saintly title to 
 pre-eminence in real or seeming personal attainment. 
 The title, that is, is conferred by suffrage of the 
 human judgment, on what man estimates as worthy. 
 But God puts honour only upan Jesus. He calls 
 His people saints because He sees His people in His 
 Son. Because of the blood of their redemption, they 
 are holy in His sight. To flatter the creature on his 
 own account is the subtle policy of Satan ; who, as 
 the prince of this world, strives to strengthen his 
 dominion by disguising his deceptions with a coun- 
 terfeit of truth. To crown the vessels of His mercy 
 with fair names of sanctity and glory, is the right- 
 eous pleasure of the God of truth, who honours thus 
 the Doer of His will, by presenting to Him in His 
 own pure likeness the fruits of the bitter travail of 
 His soul. Far different, indeed, from that fair esti- 
 mate of gracious truth, is the believer's judgment of 
 himself, when, looking away from Jesus, he turns to 
 analyse the complex vanity that fills his natural 
 heart. Miraculous, yet most real and ever-blessed 
 
 visible sacrifice (chap. xi. 6). They never looked for Him in 
 sacrificial shadows. Esteeming the visible oblation at its tnie 
 value, they looked with hope towards the better things which were 
 to come. Meanwhile, the Law was a minister of sin (compare 
 Gal. ii. 15-18). 
 
264 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 trutli ! That a man should at the self-same time be 
 conscious of being personally only sin, while by 
 the faith of Jesus he lifts up his face to God, ac- 
 cepted and unblamed of Him who will not look on 
 sin! 
 
 Verses 11-13. "And every priest standeth daily 
 ministering," &c. The yearly sacrifice has been dis- 
 placed, and is succeeded by the finished will of God. 
 By the resurrection of the once -slain Lamb, the 
 believer has the answer of a good conscience toward 
 God. The general assertion already made of the 
 efficacy of the one accepted oblation, is now sus- 
 tained and corroborated by a reference to the position 
 of Jesus, now resting on the throne of God in heaven, 
 in comparison with the ceaseless sacrificial labour 
 of the earthly priests. There were daily as well as 
 yearly sacrifices. There was a continued ministration 
 which, while its aim was the removal of transgres- 
 sion, could never really take away a single stain. 
 It seemed to give a momentary remedy, but sin, 
 meanwhile, grew on unchecked. The priest must, 
 therefore, labour daily at his profitless vocation, 
 attesting evermore the victory of sin, until some 
 mightier work of cleansing should be done. But 
 Jesus had done this, offering in His own Person the 
 one sacrifice for sins. Because that offering was 
 holy and complete, it compassed the intent for which 
 it had been made ; needing no repetition, since by 
 its intrinsic virtue, it maintains perennial effect. 
 Jesus had risen from His ancient seat of glory to 
 make that offering for sin. Having accomplished it, 
 He has resumed the glory which He laid aside, and 
 now sits in heaven in perpetual rest from that once- 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 265 
 
 finisliecl labour of Eedemption.^ The Father has 
 awarded Him that seat, which He will occupy until 
 His enemies become His footstool (verse 13). The 
 addition of this limitation in the present passage 
 should be attentively observed. At the close of 
 chapter ix., after affirming the purpose of Christ's 
 first coming, he had declared His re-appearance unto 
 salvation as the present hope of them that wait for 
 Him. So likewise now, having settled and assured 
 the brethren's hearts, by showing them the Sponsor 
 of their peace upon the throne of God, he adds this 
 prophetic remembrancer of His second coming to 
 fulfil the residue of those predictions, whose accom- 
 plishment had been postponed, in the order of Divine 
 counsel, to the completion of His sacrificial work. 
 The glories which His Spirit has foretold become the 
 proper object of their hope who know His sufferings 
 to be complete. The results of that amazing work 
 must needs be the near interest of those who, by 
 grace, are called to be partakers of His glory. 
 While their immediate expectation is to be fetched 
 in person by the First-born, who will come to tak 
 His brethren to the promised preparation of His 
 
 5 According to the punctuation adopted in verse 12, the phrase 
 I'lQ TO va]ViKeQ will be construed with ticaOtaev or with Qvaiav. 
 Usage (in this epistle, where alone it occurs in N. T.), suggests the 
 latter construction. On the other hand, "for ever sat down," seems 
 to present a juster antithesis to the "daily standing" of the former 
 priests. It is an apparent contradiction only that is involved in this 
 expression to the doctrine of His second coming. He has ceased for 
 ever from His priestly work of oblation. He will never arise agaLa 
 for such a purpose. But He has other characters to fill beside that 
 of the ]\[aker of atonement. "When the heavens opened on the dying 
 gaze of Stephen, he saw the Son of Man standiyig at God's right hand. 
 (Acts \di.) As He stood there, as if to welcome His martjT to his 
 crowTi of Kfe, so will He return, at the appointed time, in full in- 
 vestment of the kingdom which He has departed to receive. (Luke 
 xix.) 
 
 N 
 
266 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 love,^ they are warned continually that the world in 
 which they tarry still is peopled by His enemies, 
 whose daily provocations will at length bring into 
 sight the Judge of all the earth, who is represented 
 as standing even now before the door. Meanwhile, 
 until that secret time shall come which God has not 
 thought needful to disclose to them that look for 
 Jesus,^ the Son of God remains upon the Father's 
 throne, the blessed Witness to His people that the 
 work of their salvation is complete. For, 
 
 Verse 14. " By one offering He hath perfected^ 
 for ever them that are sanctified." We have seen 
 in a former verse (10), that by the finished will of 
 God, the believing sinner is sanctified. Eternal 
 perfection is now declared to be the moral standing 
 of the worshipper once purged. This joyful assur- 
 ance is a necessary conclusion to the preceding 
 argument. Standing in God's sight exclusively upon 
 the merits of the perfect Sacrifice, the believer has 
 attributed to him, morally and by imputation, the 
 perfection which is the native quality of the sub- 
 stituted Atonement. As is the Saviour in His own 
 most blessed Person, so are the saved with God who 
 has accepted them in Him.^ Perfection is God's 
 will. Its attainment is Christ — in His Person, in 
 His work, and in His people. In affirming here the 
 
 6 John xiv. ; 1 Thess. iv. '' 1 Thess. v. 
 
 8 UsTtki'noKtv. The two ideas of personal acceptahleness and 
 official consecration, are equally conveyed by this word. At the 
 close of chap, vii., it is applied to the Son of God, in relation to His 
 high-priestly perfection as the antitype of Melchisedec, while here 
 it is used as descriptive of the standing of the once purged worship- 
 per. Priestly consecration is an inseparable adjunct of the filial 
 place which we receive as having been made by faith "partakers of 
 Christ." Ante, chap. iii. 14; compare also 1 Pet. ii. 5, and Eev. 
 XX. 6. 9 1 John iv. 17. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 267 
 
 abiding perfection of them that are sanctified by the 
 faith of Christ, the apostle completes the series of 
 contrasts in which he has compared the earthly and 
 the heavenly things. That which was wanting in 
 Moses, is now found in Jesus. In the more perfect 
 tabernacle, and through its perfected High Priest,' 
 there is now presented unto God a perfect wor- 
 shipper. By faith we now draw nigh by reason 
 of the better hope. It is in the conscious complete- 
 ness of His victory, who is their Captain of salvation, 
 that God's ransomed people are exhorted by the 
 Spirit to move onward to their rest. 
 
 But the most obvious deductions from the clearest 
 truths are of slow reception in our hearts, when they 
 tend to the confirmation of the doctrine of unquali- 
 fied and perfect grace. The apostle well knew this. 
 And, therefore, although he had so largely proved to 
 the believer his immunity from sin, by expounding 
 the doctrine of the perfect sacrifice, he turns again 
 to seek another witness to the same ' astonishing and 
 soul -reviving truth. Eecurring to the language of 
 the better Covenant which he had already cited in 
 chap, viii., he solemnly avouches as his witness the 
 Holy Ghost who drew that covenant of promise, and 
 who now, as the Spirit of grace, as well as truth, 
 is the ready witness to the efficacy of that one offer- 
 ing whereby His former promises are now become, to 
 the believer, finished and eternal truths. Accord- 
 ingly, the three verses immediately following (15- 
 17,) contain a partial recital of the covenant, in 
 which emphatic stress is laid on its concluding 
 clause. " For after that He had said," &c. He adds, 
 " and their sins and their iniquities I will remember 
 N 2 
 
268 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 no more." Words no less natural in tlieir connexion 
 than precious in their effect. For how should He 
 who has built His own glory, as a Saviour, upon 
 the tried foundation of His crucified Son, continue 
 to keep in memory the very sins for which the fore- 
 ordained sacrifice had once for all been made ? 
 
 The necessary conclusion is then stated (verse 18). 
 "Now where remission of these is, there is no more 
 offering for sin." The same principle which made 
 repetition indispensable in the former sacrifice, for- 
 bids it in the latter. Eemission follows upon the 
 shedding of acceptable blood. The worshippers 
 having once for all been purged,^ have no more 
 conscience of their sins.^ 
 
 Thus, by considering the doctrine of the better 
 sacrifice, we are enabled to perceive the efficient 
 justification of that wondrous promise which closes 
 the new Covenant of grace. God will no more re- 
 member sins or iniquities which the blood of Christ 
 has washed away. Although a steady contemplation 
 of the cross makes this no longer a hard saying to 
 one who has already brought to God the sacrifice of 
 a broken spirit, and has learned, through grace, that 
 real contrition which leaves no bone of human con- 
 fidence entire,^ yet many a Christian fails to derive 
 from it such an assurance of completed peace as it 
 is meant to convey to the believing soul. The con- 
 sciousness of still indwelling sin may seem to the 
 unestablished saint an irrefragable protest against 
 the assertion in his case of a standing of unspotted 
 purity with God. He knows himself a sinner, and 
 will not rate God's estimate of sin below his own. 
 
 1 "Aira% KtKaedpfiSvoi. 2 Cliap. ix. 22, x. 2. 3 Ps. U. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 269 
 
 This is quite natural as an experimental feeling, but 
 it leads to a conclusion exactly opposite to truth. 
 For while the heart is busied with itself, and infers 
 its standing in the sight of God from its own con- 
 sciousness of evil, God, having seen and judged that 
 evil long before the sinner's birth, and pre-ordained 
 His Lamb to be its full propitiation, is thinking of 
 him under the nev) name which attaches to him as a 
 believing confessor of His Christ. Because of the 
 blood of His atonement, He has forgotten him as a 
 sinner.* He has him in everlasting remembrance as 
 a saint. Faith, which obeys the truth of God, con- 
 sents to this, and is at peace with God through Jesus 
 Christ. It is because of the perfect worthlessness of 
 nature that we are called to walk by faith, and not 
 by sense. " Their sins and their iniquities," says 
 God. What else does He behold in flesh ? But in 
 righteous appreciation of the blood of Jesus, he can 
 say of that for which that offering was made, "I 
 will remember it no more." It were an injury to 
 Jesus to account them sinners still whom He has 
 cleansed from sin. 
 
 The inward conflict between faith and natural 
 experience is sometimes very hard. The reason in 
 most cases is, that the two distinct characters of 
 Saviour and Master, which equally belong to Jesus, 
 are confounded in the weak believer's mind. He is 
 the Saviour of ruined sinners. He is the Teacher 
 
 * This doctrinal position is in no way inconsistent "with, another 
 doctrine of very great practical importance, viz.^ that the dealings of 
 the Father with His children here below are according to their actual 
 condition. He judgeth according to every man's work. (1 Pet. i. 
 17.) But His chastenings are in themselves but tokens of His love. 
 {Infra^ chap, xii.) 
 
270 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 and Exemplar of the saved. It is He who suffered 
 for us, to redeem us from all sin, who has left us 
 an example that we should follow His steps.^ But 
 this is sometimes overlooked. It is not perceived 
 (and to the natural pride of our hearts it is a grate- 
 ful oversight), that before the question of obedient 
 service can be rightly entertained, the previous 
 question of personal standing must be definitively 
 set at rest. For natural obedience is but a pre- 
 sumptuous dream. God in the balance of His holi- 
 ness has weighed the world, and found no grain of 
 goodness in the mass. By nature, therefore, we are 
 children, not of favour, but of wrath. The test of 
 true obedience is submission to the righteousness of 
 God — the obedience of faith. God measures every 
 man with reference to Jesus. Hence, of all who 
 hear the word of life, the character and standing is 
 according to their love or hatred of the truth. 
 Clean, or unclean ; washed, or unwashed ; saints, 
 or sinners ; sons, or straugers ; reconciled, or ene- 
 mies ; in a word, alive, or dead — it is thus that 
 men are viewed of God, and estimated in His word, 
 according as they believe or disbelieve the Gospel 
 of His grace. But that Gospel is the ministry of 
 mercy. The beginning of its message is "remission 
 of sins" to the believing sinner. God preaches 
 peace by Jesus Christ. Through the blood of His 
 one offering of atonement. He proclaims to the un- 
 godly who will trust His sayings rather than their 
 own surmisings,^ both full forgiveness and eternal 
 amnesty of sins. 
 
 It is from the worshipper once purged that God 
 
 5 1 Pet. ii. 6 Rom. iv. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 271 
 
 expects devotion, and it is by the grateful receiver 
 of unqualified forgiveness that genuine service is 
 performed. To live the residue of his allotted days 
 no longer to the lusts of men, but to the will of 
 God, is the vocation of that sinner who, by faith, 
 has seen an end of sin in the vicarious suffering of 
 Christ/ Uncleanness cannot serve the living God. 
 But nothing is clean save that which Christ has 
 purged, nor does any trace of defilement remain in 
 those who, by faith, are presented without spot in 
 Him. The only alternative of 'personal uncleanness 
 is eternal purity in Christ. It is by faith alone that 
 God is pleased. But faith never casts its eye upon 
 the natural man, except to quicken in us a just 
 sense of self - abhorrence. It turns for peace to 
 Jesus. The first object that real faith discerns, 
 when guided by the lioly word of grace, is Christ 
 the Lamb of God ; and thus to look on Him is to 
 be clean. It is the sense of perfect cleanness that 
 makes the thought of God a joy, and not a dread, 
 to the believer. His commandments, therefore, are 
 no longer grievous to the soul that learns Him in 
 the Gospel of His Son. Either defective teaching 
 is to blame, or else there lurks still in the secret 
 of the heart some hard, unbroken core of natural 
 self-righteousness, whenever one who seeks for set- 
 tled and abiding peace has not yet found it in the 
 Doer of Cod's perfect will. 
 
 It is a good and necessary thing that a believer 
 should judge himself. But his ability to do this 
 rightly, arises from his having been, through grace, 
 eternally separated from the things that he is called 
 
 1 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2. 
 
272 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 to judge. His former self is, in the estimate of God 
 (and therefore of faith), a dead and buried thing.® 
 Again, a saint may sin, and so defile his conscience. 
 But the Propitiation of our sins is likewise our 
 Advocate with the Father. To confess sin therefore 
 to the Father, is to receive renewed assurance of 
 forgiveness and restoration, because the unalterable 
 standing of the justified believer is not sin, but 
 righteousness. He is known of God as a saint, and 
 dealt with accordingly. In the twelfth chapter we 
 are reminded of the manner and object of the 
 Father's discipline. Meanwhile, the children have 
 passed from His memory as sinners. A Christian's 
 folly may dim, it is true, or even obliterate, for a 
 time, this blessed conviction from his mind. Having 
 more and more neglected Christ, he may have at last 
 forgotten that he once was purged from his old sins.® 
 But does God forget? He is not, indeed, unmindful 
 of His people's ways; and may employ a cruel 
 messenger to fetch an infatuated soul from paths of 
 frowardness. But it is as possible for God to forget 
 the presence of the Christ, who rests with Him upon 
 His throne, as it is that He should recall to His 
 remembrance the sins which have been once for- 
 given for His sake. 
 
 Verses 19-22. "Having therefore, brethren," &c. 
 Having completely demonstrated the perfection of 
 the believing sinner, by virtue of the finished Sacri- 
 fice, he turns now to address the brethren, who have 
 been thus sanctified and brought nigh to God, with 
 exhortations suited to their new position as accepted 
 worshippers. The nature of their standing having 
 8 Rom. vi. ; Gal. v. 24. ^ 2 Pet. i. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 273 
 
 been defined, a due assertion of its attendant privi- 
 leges on their parts would be the only worthy recog- 
 nition of the grace and mercy which had abounded 
 so amazingly on their behalf That the Sanctifier 
 and the sanctified are all of one, had been affirmed 
 in an earlier part of this epistle, when, in presenting 
 Jesus as their Captain of salvation, he had shown 
 them that their characteristic title of "brethren" 
 expressed a relationship, not only to each other, 
 but to Him who had redeemed them all to God.^ 
 With a common title there is allotted to God's 
 "many sons" a common place. Both priesthood 
 and royalty attach to the peculiar people of His 
 choice.^ 
 
 It is to embolden the believer to draw nigh to 
 God within the holiest, that the intermediate chap- 
 ters have been written. For conscious perfection is 
 the needful pre-requisite for an entrance to that pre- 
 sence, that the Father may be worshipped worthily 
 in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Accordingly, the exhortation to draw near is 
 strengthened by a recapitulation of the doctrine 
 upon which this liberty is based. We have bold- 
 ness to enter within the holiest, first, because the 
 blood of Jesus, which has once for all been shed for 
 sin, has been presented for us in the power of 
 eternal redemption before God. God is thus pre- 
 pared to greet His worshippers with blessing, because 
 of the perfect fulfilment of His will. Secondly, the 
 way of access, w^hich the Holy Gliost had once signi- 
 fied to be fast closed against the carnal worshippers,^ 
 is now declared by the same Spirit to be for ever 
 
 1 Chapter ii. 11. 2 i Pet. ii. 9. 3 Chapter ix. 8. 
 
 N 5 
 
274 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 free to the once-purged brethren of Jesus. A new 
 and living way has now been opened for us. It is 
 by Him who liveth, and ivas dead, that we have 
 boldness to draw nigh. While Jesus lived on earth, 
 He was no open way to God. In His blessed Person 
 He was indeed both the way of access, and the door 
 of safety, to His elect; but the mystic names by 
 which He gave expression to the varied fulness of 
 the grace and truth which were within Him, became 
 an appreciable joy to His disciples only when the 
 mighty work was finished, which was to give effect 
 to all the gracious words which He had said. If He 
 had power as the Son of man to forgive sins upon 
 earth, it was because He had come into the world to 
 die. For without blood- shedding there is no remis- 
 sion. As the only Righteous One, He was, in the 
 perfection of His obedience, a living witness of ex- 
 clusion against those who walked still in the ways of 
 disobedience. He was a witness of what man should 
 be, in His devoted and unceasing service of Jeho- 
 vah's will ; but His advent as the Light was the 
 disclosure of the darkness which, without exception, 
 filled man's natural heart. Exempt from death. He 
 must abide alone ;^ for never might holiness and 
 sin be fellows. But His flesh was as the vail of 
 God. It stood awhile unbroken, while the glory of 
 the God who thus had hid Himself shone brightly, 
 for the eye that knew him, in the words and works 
 of Jesus ; ^ but when He gave that spotless body to 
 the cross for sin, the vail was done away. Instead of 
 a vail of separation, the Lamb is now the manifested 
 mercy-seat. God hides Himself no longer from the 
 
 * John xii. 24. ^ John i. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 275 
 
 gaze of those who, in Christ and by His precious 
 blood, are once for all brought nigh. 
 
 A third inducement to this experimental access is 
 contained in verse 21 : "And having an High Priest 
 over the house of God." AVithout this all the rest 
 would be in vain ; for never should we feel at ease 
 in God's most holy presence, did we not know that 
 He who is the living way of our access thither, is 
 there continually to sustain us in our hope by the 
 power of a constant and effectual intercession. It is 
 by thus contemplating Jesus in the Sanctuary as the 
 great High Priest of our profession, that our faith 
 gains strength to enter boldly where the sense of our 
 personal infirmities would otherwise forbid us to 
 approach. But the consecration of the Son of God 
 was for our sakes, that preparation might be fully 
 made for God's true worshippers to come within His 
 courts with boldness and with joy. 
 . All then is ready in the heavenly places whither 
 Christ is gone. But the worshipper is also fitted for 
 the sanctuary, as we have seen, by the perfection of 
 the one Sin-offering. The suhjective condition of one 
 from whom God will receive acceptable homage is 
 expressed in verse 22. He is invited to draw nigh 
 with a true heart, and with a full assurance of 
 faith.^ i^either of these qualifications could be 
 really possessed by the worshipper under the former 
 Covenant. Sincerity of purpose and fervency of 
 godly desire might be found, and surely were in all 
 
 6 'Ej/ 7r\T]po<l)opig, 7r'i<TTe(og. ^^ Mit volUgem Glmiben." — Db 
 "Wette. "With simple and luihesitating faith, a faith which fills 
 the soul to the exclusion of all doubt, seeing that its object and 
 resting-place is God, who cannot lie. 
 
276 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the godly of the ch'ciimcision ; but being destitute 
 of that faith, which alone has power to purify the 
 heart/ truth could not have its dwelling in their 
 souls. A true heart is a heart in which Christ 
 dwells. For nothing frees the heart from guile but 
 the discovery that God is entirely the sinner's friend ; 
 and in Jesus this is seen and felt. The heart that 
 has been emptied of itself, and filled with Christ, is 
 fit to worship God. That worshipper only has full 
 assurance of faith, who has entirely relinquished 
 every thought of fitness in himself. The personal 
 condition of those who are encouraged to draw nigh 
 is further expressed in the words which follow : 
 "Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con- 
 science, and our bodies washed with pure water." 
 This figurative language expresses the effect upon 
 the true believer's conscience, of the gospel which 
 he has received. It is as a man both dead and risen 
 with Christ, that he has access to the heavenly courts. 
 Knowing, by faith, the value of the blood upon the 
 mercy -seat, he is as if personally sprinkled by that 
 blood, by the Spirit who demonstrates to his con- 
 science the completion of the sacrificial work. Nor 
 is he only enabled thus in heart and understanding 
 to pass within the vail; his locly also is, by virtue 
 of the same great work of propitiation, effectually 
 purified. Once the mere slave and instrument of 
 sin, it has now become yielded as an instrument of 
 righteousness unto God. While "divers washings" 
 left the carnal worshipper impure, the work of 
 grace, whereby the laver of regeneration is effec- 
 tively applied, has cleansed entirely the person of 
 
 7 Acts XV. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 22. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 277 
 
 the saint. His body lias been sanctified for use to 
 God ; though, as yet, unchanged into the fashion 
 which it is to bear. The price of its redemption 
 has been paid. Its transformation to the glorious 
 similitude of Christ is near at hand. Meanwhile, it 
 is to be kept watchfully from all defilement as the 
 pure companion of the blood -cleansed conscience, 
 the full -lighted dwelling of the Holy Spirit of 
 adoption.^ 
 
 The four verses last examined contain, as their 
 great moral principle, that for Christian worship to 
 be 7'eal, faith must be in immediate and active 
 exercise. A Christian in a slumbering state is 
 incapable of acceptable worship while that state 
 remains. For Christian worship is a matter, not of 
 form and visible observance, but of communion 
 with its Objects. Our fellowship is with the Fa- 
 ther, and with Jesus Christ His Son.^ The pure 
 affections and desires of the heart are therefore 
 called into activity, whenever God is w^orshipped 
 truly through the Spirit of adoption. But if watch- 
 fulness and constant exercise of faith are needful to 
 preserve true Christian worship from degenerating 
 into lifeless form, still more apparent is it, that to 
 call on men indiscriminately to worship God, by vir- 
 tue simply of external profession, and to make the 
 semblance of such worship possible by framing 
 ordinances of religion which exact no faith for their 
 most punctual observance, is to depart entirely from 
 the doctrine of worship contained in this epistle. 
 For they Avho are thus exhorted are " holy brethren, 
 
 8 Eph. V. 26 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20 ; Eom. vi. &c. 
 
 9 1 John i. 
 
278 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 partakers of the heavenly calling." By faitli they 
 have already become sanctified to God. They have 
 professed a hope, and enjoyed a confidence in Jesus, 
 which they are exhorted to hold fast. In a word, 
 they are living members of the house of God. The 
 very ground of all the Spirit's exhortations to them 
 is their actual standing of true faith and knowledge 
 (verse 34), which qualified them to appreciate the 
 things of Jesus as their own true portion by the 
 grace of God. 
 
 God is not worshipped by the will of man. The 
 possession of a faultless creed is not enough to 
 change a sinner to a saint. Is othing but living faith 
 can work this change, a faith which is itself the gift 
 of God. A Christian is the workmanship of God, who 
 quickened him, and called him by His grace. But 
 to the believer there is one Spirit and one lody, as 
 well as one faith, one baptism, one Lord, one Father, 
 and one God.^ The presence of the Spirit is the 
 animation of the body. Where there is no true 
 recognition of His Person, there can, of course, be 
 no perception of His presence. AVhere again the 
 doctrine of His Person is viewed rather as a theo- 
 logical abstraction, than as a reality enjoyed by faith, 
 although His gracious energy may work abundantly 
 in individual souls, His active sovereignty, as the 
 vicarious Keeper of the Church,*^ until the re-appear- 
 ing of the Saviour, is practically disallowed.^ Until 
 there is a clear discernment, not merely of a certain 
 indefinite influence, which is allowed, in general, to 
 be exerted upon Christians by the Spirit, but of the 
 doctrine of His living presence, both as the Unction of 
 1 Eph. iv. 2 John xvi. ^ i Qqj., xii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 279 
 
 each several member of Christ's body, and as the 
 effective Guide and Euler of the body in its unity, it 
 is impossible that just ideas as to Christian worship 
 should prevail. Yet nothing surely is of a more 
 practical importance to the Christian, than a right 
 perception and a frank confession of the capital 
 distinction by which the living Church is separated 
 from the dead, though perhaps professing, world/ 
 The present day is one of unbounded pretension, 
 and of enormous evil. The systematic debasement 
 of the truth of God is the most fatal feature of the 
 times. But nothing can altei' truth. God keeps it 
 in His precious record still. And the Spirit, who 
 alone applies its power to the soul, remains in the 
 fulness of Divine sufficiency to the believing re- 
 ceiver of the things of Christ. 
 
 To remind the Christian reader of the rent and 
 spoiled condition of the Church below, may be the 
 necessary duty of a steward who desires to be faith- 
 ful. To call attention to the still unbroken word of 
 truth, is a happier and more cheering task ; for it is 
 to direct the fainting spirit to the pure springs both 
 of comfort and joy. That such confusion as already 
 reigns in the professing body, must be, has been 
 foretold from the beginning ; ^ while that a darker 
 and more hopeless apostasy will yet set in, is the 
 express though mournful witness of the Holy Ghost, 
 when testifying of the latter days.^ But Satan's 
 power, although mighty, is yet limited. All the 
 mischief which the worker of all evil can effect 
 is insufficient to destroy the work of God. The evil 
 
 ^ Jolin xiv. 17 ; 1 Cor. ii. ^ Matt, xviii. ; 1 Cor. xi. 19. 
 
 6 2 Thess. ii. ; 2 Tim. iii. 
 
280 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 wliicli in so many varied forms afflicts and dis- 
 honours the professing Chnrch is suffered to exist, 
 that the precious faith of God's dear children may 
 be tried. It is a painful thing to feel, while writing 
 these remarks, that the assertion of neglected truth 
 will seem to many whom God loves like controversy, 
 rather than a simple exposition of sound doctrine. 
 But it is better to be misjudged of men, than to 
 corrupt the word of God. Love is of God ; and 
 when it speaks, it needs must speak, according to its 
 measure, as a confessor of God's truth. What men 
 at large call charity, is not of God. It is a sentiment 
 which springs from selfishness, and claims a hearing, 
 not for God, but man. Its aim is not the glory of 
 the Lord, but the assertion of men's equal rights. 
 But truth alone will stand, and be commended in 
 the day of God. May the light and glory of their 
 blessed Hope shine more and more distinctly on the 
 path of those who gird their loins to wait for Jesus, 
 with the girdle of God's perfect truth. ^ To return 
 to our more immediate subject. 
 
 Yerse 23. "Let us hold fast the profession of our 
 hope,"^ &c. The hope of the believer is according to 
 the promises of God. The ground and reason upon 
 which his future hope is based, is his acceptance of 
 the gospel as the present truth of God. It is the 
 consciousness of justification that makes glory a 
 near and certain prospect to the saint. The Hebrew 
 believers had professed a hope of entrance into the 
 rest which had been opened to them by the blood of 
 Jesus. They are exhorted now to hold it fast. For 
 
 7 Eph. vi. 14; 1 Pet. i. 13. 
 
 8 IfiQ IXTTiSog. It is hard to account for the mistranslation of 
 this word in the E. V. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 281 
 
 God, who had promised, was both faithful and able 
 to perform. The Lamb, who had redeemed them, 
 would shortly be revealed in glory to fulfil the 
 pledged assurance which He gave while yet on earth. 
 In confessing Jesus as the Son of God, they became 
 partakers of a hope which would not make ashamed. 
 For its fruition was dependent, not on their faithful- 
 ness, but on that of God. He would not deny 
 Himself, although their faith might be but weak. 
 Moreover, it was no new expectation that they now 
 professed, although it might have lately dawned on 
 some of them. God had designed it for His people, 
 and had promised it in Christ before the w^orld 
 began.^ In the knowledge of the finished sacrifice, 
 they had a certain evidence that He had verified His 
 word. In Christ they knew that all His promises 
 were yea and amen, that the God of promise might 
 be glorified in them. 
 
 Faith is the warranty of hope. According to the 
 strength and simplicity of the former, will be the 
 steadiness and near distinctness of the last. But 
 faith is an active principle; and, when in exercise, 
 produces works which God accepts as good. Faith, 
 as a special gift, may lift a mountain, while fervent 
 charity is a stranger to the heart. ^ Yet the natural 
 offspring of that faith which looks upon the love of 
 God in Christ, is love. We love Him who has first 
 loved us. And if we love the Father, we cannot 
 hate the children that are born of Him.^ Brotherly 
 love, as a living principle, is but another name for 
 the new life w^hich is in every believer.^ But it is 
 
 9 Tit. i. 2; 2 Tim. i. 9. ^ 1 Cor, x\\i. 
 
 2 1 John V. 1. 8 1 John iii. 14. 
 
282 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 not without watchfulness and self-denial that this 
 most excellent* way is kept. Having therefore, been 
 exhorted to consider the Apostle and High Priest of 
 their profession, that their faith and hope may stand, 
 the holy brethren are now called on to consider one 
 another in the fellowship of their common hope, with 
 a view to their mutual provocation both to love and 
 to good works (verse 24). Having put off carnal 
 emulation in the blessed realization of their new 
 and heavenly calling, they are in its place to put on 
 charity, w^hich is the bond of perfectness. They are 
 encouraged now to vie with one another in further- 
 ing the common interests and happiness of that 
 house, which is the Lord's. They belonged to one 
 another, and they were to exemplify that truth, not 
 grudgingly, but with a real appreciation of its 
 blessedness. They were fellow -servants also of the 
 same most gracious Lord. Their devotedness to 
 Him would be best shown by their endeavouring to 
 imitate, in their communications with each other, 
 the manner of the love with which the Master 
 loved them all.^ 
 
 Nor were the gracious activities of personal cha- 
 rity to be their only care. It is in the assemUies of 
 His saints that God is more abundantly glorified, 
 when the once -purged worshippers present, with 
 unity of mind and voice, their adoration to the 
 Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.'' By assembling 
 together, they acknowledged openly their common 
 hope before the world, as well as to each other. A 
 
 ^ Ka< tTi K a 9' VTTspjSoXijv odbv vyXv dsiKVVjjii. (1 Cor. 
 xii. 31.) 
 
 5 John XV. 12; Phil. ii. 1-5. 6 Rom. xv. 6. 
 
XOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 283 
 
 sense of personal weakness, or unworthiness, is no 
 just obstruction to such meetings; for not only is 
 the "Lord the Spirit present with His people to the 
 end, but in the priestly ministry of Jesus there 
 exists a gracious and adequate provision for the 
 faultiness and poverty of corporate, no less than 
 private worship. As the Minister of God's true 
 sanctuary, He delights to offer, in the acceptable 
 fragrance of His own perfections, the prayers and 
 praises of His people here below. He bears the 
 iniquity of their holy things. But from the begin- 
 ning of the Gospel, impediments to genuine social 
 worship have abounded. Satan abhors it, and has 
 not ceased to labour for the hindrance, and, if pos- 
 sible, the prevention, of a practice which, when 
 faithfully observed, affords the most effective testi- 
 mony to the truth which he desires to destroy.'^ 
 The chief practical obstacle to Christian fellowship 
 is natural selfishness. While our thoughts are upon 
 heavenly things, and our hearts are filled with Him 
 who is the substance of our promised hope, we are 
 disposed instinctively for fellowship with those who 
 are partakers of like precious faith. But because 
 spiritual worship is a thing of faith alone, the 
 counteractive working of the natural will is at all 
 times ready to weaken and degrade it. A true sense 
 of common danger, as well as of common blessing, 
 draws together those whose desire is toward the 
 living God. A right estimation of their personal 
 nothingness, as well as of their practical faultiness, 
 when combined with simple trust in Jesus, impels 
 the sheep who know His voice to flow together to 
 
 '^ John xvii. 21 : 1 Cor. xiv. 23-25. 
 
284 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 their appointed place of safety and refreshment.® 
 But when faith, through lack of exercise, becomes 
 enfeebled, and human motives, as a natural conse- 
 quence, begin again to govern the believer in his 
 ways, he will have less interest in these demon- 
 strative expressions of the common joy. Pretexts 
 might easily suggest themselves to one who only 
 looked to Jesus as his ultimate escape from wrath, 
 or thought only of his individual blessing as an 
 heir of grace, of weight enough to justify him in a 
 more private and exclusive walk. This was early 
 exemplified in the Church of God. Already a sys- 
 tematic absence from all social worship was the 
 manner of some (verse 25). 
 
 Nothing, however, but danger to themselves, as 
 well as dishonour to the Lord, could come of this. 
 It was an evil thing to sever practically what God 
 had joined, in wisdom as well as mercy. They 
 needed one another. The hope which lived within 
 them as a new-born thing, amid the inveterate and 
 hostile tendencies of their old nature, had need of 
 nourishment and cheer. The path of pilgrimage 
 was dangerous, and they were committed to each 
 other's keeping by the way. The feeble-minded 
 had a brother's claim upon the stronger and more 
 settled saint, who, in his turn, where God was duly 
 owned, might derive fresh vigour from a seasonable 
 word of doctrine. All stood in need of helpful 
 exhortation. None more so than they who, from 
 what motive soever, proved habitually wanting to 
 the social assemblies of the saints. Those who kept 
 in memory the nature of their calling, and saw in 
 
 8 Matt, xviii. 20. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 285 
 
 eacli succeeding sun a token of the coming day, 
 would feel increasingly, as that day drew on, the 
 need of wakening each others expectation, and of 
 preparing one another to behold the Saviour's face 
 without one feeling of regret. To please Him was 
 their present opportunity. To be found of Him in 
 peace, should be their one desire.^ 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the most emphatic 
 exhortations to Christian fellowship are always found 
 in immediate connexion with the doctrine of the 
 second advent. The present verse is an example of 
 this. In the epistles to the Thessalonians, which 
 abound with exhortations to mutual edification, the 
 same characteristic feature is strikingly apparent. 
 In Jude's brief but pregnant letter to the saints, 
 when already that apostasy, whose moral features 
 and whose ready doom he so vividly describes, had 
 begun to discover itself within the professing body, 
 we find the same connexion. They who looked with 
 longing for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal 
 life, are urged to build up one another upon their 
 most holy faith, &c. This last instance is one of 
 especial comfort, as it seems to indicate that, let 
 Satan rage as he will, and seem to triumph as he 
 may, there never can arrive a time, till Christ 
 Himself returns, when Christians will find them- 
 selves unable, if obedient, to assemble for acceptable 
 worship in His name. 
 
 Verses 26-31. "For if we sin wilfully," &c. 
 Christian fellowship is one of God's instrumental 
 preservatives against relapse from Christ. The con- 
 nexion, therefore, is obvious between the exhortation 
 
 9 2 Pet. iii. 14. 
 
286 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 delivered in the foregoing verses, and the solemn 
 word of warning which is here presented. For a 
 voluntary discontinuance of social worship is a re- 
 nunciation practically, of one of the appointed 
 means of spiritual growth and progress. Forsaking 
 one another is a step towards forsaking Jesus. The 
 foundation of tlie present warning is the very full 
 statement and demonstration of gospel grace which 
 has been previously delivered, nor is their connexion 
 difficult to apprehend. The condition of a purged 
 worshipper is purity and sanctification in the sight 
 of God. It is by the faith of the Son of God that 
 this condition is attained. The believing sinner is 
 become the righteousness of God in Christ. On the 
 other hand, a departure from the faith is a return to 
 the former state of sin, with the additional and 
 irremediable condemnation of deliberate apostasy 
 from Christ. The wilful sin which is here so fear- 
 fully denounced, is a dereliction of that doctrine 
 which alone is our deliverance from sin. If, after 
 receiving the knowledge of the truth, the grace of 
 God is turned advisedly to lasciviousness ; if in- 
 spired truth is given up for fables, and the wisdom 
 of the just abandoned finally in favour of philosophy 
 and vain deceit ; or if, by a gradual hardening of 
 heart, that grace, becoming daily less esteemed, 
 is ultimately disallowed; and human works are, 
 after trial made of Christ, preferred by the self- 
 righteous dreamer to the blood which makes atone- 
 ment for the soul, — the case is hopeless : for if the 
 Lamb of God is disallowed, "there remaineth no 
 more sacrifice for sin." 
 
 Through the craft of Satan men may, for the 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 287 
 
 moment, be deceived and lured away from truth. 
 Through the witchery of specious, though most false 
 persuasion, they may gradually lose the conscious 
 liberty of Christ. Instead of speaking of their 
 blessedness in Him, they may be biting and devour- 
 ing one another in the madness of a carnal emulation. 
 They may thus have practically fallen from grace, 
 until the faithful hand of the Eestorer is put forth 
 to break the snare, and lead them back again to the 
 enjoyment of a blessing which they never wittingly 
 abandoned, but from which they were enticed away.^ 
 But when truth is preached, to turn away from 
 truth — to choose a fable rather than the word of 
 grace — no longer desiring the will of God, to seek 
 their teachers at the bidding of their lusts, because 
 sound doctrine is become intolerable, — is to give 
 evidence of a willing preference of sin to Christ. 
 To such, salvation is no prospect. For they shut 
 out hope when they give up the Lord. There 
 remains no other gospel, if the Spirit's witness be 
 refused. There is no other Jesus^ than the Son of 
 God. There remains no further sacrifice for sins 
 (verse 26). But in place of this there is a present 
 condemnation by the word of holiness, and an exe- 
 cution of that judgment, when the Lord shall come, 
 which is declared to be the fearful alternative of 
 justifying faith.^ When He shall presently appear 
 
 1 Gal. passim. 2 Matt. i. 21. 
 
 ^'Ei:doxr]. "Looking for," does not well express the apostle's 
 meaning ; indeed, as Alford has jxistly noticed, it is hardly an admis- 
 sihle translation of the terra, which rather signifies "reception." 
 It is not the subjective consciousness of an apostate that he is 
 here intimating, nor even the solemn anticipations of those who, 
 themselves secure in Chi'ist, yet regard with a wondering and com- 
 passionate abhorrence the infatuation of the wicked (Ps. cxix. 53 ; 
 
288 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 without sin to salvation, to them who in the day of 
 patience have fed their souls upon His flesh and 
 blood, He will be known in righteous and unsparing 
 vengeance by the sinners who forsake their own 
 mercies for the love of lying vanities. Fiery indig- 
 nation is reserved for them, who, because they will 
 not be the friends of Jesus now, must meet Him as 
 an adversary in the day of wrath (verse 27). 
 
 In the two following verses (28, 29), we have a 
 plain elucidation of the nature of this wilful sin. 
 It is the characteristic sin of the dispensation, and 
 is contrasted in its nature and results with what was 
 exemplified under the former covenant of works. 
 Merciless death was the immediate recompence of 
 the transgressor who despised the law of Moses.* A 
 sorer punishment than man's hand can inflict is 
 reserved among the treasures of God's wrath for the 
 despiser of His Christ. There is a resurrection of 
 judgment to the man who in his lifetime treads upon 
 the Son of God. Two or three witnesses sufficed 
 for the conviction of the rebellious breaker of the 
 Law. The name which he had once confessed ; the 
 blood which, having for a while esteemed it pre- 
 cious, he has treated as a common thing, no more 
 discerning in it the holy sanction of God's Covenant 
 of peace ; and the Spirit, whom, as the patient 
 Messenger of boundless grace, he has insulted and 
 disowned, when space was given to repent — will 
 overwhelm, by their decisive testimony, the man 
 
 2 Cor. V. 11), but rather the solemn assurance that God's threatenings 
 of judgment are no empty sound, that what men have voluntarily- 
 earned by a repudiation of His grace, they will assuredly receive in 
 that fearful and decisive day. 
 
 * See the remarks already made on chap. ii. 2, 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 289 
 
 who, in the present day of mercy, forsakes the Gos- 
 pel of the grace of God, to find a more congenial 
 portion in the world. 
 
 It is certain that no soul that God has quickened 
 unto life eternal, can ever abdicate its title of salva- 
 tion by a deliberate repudiation of the cross. The 
 power which hegets the children is pledged also to 
 their eternal preservation. No sheep of Christ will 
 ever perish, because He is competent to save His 
 flock. Nor is it possible that one alive to God 
 should ever heartily despise His grace. Yet is it 
 well that warning should be added to instruction ; 
 for it is thus that our feet keep practically the sure 
 ways of life. No Christian is exempt from the 
 danger of a large departure from the truth of God, 
 although he is kept from drawing back unto per- 
 dition by the faithfulness of Him who has appointed 
 him to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ.^ If faith 
 and patience be not kept in exercise by a continual 
 minding of the things of Christ, it will soon be for- 
 gotten by the negligent believer, that the friendship 
 of the world is enmity with God. God's Holy 
 Spirit will be grieved in those whom He has sealed, 
 if He be not hearkened to with diligence as the 
 alone safe Conductor of the children through the 
 present evil world. 
 
 This passage, therefore, like the one of similar 
 drift already noticed,^ is a word of stern yet neces- 
 sary warning to the saint. Like that, too, it is a 
 prophetic protraiture of the conduct and eventual 
 destiny of those whose knowledge of the truth is 
 not in power, but in word alone. Departure from 
 4 1 Thess. V. 9. s chap. vi. 4-8. 
 
 o 
 
290 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the faith, and, therefore, enmity against the cross of 
 Christ,^ may reach a fatal and irremediable pitch, 
 while outwardly His name is not denied. Nay, the 
 most bitter execration of God's saving tmth has 
 proceeded from the very men who claimed to be the 
 keepers of the faith of God's elect.'^ In our own 
 eventful times, two opposite phases of the same 
 apostasy are manifest. We see men, on the one 
 hand, giving up sound doctrine to return to the 
 lying delusions of a former age, and seeking with 
 ostentatious pretensions of authority to impose mere 
 liuman traditions upon the flock of God. On the 
 other hand, there is a far-prevailing spirit of natural 
 presumption which derides the fundamental doc- 
 trines of salvation, while the sanction of the name 
 of Christ is claimed without misgiving for the ways 
 and works of an unregenerate world. Christ's pre- 
 cious blood is desecrated indeed, when all that men 
 discover in the Gospel of God's grace is a freer and 
 safer license for the human mind and will. Chris- 
 tian profession, if it be not coupled with the love of 
 Jesus, is but a "swelling word" which prefaces the 
 sure destruction of those who dream of concord 
 between Christ and Belial, and strive to make the 
 Spirit's things a nourishment and comfort to the 
 flesh.^ 
 
 The peculiar application of such warnings as 
 
 6 Phil. iii. 18, 19. 
 
 ^ Most readers are acquainted with the canons of the Council of 
 Trent relating to justification. Nor is the philosophising form of 
 infidelity at all more tolerant of truth than that which has already 
 di-unk so deeply of the blood of God's saints, under the falsely 
 assumed title of the Holy Catholic Church. The Beast that hates 
 the whore becomes the final adversary of the Lamb. (Rev. xvii. 
 14-16.) ^ 2 Pet. ii.; iudiQ passim. 
 
 I 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 291 
 
 the present to believing Hehreivs has been already 
 noticed at an earlier page. It bears with equal 
 urgency upon us at the present day, when the true 
 heirs of the kingdom are but an exceptive remnant, 
 variously dispersed among those masses of external 
 profession which, within the sphere of modern civi- 
 lization, constitute the vjorld. There is no terror in 
 such passages for those who judge themselves, and 
 with a consciousness of utter personal unworthiness 
 rejoice in Jesus as their sure salvation. When 
 Christians feel alarmed at the perusal of such words, 
 it is a proof that, in their case at least, the word of 
 warning is no empty sound. It is not upon them 
 that tremble at the Word of God that the weight of 
 coming wrath will fall. For the heart that mourns 
 with sore amazement at the contemplation of its 
 own unprofitableness, is in no mood to spurn the 
 ministry of grace, or count the blood of Christ a 
 common thing ; none but the impenitent scorners 
 of mercy will experience the fearful alternative of 
 unsparing judgment. With respect to the difficulty 
 which may be felt in comparing verse 29 with the 
 earlier part of the chapter, in which sanctificatiou 
 by the blood of Christ is affirmed to be of an 
 eternal efficacy, it is the common habit of the Spirit 
 of God to describe apostates according to their 
 primari/ pretensions. It is thus that their guilt is so 
 fearfully aggravated. A Christian really, that is, a 
 believer, is sanctified eternally in Christ. A false 
 professor claims to be the same, by his profession. 
 But the Lord, who reads the heart, knows well the 
 people that are His. He is not mocked by words. 
 But He is a Tower of eternal refuge to the believing 
 o 2 
 
292 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 sinner, who esteems His name a better treasure 
 than the riches of the world. 
 
 Two quotations are added from the book of Deu- 
 teronomy^ in confirmation of the doctrine of a 
 special judgment on the gainsay er and the apostate 
 (verse 30).^ The Lord will judge His 'peoyU. He 
 stands already before the door in readiness to visit 
 the "great house" of His profession- and deal with 
 it in uprightness according to its state. To fall into 
 the hands of the living God, when He comes armed 
 for vengeance to destroy His adversaries, is, indeed, a 
 fearful thing (verse 31). It will not be thus with 
 them who now, with a full sense of their own weak- 
 ness, know by faith the power of that hand to keep 
 them fast for ever.^ The living God is the desire of 
 His children. Their faces are towards His taber- 
 nacles. There may be fainting, and many a harmful 
 digression by the way. But every one of those 
 whom He has taught to build their souls on Jesus 
 will surely see His face in rest with everlasting joy.* 
 
 Verses 32-34. This repetition, in the course of 
 one epistle, of such searching admonitions, is a plain 
 indication that the brethren whom he addressed had 
 lost a portion of their early love. As in the case 
 of the bewitched Galatians, they had become unlike 
 tlieir former selves. Highly probable it is, that in 
 both these instances a common evil was at work; 
 that legalism, namely, had been gradually regaining 
 
 9 Chapter xxxii. 35, 36. 
 
 1 It is an interesting fact, (in its bearing on the question of author- 
 ship) that, the words i\ioi iKSiKrjcnQj eyu) dvTawodwau), although not 
 strictly representing either the Hebrew text nor the lxx., are identical 
 with the similar quotation by the apostle in Rom. xii. 19. 
 
 s 2 Tim. ii. 20. 3 John x. 28, 29; 1 Pet. i. 5. * pg. Ixxxiv. 7. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 293 
 
 an ascendency, and, as a necessary consequence, the 
 efficient springs of personal blessedness and of holy 
 service were fast becoming dry. It was needful, 
 then, to waken them from this their dream, and, 
 by leading them to view again the goodly bless- 
 ings of their heavenly inheritance, to restore them to 
 themselves. They were no traitors to the Lord, 
 though one who watched for their souls' peace might 
 deem loud warnings needful when an enemy both 
 powerful and crafty was at hand. They had proved 
 themselves true soldiers, both by personal endurance 
 of the afflictions of the Gospel, and by willing 
 fellowship with them who bore reproaches for the 
 name of Christ. They had not shunned the Lord's 
 poor prisoners^ (verse 34), but had tenderly remem- 
 bered them, and sought them out. They had more- 
 over lost without a murmur, nay, with joy, many of 
 the things which men most dearly prize, for the firm 
 and rich persuasion that the love of Christ had won 
 for them in heaven a better and a more enduring 
 substance. 
 
 Their former conversation had been worthy of 
 the gospel. In all they did and suffered then, 
 the moving spirit was hopeful confidence in Jesus. 
 They are exhorted now to continue in that trust 
 (verse 35). For Jesus does not change. If, on com- 
 paring their first love and its effects with the 
 diminished zeal which since had made the heart of 
 the apostle sad, they felt disposed to call their own 
 sincerity in question, they were wrong. What they 
 
 5 There seems but little authority for the E. V., " Ye had compas- 
 sion on me in my bonds." All the modem recensions of any weight 
 read toIq dtCfxioiQ instead of toIq Stff/xolg fiov. 
 
294 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 did formerly was rightly done ; and God was not 
 unrighteous to forget their work. Self -judgment, 
 which destroys all false and hollow confidences, is 
 a work of the same Spirit who, as the Comforter, 
 builds up the contrite soul in Jesus. They must 
 not, therefore, cast away their confidence; because 
 the trust which they had once reposed in their 
 Kedeemer He was faithful to preserve. They did 
 not doubt His love when at the first they boldly 
 took His name. They knew then that the heavenly 
 inheritance was no delusion. Still less should they 
 relinquish noiv that blessed hope. Their confidence, 
 held firmly fast, would bring them soon great recom- 
 pence of reward. 
 
 Verse 36. Still they had need of patience. For 
 the time was not yet come for God to put them in 
 possession of the promise. They would bear away^ 
 triumphantly the prize of their high calling when 
 once the Master should appear. Meanwhile, their 
 calling was to do the will of God. Jesus had done 
 it once, and perfectly, on their behalf; and now, in 
 the confession of His name, they were to seek to 
 follow in His steps. They were partakers of the 
 heavenly calling. They had, therefore, done with 
 earthly prospects, and the vain pursuits of men; 
 their calling was to "occupy" for Christ till He 
 should come. Moreover, the close of their brief day 
 of patience was at hand. It might be difficult, while 
 looking on the living scene of actual human pro- 
 gress, to realize the distance from the former things 
 
 ^"\va . . . . K0[xi(Tr}cr9s Ttjv lirayytKiav. The promises 
 are already the believer's inheritance. What is here intended is the 
 eventual attainment of that glory which is "the hope of righteous- 
 ness," at the second coming of the Saviour. (Comp. Gal. v. 5.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 295 
 
 to which they were transported by the resurrection 
 of the Lord. But a single glance toward the cross 
 of the rejected One, would make them feel that 
 strangership and pilgrimage must needs be their 
 experience while remaining in a world of sin from 
 which that cross alone had set them free.'^ 
 
 !N'or are .His people always to desire His appear- 
 ing. He will come. It is but yet a very little 
 while, and He whose present title is "the Comer," 
 will arrive^ (verse 37). Let the reader carefully 
 remark the frequent recurrence of this promise. 
 Its non-fulfilment had begun (even so early as the 
 date of this epistle) to tell injuriously on the minds 
 of some. For faintness comes naturally, when hope 
 is long deferred. From the first announcement of 
 the message of salvation, the Comforter had spoken 
 to the Churches of the Lord's return ; and while 
 truth was freshly tasted in their hearts, believers 
 looked for Jesus daily, as the certain, though in- 
 definite fulfilment of their hope. But a delay had 
 been experienced which, while it served to try both 
 faith and patience, gave opportunity of revival to 
 
 7 Gal. i. 4. 
 
 9 "En ydp fiiKpbv ocrov ocroVj 6 £p%6/i£vof ij^si. k. X. 
 This passag:.', though not an exact quotation from any part of Scrip- 
 ture, is evidently an accommodation of Habak. ii. 3, to which, in the 
 Lxx. it bears a near resemblance. And it is interesting to notice the 
 change in the tone of the same Spirit's testimony, while speaking 
 through an apostle of Christ, when compared with His previous utter- 
 ance as the Spirit of prophecy. What to Habakkuk was a vision, is 
 to Paul a living Person, the beloved and wished-for object of his 
 saving faith. The force of the former words is peculiar. ^^ Noch 
 ein klein wenig" says De Wette. It is the way of the Spirit always 
 to place the second coming of the Saviour as an immediate object 
 before our hope, though the extension of His long-suffering may 
 cause departure to be with Christ, to be the portion of many who 
 had hoped to greet Him in their living bodies when He came. They 
 who thus sleep in Jesus will not be behind their living brethren, in 
 that day. (1 Thess. iv. 14-16.) 
 
296 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 natural feelings and propensities. They found, by 
 experience, that Jesus tarried still. The certain 
 effect of a prolonged continuance of this experience 
 would be to tempt them gradually to cease to look 
 for His appearing, as a present hope. The ordinary 
 term of human life would naturally be regarded as 
 the set time of their earthly patience, if, instead of 
 looking at the things which are eternal and unseen, 
 they once began to walk by sight. But the power 
 of their outward testimony, as well as the spiritual 
 well-being of their own souls, would suffer griev- 
 ously from such a change in their confessed position 
 in the world. Not to become entangled in the 
 common course of human things when the absence 
 of the Lord began to be reckoned on indefinitely, 
 was impossible. They would walk as men in pro- 
 portion as they tliouglit as men. 
 
 How far the operation of this principle has tended 
 to the debasement and spiritual ruin of the pro- 
 fessing body is an inquiry which, by God's great 
 mercy, has awakened some attention among Chris- 
 tians in these latter times. "With an unexampled 
 progress in the works of man, and amid still bolder 
 anticipations of securing, by means of human effort, 
 that peace and safety which are truly attainable in 
 Christ alone, there has arisen, among the generation 
 of God's children, some faint revival of the true hope 
 of the Church. The wrath of the enemy has raged, 
 and rages still, against the assertion of a doctrine 
 which refuses all foundation to the magnificent delu- 
 sions of a Christless hope. That brighter and better 
 times are setting in upon the world, and that human 
 energies are destined to effect the ultimate diffusion 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 297 
 
 of a general happiness, is the presumptuous imagi- 
 nation of those, who, while professing to believe the 
 Scriptures, remain still in willing ignorance that "the 
 end of all things is at hand." On the other hand, 
 the father of deceit has not been forgetful, that the 
 surest way to damp a faithful testimony is to make 
 its own witnesses appear as its destroyers. This 
 has been largely instanced in the present day. Men 
 who have looked for events, and noted times and 
 seasons, in ignorance or forgetfulness that the breth- 
 ren of Jesus have no need of these to guide them 
 in their expectation of the Lord,^ have been con- 
 tinually (often, doubtless, with far different aim) 
 weakening the moral effect of the Spirit's testimony 
 on the conscience, by venturous predictions, which 
 the event has never failed to falsify. The coming of 
 Jesus for His saints is not determinable hy human 
 commutations. It is not by such methods that the 
 Spirit brings the children nearer to their hope. 
 Besting in One who cannot lie, they are taught to 
 wait patiently for Him; remembering that the fit 
 time for His appearing is avowedly reserved among 
 the secrets not yet published in the word.^ It is a 
 living Hope to which the abundant mercy of the 
 Father hath begotten us, and it is by faith, and not 
 by mental effort, that our hearts are kept in con- 
 scious proximity to the end of their desire.^ The 
 sad effect upon the public conscience of rash and 
 unscriptural declarations, in connexion with this 
 doctrine, is easily perceived. A few more false 
 alarms, and scoffers only will appear to speak the 
 words of truth and soberness, when they chide the 
 
 9 1 Thess. iv. v. i Mark xiii. 32 ; Acts i. 7. 
 o 5 
 
298 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 world's misgivings by appealing to that ancient 
 steadfastness of nature, whicli cannot be shaken 
 by prophetic words.^ 
 
 That "God has forgotten," is an expression of 
 men's wishes "* rather than of their convictions. To 
 put them in remembrance of His unchanged pur- 
 pose, and to advise the sinner of a nearer inter- 
 ruption to his guilty ease than that last " day of 
 judgment," which the incredulous world has learned 
 to esteem as little better than a metaphor of endless 
 postponement, is the responsibility of those whose 
 shining in the world is in the power of a faithful 
 confession of the truth.^ But the urgency of Gospel 
 testimony will much depend on the habitual con- 
 dition of the soul's affections. Men, who are look- 
 ing for the Saviour as an instant hope, are likely 
 to give yet more diligence to gather in the residue 
 of those who are to see His face with joy at His 
 appearing. Moreover, the immediate prospect of the 
 Lord will surely stir up charity within the house. 
 But as a doctrine, it is powerless, without activity 
 of faith. When merely added to the list of other 
 "views," which a lethargic Christian may have in- 
 dolently added to his saving faith in Jesus, while 
 his heart is still entangled in the world, the doctrine 
 of the second advent is but a badge of shame. To 
 be looking truly for the Saviour can never be com- 
 patible with the pursuit of earthly things. The 
 world is well aware of this, and bitterly derides 
 
 3 2 Pet. iii. 4. 
 
 4 Ps. X. 11. Such language may be also found, sometimes as an 
 expression of weak and faulty surmising on the lips of God's own 
 people under trial. (Ps. Ixxvii. 9.) 
 
 5 Phil. ii. 15, 16. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 299 
 
 the inconsistency which glares, alas ! so strikingly 
 through our outward protestations. Of all the 
 things of Jesus which the Comforter reveals to us, 
 none is more precious than the promise of His 
 swift return ; yet none is more easily let slip. Un- 
 doubtedly, our keenness of desire will be according 
 to our readiness of conscious access to the things 
 within the vail. But it is by faith alone that this 
 can be maintained ; and so his present exhortation 
 closes with a remembrancer to this effect. 
 
 Verses 38, 39. "Now the just shall live by 
 faith," &c. It is by faith that sinners consciously 
 become alive to God as righteous men. The former 
 part of this quotation*' is more than once elsewhere 
 cited by the Spirit as a conclusive witness to the 
 doctrine of justification by faith alone."^ But its 
 present application is to the believer's course and 
 conduct in the day of patience. The just man lives 
 his daily life by the faith of the Son of God.^ God's 
 pleasure is in those who realize, as the apostle did, 
 that they are crucified indeed with Christ ; that if 
 they live now in the flesh, it is no longer they, but 
 Christ. But while we are called upon to emulate 
 his faith, how far behind in that fair race may we 
 have dropped ? There is a day at hand when every 
 saint who has wittingly drawn back and shunned 
 the cross will have his recompence. The Lord will 
 take no pleasure in the ways or service of a double- 
 
 6 The passage in the text is a quotation, in inverted order, of the 
 Septuagint translation of Hab. ii. 4. The object of the Spirit in 
 here transposing the clauses of this verse seems to have been to add 
 still greater force to the strong practical exhortation which He thus 
 conckides. Profession of faith was no security against subsequent 
 apostasy. Faith, that was really such, because it looked to Jesus, 
 saved the soul. ^ Hom. i. 17 ; Gal. iii. 11. s (jal. ii. 20. 
 
300 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 minded man. But while many a Christian may 
 draw back through faintness, in the day of battle, 
 and forfeit thus the special honour which the Trier 
 of His servants' hearts will only give to such as He 
 approves, no saint, whatever his degree of weakness 
 or unfaithfulness, can ever heartily renounce the 
 Lord, or fail to inherit that salvation which is God's 
 free gift by Him. 
 
 While, therefore, he stirs up their diligence, and 
 warns their natural selfishness, by reminding them 
 that it is only in the willing servant that the Master 
 finds His joy, he adds, immediately, a general assur- 
 ance of their common salvation, in which he joins 
 his hope with theirs. " We are not of them who 
 draw back tmto perdition; but of them that believe 
 to the saving of the soul." There was that within 
 their hearts which would attest his words. They 
 did believe. And, although their trial might appear 
 protracted, and they had need of patience, since 
 time seems to move on leaden wings when danger 
 and temptation are on every side, yet they would 
 cleave still to Jesus. The Spirit who had measured 
 well the interval which kept Him from their sight, 
 had called it but a very little space. Believing now 
 on Him who had gone into heaven for their sakes, 
 they would await the moment when He shall be 
 seen of them that look for Him, without sin, to 
 fulfil salvation to the utmost promise of His truth. 
 May we, for whom "these last times" are so near 
 run out, be found, not among them that draw back 
 from the yoke, but watching, with girded loins, until 
 He come ! 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 301 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 At the close of the preceding chapter, to be "of 
 faith," has been affirmed to be a vital distinction of 
 the heirs of salvation in the world which God has 
 judged. By faith the Hebrew election knew that 
 they were " holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly 
 calling." The blessings which belong to such a 
 calling have been largely reviewed in the former 
 part of this Epistle. God's peace was theirs by 
 Jesus Christ. His presence was thrown open to the 
 freest access of their hearts. For all the personal 
 disabilities which distressed them here, they knew 
 a more abundant compensation in the faithful minis- 
 try of God's High Priest. With a joy that is un- 
 speakable and full of glory, the hearts which He 
 had sprinkled from an evil conscience are now 
 invited to rejoice in Him. Before them there is set 
 in present view their Blessed Hope. Not knowing 
 at what moment the brightness of Christ's glory 
 may appear, they are exhorted patiently to do the 
 will of God until He come. To strengthen them 
 to run on patiently towards the goal of promise, 
 by reminding them of those who had gone before 
 them in that race, is the gracious purpose of the 
 
302 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Spirit in the richly -varied portraiture of active 
 faith which fills the present chapter. For, as be- 
 lievers, they were morally a part of that unbroken 
 family which God has always had and owned. ^ 
 In their actual standing, indeed, they widely differed 
 from the fathers who obtained a good report. But 
 the truth whose riper glory now displays itself in 
 finished blessedness to the partakers of the heavenly 
 calling, was the real though distant object of the 
 former faith. Because of God's unaccomplished pro- 
 mises, the fathers walked with God. In the power of 
 those exceeding great and precious promises which 
 already are our own in Christ, tve now are to be 
 made partakers of His nature who has called us out 
 of darkness into His own most wondrous light." 
 
 That faith alone exemplifies obedience, and reaps 
 eternal life as its reward, is the moral principle 
 which here receives so manifold an illustration. The 
 chapter opens with a sort of definition of this sole 
 effective instrument of human blessing, which puts 
 it in a lively contrast to mere credence or assent. 
 It is " a solid assurance of things hoped for, a proof 
 or conviction of invisible things"^ (verse 1). Faith 
 is exactly contrary to natural perception, even as its 
 objects are beyond the pale of human experience. 
 They are defined as realities only by the word of 
 God. The specifications of Divine promise picture 
 forth to the believer an exact expression of the 
 
 1 Rom. ix. 8. 2 2 Pet. i.; 2 Cor. vii. 1. 
 
 3 tXTriZofisvujv vTroaraaiQ, Tr/oay/xarwv eXeyxoe ov (SXsTro^kvojv. 
 I do not think the English word "substance" a just representation 
 of the apostle's meaning. The substance of a hope is its ultimate 
 enjoyment. De Wette's translation is good. " Glaube aber ist 
 Zuversicht dess, was man hoffet^ TJeberzeugung von Dingen^ die man 
 nicht siehet." 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 303 
 
 blessings (wliatever may be their descriptive charac- 
 ter) which he is eventually to enjoy. The effect, 
 therefore, of faith is to remove its possessor in spirit 
 from the sphere of natural experiences ; because 
 God speaks to the believer from another place, and 
 of a different subject, from this present world. It 
 is thus that "the path of the just" is gradually 
 shaped, and opened day by day ; Divine promise 
 being not less the qualifying measure and sustaining 
 power of an acceptable walk, than it is the war- 
 ranty and assurance of our ultimate inheritance. 
 God's saints are severed by this means from those 
 who do not share their liope. Eemaining in the 
 world, and moving in and out among its people, the 
 faithful holder of God's promises is always in a 
 place of testimony. For conduct which is avowedly 
 referred to expectations resting on especial promise, 
 assures the world convincingly of its own distance 
 from the source of blessing. God's anointed ones 
 have always been His prophets. Faith is thus seen 
 to be an active, operative principle. As it invests 
 the believer with peculiar privilege, so its practical 
 effect is to render him a willing servant of the God 
 who blesses him. His way, therefore, will be pleas- 
 ing to the Lord in proportion to the strength and 
 clearness of His faith. This is forcibly expressed 
 in verse 2. ''For by it the elders obtained a good 
 report." Their faith was no weak, irresolute ac- 
 knowledgment of truths beyond their present reach. 
 It was a willing reception of the word of God, 
 which dated for them new and paramount assurances 
 of personal blessedness from the sovereign pleasure 
 of His goodness. The way of nature was the way 
 
304 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 of sin ; but God had opened, in His promissory word 
 of life, another way. The elders acted on the faith 
 of His assurances. They took Him at His word, 
 and did what naturally they would not have done. 
 Thus they glorified the God of promise. And He 
 has borne them witness in the faithful record of His 
 truth. 
 
 Before, however, the series of personal instances 
 begins, we have in verse 3 a general assertion, on 
 behalf of all believers, of the power and Godhead of 
 the alone Creator: "Through faith we understand 
 that the worlds were framed by the word of God," 
 &c. Man, in his progressive, practical deterioration, 
 from the first corruption of his nature, gradually 
 but willingly forgot this truth. Things visible, in- 
 stead of being wisely considered as the expressive 
 interpreters of Him who had produced them, became 
 themselves the objects of men's homage. Creation 
 was to their unbelief a screen that hid the Maker 
 from their view.* On the contrary, faith understands 
 the creature in the light of the Creator. While 
 philosophy seeks vainly^ among the multitudinous 
 diversities of natural phenomena for some intelligi- 
 ble reason of their existence, and proves experimen- 
 tally its own inability to raise itself above the 
 objects of its contemplation, a simple testimony of 
 the Holy Ghost connects at once, for the heliever, the 
 
 ^ Eotn. i. 
 
 s The wide difference which exists between knowledge (more or 
 less exact) of facts or even of the laws which regulate them, and an 
 intelligent appreciation of "the reason of things" is felt most 
 distinctly in the most enlightened minds. (Comp. Eccles. vii. 23-25.) 
 It may indeed be said as truly of natural things as of spiritual, that 
 "if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing 
 yet, as he ought to know." (1 Cor. viii. 2.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 305 
 
 manifest existence wliich surrounds him witli the 
 eternal Framer of the worlds. As a thing visible to 
 the eye and appreciable by the senses, creation, in 
 all its varied beauty, is but an unmeaning wonder, 
 oppressive from its very vastness, and evermore in- 
 comprehensible in its details, if contemplated as a 
 self - existent thing. Nor is it in the power of 
 "natural theology" to teach effectively the doc- 
 trine of creation, because the human reason is al- 
 together unequal to the task of finding out God.^ 
 
 ^ The latent cause, it is to be feared, of much of the labour which 
 has been bestowed with such unsatisfactory results by modern theo- 
 logical writers on the attempt to harmonize scripture and modem 
 science, is a defective apprehension of the great principle stated in 
 this verse. When geologists, for instance, allow themselves to infer, 
 from admitted phenomena, a theory of pre- Adamite earthly existence, 
 &c. ; they are clearly in the region, not of faith, but of sentient per- 
 ception and rational deduction. But even in natural things, ^to judge 
 "according to the appearance," is not always safe. Facts may, and 
 do exist, in all departments of nature, which may be noted and 
 reasoned on, but by no means understood. But it is the Christian's 
 privilege to see things only in the light of God, and it is the entrance 
 of His icord that alone gives light (in the true sense of the word) on 
 any subject. A simple believer, then, will cheerfully admit the facts 
 and phenomena which form the "stock" of scepticism, while abso- 
 lutely refusing any inference which plainly controverts the word of 
 God. The Copernican theory only seemed to do this, for it taught no 
 principle which militates against the truth of Scripture, and men 
 continue still to express themselves with reference to the heavenly 
 bodies in the self-same style as the Creator saw fit to use, when 
 describing to mankind the operation of His hands. But modem 
 geology commits itself sometimes to statements irreconcileable with 
 the precise testimony of the Spirit. To attempt to make these 
 doctrines harmonize with Scripture, by putting new and unnatural 
 constructions upon the words of Moses, is in reality to flatter human 
 presumption at the expense of Divine wisdom. No doubt the motive 
 of such apologists is often praiseworthy ; but it is sad to think of the 
 dishonour indirectly done to Christ by such attempts. For it was 
 not thus that Jesus used the written word — " Have ye not read, that 
 He which made them at the beginning," &c. } is a question which 
 seems to condemn, by anticipation, all such tamperings with that 
 Scripture, which " cannot be broken." " In six days God created,'* 
 &c. Such is the express testimony of the Holy Ghost. It would 
 be only too easy to shew that the Power and Godhead of the Creator 
 shine but dimly and mistily indeed, through the laboured pages of 
 
306 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 The eternal Creator lias His dwelling far above tlie 
 wonders that He shows to men. Faith knows His 
 hiding-place, and in its enjoyment of the word, 
 which has declared to it yet richer blessings, sees in 
 the visible creation but a mediate disclosure of the 
 wisdom and power of the invisible God. It should 
 be remarked, that not only original creation, but also 
 the formative adaptation of its parts, are here as- 
 cribed to the agency of the word of God. Both 
 order and existence are of God. The believer in 
 Jesus knows to whom the riches of creative glory 
 are to be ascribed.'^ 
 
 Verse 4. Faith's rest is always ultimately God 
 Himself; but with this unity of object, its form and 
 expression may vary almost infinitely. Its language 
 will be according to the manner of God's present 
 revelation, for its hope is ever based on a confession 
 of "the present truth." ^ Its active energy exerts itself 
 in doing or in suffering, according to the will of 
 God. Its native qualities appear with a distinctness 
 and intensity proportioned to the trial which is 
 suffered to elicit them and call them into exercise. 
 
 the modem "priests of scien(;e," in comparison with the grand 
 though simple words of an inspired pen. But it will be more to the 
 purpose, to remind any Christian reader of these notes who may 
 have become entangled in such theories, that the cause which lies 
 at the bottom of all merely intellectual speculations upon this sub- 
 ject, is a willing forgetfulness, that " Creation," as an act of Divine 
 power, is a truth, the intellectual appreciation of which is absolutely 
 above the measure of a finite understanding. The creature cannot, 
 even in imagination, be its owti originator. The most painful and 
 widely extended study of things as they are, will only prepare a 
 cnncUd mind for a more emphatic confession, that of creation, in its 
 strict and proper acceptation, he knows, fundamentally, exactly 
 nothing. It is hy faith only that we understand. 
 
 ■^ Col. i. 15. the subject of the Son's eifective power and eternal 
 glory as the Creator has been already treated in chap. i. 
 
 8 2 Pet. i. 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 307 
 
 The manifold varieties of natural circumstance, as 
 well as the immediate (though limited) assaults of 
 Satan, are means whereby God tests the value of 
 His own most precious gift. Each of the personal 
 examples which the present chapter contains will be 
 found to present its own distinctive expression, 
 while the diverse qualities which are thus displayed 
 are inherent in the faith which is the common portion 
 of the saints. The oldest of God's witnesses is Abel. 
 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent 
 sacrifice-^ than Cain, by which he obtained witness 
 that he was righteous," &c. 
 
 Abel is the first example of sacrificial justification. 
 Through the offering which he brought, he obtained 
 God's witness that he was righteous. But his justi- 
 fication is to be referred, not to the quality of the 
 offering (in itself of no intrinsic value), but to the 
 faith by which he brought it acceptably unto God. 
 vSacrifice, while it declares a living hope on the part 
 of the offerer, is in itself a confession of personal 
 forfeiture. This Abel made, and honoured thus the 
 God of judgment who had driven Adam out of 
 paradise to die. But the act of Abel was not 
 merely a submissive recognition of his outcast place. 
 He trusted to the promises of God. He thirsted for 
 redemption. God was all to Abel, because truth, 
 which had dried up every spring of hope in a crea- 
 tion which sin had subjected to vanity and death. 
 
 9 JlXe'iova Ovariav. Perhaps we are to combine in this expression 
 the two ideas of value and abundance. Abel gave life, while Cain, 
 brought only that which is life's support. It was a larger gift. On the 
 other hand, what jmtijied such a gift, and at the same time consti- 
 tuted its moral excellency, was the sacrificial intent with which the 
 blood was shed. 
 
308 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 had spoken of another hope. Man and his works 
 had been disallowed of God ; and the faith of Abel 
 countersigned the word of truth, although the early 
 beauty of a world which showed as yet few tokens 
 of the curse might seem to nature no unsuited rest. 
 But God, without whom neither happiness nor 
 safety can be felt by the believer, had ceased to take 
 pleasure in a spoiled creation ; yet was He still 
 unchanged in goodness, and had left for those who 
 desired to approach Him, a clue by which He might 
 infallibly be reached. Abel's desires were allured 
 by truth to unseen things. His faith, which grasped 
 the promise, made him strange to his own flesh, who 
 followed earthly things. For a contrary reason, God 
 was to the unawakened heart of Cain no refuge nor 
 desire, although he brought Him, in the spirit of a 
 blind self-confidence, that which he esteemed to be 
 His due. Abel and Cain divide mankind. They 
 are the standing t}^es, respectively, of the obedience 
 of faith, and the frowardness of natural incredulity. 
 "The way of Cain"^ is that broad and open road 
 down which the world goes willingly, in the spirit 
 of reckless self-pleasing, only to find destruction at 
 the end.^ The faith of Abel was the self- same 
 principle which now, through grace, enables here 
 and there some poor believing vessel of God's mercy 
 to reckon other things but dross for Christ. 
 
 It is the sacrifice of Abel which is here specified 
 as the decisive witness of his faith. Character- 
 istically, he is " righteous Abel." Such is his memo- 
 rial in the lips of Jesus, when summing up His 
 fearful denunciation of blood-guiltiness against the 
 
 iJudell. 2 Matt. vii. 13. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 309 
 
 generation which would fill the measure of their sin 
 by numbering Himself among transgressors.^ " His 
 deeds were righteous" is the Spirit's testimony in 
 another place, when contrasting, generally, his way 
 with that of Cain.'' For faith, that hopes in God, 
 must ever aim to work His will. But the change 
 from sin to righteousness was in his turning (at 
 whatever season of his life it may have been) from 
 himself to God in the faith of a redemption yet to 
 come. It is, therefore, through the sacrifice, which 
 God regarded, that he speaks intelligibly still to us.^ 
 He is the primal example both of that remission 
 which can be by blood alone, and of acceptable 
 worship from a worshipper once purged.^ 
 
 Verses 5, 6. " By faith, Enoch," &c. As the list 
 of God's acceptable witnesses is headed by a speci- 
 men of sacrificial justification, so the next example 
 gives us a view of that sure immortality which is 
 to crown in glory the believer's hope. The faith 
 of Enoch rapt him above death. God, whom he 
 trusted, took him by translation to Himself. His 
 witness, while upon the earth, was that he walked 
 with God. He pleased God. But it was in his faith 
 that God took pleasure. Without faith. He who is in- 
 visible cannot be either known or served on earth. For 
 both His being and His disposition are inscrutable 
 to natural sense. That creative power exists some- 
 
 3 Matt, xxiii. 35. ^ 1 John iii. 12. 
 
 5 AaXa is preferred by modern editors to \a\arat. It wall be 
 seen that I refer ^l avTfJQj through the relative in the preceding 
 clause, to dvaiav. The sense is but little affected, whether we refer 
 to the faith, or to the sacrifice which is its monument, as the power 
 of Abel's present testimony. But the latter appears to me the plainer 
 construction of the passage. 
 
 6 Ante, chap. ix. 22, and x. 2. 
 
310 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 where, is au inference within man's easy reach. 
 That God is, though hidden from our sight, and that 
 He is a sure Eewarder of the soul that seeks Him 
 out, is the fundamental doctrine of that wisdom 
 which descendeth from above. The clue which 
 guides faith in its patient search, is the testimony 
 once delivered among men. There had been such 
 from the beginning. For the love of it, the second 
 son of Eve obtained a good report. But ages had 
 intervened between the death of Abel and the birth 
 of Enoch. He grew up in the midst of a fast-filling 
 world. Men lived long lives amid God's plenteous 
 mercies, but their way was waxing worse and worse. 
 Ungodliness in Avord and deed prevailed. Hard 
 speeches against God, whose testimonies warned the 
 sinner in his ways, w^ere spoken openly by men who 
 took no comfort in His gracious promise. The path 
 of Enocli was a path of voluntary separateness. 
 While others followed their own lusts, he walked 
 with God. By faith he saw invisible realities, and 
 tasted holiness in love. He stuck fast to the words 
 of God, and found no pleasure in the creature apart 
 from the Creator, who alone can bless. 
 
 Yet Enoch was no eremite. He lived a man 
 among men, but for God. A husband and a father, 
 he resembled, in his circumstances and his natural 
 condition, other men. But truth was to Enoch 
 something paramount to sense. Nine hundred or 
 a thousand years of prosperous earthly life, was a 
 thing of no account with one who knew that his 
 mortal flesh must one day be " sown in dishonour " 
 on account of sin, and that all earthly comeliness 
 must vanish in corruption. But he looked for im- 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 311 
 
 mortality from God. Convinced experimentally of 
 the truth of that judicial sentence which had spread 
 the pall of mortality over the generations of man- 
 kind, he gave glory to the God of promise by 
 confiding simply in His word. Thus, in heart, he 
 clave to his Creator as his hope, and speaking from 
 the fulness of his heart, he spake of Him to others. 
 God gave prophetic power to the faithful confessor 
 of His name. Standing aloof from the corruptions 
 of his day, he warned men of a judgment which 
 should surely come.'^ By the force of truth he was 
 a stranger in the world. His way was contrary to 
 that of other men, because his heart was set upon 
 another object. Their manner was to please them- 
 selves, while he cared only to please Him who had 
 created him, and from whom he looked for a sure and 
 lasting recompence of reward. Tims he lived and 
 wrought, cleaving with patience to a better hope 
 than tliat of far-extending earthly days, until he 
 ceased upon the noontide of his natural life.^ He 
 was not found. Men sought him ; but his hiding- 
 place was far above the knowledge or desire of those 
 who walked by sense, and not by faith. He was 
 with God, whom they neither enquired for, nor cared 
 to know. 
 
 Enoch presents to us a very lively type, both in 
 his earthly walk and in his heavenly change, of the 
 
 7 I do not doiibt that Enocli's testimony had immediate reference 
 to the evil of his own times, although its ultimate vindication is 
 reserved for the crisis which shall terminate the era of abused long- 
 suffering, even as the deluge swept away the unthankful corrupters 
 of the former world. The " fulness of all evil," is, alas ! to be the 
 close of a dispensation in which God in Christ shows forth the riches 
 of His unupbraiding grace. (Jude 14, 15.) 
 
 8 Gen. v. 23. 
 
312 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 elect Churcli of God. Faith separates from natural 
 things, and sanctifies to God, the partakers of the 
 heavenly calling ; while a truthful confession of 
 the cross announces to the world the certainty 
 of its reprobation, and the speedy advent of its 
 Judge. Meanwhile, the gospel is the free disclo- 
 sure of eternal refuge to the soul that hath an ear 
 to hear. God's saints are taught to live a godly life 
 amid this present world by the same grace that saves 
 them,^ while they look with patient expectation 
 for the coming of His Son. They are not all to 
 die. But all are to be changed, as in a moment. 
 Like Enoch, they will cease amid their earthly days. 
 They will be caught up to meet the Saviour, as He 
 comes to take them to Himself. The time is short 
 until that day. May its brief residue be given to 
 the will of God ! 
 
 Verse 7. The days of Noah fell upon the close 
 of God's forbearance with the former world. The 
 rapture of Enoch had been succeeded by long cen- 
 turies of human progress; during which the voice 
 of Divine truth had waxed continually feebler in 
 its effect upon men's hearts, until the more recent 
 prophetic denunciations had become, together with 
 God's former acts and promises, no better than 
 an empty tradition, which no man heeded save 
 the vessel of His grace, whose ear was opened to 
 receive the warning, that judgment, long before 
 denounced, was in a little while to be inflicted. 
 The effect of faith in Noah was to fill his soul 
 with godly fear. For God had announced the cer- 
 tainty of coming wrath, and indicated the sole 
 
 9 Tit. ii. 11-14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 313 
 
 means of preservation. Noali's personal character 
 could secure him no exemption from the threatened 
 flood. His life and safety were dependent solely 
 upon his obedience to the warning voice of God. 
 Because he believed in God, he hearkened to this 
 special revelation. Humbling himself beneath His 
 mighty hand, he entered on a new and unexampled 
 kind of testimony, whereby, as a preacher of right- 
 eousness, in act as well as word, he strove to turn the 
 world to God. He preached for many days ; for the 
 ark was long preparing, and God's long-suffering en- 
 dured till the predicted time was come. And then, 
 because none believed what all had heard, wrath came 
 without a remedy. Noah was shut into the ark be- 
 fore God brought His word to pass. God shut him 
 in. He made secure His own work of salvation, be- 
 fore He laid His judgment on the works of men. 
 
 Three results are traced to l^oah's faith. 1. By 
 the preparation of the ark, he wrought out his 
 own salvation and the safety of his house. With 
 nothing visible to justify his apprehensions, he 
 made wise provision for the coming dread. ^ 2. He 
 condemned the world by his obedience to the word 
 of God. His testimony was a witness of their mad- 
 ness, as they went on heedlessly, exactly in their 
 former Avay. There is no reason to suppose that 
 Xoah suffered injury from those who disbelieved 
 his testimony. Profound contempt was, probably, 
 the strongest feeling which possessed the minds of 
 those who never thought to feel a deadlier torrent 
 than the flow of warning words.- 3. He became 
 heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Accept- 
 
 1 Prov. xxii. 3. « Matt. xxiv. 37, 38. 
 
314 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ing, with gladness, the conditions of escape, he thus 
 confessed himself a sinner before God. He was as 
 others when God judged all flesh. By faith he cast 
 himself on God as on a Saviour ; and to do this, is 
 to he just with God, who justifies the sinner that 
 believes His grace. 
 
 Noah typifies the believer, generall}^, as one who 
 flees to Christ for refuge from the wrath to come. 
 Especially, he represents that part of God's election 
 which will stand at the last close of this long day of 
 mercy. There is a sense in which the entire dispen- 
 sation of gospel witness corresponds to Noah's days. 
 For from the first, the Spirit has borne witness that 
 the end of all things is at hand.^ But there are "last 
 days," when the words of warning will be no more 
 listened to, nor feared. It was the long continuance 
 of undisturbed prosperity that made the builder of 
 the ark appear a fool to them whose day was nearly 
 done. They built and planted ; they married, and 
 were given in marriage, like men who had nothing 
 more to do with fear. In like manner are we 
 warned, that it shall be when men begin to think 
 that peace and safety are about to crown the ripe 
 age of a world whose earlier generations have beheld 
 such strange vicissitudes, that the Destroyer shall 
 appear." " They knew not," although Noah warned, 
 until the flood came and destroyed them all. Nor 
 will the coming of the Son of man be more expected 
 when His glory shall be suddenly revealed.^ It is a 
 solemn thing to live in times when even the reluc- 
 tant heed which once the world afforded to the 
 warning of its coming doom, is beginning steadily 
 
 8 1 Pet. iv. 7. * 1 Thess. v. ^ Luke xvii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. . 315 
 
 to be withheld, l^ever was the word of God so 
 widely spread as now, yet never have the world's 
 anticipations of continuance been so lively or so 
 firm! Happy they who, moved with fear, find refuge 
 from the things not seen as yet, in the blessed gospel 
 of God's present truth.^ 
 
 Verse 8.- Faith saved a remnant from the former 
 world : but while nature freely propagates itself, the 
 power which savingly unites the soul to God is 
 incapable of hereditary transmission. This principle 
 is strikingly exemplified in the story of the call of 
 Abraham. The first of the new race, of whom God 
 witnesses, is the man whom He selected, as a special 
 object of His mercy, and as the appointed depositary 
 of His truth, from out of an already godless genera- 
 tion.'^ By faith, Abraham obeyed the call of God, 
 whose promise severed him from all he naturally 
 loved. We perceive, immediately, a marked charac- 
 teristic difference which distinguishes the case of 
 Abraham from the antediluvian instances which have 
 been noticed. Their faith was exercised upon a 
 general promise. Grace enabled them to appropriate 
 a blessing which was accessible to all who would 
 believe. But the call of Abram was after quite 
 another sort. God addressed Himself to him alone, 
 after mankind in general had already become openly 
 idolatrous. He would separate him to Himself by 
 a peculiar choice. And thus the positive call of one 
 was an emphatic rejection of the rest. Abram re- 
 ceived a special summons to vacate the place which 
 nature had assigned him, that he might become the 
 
 6 2 Pet. i. 12-19; 1 Thess. i. 10. 
 
 7 The reader is referred on this point to the Introductory Essay. 
 
 T> 9 
 
316 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 possessor of an inheritance whicli none could show 
 him but the God who thus announced Himself as 
 the Creator of his blessing. God showed Himself to 
 Abram, and spoke of an inheritance. Abram, be- 
 lieving God, went forth, not knowing where he went. 
 True faith acts only on the spoken word, leaving 
 with confidence the results of its obedience to the 
 God whom it obeys. The land which had been pro- 
 mised was a lesser object to the faith of Abram, 
 than the God of glory who had promised. His faith 
 reposed in Him. In his voluntary abandonment of 
 his native land, the father of the faithful is a pattern 
 of that single-eyed renunciation of self for Christ, 
 which is the beginning of true Christian pilgrimage. 
 But personal devotedness, although connected with 
 justification, and its healthful and natural result, is 
 not, of necessity, identical with that. For while 
 many taste the saving grace of Jesus, how few 
 there are who know complete estrangement from 
 the former things for the excellency of that better 
 hope ! ^ Still, active faith will seek the things of 
 Christ. The back of the believer is towards the 
 country of his birth, although his steps towards 
 the new inheritance may be but faint and slow. 
 
 Verses 9, 10. The faith which separated Abra- 
 ham from natural ties, and led him to a new and 
 distant land, was to have its protracted exercise 
 in the patience of a life -long pilgrimage. In the 
 land of promise he was still a stranger. It was 
 his own, but not in his possession. He had no 
 
 8 Nor was even the faith of Abraham perfectly exhibited at first. 
 His separation to God was not complete until Terah had been 
 removed by death. Compare the narrative in Gen. xi. 27-32 with 
 Acts vii. 1-4. 
 
 i 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 317 
 
 settled liabitation there, but dwelt as a sojourner 
 in a moving tent. To Isaac and Jacob the same 
 title of inheritance descended, accompanied by the 
 same conditions of straugership ; and to each of 
 these in succession it was specially confirmed of 
 God. He formed the heir for the inheritance in 
 either case.- For nature can prefer no title to the 
 gifts of God.^ The eye of Abraham wandered 
 over all the length and breadth of Canaan, and 
 hopefully anticipated the day when his seed should 
 possess their promised inheritance ; but his faith 
 looked thence toward a portion far above his sight. 
 God, who was not only his shield, but his exceeding 
 great reward, had built a city of foundation ; and it 
 was for that city that he looked. Faith's rest is 
 never in things visible or things corruptible. Abra- 
 ham was heir of the world by promise; but it was 
 not in the life that now is, that he looked for his 
 inheritance ; his desires were upon a heavenly rest. 
 God's promises, meanwhile, were as a wall of sepa- 
 ration, which kept him from fellowship with those 
 who held the land in which he dwelt.^ It is thus. 
 
 ^ See Notes on the Bomans, chap. ix. 
 
 ^ Amorites might have commerce with him, or even become his 
 temporary associates. (Gen. xiv. 13.) But his separate character was 
 still maintained. He was a man of other hopes and interests, a 
 worshipper at another altar, from the Canaanite who occupied the 
 land. The reader will have often noticed that no good report is 
 given of the faith of Lot. He did not sojourn in the land of 
 promise as a stranger. He sought his own; and found, first, cap- 
 tivity, and afterwards, a bare escape from wrath. Lot was a 
 righteous man, a partaker of the faith which drew forth Abraham, 
 from his native land. But his heart was more on earthly than on. 
 heavenly things; more on God's blessings than on God Himself. 
 The grace which originally quickened him, presei-ved him personally 
 pure, amid the wickedness which vexed his soul. But self-seeking 
 took him far away from the true place of strength and blessing. 
 God saved him, as by fire, from the city of destruction. He is a 
 
318 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 also, that the heirs of God are now called to be, 
 while awaiting the fulfilment of their blessed hope. 
 All things are ours. The earth, as well as heaven, 
 is the heritage of Jesus; and His title, as the Heir 
 of all things, is imparted freely to His own. We 
 are the people of the Lord Almighty, in separateness 
 from the present evil world, if our faith is resting on 
 the promises which make us strangers in the place 
 of our birth.^ 
 
 Verse 11. "Through faith also, Sara herself," &c. 
 In the personal histories which the Spirit has given 
 of the elders in the Old Testament, we meet with 
 many notices of blame. For their life was a con- 
 flict, like that of the believer now, between the 
 opposing principles of faith and sense. But God 
 keeps a record of pure praise, where all that faith 
 has wrought in Hiin is carefully preserved.^ The 
 mention of Sarah's faith is a striking instance of 
 this gracious jealousy of God over that which He 
 accounts so precious. If we refer to the narrative 
 in Gen. xviii. we shall find that the faith which is 
 here so honourably mentioned was stimulated into 
 activity by a censure of her unbelief She was 
 rebuked by the Lord for her incredulous reception of 
 that word of promise which rejoiced the heart of 
 Abraham. It was thus that Sarah learned experimen- 
 tally what it is to have to do with God. She feared 
 before the presence of the Searcher of her thoughts, 
 and out of that fear there sprang a confidence which 
 
 warning to the worldly-minded Christian. God takes no pleasure in 
 a course which leads His children in pui'suit of earthly ease. Yet 
 He will know how to deliver from the coming wrath the souls that 
 hope in Him. 
 
 2 2 Cor. vi. 14-vii. 1 ; 1 Pet. ii. 11, &e. ^ i Cor. iv. 5. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 319 
 
 trusted God according to His name. Faith cannot 
 act effectively until the counsels of the heart have 
 first been disallowed. God, in His power and intent 
 to bless, presents Himself to the believer as a nearer 
 object than his own imaginations. Sarah judged 
 Him faithful who had promised, when first her heart 
 was emptied of herself 
 
 Verse 12. From nature's last extreme of weak- 
 ness, strength and abundant blessing are educed by 
 faith. Abraham's hope received its crown through 
 Sarah's participation in like precious faith. A mul- 
 titude innumerable sprang from one as good as dead. 
 The natural seed of Abraham, which, now minished 
 and brought low, is yet again to blossom and to fill 
 the land with fruit,^ dates from this strange begin- 
 ning. It is to be remarked, that in this summary of 
 faith's great trophies, the decisive crisis which is 
 elsewhere cited ^ as the formal justification of Abra- 
 ham is passed by. It seems less the Spirit's aim to 
 remind us of the common ancestry of all believers 
 in the present reference to Abraham and his seed, 
 than to cite for our encouragement examples of the 
 wondrous efficacy of that principle which should be 
 the habitital order of the just man's life.^ 
 
 Verse 13. The fathers died as they had lived. 
 According to the faith which made God's distant 
 promise better to them than a present portion in 
 the world, they rendered up their lives confidingly 
 to Him. Accepting bodily dissolution as the ap- 
 pointed end of sinful and degraded humanity, they 
 joyfully anticipated the triumphant contrast of the 
 resurrection. The living God would not be over- 
 
 ^ Isaiah xxvii. 6. ^ Rom. iv. 3. ^ Ante-page. 
 
320 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 come of death. He was their God, and thougli tliey 
 died as sinners by the sentence of His holiness, they 
 should surely live to Him as abiding memorials of 
 His grace. He had called them forth to be His 
 witnesses in the confession of a hope which should 
 not make ashamed. What gave the earthly course of 
 the hrst patriarchs its character of strangership and 
 pilgrimage, was the specific promises which were 
 successively renewed to each. The tenure which 
 enabled them to find those promises a present joy, 
 was the faith by which they clave to God. For He 
 who had revealed Himself in promise, was the final 
 Hope which filled their hearts. They died, indeed, 
 without receiving their immediate desire; but they 
 saw the promises distinctly, in His light who calleth 
 things that be not as though they were. They were 
 persuaded of them, for they trusted in His word. 
 They embraced them, for they deemed them worthy 
 of their love. They were more to them than the 
 delights of men. They confessed that they were 
 strangers upon earth, because the God of heaven 
 had revealed to them a better country, and a more 
 enduring rest. 
 
 For they that voluntarily say that they are pil- 
 grims, plainly show that they have done with earth 
 (verse 14). Men tardily acknowledge, when con- 
 strained to die, that human life is but a changeful 
 journey. They are reluctant confessors of a com- 
 mon lot of vanity. But God's anointed never settled 
 on the earth. They wandered all their days, because 
 they knew that flesh and blood could never enter 
 where their hopes were placed. Their pilgrimage was 
 an open and practical confession, that rest remained 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 321 
 
 for no man truly wise on this side of a mortal 
 life. 
 
 Yerse 15. "And truly, if they had been mindful," 
 &c. They had left a settled house to dwell in tents. 
 Upon no compulsion, but for the sake of a far distant 
 hope, they had renounced a present good. And as 
 their movement had been voluntary, so the way was 
 open for them to return. Had they been thus 
 minded, their fellow-men would have approved their 
 choice ; for the world is ill at ease when men profess 
 to seek a hope beyond the limits of its own desire. 
 All that could act upon their natural minds, and all 
 that addressed the selfish feelings of their hearts, 
 solicited them daily to become as other men. But 
 what they had once abandoned, they no more remem- 
 bered with regret. They had not been driven from 
 the country they had quitted. They came out de- 
 liber eddy, upon a better venture. Faith never acts 
 precipitately, but wisely counts the cost, assuring 
 itself that the truth of God, which is its warranty, 
 must ultimately stand. The object that allured the 
 fathers was well worth the sacrifice which they had 
 made. They would no more turn again to things 
 which they had quitted for the limng God. His 
 blessing which attended them was more than an 
 inheritance, to those who waited for His promise. 
 They reckoned that the things which they had left 
 were not to be compared with what they would 
 receive, when God's salvation should at length be 
 entered on as their reward.'^ 
 
 Verse 16. "But now they desire a better country," 
 &c. A pilgrim's faith impels him to an end of 
 
 7 Gen. xlix. 18. 
 
 p 5 
 
322 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 definite, as well as strong desire. The fathers looked 
 for heaven, when they gave up earthly place. Their 
 expectations rested only on the ivord of God. By 
 believing Him, they honoured Him. They gave 
 Him glory as Possessor both of heaven and of earth. 
 Because He marked out by His word the land of 
 Canaan as a possession for their seed, they built 
 their altars only there. But Canaan was to them- 
 selves a land of pilgrimage, while heaven was their 
 rest. The God of glory had prepared for them a 
 city worthy of their hope, and of His Name. He 
 was not ashamed of those who trusted Him for 
 unseen things. The strong desire which preferred a 
 better country than the land of their nativity was 
 nurtured, as it had been planted, by Himself. Their 
 faith was a response to His electing love. He was 
 their God; and He would have the nations know 
 that He was such. He suffered none to do His 
 prophets harm.^ Because they set their hearts upon 
 Himself, He has glorified their names for ever by 
 adopting them as a distinctive title of His praise.^ 
 
 The value of these recent instances to the par- 
 takers of the heavenly calling is very great. The 
 leading principle which finds such happy illustration 
 in these friends of God, is that conduct which is 
 acceptable in His sight, can result only from a set- 
 tled looking-for of things not seen. They desired 
 fervently, because they estimated justly. Their faith 
 was better evidence to guide their choice than what 
 they saw. Like them, we also have our day of proof. 
 
 8 Ps. cv. 14, 15. 
 
 9 " The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 
 (Exod. iii. 15.) 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 323 
 
 A Christian has the worid on every side inviting his 
 return. If he is not looking at the things which 
 are not seen, he will think less of the exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory which remains, than of the 
 burdens and privations of the way. But a drooping 
 Christian soon becomes an earthly-minded Christian. 
 For sorrow has no strength to keep us separate from 
 natural things. Joy in the Lord is the alone pre- 
 servative from lusting backward to the former things. 
 It was the excellency of the knowledge of Christ that 
 enabled the apostle to look with a sincere contempt 
 upon every object of merely natural ambition. In 
 Christ the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places. 
 No longer far remote, but present in the earnest of 
 the Spirit, the promises of God are sealed to us 
 securely in His Son.^ He is not ashamed of those 
 who evermore rejoice in Him. His Spirit grieves 
 when they whom He has blessed in heavenly places 
 with all spiritual blessings, yet find it in their hearts 
 to love this present world.^ 
 
 Verses 17-19. The living constancy and dying 
 triumphs of the father's faith having thus been 
 generally attested, a special mention is now made 
 of that particular crisis in the lives of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, respectively, in which their faith 
 attained its culminating point. The first of these 
 instances is Abraham's unrepining surrender of his 
 only-begotten to the altar of sacrifice, in obedience 
 to the word of God. By faith he did this. For, 
 although he had received the earnest of the pro- 
 mises in Isaac, God having called him by a name 
 before his birth, which might justly seem to Abra- 
 
 1 2 Cor. i. 20-22. 2 Phil. iii. 
 
324 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ham a sanction of secure delight in this Divinely- 
 given heir,^ yet to him the God who had created 
 and bestowed on him that blessing was the para- 
 mount object of entire trust. His will was Abra- 
 ham's life and Abraham's blessing. As it respected 
 the specific promise, he well knew that in His 
 purposes, the God in whom he hoped was neither 
 fickle nor infirm. He might have seemed to have 
 repented of His gift. But it was not really so. 
 That God should demand His own again, with the 
 usury of Abraham's cheerful sacrifice, was indeed a 
 strange request. By enjoining him to slay his son, 
 He uttered a commandment not more grievous to 
 his best affections, than it was repugnant to his 
 reason as a natural man. By revoking thus His 
 chiefest gift, He seemed to wither to the root the 
 joy which He had made in Abraham's house. To 
 flesh and blood, a willing compliance was in such 
 a case impossible. Nor did the faith of Abraham 
 vanquish Abraham himself without a struggle. He 
 was tried. The secret of his victory was his re- 
 membrance of the truth and power of God. As a 
 correlative to this, he practically knew his own 
 entire nothingness. Dust and ashes was his esti- 
 mate of himself, while he knew that He who had 
 freely pronounced His gracious promises was the 
 Ahnighty God. As it respected the stravgeness of 
 the commandment, he would impute no foolishness 
 
 ^ pny*. The name of Isaac, as most readers are aware, is a 
 Divine commemoration of the faith of Abraham, who laughed with 
 joy to hear the promises of God. (Gen. xvii. 17-19.) In its typical 
 significance, it tells the believer of that joy imspeakable and full of 
 glory, which he tastes by the Spirit in the knowledge of the First- 
 begotten from the dead. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 325 
 
 to God. He would bow himself beneath His will. 
 The God of glory could not err. He had spoken and 
 fulfilled His word. Isaac was in very deed the heir, 
 and though death itself should contradict his title, 
 the heritage should yet be his. From him, and from 
 no other, would the countless multitude of promise 
 come. Death, which was God's appointment, could 
 not frustrate or undo the work of God. Abraham 
 expected, indeed, to become the shedder of his own 
 child's blood ; but he never gave up Isaac. He 
 knew that the resurrection of the heir of promise 
 was a thing no harder for the Lord than the revivi- 
 fying of the womb which bare him. And so he did 
 not spare to sacrifice what seemed his only hope, 
 at the commandment of the God of ijromise. 
 
 The trial of Abraham was, we are elsewhere told, 
 for the perfecting of his faith.^ It proved that there 
 was in him something strong enough to overrule 
 entirely his nature, to set it willingly at nought for 
 God. This strange act of obedience was an exem- 
 plification in power, by the grace of God, of the 
 righteousness which had already been imputed to 
 him for the faith which he had before the seed w^as 
 born.^ It was a work of righteousness that Abraham 
 should thus obey implicitly the voice of God. His 
 natural will was in strongest opposition to the will 
 of God. But the energy of faith is always shown 
 in contradicting and disallowing our wills, that His 
 alone may stand. Nothing was more equitable than 
 that God should rule. Yet His commandments are 
 both grievous and impossible to that which seeks 
 its own. Faith only can perform them. For faith, 
 
 * Jas. ii. 21-23. ^ Qen. xv. 
 
326 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 which comes from God, acquaints the heart wherein 
 it dwells, with God, both in His goodness and His 
 truth. He is eternally a Blesser in the eyes of the 
 believer. But the knowledge of His goodness turns 
 the heart to love. Faith works thus always ; and 
 God knows well the secret of the heart that trusts 
 Him. He called the patriarch His friend, because 
 he kept not from Him this his dearest good. Such 
 is His manner still. He gives to those whom grace 
 has changed from enemies to friends like opportunity 
 to testify their love.^ 
 
 It was a parable of wondrous things that God 
 presented to His friend in this ever-memorable scene. 
 He had already taught him mystically, that through 
 resurrection only would the promises of blessing be 
 completely realized.'^ He now shows to him in a 
 figure how the establishment of all His promises 
 could be effected only by surrendering to death the 
 One true Heir of promise. The mighty work of 
 self-denial which God suffered not His friend to 
 finish. He would perfectly perform and undergo 
 Himself. He would not spare His Son. His eternal 
 Spirit should one day lead that Victim to a willing 
 death. He would receive Him back in the reality 
 of resurrection, when, by the exceeding greatness of 
 His mighty power. He should have raised Him from 
 the dead. His joy of victory should be complete, 
 when He should have set before His face for ever 
 the First-begotten of His many sons. 
 
 Yerse 20. Isaac, like his father, was a stranger 
 in the land. He passed his pilgrim days in the 
 patience of a hope which, having been received by 
 
 6 Jolin XV. 14. 7 Gen. xv. 12-18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 327 
 
 inheritance from Abraham, was afterwards confirmed 
 to him immediately of God. The record elsewhere 
 given of his life and its vicissitudes is full of in- 
 structive interest for the believer. Traversing, in 
 his turn, the ground his father trod, the heir of 
 promise proved experimentally the ability of God 
 to bless his chosen in the midst of conflict ; the 
 hatred of the world serving only to magnify the 
 riches of His grace. The Spirit here selects a single 
 incident in order to commemorate his faith. By 
 faith he gave his blessing to his sons. If we read 
 carefully the story of the birthright, we see dis- 
 tinctly that in the primary bestowment of his bless- 
 ing on his younger son, he exercised no faith. He 
 knew not what he did, till Esau really came, whom 
 he had vainly willed to bless. Throughout the life 
 of Isaac there had been a struggle between faith and 
 nature with respect to the direction of the inheri- 
 tance. Jacob, he knew, was loved of God, and 
 called to be his heir of blessing. But Isaac loved 
 Esau ; and with a willing forgetfulness of the un- 
 changing character of Him with whom he had to 
 do, he indulged his natural bias. He meant to bless 
 his first-born as his heir. But God's counsel always 
 contradicts the purposes of nature. He allows the 
 guilty trickery of Jacob and Eebecca to rebuke the 
 fleshly partiality of Isaac, and by means of this 
 restores him to himself It is in Gen. xxvii. 33, 
 that we find the first true recognition of God's 
 presence in this strange plot of selfish interests. 
 The discovery of Jacob's fraud reveals to Isaac his 
 own folly, and apprises him of One who is the sole 
 Selecter of the vessels of His blessing. With ex- 
 
328 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ceeding fear his soul receives this late discovery of 
 his variance from God's will. But, as in Sarah's 
 case, his fear is a reviver of his faith. In the light 
 of God, he now sees things distinctly. Jacob is now 
 confessedly his heir. With a broken spirit, and a 
 will now thoroughly subdued, he ratifies, advisedly, 
 the choice of God. This is expressed strikingly in 
 the repetition of the blessing, " Yea, and he shall be 
 blessed." 
 
 But God is pitiful as well as holy. He would 
 not repent Him of His own election ; yet He 
 strengthens Isaac to pronounce a second blessing 
 upon Esau. By faith he blessed Imn also, touching 
 things to come. A rich and ample promise was the 
 portion of the eldest born. But it was a material 
 blessing only, and left its possessor stOl in a subor- 
 dinate place. If strength should come one day to 
 break his brother's yoke, the Lord was still the 
 Avenger of His own.^ 
 
 Verse 21. Jacob's faith is only visible in few 
 and far-divided instances. The tenor of his life in 
 general was crooked policy and timid selfishness. 
 Disaster followed him continually on his pilgrim 
 course, because his faith was feeble, though his 
 heart was at bottom right with God. In a com- 
 parison of natural character, he holds a far less 
 estimable place than Esau. He is, perhaps, the 
 most instructive instance anywhere presented to us 
 in the Scriptures, of the grace and wisdom of the 
 God who chose him, for no comeliness of his, to be 
 His heir of promise. It is this that makes his 
 personal history, in all the varied situations and 
 
 8 Obadiah, passim. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 329 
 
 most strange vicissitudes which marked the progress 
 of his " few and evil days/' so peculiarly precious to 
 the Christian. Goodness and mercy follow him 
 through all the turnings of his devious way. God's 
 faithfulness and truth are round about him, though 
 He suffers him to taste the bitter vanity of fleshly 
 counsel. The Spirit, in the present chapter, passes 
 by the feebler struggles of his faith, to celebrate the 
 brightness of its setting glory, as it beau.tified the 
 death scene of this vessel of God's choice. By faith 
 he blessed the sons of Joseph. Led by no natural 
 instinct, he wittingly directs his hands, with right 
 discernment of the greater from the lesser of the 
 two joint-heirs of blessing.^ Then, having charged 
 his other sons, and made an end of uttering the 
 blessings given him for each, he died, with staff in 
 hand, a pilgrim worshipper as he had lived. His 
 death was in a foreign land, but he expected a 
 salvation whose full joy should not be had in 
 Canaan, but in heaven. 
 
 Verse 22. " By faith, Joseph," &c. Jacob begat 
 twelve sons, but only one of them obtains a good 
 report by faith. The object of his brethren's envy 
 is distinguished from them in his death as in his 
 life. His was indeed a comely life, and faith in God 
 was its one moving spring. But in his death it was 
 that he declared, with special emphasis, his faith in 
 God's peculiar promise to His people. He had lived 
 from boyhood in the land of Egypt, and God had 
 greatly magnified him there. Under his shadow 
 both his fatlier and his brethren had been gathered, 
 while his honour filled the country which his wis- 
 9 Gen. xlviii. 
 
330 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 dom had made prosperous above the nations of the 
 earth. At his end his thoughts are with the future 
 exodus of Israel, from the place which he well knew 
 was not the promised land. Egypt's honours had 
 not weaned him from tlie hope of Israel. He was 
 a pilgrim in desire, while receiving a whole nation's 
 homage as the trusted and acknowledged stay of 
 Pharaoh's throne. He dies the prophet and example 
 of his people's faith, as he had been known and 
 confessed to be their saviour in his life. 
 
 Verse 23. ''By faith Moses," &c. Fulness of 
 worldly honour had not stifled Joseph's faith. In 
 the case of Moses' parents, the same blessed quality 
 is nurtured to a venturous boldness by the hand 
 of ruthless oppression. It is a most interesting 
 example. Natural affection is, in their case, the 
 vehicle and outward expression of that which has 
 a deeper source than nature. They would save their 
 child. But there was in their hearts an expectation 
 of deliverance from the sore afflictions under which 
 God's people groaned. Their faith was strong 
 enough to see, in the rare beauty of their son, a 
 sign that he was destined to some distinguished 
 place among his people.^ He might be their de- 
 liverer. For three months they kept close the 
 secret of his birth, stilling their dread of Pharaoh 
 by their trust in God. His promises were stronger 
 than the king's commandment. Their faith, indeed, 
 was sorely tried when, as the child grew on and 
 gained a size which could no longer be concealed, 
 they felt that they must trust their hope to other 
 
 1 Moses is elsewhere said to have been doTtioQ r<p Qe<p. (Acts 
 vii. 20.) 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBEEWS. 331 
 
 hands than theirs. Still they reckoned upon God. 
 Although exposure seemed the way to certain death, 
 they trusted that their child should live. They 
 embarked him for a voyage they knew not whither, 
 but they believed that God would meet with him, 
 and save him for Himself^ 
 
 Verses 24-26. The faith which dwelt first in 
 the parents, was in due time developed in their 
 child. The case of Moses is a wondrous and blessed 
 illustration of the working of Divine power in the 
 production and nourishment of faith in the hearts 
 of God's elect, under circumstances the most adverse 
 to its existence. As he grew up to manhood, Moses, 
 doubtless, learned the secret of his birth. His name 
 would evermore remind him that, although among 
 Egyptians he was known as the adopted child of 
 Pharaoh's daughter, he was, in reality, a foundling 
 of that family of foreign slaves who were never 
 mentioned in the palace but as a despised and hated 
 race. ISTature, whose very marrow is the love of 
 self, must have suggested to him, that an abandoned 
 child of parents never known (for there is nothing 
 in the word of God from which a likely inference 
 may be derived, that his mother's nursing was con- 
 tinued longer than his earliest days,)^ would do 
 small wrong to his countrymen by retaining all 
 through life his fortunate disguise. For he had 
 ripened to a full maturity of manhood, under in- 
 fluences little likely to awaken or to cherish any 
 yearnings of desire towards his kindred. He was 
 a full-aged man, of growth and culture exclusively 
 Egyptian.'^ ISTor had he passed his early life in 
 2 Exod. ii. 3 Exod. ii. 10. ^ Acts vii. 22. 
 
332 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 silent inactivity; both by words and deeds lie had 
 obtained a renown which naturally tended to con- 
 firm his allegiance as an honoured and favoured 
 ornament of Pharaoh's court. On the other hand, 
 if patriot feeling overcame his private selfishness, 
 and the mitigation of his brethren's grief was all 
 his heart's desire, yet he would have found, in the 
 commanding position which he occupied in Pha- 
 raoh's household, the most promising occasion of 
 successful advocacy with the tyrant who oppressed 
 them. To abdicate this vantage ground, in order to 
 identify himself more openly with those he loved, 
 might seem, to one who looked upon appearances, 
 like a culpable renunciation of those means of 
 usefulness which Providence had placed within his 
 reach. 
 
 But faith cannot live and thrive in any other 
 atmosphere than truth. To know God is to honour 
 Him according to the name in which He has dis- 
 closed Himself Now the heart of Moses had re- 
 ceived a Divine conviction, both of sin and of 
 righteousness. He saw the distance which divided 
 Pharaoh's palace from the city of God's rest. He 
 heard and understood the word of promise. We 
 are left, indeed, to conjecture as it respects the 
 means employed; but it is certain that God had 
 imparted to him, not only a knowledge of His 
 covenant relation to Israel as His people, but also 
 an assurance that the day of their deliverance was 
 near at hand, and a conviction that by his hand He 
 would perform His word of promise.^ Moses was 
 come of years. His election, then, must now be 
 
 5 Acts vii. 25. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 333 
 
 made between the world and God, and a truth- 
 enlightened conscience enabled him to estimate 
 correctly this alternative. From the moment that 
 his heart became completely awakened to the truth 
 of God, he saw that Egypt and its multiplied al- 
 lurements were utterly disowned of Him. God was 
 not known in Pharaoh's house. His people were 
 afflicted by a nation that served other gods. To 
 remain, therefore, voluntarily at Pharaoh's court with 
 this conviction in his soul, would be to despise the 
 people of the living God. Moses was, indeed, well 
 fitted, both by education and by habit, to appreciate 
 the pleasant things of Egypt. The sacrifice he was 
 solicited to make, by the word which only promised 
 unseen things, was in appearance large. Afflictions 
 and reproach would be no naturally welcome change 
 from opulence and princely favour. But earthly 
 grandeur and magnificence become a fear, instead 
 of a desire, to the soul which God has taught. 
 Egypt and all its confidence is sin with God. If 
 enjoyed for a season in the present life, there is a 
 judgment after death. Fear and desire act unitedly 
 on Moses. He will no longer stay in Pharaoh's 
 house, the place of sin and death. He earnestly 
 desires to be with his brethren. By faith he gives 
 up all his gain for Christ. 
 
 Faith gives up sin for righteousness, and death 
 for life. Its energy of self-denial is the deliberate 
 result of its triumphant calculations. Because he 
 saw things in the light which shone upon him from 
 above, the master of Egypt's wisdom chose the fool- 
 ishness of God. For a hope, the very acknowledg- 
 ment of which would only move derision and provoke 
 
334 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 reproach, lie gave up all that men most dearly prize. 
 Yet did he count himself far richer than before. 
 Christ, whom he saw remotely as his End and ever- 
 lasting Eest, was more to him than treasures which 
 could be no ransom of his soul from death.^ God's 
 countenance was brighter sunshine than the favour 
 of the king. Its light, indeed, might guide him 
 through much tribulation and distress. But "he 
 had respect unto the recompence of reward."'' God 
 was before him as the sure close of his day of 
 patience. His witnesses were, meanwhile, visibly 
 within his view in the afflicted people of His name, 
 and by faith he thus connected Israel with Israel's 
 Hope. 
 
 The refusal of Moses to be called the son of 
 Pharaoh's daughter sounds loudly and impressively 
 upon the ear which hearkens to the teachings of the 
 Spirit. He stands before us in these verses as a 
 noble type of that decisive severance from the world, 
 and unabashed acknowledgment of Christ's dear 
 brethren, in their lowest plight, no less than in their 
 happiest estate, which is the genuine effect of a 
 joyful and discerning faith in Him. What Egypt 
 
 6 The expression, " reproach of Christ," appears to embody the 
 two distinct ideas ; first, of suffering for the confession of a hope 
 which the world disowned, but which had fed the heart of faith from 
 the beginning ; and, secondly, that which attached to Moses as the 
 assertor of a title to be the deliverer of his brethren, (Acts vii. 25,) 
 which, for a while, at least, would make him a figure of the despised 
 and rejected Saviour. 
 
 "^ 'Att k (SXsTT e yap eig T-qv fiLaQaTrodoaiav. The expressive 
 significance of these words is strongly felt when the contrasted force 
 of the two prepositions t'lQ and atib is observed. The treasures of 
 Egypt might allure the natural eye of Moses; but he looked quite 
 away from these, and fixed his gaze, by faith, upon the brighter and 
 enduring glories of that kingdom which God has prepared for them 
 that love Him. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 335 
 
 was to Moses, the world is still to us. It is the 
 place of sin and death. For a season it may be 
 enjoyed. But none of its things are of the Father. 
 The sentence long ago pronounced upon its evil, 
 impends over its incredulous security, and presently 
 will fall upon it in destructive vengeance. It is 
 already judged, together with its prince.® God warns 
 His people out of it. Meanwhile, they are given to 
 each other for companionship in the afflictions of 
 the Gospel. If we love the brethren, we know that 
 we have passed from death to life. We are fellows 
 in tribulation, and in the kingdom Q.iiidi patience of 
 Jesus Christ.^ 
 
 Yerse 27. Faith had separated Moses from the 
 house of Pharaoh, and joined him in affection with 
 his brethren. But their unbelief compels him to 
 another act of faith, by which he would withdraw 
 himself, not willingly, from those who knew him not 
 in his strange character as their deliverer. That 
 which, when narrated with its accompanying circum- 
 stances, might be mistaken for the hurried counsel 
 of despondency,^ is here applauded as a triumph of 
 true faith. Fear fell on him, indeed, when, instead 
 of welcome from his brethren, he found refusal. To 
 be treated as an alien, where he naturally looked for 
 love, and to be suspected as an enemy by those 
 for whose deliverance he yearned, might weU have 
 damped an ordinary zeal. ISTor was his disappoint- 
 ment unaccompanied by a natural feeling of alarm, 
 at finding himself thus singly exposed to the conse- 
 quences which might be expected to result from his 
 abortive enterprize. But was not the way open for 
 
 8 John xii. 31. ^ Rev. i. 9. i Exod. ii, 15. 
 
336 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 him to return once more to the place he had so 
 recently abandoned? A timely submission might 
 easily have pacified the king, while the thankless 
 rejection which he had experienced at the hands of 
 his brethren, might seem to justify him in a refusal 
 to identify himself any longer with a people who so 
 heartlessly refused his love. 
 
 Tempting suggestions of this kind may probably 
 have assailed him at this crisis of his life; but, if 
 so, his faith soon rallied from the shock. To return 
 to Pharaoh's palace would have been to deny the 
 God whose, word had led him forth. As a natural- 
 ized Egyptian, he could no longer tarry in that land 
 with an undefiled conscience, while as a confessed 
 Israelite his life was in jeopardy as an active rebel 
 against the authority of the king. Since, therefore, 
 his brethren's unbelief refused him the honour which 
 he coveted as their deliver, he would seek elsewhere 
 an asylum for himself; trusting in the faitlifulness 
 of Him who cannot lie, for the future direction of 
 his steps. For though cast down, he did not despair ; 
 and so it is said, that "by faith he forsook Egyiyt." 
 Well aware, as he must have been, that to take 
 such a step was to in\ate pursuit, and to provoke a 
 fatal anger, should the king, who kept his prisoners 
 so jealously within the iron furnace, discover his 
 retreat, yet he willingly incurred the hazard. The 
 ^^Tath of Pharaoh had less terror in his eyes than 
 the disfavour of the God in whom he put his trust. 
 He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible. But 
 in thus forsaking Egypt, he did not renounce his 
 brethren. He trusted still in God who had ordained 
 him from the womb as their deliverer. That His 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 337 
 
 time was not yet ripe lie had just had painful and 
 disheartening experience. Yet he knew full well 
 that God would be a sure Fulfiller of His word. 
 
 In his case, as in the examples which have gone 
 before, desire must be tried by patience. God would 
 fit His vessel for His work by a process which 
 should make him better understand both the nature 
 of his mission, and the immediate sources of the 
 strength in which it was to be fulfilled. He dis- 
 appoints the ardent zeal of Moses, who, with right- 
 eous purpose, but with the erroneous expectations of 
 a novice in the ways of God, had thought to be 
 transmuted instantly from a parasite of Pharaoh into 
 the ruler and avenger of his brethren. He had 
 reckoned on his brethren.^ He had also reckoned 
 somewhat on the zeal within himself, which he knew 
 was no delusion, and which he thought to be quite 
 pure from selfish ends. But God would show him 
 a yet better way. Because He loved both Israel 
 and His chosen servant. He would accomplish the 
 deliverance of His people by a stronger arm than 
 that of flesh. He would let His people find the 
 bottom of their miseries, that they might know the 
 work of their redemption to be wholly of the Lord. 
 He begins, therefore, the preparation of His servant 
 for his after work of victory, by making him a 
 broken-hearted fugitive. His reckoning must no 
 more be in any sort on man. For a period of equal 
 duration to the years which he had lived, a stranger 
 to his brethren, in the house of Pharaoh, he should 
 be a stranger in another land.^ In the desert he 
 must learn, as God alone can teach it, the lesson of 
 
 2 Acts vii. 25, 3 Acts viii. 30. 
 
 Q 
 
338 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 his own entire nothingness. When time should 
 have tamed his natural energy, and made his former 
 hope appear a thing impossible to man, the God in 
 whom he trusted would replenish him with grace 
 and power from Himself, and by a revelation of His 
 covenant Name, would commission him to do the 
 work of Israel's redemption as the apostle and effec- 
 tive agent of His will. 
 
 While Moses, therefore, fled from Egypt, he clave 
 still to the sure promises of God. He endured, 
 persisting in his confidence against past experience 
 and all natural appearances. His heart was hopeful, 
 because God was in his thoughts. What he suffered 
 was for Him who is the Buckler of His own. The 
 God of his father would protect him from the king 
 of Egypt, and would also keep him to behold His 
 promise. Moses had no thought to die in Midian. 
 The name he gave his first-born son expressed an 
 assurance that his sojourn in that country should one 
 day be a grateful retrospect of praise;* while on the 
 second child he looked as on a living remembrancer 
 of the faithful mercy of the God who saved him from 
 the sword of Pharaoh. Because he reckoned on the 
 truth of Him whose Covenant contained His people, 
 he was not fearful on his own account. God's stand- 
 ing promises are always of first interest to the be- 
 liever. They are the light and explanation of his 
 present mercies. Moses endured, as seeing Him who 
 is invisible. 
 
 Yerse 28. "By faith he kept^ the passover," &c. 
 
 4 Exod. ii. 22; xviii. 3, 4. Gershom, "a stranger there,'' as 
 rightly given in the margin of the latter passage. This prophetic 
 expression of the exile's faith has been noticed by others. 
 
 5 HfTTotjjKf. ''''Veranstaltete." — De Wette. He instituted, or 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 339 
 
 There was need of faith. The many and strong 
 plagues which God had sent npon the land of Egypt 
 had effected no deliverance for Israel, while the 
 heart of Pharaoh was yet harder than before. In 
 the exasperation of his unrepentant pride, he was 
 prepared to shed the life-blood of Jehovah's mes- 
 senger.^ The people for whose sakes the Lord had 
 wrought such wonders, seemed only to have fared 
 the worse for these indecisive tokens of Almighty 
 power on the part of One who, while He claimed to 
 be their God, still left them in the power of their 
 oppressors. The yoke of bondage yet remained 
 upon their neck, and galled them the more griev- 
 ously because of the continual frustration of their 
 hope. To suppose, then, that they would universally 
 comply with such a new and strange injunction as 
 the preparation of the paschal feast ; and that on 
 the word of one who had so often tried, with no 
 success, to wring from Pharaoh a bare leave of 
 absence for his brethren, they should be persuaded 
 to expect presently a final and triumphant exit — 
 going forth securely, laden with the spoils of their 
 oppressors, — demanded a strong trust in God. For 
 Moses could not reckon on the people for a true 
 discernment of this ordinance of their redemption. 
 
 established it. As to the rite itself, it was the passover, and (not the 
 sprinMing, but) "the pouring forth (r>)v TrpSffxvmv) of blood." 
 This word occurs here only in N. T. ; but is of common use in lxx., 
 where it is generally found as an equivalent p")l. It has been noticed, 
 however, by Bengel, that it is not found in Exod. xii. Considered 
 with reference to its typical force, it seems to express, when compared 
 with pavTKTfiogy the decisive washing away of sins by the substi- 
 tution of the Lamb of redemption for the people to be redeemed. 
 The latter refers rather to a personal appreciation on the part of the 
 believer of the work once done, in its sanctifying efficacy (chap. 
 X. 22). « Exod. X. 28. 
 
 Q 2 
 
340 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Their heart, he knew, was too little familiar with 
 the God whom he obeyed, to make it seem to him a 
 likely thing that they would respond, without excep- 
 tion, to such a call upon their faith. They had 
 seen, indeed, the acts which God had done by Moses' 
 hand. But they understood them not.'^ His own 
 words of encouragement had only drawn from them 
 an expression of despondency. They were loath to 
 change an evil which they knew, for one which, for 
 lack of trust in God, they deemed far greater, though 
 untried.^ As yet their eyes had always led their 
 faith. They were now required to unite in an ob- 
 servance which respected things unseen. Would 
 they do this? Moses might well have doubted 
 their compliance while he only thought of Hum. 
 And yet upon their strict obedience to this new 
 command, the entire safety of his brethren must 
 depend. 
 
 But the strength of Moses was not in the people, 
 but in God. He trusted that Jehovah, who had 
 given him this charge, \^'ouId frame their wills to an 
 unanimous consent. God did so ; for salvation was 
 His present purpose for His people. And when 
 God means to show His power in redemption, He 
 shapes His people's wills to meet the preparation 
 of effective mercy. Faith only could discern the 
 end of what was instituted on that great night of 
 remembrance. The blood upon the door-posts spoke 
 of something little understood by those, who, with 
 the gods of Egypt in their hearts, now crowded 
 eagerly to keep Jehovah's new and solemn feast.^ 
 
 7 Ps. cvi. 7. « Exod. xiv. 12. 
 
 9 Ezek. XX. 6-8; Josh. xxiv. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 341 
 
 The faith of one man was to set a nation free. Per- 
 ceiving from the terms of the commandment that 
 the appointed crisis was at hand, he rehearses in the 
 people's ears the notice of the time and manner of 
 their sure deliverance. He ordains, moreover, a per- 
 petual remembrance of a work not yet performed. 
 He understood the counsel of Jehovah, who would 
 date a new beginning for His people from the era of 
 their actual redemption. God made them willing 
 and obedient to his servant's word. He gave the 
 people to be his to lead up out of Egypt, for the 
 faith by which he thus had given glory to the faith- 
 ful God of promise.^ 
 
 Verse 29. We have next exemplified an act of 
 national faith. "By faith they passed through the 
 Ked Sea as by dry land." Opposed to this is the 
 catastrophe of the pursuing host of Egypt, who 
 would turn God's power to their own account with 
 no believing knowledge of His name. As it re- 
 spects the quality of the faith here celebrated, it is 
 of much importance to distinguish it from that 
 rooted and abiding principle of the new life which 
 we have seen exemplified in Moses and the patri- 
 archs. The faith of Israel was a seeing faith. 
 This is the national character throughout. They 
 believed God's words when they beheld His acts.^ 
 On the very eve of their deliverance they pro- 
 voked Him by their unbelief. For His name's 
 sake only, and to make His mighty power known, 
 He brought them through. Yet it was by faith they 
 passed. For although they were destitute of that 
 
 ^ There seems a reference to this in Exod. xxxii. 7. 
 *Ps. cvi.; John vi. 30. 
 
342 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 which is the evidence of things unseen, and which, 
 therefore, contradicts appearances by the authori- 
 tative voice of God, yet when the words with which 
 their leader sought to still their fear were accom- 
 panied by ocular appearances, which did indeed give 
 token that Jehovah meant to be their Shield,^ their 
 hearts revived. And when tliey saw that at the 
 lifting of that rod which had so often bowed the 
 haughtiness of Egypt's king, the sea, which just 
 before had seemed their nearest death, began to 
 yield, and presently a road both firm and dry invited 
 their advance, they did not hesitate. Death was 
 indeed their wall on either side, yet they were not 
 afraid ; the path of safety was beneath their feet. 
 They saw clear through the danger by the shining of 
 Jehovah's light, whose covering presence hid their 
 enemies from sight. Steps which might falter as 
 they first began to follow their conductor through 
 that new and untried way, grew firmer as they 
 neared the shore of hope. They all passed through. 
 The feeble and the strong were equally emboldened 
 to adventure on that way of God. They saw to- 
 gether His salvation. And when God removed the 
 screen which hid from their view His sacred work of 
 judgment, and showed His people in the light of 
 natural day the dreaded host of Pharaoh scattered 
 lifeless on the strand, they knew their Saviour, and 
 believed the chosen shepherd of His flock* 
 
 The faith which landed Israel in the wilderness 
 forsook him there. Through mibelief that genera- 
 tion could not enter into Canaan. The nature of 
 their failure, and the moral application of their 
 
 3 Exod. xiv. 19, 20. * Exod. xiv. 31. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 343 
 
 history to the now professing Church, have been 
 presented to us in the third and fourth chapters of 
 this epistle. In the passage now before us, Israel, 
 in the completeness of his temporal salvation, forms 
 a type (well known and of great price to the be- 
 liever) of the whole family of God's redemption. 
 They represent the multitude of those who, by the 
 cross of Jesus, find in death a passage to eternal life. 
 But in its more especial bearing on the times of 
 Gospel testimony, the entire scene stands as a 
 parable, wherein the contrary effects of the same 
 word of truth, on the believer and the unregenerate 
 professor, are vividly displayed. It was the dread 
 of coming vengeance, that made the sea a welcome 
 passage of escape for Israel, It was the proud self- 
 confidence of the Egyptians, that made them blind 
 to the destruction which awaited them. God's own 
 high road to Canaan seemed to promise to His 
 enemies safe conduct to their lusts.^ They were 
 drowned because they would not think, until too 
 late, that God had put a difference between His 
 people and themselves. 
 
 So is it with the countless multitudes who now 
 ostensibly profess to tread the way of Hfe. To the 
 believing sinner, the cross of Christ is both an open 
 way of refuge from the wrath to come, and an effec- 
 tual deliverance from Satan's world. The world is 
 crucified to those w^ho, in the faith of Jesus risen, 
 begin to taste the fruits of God's salvation by the 
 Spirit.^ Their desire, when convinced as sinners by 
 the power of the Spirit, was to be brought to God ; 
 to know Him as His people in the fulness of His 
 
 5 Exod. XV. 9. 6 Gal. vi. 14. 
 
344 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 peace — and their faith has found these things in 
 Jesus. They have come forth by the blood-shedding 
 of remission/ and in the right of an eternal re- 
 demption, from the house of bondage. They are 
 passed, in Christ, from death to endless life. He 
 who is their Hope has gone before them to the shore 
 of safety, and awaits them there. His Name shall 
 be the unobstructed way of their salvation, until all 
 whom He acknowledges as His are clean passed 
 over to His side. But others have ventured on that 
 Name, with no discernment of it as the ivay of 
 holiness. It has seemed to them a short and safe 
 passage to their natural inclinations. Bent on a 
 different pursuit from those who have the fear of 
 God, and stimulated, not by any real dread of 
 coming wrath, but by fallacious promise of an easier 
 advancement to their own desires, they name the 
 name of Christ without departing from iniquity. 
 With heady high-mindedness, they confide in their 
 discernment of the doctrine. What saves one sinner 
 may suffice another, though he have no mind to 
 quarrel with his sins. So they reason, in ignorance 
 alike of sin and of salvation, in their true intent, 
 because not knowing God. Nor if, instead of turn- 
 ing grace into licentiousness, men try the passage 
 nominally by the living way, while really their trust 
 is in their worthiness to pass because of works, are 
 they less Egyptians still. Both alike despise and 
 hate in heart the genuine believer. They are not 
 crossing the dread sea of death by faith. They will 
 surely be entangled by their own incumbrance till 
 its waves flow in upon their souls for ever. The 
 
 7 Ante, ix. 22. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 345 
 
 Lord who saves His people in Himself knows with 
 what meaning we profess His name.® 
 
 Verse 30. Faith which had saved that genera- 
 tion when, as fugitives from the Egyptians, they 
 passed securely through the sea, now makes their 
 children more than conquerors in Canaan. "By 
 faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Human 
 sagacity had planned those walls. They were built 
 for long endurance on a firm foundation ; and 
 within their circuit peace and safety dwelt with 
 wickedness, until the hour of God's judgment came. 
 By faith the strength of God dissolved, as in a 
 moment, those tall battlements of sin. But, as is 
 usual when He puts His power forth, the means 
 ostensibly employed were wholly inadequate to such 
 an end. The men of Jericho, whose hearts had 
 failed them at the rumour of their prowess, may 
 have felt some reassurance as they watched what 
 preparation Israel made to level the strong fortress 
 of their trust. But they knew not the manner of 
 the God who judged them. They must learn by 
 fatal proof how much His foolishness excels the 
 counsel of man's pride. A blast of rams' horns, 
 blown by unarmed priests, should sound the note of 
 sudden rasure to those walls. It was by God alone 
 that Israel prevailed. By patient compliance with 
 His word their faith should tread down strength. 
 They had just been witnesses of what His might 
 
 8 The above remarks are general, and illustrate the broad, essential 
 distinction of the believer from the -world. As it respects the expe- 
 rimental application of Exod. xiv. to the individual believer, it 
 typifies the victory which we have already through the knowledge 
 of the resurrection. It is morally the starting-point at which our 
 experience of the present world as a xvilderness begins. We journey 
 through it thus by faith in the power of the risen life. (Col. iii.) 
 
 q5 
 
346 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 could do, wlio had made the fulness of the Jordan 
 dry, to give them entrance to His land. Patience 
 must have her perfect work through trial of their 
 faith. Not once nor twice, but seven times they 
 must repeat the tedious circuit of the city. They 
 must learn God's art of warfare. Their victory, as 
 well as their salvation, was of Him.^ 
 
 The fall of Jericho, the city of destruction, is a 
 lively type of what is coming, swiftly but unex- 
 pectedly, upon a Christless world. God has devoted 
 it. The warning note of coming ruin has been given 
 many times ; but disregarded warnings ever have a 
 hardening effect. Divine long-suffering bears still 
 with men's indifference; but when the full number 
 of God's election is attained, and Christian faith 
 has undergone the appointed measure of its trial, 
 the moment of destruction will have come. Mean- 
 while, God disallows by testimony every confidence 
 of man. Wrath is revealed from heaven, in His 
 Gospel, against all that in which nature puts its 
 trust. His coming day declares itself alike against 
 the great and little things of men.^ Bat truth, 
 which compasses the world with warning, seems to 
 utter but a feeble sound. Though mighty to abase 
 strongholds, and bow the broken spirit to subjection, 
 when, as the word of Christ, it works its gracious 
 work among His people, God's truth is to the natural 
 man an impotent and ineffective thing. It is, there- 
 fore, disregarded and despised. The world is not to 
 be deterred from its intention by "vain words." ^ 
 The end of all things, long ago pronounced to be at 
 
 9 Joshua vi. i Isa. ii. 10, &c. ; Matt. xii. 36. 
 
 2 Isaiah xxxvi. 5. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 347 
 
 hand, has lingered long enough to be forgotten as a 
 fear. The report of God's past acts of judgment 
 feebly stir the hearts of men, who day by day are 
 growing wiser in their own conceits. Every 'know- 
 ledge hut that of God is built into those walls of 
 unbelief which shelter men in the pursuit of their 
 own will, and shut out the Disturber of their peace. 
 In order to. neutralize the solemn truth of God, the 
 prince of this world uses every device. By false 
 interpretations he corrupts the word, and teaches 
 men to wrest it to their own destruction. In varied 
 tones he pours into the world's too ready ear his 
 lying assurance that the Lord is not at hand. Yet 
 He will surely come. At His appearing and His 
 kingdom He will judge both quick and dead. And 
 they who know Him must not spare to preach the 
 word until He come. If they would clear their 
 conscience of the blood of others, they must not 
 keep back their testimony to that coming day. 
 They are to remember that His long-suffering is 
 salvation ; ^ that by the same word against which 
 the unbeliever stops his ears, God severs for HimseK 
 some vessel of His mercy, whom He has appointed 
 not to wrath, but to obtain salvation. 
 
 Verse 31. He acted thus when, at the fall of 
 Jericho, "by faith the harlot Rahah perished not 
 with them that disbelieved." All Jericho had heard 
 the terror of the Lord. But none were moved by 
 the report to seek Him as a Saviour but this harlot 
 of God's good report. She is a wondrous specimen 
 of His pure workmanship, who chooses base things 
 of this world, and things despised, to make them 
 
 3 2 Tim. iv.; 2 Pet. iu. 15. 
 
348 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 beautiful with His salvation. The faith of Eahab 
 was a justifying faith. Within the city and without, 
 appearances forbad all hope. If Jericho must be 
 destroyed for sin, none had more cause to dread the 
 coming stroke than she. But she remembered that 
 He who can destroy can also save. She justified 
 Jehovah in His holy purposes of vengeance upon 
 sin, bowing herself beneath His mighty hand, and 
 giving Him glory as the onl}^ God ; but she trusted 
 that in Him with power there was likewise mercy. 
 In the men of Jericho the fame of God wrought 
 
 o 
 
 fear, but no repentance. They clung to their first 
 confidences, and watched well their gates. They 
 were intimidated, but still unsubdued. But Eahab 
 knew the power of Jehovah's Name. In faith she 
 set it as a covenant of peace between His army of 
 destruction and herself And thus taking hold upon 
 the strength of His salvation, she made her peace 
 with Him.* 
 
 Eahab received the messengers with peace, because 
 her only expectation was from God. For the same 
 reason she protected them, and sent them out an- 
 other way. She risked her life for theirs. This was 
 a work of faith.^ God's people were her people, 
 from the moment that they gave her a true token of 
 salvation. Before they gave it she was already on 
 their side,^ for her faith regarded Him who sent 
 them forth. And God accepts her work. His Spirit 
 holds it up, wdth that of Abraham, for a perpetual 
 ensample to His saints. Being thus justified by 
 faith, while wrath was yet deferred, she perished not 
 in the destruction of God's enemies. So will it be 
 
 * Isa. xxvi. 5. 5 jas. ii. 25. ^ Josh. ii. 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 349 
 
 with tliat poor sinner, who, attesting all God's truth 
 against himself, has found through faith true token 
 of forgiveness in the blood of Jesus. In a Christ- 
 less and gainsaying world, believing sinners know 
 the shelter of His name, who is God's Covenant of 
 peace. They have a secret understanding with the 
 Minister of that destruction which is in readiness to 
 fall upon the haters of the Lord. Having been 
 justified already by His blood, they will be most 
 surely saved from wrath through Him.'^ 
 
 Yerse 32. The last example closes suitably this 
 fair array of personal instances in proof of the unfail- 
 ing efficacy of faith. For it speaks comfortably to the 
 hearts of those who, in the last days of evil, when 
 evidences of ripened apostasy are on every side, 
 and the stroke of judgment is upon the eve of its 
 descent, wait confidently for the mercy of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ unto eternal life.^ And now he adds 
 no more. A goodly list of witnesses had been 
 already cited ; enough to illustrate abundantly the 
 thesis stated at the opening of this chapter. He 
 would therefore pause, Not that his subject failed 
 him, but his time. Far more remained unsaid than 
 he had celebrated, for the Scripture teems with in- 
 stances of faith. God has had many servants who 
 have served Him in their generation, and of whose 
 acts and sufferings the Spirit has borne approving 
 witness in the word of truth. To recite these acts 
 and sufferings would be to add new pages to the 
 chronicle of faith. For if God tells of human 
 goodness. He must speak of faith, which only makes 
 men pleasing in His eyes.^ 
 
 7 Kom. V. 9. 8 jude 21. 
 
350 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 Instead, then, of continuing his portraiture of 
 personal example, he presents in the following verses 
 (33-38) a general summary of the work of faith, 
 as it had shown itself in those who, whether in a 
 royal or private state ; judges, or kings, or prophets ; 
 men or women, had earned a good report from God. 
 It was well that they whose calling is to walk by 
 faith, and not by sight, should be reminded of these 
 things. Both in its active energy, and its passive 
 endurance, the faith which marked them as God's 
 people must be exercised. It is, indeed, no longer 
 now with flesh and blood that we, whose present 
 calling is a warfare, have to light. That power by 
 which earthly kingdoms once w^ere won, has now 
 to shew its ef&cacy in our struggle against " princi- 
 palities and powers, against the rulers of the dark- 
 ness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in 
 heavenly places." By faith the Christian has to 
 force his way to the enjoyment of those things 
 which God in Christ affirms to be his portion, and 
 into which the Spirit of adoption seeks to lead him 
 by the word of grace ; but against his entrance into 
 which the adversary practises all methods of intimi- 
 dation and beguilement.^ 
 
 Practical righteousness (verse 33), whether in the 
 form of zealous devotedness in action, or of stead- 
 fast endurance under the pressure of temptation, is 
 never maintainable except by faith. For only God 
 can lead us and sustain us in the w^ay of evenness 
 and truth. By faith also His promises are now to be 
 obtained, as then.^ Without its active exercise the 
 Christian is a poor and needy starveling, though all 
 1 Eph. vi. 1 1 - 19. 2 Mark xi. 22 - 24. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 351 
 
 God's treasures are his own in Clirist. Moreover, if 
 Daniel's faith could close the mouths of lions, till 
 after one long night of patience he came up un- 
 injured from their den, this feat is told for our 
 encouragement, who may meet at any turn of our 
 pilgrimage the devil our adversary, as a roaring 
 lion, seeking whom he may devour. We must resist 
 him, steadfast in the faith.^ 
 
 Fire has yielded to a fervour stronger than itself 
 (verse 34). The faith which, in three captive strip- 
 lings, braved the fury of the king for God, brought 
 God Himself to bear His servants joyful companion- 
 ship amid the burning flame.'^ The Lord is likewise 
 with His people noiu, who, walking in the faith of 
 Him, think it not strange when fiery trial comes 
 upon them for His sake.° True faith has found, in 
 modern as in ancient times, a refuge from the arm of 
 violence in God. Both treacheiy and violence may 
 be expected in a world where our calling is to be as 
 sheep for slaughter.^ But He who hid His prophets, 
 when it pleased Him, from the wrath of man, is the 
 preserv^er, at His wise discretion, of His people's 
 mortal lives.' Weakness is ever the condition of 
 the saint, until by faith he looks to Jesus as his 
 strength. What made the fathers valiant in their 
 conflicts, when huge hosts of aliens fled before a 
 handful of brave men, was faith. They were God's 
 soldiers, and He was the glory of their strength. 
 Their valour and success were all of Him, who 
 made them worthy of the Name which was their 
 banner. So now, good soldiers of Jesus Christ are 
 
 3 1 Pet. V. ^ Dan. iii. 5 i Pet. iy. 12. 
 
 6 Rom. viii. 31, &c. ^ Acts xviii. 9, 10; Eev. ii. 10. 
 
352 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 fitted to bear hardness, by the faith which makes 
 His grace their strength. A multitude of alien 
 lusts are armed for strife against the will of God. 
 Whether in the path of outward service, or in the 
 secret of his way, the Christian has to find that by 
 faith alone he can make head successfully against 
 the things which set themselves in opposition to 
 his title and his conduct, as a child and servant of 
 the living God. 
 
 "Women received their dead," &c. (verse 35.) 
 Natural instinct or affection is a thing which God 
 esteems, and He has often honoured its desires w^hen 
 preferred by simple and submissive faith. For 
 where faith really works, its prayer will be according 
 to the mind of God. Vehement urgency of personal 
 desire may no doubt utter many prayers which are 
 not heard of Him. On the other hand, there is 
 no limit set to His compassions as the attentive 
 Listener to every request sent up believingly from 
 hearts which are subject to His will. As it respects 
 the instances referred to in this verse, the difference 
 of dispensation should not be overlooked. To live 
 was better than to die, while God was dealing with 
 an earthly people. But since faith has learned that 
 to depart and be with Christ is now far better than 
 to stay on earth, such demonstrations of its power 
 are no more likely to be shown.^ The mourners will 
 
 8 The two cases of resuscitation recorded in the Acts (viii. and xx.) 
 are not to be contemplated under the same point of view as those 
 above referred to; nor, after the full development of the heavenly- 
 calling of the church, do we read of any similar manifestations of 
 Divine power. But the exceptive instances just mentioned, occurring 
 as they did "at the beginning of the gospel," and before the saints 
 had fiilly known the nature of their blessedness, as already imited to 
 the risen Christ in heaven, are full of gracious meaning and comfort. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 353 
 
 receive their dead to life again, when God brings 
 presently with Jesus those who have been laid to 
 rest by Him.^ 
 
 Besides the triumphs of faith's active energy as 
 an aggressor against sin and death, God marks with 
 equal pleasure its meek and resolute endurance of 
 wrongful sorrow and affliction. " Others were tor- 
 tured," &c. ' It was in the heart and power of the 
 enemy to multiply their j)ains. Since Cain killed 
 Abel for his righteous deeds, cruel and murderous 
 counsels have been freely exercised against the 
 lovers of God's truth. Jehovah has not always hid 
 His prophets. He has honoured them sometimes by 
 putting to their lips the cup which Jesus afterwards 
 should fully drink. Its bitterness was sweetened by 
 their certain though yet distant hope. They might 
 have saved themselves from agonizing death, by con- 
 senting to take life and safety at the cost of truth. 
 But by faith they saw before them better things 
 than any which the world could either give or take 
 away. And because they "counted the cost" thus 
 wisely, they clave with confidence to Him who has 
 power to maintain His glory against those who dis- 
 allow it in His day of patience. Resurrection to 
 eternal life was in the eye of God's afflicted ones, 
 who, while they took death patiently in the per- 
 suasion of an immortality of glory, warned the 
 murderer of a coming inquisition for their blood.^ 
 
 Ingenious devices have often been hit upon by 
 
 men (who, although naturally incapable of finding 
 
 out the way of peace, are acknowledged by the 
 
 Spirit as "inventors of evil things"),^ for varying 
 
 » 1 Thess. iv. 14. i 2 Chron. xxiv. 22. 2 Eom. i. 30. 
 
354 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 the miseries of such as move their anger and con- 
 tempt by openly confessing God in Satan's world. 
 Departure from evil makes a man a prey to those 
 who tolerate no variance from the established usages 
 of sin.^ That the flesh should be the persecutor of 
 the Spirit, is according to its native instinct. It is 
 a mocker, when too weak to torture or to kill.* 
 Meanwhile God notes minutely what is suffered for 
 His sake. The tears of His prisoners are in His 
 bottle, and His day is coming for the avenging of 
 His own elect. But while He tarries, and until 
 judgment is established in the earth, the place of 
 testimony must be more or less the place of suffering. 
 It is likely^ that the hand which God employed to 
 write these verses had, in his days of ignorance, 
 assisted at the slaughter and tormenting of God's 
 saints; but by grace the persecutor had become the 
 zealous preacher of the faith which he had once 
 destroyed,^ and a chief partaker in the afflictions of 
 the gospel.' And as one who spake witli an experi- 
 mental knowledge of his subject, he would persuade 
 his brethren to associate in their minds, habitually, 
 the twin ideas of faithfulness and suffering. For 
 the Gospel wliicli had opened heaven to their faith, 
 forbad them to expect esteem and favour from the 
 world. A woe and not a blessing is addressed to 
 such as, while outwardly professing Christ, yet 
 suffer Him so little to appear, and chime in their 
 conversation so harmoniously with the ways of 
 men, as to become heartily acceptable to the world.^ 
 
 3 Is. lix. 15. ^ Gal. iv. 29. 
 
 ^ In my own judgment, certain. See the Preface. 
 
 6 Gal. 1. 23. 7 2 Cor. xii. 24-27. ^ Luke vi. 26. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 355 
 
 Blessings and more abundant joy are, on the con- 
 trary, the portion of the sufferers for Christ. The 
 Spirit of glory and of God rests on them. A crown 
 of life is ready in the hands of Jesus for bestowment 
 on the patient lover of that name.^ 
 
 The world was not worthy of God's martyrs 
 (verse 38). For the world loved darkness, while 
 they witnessed to the light. The world was not 
 then, nor is it now, of God. Dens and caves of the 
 earth have held His dearest servants, while His 
 adversaries sat on thrones. But peace and joy dwelt 
 rather in tlie cave than in the palace. The Holy 
 Ghost brought forth from David's harp no bolder 
 and no sweeter strains of joyful confidence, than 
 when he wandered in the wilderness, or lurked in 
 savage holds in peril of his life.^ And it is well 
 for us to remember that the sharpest torture and 
 most frequent death that visited God's ancient wit- 
 nesses, were inflicted by the hands of their apostate 
 brethren.- Faith's most arduous trial and most 
 signal triumphs are exemplified when God is known 
 and joyfully confessed, in the midst of that which, 
 while it claims to be of God, denies the power of His 
 kingdom. The prophets who were slain as Christ's 
 forerunners, are chosen by the Spirit as the models 
 of our patience also, since, until the Lord return, 
 we must not think ourselves exempt from bloody 
 death.^ Apostate Christianity has many times been 
 drunk to madness with the blood of Christ's elect. 
 Torture has never been more diligently ministered, 
 
 9 Matt. V. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iv. 14; Jas. i. 12. 
 
 1 Psalms xxxiv., lii., liv., Ivi., Ivii., Ixiii. See their respective 
 titles. 
 
 2 Acts vii. 52. 8 Jas. y. 
 
356 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 nor with more exquisite variety of pitiless appliance 
 than to Christians in the name of Christ.* And if 
 the harlot who has sat as queen so long seems totter- 
 ing to her fall, it is for God's people to remember 
 that the beast that destroys her rises to yet loftier 
 pride of wickedness. His war is openly against the 
 Lamb.^ The Lord is ready to call suddenly His 
 people to Himself ; but while He tarries, faithfulness 
 is never safe from persecution or the sword.^ 
 
 Verses 39, 40. All those who suffered in their 
 day for Christ, obtained their good report through 
 faith. But none of them attained the promise.'^ 
 They lived, and suffered, and departed hence, before 
 the fulness of the time was come. They joyed to 
 see a coming Christ, but knew not the blessing of 
 the Spirit of adoption. They died in the faith of 
 better things to come. " God having foreseen some 
 better thing for us, that they without us should not 
 be made perfect." 
 
 The language of this last verse is remarkable. 
 The present portion of the Christian is affirmed to 
 be "some better thing" than that which cheered the 
 fathers in affliction and in death. Moreover, their 
 perfection was not to be "apart from us."^ This 
 stamps at once on the partakers of the heavenly 
 calling an especial character. They differ from their 
 predecessors in the faith, inasmuch as there is dis- 
 
 ^ No one who has the slightest acquaintance with ecclesiastical 
 history can require any instances in proof of this assertion. 
 
 s Eev. xvii. ^ Rom. viii. 36. 
 
 '' OvK tKOfxitravTo ttjv l-n-ayyeXiav. They received it hy 
 the word of God, but they did not carry off its actual substance. 
 The foundation of their distant joy was not yet laid in fact. Peace 
 could not be published as a testimony, until the sacrifice of peace was 
 made. 6 Xwpttr ijfioji'. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 357 
 
 closed to them some better thing than they possessed. 
 On the other hand, they are necessary to the fathers, 
 since apart from them the latter could not see per- 
 fection.^ The standing, therefore, of the Christian 
 in the present dispensation is advantageously dis- 
 tinguished from the place the fathers held, although 
 these had obtained a good report through faith. 
 
 The main points of distinction have already had 
 some notice in the progress of this work. They 
 may here be summed up generally as follows : — The 
 fathers waited for a Saviour yet to come. The 
 Church rejoices in a finished Captain of salvation. 
 God was desired rather than possessed by those who 
 lived and suffered for His name of old, although His 
 covenant of peace was theirs. He dwells now, by 
 His Spirit, in the children whom He has begotten 
 by the Gospel of His grace. The distant promises 
 which they embraced from far, are to us a sure testi- 
 mony of 'present truth} It had never been announced 
 to them of old that they were children of the 
 Father, and joint-heirs with Christ. Their imme- 
 diate calling was not heavenly but earthly. If God's 
 prophets suffered, it was at the hands of those who 
 had forsaken truth for falsehood, and not because 
 the naturcd portion of a faithful Israelite was suffer- 
 ing and reproach. But tribulation is declared to us 
 to be our oiihj passage to the kingdom.^ Faithful 
 
 ^ Chap. xii. 23, throws light on this expression. The apostle, in 
 there reciting the New Testament blessings of the believer, speaks of 
 our being come to the spirits of "just men made perfect;" plainly- 
 implying, as he does in Rom. iii. 25, the retrospective efficacy of the 
 cross as the sole means of perfecting those who, before the work was 
 "finished," were necessaiily in a state of hopeful expectation only, 
 and not of conscious peace. 
 
 1 2 Pet. i. 12. 2 Acts xiv. 22 ; 2 Tim. iii. 12. 
 
358 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 confession of a heavenly calling and a world-rejected 
 Christ, makes persecution in some shape inevitable 
 to the godly Christian. How much our portion as 
 true worshippers excels in conscious blessing the 
 experience of those who, with true hearts but imper- 
 fect knowledge, served painfully beneath the yoke of 
 bondage, has been already shown. There has always 
 been a unity of faith to God's elect. But to us there 
 is one manifested Lord and Saviour, whose special 
 name was undeclared to them who looked to see His 
 day. To us there is one body, and one Spirit, who 
 forms and animates that body here below. The 
 members of that body confess that they have died, 
 and live again by faith, in union with the Head who 
 is in heaven. Their blessings are according to the 
 measure of the Son s perfections, and already they 
 are sealed for the enjoyment of them in the heavenly 
 places by the Holy Ghost, who is the earnest of 
 their inheritance, imtil the expected revelation of the 
 Saviour shall change the night of patience, now far 
 spent, to the eternal day of glory.^ These things 
 were never given to the fathers, though they stood 
 in equal favour as the chosen vessels of His grace, 
 who has bestowed the better things on us. 
 
 There is an order in the purposes of God. The 
 just, who died in the faith of an unfinished promise, 
 were not to see perfection till the first-born should 
 have heard their calling to the fellowship of Christ. 
 The Church is begotten of the will of God to be a 
 kind of first-fruits of His creatures.'' What neither 
 man nor angel had before conceived, is now revealed 
 to those who taste the fellowship of God's rejected 
 
 8 Eph. i. 13, 14. * James i. 18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 359 
 
 Son.'' It is by the Church that God now makes the 
 riches of His wisdom known to principalities and 
 powers in heavenly places. The God of grace, who 
 metes His favours at His own good pleasure, has 
 seen good thus to cast the lot of their inheritance, 
 who now by faith see Jesus crowned with glory and 
 honour as the great High Priest of their profession. 
 May the glory of that better portion be appreciated, 
 and the blessed hope held fast by our faith. The 
 Hebrew saints, because they were beginning to let 
 slip the special doctrine of their calling, were in 
 danger of entanglement again with fatal error. In 
 our day, it is the lively exercise of faith in Christ, 
 as our risen Life, and the discernment of heavenly 
 things as our present portion through the Spirit, 
 which alone can keep us in a state of godly sepa- 
 ration from the world, and set us in the place of 
 acceptable testimony until He come. 
 
 5 Eph. iii. 
 
360 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How the just man lives by faith, and what the 
 common fare had been which they who please God 
 best had met with in a world which knew Him not, 
 has been strikingly exemplified in the chapter last 
 examined. The union, moreover, of the family of 
 faith throughout all time has been found to be com- 
 patible with marked and emphatic differences in the 
 partakers respectively of the earthly and heavenly 
 callings. But although, through the reception of 
 the Spirit' of adoption, the Christian tastes a richer 
 portion than the fathers knew, he is an imitator of 
 the faith whereby they saw invisible things. The 
 possession of the Divine earnest of their inheritance 
 does but render the partakers of the heavenly 
 calling more emphatically strangers upon earth. Ee- 
 ceiving already the end of their faith in the sal- 
 vation of their souls, — of which the Spirit is the 
 seal and witness, — they have to wait with patience 
 for the perfecting of that salvation by the redemp- 
 tion of their bodies of corruption.^ Till then they 
 live but to contend. To work out their salvation in 
 the energy of patient faith is their intermediate 
 
 1 Eom. viii. 23. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 361 
 
 occupation in the world. Their mortal life is to be 
 spent in armour. Until the Eest of God be finally- 
 attained, a race of patience is before them still. 
 There is a sense in which the saints still wait, as 
 Jacob and the prophets did, for God's salvation.^ 
 
 It was the earnest desire of the writer of this 
 epistle to be a helper of his brethren's joy, and, by 
 nourishing and strengthening their faith, to speed 
 them on their way to God. Full of the spirit of 
 power and of love, and of a sound mind, he labours 
 to awaken in them a worthier appreciation of their 
 present oppo'rtunity of pleasing God. Their calling 
 was to adorn His doctrine, who had saved them for 
 Himself. To provoke, therefore, their faith to more 
 abundant exercise, he had passed in review the 
 crowd of ancient instances which fills the fore- 
 going chapter. They were as a cloud of witnesses,^ 
 attesting, each in his own peculiar language, the 
 rich sufficiency of God to save and bless the souls 
 that trust in Him, and live upon His truth, while 
 they gave united warning that the present world is 
 not the portion of God's saints; that the promises 
 which made them pilgrims where men naturally are 
 at home, are to be realized with God in habitations 
 not prepared by hands. 
 
 Verse 1. Joining then his name to theirs, as a 
 
 3 Geu. xlix. 18 ; Isa. xxv. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 5. 
 
 3 I do not doubt that this expression properly refers to the examples 
 of faith and patience just before commemorated. There is another 
 sense in -which the Christian is encompassed daily by a cloud of no 
 approving witnesses. The world takes eager note of those who, by 
 professing to know God, invite the scrutiny of such as walk by sight, 
 and not by faith. Happy, indeed, is that believer in whose way the 
 world finds no inconsistencies to move contempt, and render powerless 
 Jiis verbal testimony, however plainly said. 
 
362 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 partaker both of their travail and their hope, he 
 cheers them on to steady perseverance in the ways 
 of faith and patience. The race depended much, for 
 the amount of honour to be won, upon themselves. 
 It was a race of faith, and for a heavenly prize. To 
 run it, therefore, v/ith effect, they should divest 
 themselves of every earthly v^^eight,* and shake ofp 
 Avatchfully the sin which more than all the rest was 
 ready always to obstruct their progress. Language 
 is here employed by the apostle, to which a latitude 
 of interpretation belongs, commensurate with the 
 requirements of the Christian conscience. No man 
 is weighted precisely as his neighbour, while the 
 sinful propensities common to us all lead in differ- 
 ent persons in the most various and often opposite 
 directions. The standard of conformity being God 
 Himself,^ whatever exercises our energies, or grati- 
 fies our inclinations, without reference to Him, must 
 be a burden to the spirit, and, therefore, a hindrance 
 to the heaven-bound pilgrim in his course.^ 
 
 But, while the exhortation here addressed to the 
 believing Hebrews is expressed in the broadest terms, 
 it is easy to see that it is against one special form of 
 sin, that they are more emphatically warned. No- 
 thing would so retard them on their way, and so 
 certainly diminish their eventual reward, as unhclicf. 
 They must daily endeavour to foreclose their hearts 
 against the entrance of that easiest of sins. It is a 
 
 ^ oyKOv cL'rro Okfievoi iravTa. They are probably right who apply 
 these words chiefly to the yoke of Judaical ordinances. Doubtless an 
 assertion of full spiritual liberty is the first essential to our entering 
 on the Christian race in the proper sense of the expression. We 
 run, not as sinners, but as saints. But the apostle's language is too 
 broad to be satisfied by so limited an interpretation. 
 
 5 Matt. V. 1 -8 ; Eph. v. 1, 2. 6 Luke vii. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 363 
 
 sin tliat easily besets us, because it is but the mind 
 of nature acting, according to its instincts, against 
 the will of God. And, therefore, while remaining 
 in the body we cannot be relieved from the duty of 
 watchfully repressing its advances. And so he 
 labours to revive and perpetuate in his brethren's 
 hearts a worthy sense of their vocation, and to guard 
 tliem against all that might seem likely to enfeeble 
 or diminish their proper confidence and joy. By 
 diligently pondering the word of promise, their faith 
 w^ould flourish in an active godliness. While hea- 
 venly objects were felt to be their present and 
 exclusive aim, their lives on earth would pass both 
 happily and w^ell. In the light of better knowledge, 
 they would be enabled, in the spirit of sound judg- 
 ment,'^ to free themselves voluntarily from many 
 things which, though not sinful in themselves, they 
 might find to be a cumbrance rather than an aid in 
 their efforts to attain the prize of God's high calling 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 A Christian is not under law. His practical denial 
 of himself is very much at the discretion of his love 
 for Christ. He is exhorted, and commanded, by a 
 Master who expects obedience as a proof of love;^ 
 but he is not compelled. Strength is always ready to 
 be given him to lay aside, without exception, emry 
 w^eight; for God is Himself the strength of them 
 that truly seek to do His will ; the grace and power 
 of Christ are all his own, to use for Him. But he 
 may, instead of using these by faith, neglect or over- 
 look them in his search for other things. He may 
 make maxims of worldly prudence his counsellors 
 
 7 Phil. i. 9, 10. 8 joha xiv. 13 ; 1 John v. 3. 
 
 R 2 
 
364 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 instead of faitli, and thus consult large damage to 
 his soul. He may set his mind on riches, and attain 
 them, to the grievous wounding of his better life.^ 
 He may seek his own with busy preference to the 
 things of Jesus. But he will suffer for his choice. 
 He will not practically live by faith. His life will, 
 therefore, not please God. He will be a grief and 
 hindrance to his brethren, whom he should have 
 helped. He will not be happy in his general 
 experience, and will see his works go up as smoke 
 when tried by fire in the day of God.^ 
 
 Yerse 2. For running prosperously the race of 
 faith, nothing is so essential as a single eye. What- 
 ever tends to divert attention from the true end of 
 the course must check the runner in his progress. 
 Now Christ is the end of our race, as well as the 
 beginning of our way.^ Averting,^ therefore, all 
 regard from other objects, the believer is exhorted 
 to look evermore to Jesus, the beginner and com- 
 pleter of his faith. The Saviour of His people is 
 also their chief exemplar in the race of faith and 
 patience. Having considered Him as our Captain 
 of salvation, the Apostle and High Priest of our 
 profession, He is set before us now as our pattern of 
 obedient endurance. With a parity of title, we are 
 called to the fellowship of His experiences in the 
 world. It was as the Son, and voluntary servant 
 of the Father, that He entered on his race. Because 
 
 9 1 Tim. vi. 9. 11 Cor. iii. 13-15.^ 2 Phil. iii. 8. 
 
 ^'A(p Q u) V T i Q eig Tov rriQ uricrrewQ dpxriyov kuI rtXtiioTijv 
 'l)](Tovv. "The Author and Finisher of faith." — He is this in every 
 sense. For He is the source and sustaining power of faith, as well 
 as its object and its end. Perhaps it had been better had the English 
 translators omitted the pronoim "our." As to the construction of the 
 sentence and its specific form, see the note at p. 334. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 365 
 
 we are by grace made sons in Him, the will of God, 
 which guided Him to death for our sakes, becomes 
 also the order of our way. For the joy which filled His 
 prospect, Jesus underwent the cross. The shame to 
 which men turned His glory He despised. For in 
 the completion of His degradation, He expected the 
 beginning of His endless joy. From the sepulchre 
 He has come forth to sit upon the throne of God. 
 He is happy there, in the enjoyment of a pleasure 
 only to be known by the triumphant Winner of His 
 people's full salvation. Having suffered in the flesh 
 for the redemption of the creature. He will be for 
 ever the delighted witness of a joy which the fully 
 blest creation will (when the promised hour of its 
 gladness comes) ascribe to Him. His joy is full as 
 the receiver and requiter of the Father's love. He 
 will share that joy, to the utmost limit of their 
 power to receive it, with the " holy brethren," whose 
 present calling is to follow in His steps. 
 
 Joy in the Lord is the saint's true preparation for 
 enduring the afflictions of the Gospel. The cross 
 will drag painfully, instead of being lightly borne, 
 if we are not already tasting the sweet fruits of 
 victory, through faith. The sight of Jesus on the 
 throne of God is speed and vigour to the soul that 
 steadily regards Him there. Not to press forward at 
 that sight is impossible to the believer, while faint- 
 ness will not fail to steal upon him, if he suffers 
 anything to intercept his conscious fellowship with 
 His Forerunner. Moreover, while we rest by faith 
 upon Him as our end and victory, and set the enemy 
 at nought through the prevailing power of His 
 Name, His matchless grace and patience are to be 
 
366 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 tlie daily meditation of our hearts. We are called 
 to walk as He walked, in the present world. 
 
 Verse 3. "For consider Him," &c. It is in the 
 contemplation of the Sufferer's dignity that we learn 
 correctly to estimate the grace of Him who thus 
 endured. The contradiction of sinners was against 
 Himself. He suffered, indeed, as the solitary wit- 
 ness, in obedience, to the truth of God. As the 
 righteous Doer in a world of sinners. He bore re- 
 proaches from the enemies of God. But in the 
 poverty of Jesus there remained the unchanged 
 presence of Divinity. All that He encountered was 
 directly aimed against Himself. It was the Christ, 
 the Son of God, who suffered. His name, His titles. 
 His words of grace and truth. His holy works of 
 goodness and compassion, were rejected and denied, 
 while Truth was disallowed in person by the gain- 
 sayers of Jesus. They who began to feel the cross 
 a weary burden to their flesh, were invited to con- 
 sider this. They were to call to mind the difference 
 between the dishonour of the Master, and the privi- 
 leged endurance of the servant. None of the things 
 which they had suffered in the Gospel were against 
 themselves. It was the Name which they confessed 
 that had attracted to them the reproaches and afflic- 
 tions which they bore. If they judged this rightly, 
 they would count their trials not a grievance, but a 
 joy. They had done so once when, earlier in the 
 race, they had borne much for Jesus, and with much 
 content (x. 34). While heaven w^as freshly in their 
 thoughts, they did not grudge to suffer for that hope. 
 They are now reminded that in these afilictions they 
 are only passing through the common portion of the 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBREWS. 367 
 
 children. To suffer first with Jesus, ere we reign 
 with Him, is the lot which has been cast for those 
 whom God is bringing thus to His eternal glory.* 
 
 Verse 4. Instead, therefore, of promising a miti- 
 gation of their present toil, he shows them how far 
 short they still remained of what they might be 
 called on to endure. " Ye have not yet resisted unto 
 hlood, striving against sin." The prophets had, who 
 tasted first the cup which Jesus fully drank. Such, 
 too, might be the honoured privilege of some of 
 them. The wicked hands which slew the Prince of 
 life, might pierce consistently His open and avowed 
 disciples. Outward conformity to the death of Jesus 
 is no unnatural close to a confession which sets out 
 by an acknowledgment that we ai^e cmdfied with 
 Him. A knowledge, moreover, of the power of His 
 resurrection would make mortal peril no alarming 
 prospect to their minds. In a more especial sense, 
 it was against the danger of tlidr own apostasy that 
 they must carry their resistance to the death.^ 
 
 Verse 5. But in close connexion with the sub- 
 ject of devotedness to Christ, there was another 
 which, though once well understood, and one which 
 
 * Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Tim. ii. 12 ; 1 Pet. v. 10. 
 
 5 It is not in the effort to maintain a morally upriglit walk by the 
 avoidance of positive wickedness, that the resistance here contem- 
 plated is to be achieved. The "way of righteousness," in which 
 the believer is called to walk, consists in a steady confession and 
 assertion of the exclusive claims of Christ to the obedience of man- 
 kind. Sin, therefore, according to the breadth of meaning which 
 the Spirit of Truth now attaches to that word, is a practical neglect 
 or denial of these claims in any way. Unbelievers are emphatically 
 sinners (not only on account of their inherent and personal evils, but) 
 because of their refusal, through unbelief, to " submit themselves to 
 the righteousness of God." On the same principle, the believer, 
 though righteous and blameless, as seen in Christ, yields practically 
 to sin as often as he forgets his true position as already risen with 
 Christ, and moves on through life in willing conformity to the world. 
 
368 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 bore materially on their spiritual well-being, had 
 been allowed to pass almost from their remembrance 
 through the gradual diminution of their faith. They 
 no longer considered that one of the distinctive 
 blessings of the better Covenant, in which they 
 stood, was God's exercise of gracious discipline to- 
 wards His people, by virtue of the filial relation- 
 ship which now binds them to Himself in Christ. 
 They had fm^gotten the exhortation which spoke to 
 them as children. In the spirit of their minds they 
 had vacated practically the familiar nearness of 
 adoption, and, as a natural consequence of this, 
 they misinterpreted the manner of God's present 
 dealings with their souls. Estimating His visita- 
 tions, not by the grace in which they really stood, 
 but according to those feelings which an habitual 
 distance from the Lord had fostered in their hearts, 
 they received them quite amiss. Instead of the 
 cheerful submission which results from an intelli- 
 gent appreciation of the Father's w^ays, there was 
 either faint-hearted despondency, or the worse alter- 
 native of a sullen or reckless indifference. Having 
 lacked diligence to keep their conscious standing in 
 the Father's presence, they took their burdens in 
 a spirit of compulsory endurance, with the ignorant 
 mislike of strangers, rather than the trustful dis- 
 cernment of beloved sons. 
 
 There was, as the apostle clearly saw, a radical 
 mischief in this state of feeling. No present 
 strength or blessing could be looked for, while a 
 misunderstanding of so grave a kind remained. 
 To disclose its cause was at the same time to effect 
 its removal from the hearts of those of his brethren 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 369 
 
 who had diligently listened to his earlier exhorta- 
 tions. For it was through lack of faith that they had 
 fallen into the serious error of judging God by His 
 apparent dealings rather than His words. The test 
 of action may indeed be wisely tried when men are 
 the subject of our judgment. But God's word is 
 to the wise believer the faithful exponent of His 
 ways, which many times appear to nature incon- 
 sistent with His name. It is this all-important 
 principle which is here so forcibly as well as touch- 
 ingly commended to the Hebrew saints. They had 
 suffered nothing which He had not led them to 
 expect. It was by forgetting the gracious exhorta- 
 tions of the Spirit that they had found weariness 
 and unproductive sorrow in the very things which 
 were designed to make them richer in their know- 
 ledge of the Father's love. 
 
 Verses Q-%. "For whom the Lord loveth," &c. 
 It was a family token that they had received, in 
 being made acquainted with the rod of discipline. 
 None were exempt from this but those who wrong- 
 fully assumed the filial title. For it is in the nature 
 of a Father to control His children for their good. 
 Beccmse He loves them, He is not indifferent to 
 their ways. Because He regards them as His own, 
 His will must be their guide. Because, moreover, 
 of the difference between childish inexperience and 
 waywardness, and the ripeness of parental wisdom, 
 an expression of the truest love might sometimes 
 take, at first appearance, the form of an unkindness. 
 But if God spoke roughly. He still spoke to them 
 as sons. They ought not then to faint at His rebuke, 
 as if He were discarding them from favour. StiU 
 R 5 
 
370 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 less should they despise a chastening which God 
 never ministered at random. There were lessons of 
 subjection which could only thus be learned. The 
 things which they endured were accompaniments 
 of their salvation. God scourgeth every son whom 
 He receiveth. It was only because, through spiri- 
 tual indolence, tliey had dropped to a lower tone of 
 practical communion, that they were embarrassed 
 and discouraged by their present experiences. They 
 had as faulty an estimate of their own requirements, 
 as they had of the grace and wisdom of the God 
 with whom they had to do. 
 
 Verses 9, 10. "Furthermore, we have had fathers," 
 &c. Nature itself was an admonisher of their 
 ignorance, and upbraided their impatience. They 
 had had fathers of their flesh, and to them due 
 reverence had been given, when they brought them 
 up at their discretion. The discipline which they 
 enjoined had been implicitly observed, though regu- 
 lated solely by their own will. For the brief 
 period of their children's nonage they had trained 
 them as they listed. Their corrections might have 
 been dictated by caprice or passionate infirmity, 
 yet they were obeyed. Their name was their indis- 
 putable title to the reverence of their children. 
 But if this were rightly so, how much more readily 
 should God's true children bow tlieir wills to His! 
 For He is the Father, not of our flesh, but our 
 spirits. By an eternal relationship we are the 
 children of His love. Subjection to Him is our 
 life. As it is by the obedience of faith that we 
 became aware of our sonship, through the grace of 
 Him who has begotten us, so also the energies of 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 371 
 
 spiritual life are called into exercise by our watchful 
 recognition of His will. To be " let alone " of Him, 
 is to languish into deadly sickness of the spirit. 
 Neglected by the Father, the child presently begins 
 to err. And thus it is, that He whose name is 
 " Faithful," has framed for His children a method of 
 effective discipline, which He does not fail to apply 
 to each, according to His perfect knowledge of their 
 need. Strong pains of body or of mind, or both, 
 may, by teaching more intelligibly to the soul its 
 native impotency and unprofitableness, make Jesus 
 more than ever precious as the balm of healing to 
 the broken spirit, and the vigour of an undecaying 
 life. Shipwreck of temporal advantage, or disap- 
 pointment of strong natural desire, has often schooled 
 the Christian to a riper enjoyment of his portion in 
 the heavenly places. Instant dependence upon God 
 is evermore the law of conscious blessing to His 
 saints. They have found it thus in old and modern 
 times ; for all have tasted, in some sort, this proof of 
 His fidelity who careth for His own. In His know- 
 ledge of our frame, the Father's dealings with His 
 children are in tenderness and much compassion. 
 But although He never willingly afflicts, He does 
 not spare to chasten, when by so doing He may gain 
 His dearer aim of bringing us, through suffering, to a 
 better knowledge of Himself. 
 
 There is an end and special object which the 
 Father sets before Him in the training of the 
 children. Unlike an earthly parent, who is often 
 governed by instinctive fondness, rather than sound 
 love, or, when intending well, is bafiled often by his 
 own inherent selfishness, which in a thousand shapes 
 
372 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 obstructs him in his work, God chastens us for our 
 profit. This is His immediate and undivided object. 
 As to the end and manner of our profiting, it is 
 that we might be partakers of His holiness. God 
 smites His enemies to make His power known, 
 where it has foolishly been called in question. He 
 visits His own children with His discipline, that He 
 may make them better understand their blessedness 
 in being called with a holy calling into fellowship 
 with Himself. He that hath called us in His Son 
 is holy. Our profit and the well-being of our souls 
 is to be sought in an endeavour to resemble Him 
 in our ways.^ 
 
 Our calling is to seem and be in this world as the 
 sons of God, even as by grace He has adopted us 
 and made us such in the Beloved."^ By means of 
 the exceeding great and precious promises which are 
 given us, we become partakers of the Divine nature, 
 having escaped the corruption which is in the world 
 through lust.^ It is by glory and virtue,^ that we 
 are called in Christ to the knowledge of our God 
 and Saviour. The grace which saves us absolutely 
 in the Son of God, becomes the instructor of the 
 saved in godliness and righteousness.^ If, through 
 perverseness, we prefer some other way, God chas- 
 tens us for our folly. If, by His grace, we watch, 
 and, therefore, grow up more conformably to Him, 
 He ceases not to teach us still. He will purge the 
 
 6 1 Pet. i. 15, 16. 7 Phil. ii. 15. 8 2 Pet. i. 4. 
 
 Aid 66h]Q Koi cLQiTTiQ (2 Pet. i. 4). Tischendorf and others 
 read in this passage, Idia ^o^y kui apenj, an important variation. 
 It will then be " by His own glory and virtue." Still, morally the 
 effect is the same. Effectual grace ever producing as its result, a 
 proportionate conformity to God. (Comp. 2 Cor. iii. 18.) 
 
 1 Tit. ii. 11, 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 373 
 
 fruitful branch to make it yet more fruitful.- The 
 range is almost infinite within which God may 
 exercise His children's souls by needful discipline. 
 Temporal death may, in His hands, be a method of 
 deliverance from something worse. The Lord may 
 chasten thus to save His people from the condem- 
 nation of the world.^ But in any and in every 
 case His object is their profit. He will make them 
 partakers of His hohness. 
 
 Let not the doctrine of this passage be miscon- 
 strued by the weak believer. As it respects our 
 personal sanctification, it can receive no augmenta- 
 tion, nor be in any way affected by the chastisements 
 of God. We are already sanctified in Christ coyn- 
 ^letely. HE is made of God our Sanctification, 
 before ever we are capable of being thus educated,^ 
 by the Father of our spirits. It is to sons that He 
 addresses those reproofs of instruction which are 
 the way of life to the believer. Moral conformity 
 to Jesus is the end to which the soul, whose afflictive 
 experiences are working profitably, is continually 
 tending. Meanwhile, the grand impediment to our 
 becoming, practically, partakers of God's holiness, 
 is the activity of our natural will. The eff'ectual 
 conquest, therefore, of this will, is what God seeks 
 to compass by the varied modes of special treat- 
 ment to which He subjects the believer in his 
 progress. A word is sometimes found effectual to 
 work correction, and bring abundant profit to the 
 godly and attentive listener, while heavy and oft- 
 
 2 John XV. 3 1 Cor. xi. 32. 
 
 ^ Haidiia has, as is well known, a far more comprehensive mean- 
 ing, than " chastisement." It is, however, in the latter sense that it 
 is chiefly used in the present passage. 
 
374 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 repeated blows may be employed to rouse a slothful, 
 or adnionisli a self-seeking Christian. ISTor are the 
 natural ills which Christians share with other men 
 distinguishable always in the eye of faith from the 
 particular visitations of the Father's rod. For sick- 
 ness and calamity are not, for the believer, things of 
 chance. God's children have to do with God. His 
 ano-els are their ministers. His hand is in all their 
 circumstances, while He is Himself the patient 
 Teacher of their way. I^othing in us delights Him 
 but obedience to His will. As Jesus learned obe- 
 dience through the things which He endured, whose 
 will was always as the will of Him that sent Him, 
 so, on the other hand, our wills, which naturally turn 
 away from God, must many times be bruised and 
 broken, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not 
 with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we 
 may have our conversation in the world.^ 
 
 Verse 11. "E"ow no chastening," &c. ISTothing 
 can exceed the gracious tenderness with which the 
 Spirit here expresses His perfect sympathy with the 
 afflicted Christian, who has been once brought to 
 recognize his trial as a visitation from the Father's 
 hand. As it is elsewhere said, it is needful that hea- 
 viness shall sometimes come on those whose calling, 
 notwithstanding, is to rejoice evermore in the Lord.^ 
 But the thorough sympathy of God accompanies 
 these sorrows of His own infliction. He has made 
 us sorry, for the more abundant increase of our after 
 joy. Fretfulness, or indifference, or despondency 
 are alike sin. Sorrow is not so. God expects that 
 Christians should call bitter, bitter. If they do so, 
 
 5 2 Cor. i. 12. 6 1 Pet. i. 6. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 375 
 
 and, by faith, discerning at whose hand the grief is 
 ministered, accept the trial as a token from the 
 Father, then tribulation will work patience, and 
 patience, leading to a deeper exercise of soul with 
 God, will work a more plenteous experience of Him 
 and of His way. Conflict and painful searchings 
 may be the immediate effect of active discipline. 
 But to them that arc exercised therely its end is fruit- 
 ful peace. Peace is the fruit of righteousness. The 
 purpose of correction is to render the believer, not 
 more righteous, intrinsically, than he was before. 
 For Christ is his righteousness and his Perfection be- 
 fore God. But he is induced, by trial, to investigate 
 his ways. A multitude of unsuspected depredators 
 have, perhaps, been sucking out the life-springs of 
 his once devoted service. Habit, or other men's 
 example, or the yielding compliance of a natural 
 amiability, may have had more to do with his 
 apparent diligence than he was once aware. To 
 reduce him, by a personal experiment, to a sense 
 of his own nothingness, would be to fit him for a 
 deeper and far fuller appreciation of the righteous- 
 ness of God. On the other hand, a Christian may 
 be really such, and yet, through lack of use, his 
 spiritual senses may have been so thoroughly be- 
 numbed, as to leave no outward token of the life 
 within. In such a case, God's chastenings may be 
 the bitter introduction to a happier experience. By 
 quickening thus the active principle of conscience, 
 the Husbandman who tends the living vine, and 
 takes account of every shoot that draws its life 
 from Jesus, enables the lethargic Christian to cast 
 off the dead leaves of a meaningless profession, 
 
376 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and in the fresher springing of a Christ revived 
 within him, to speak again, as in the former days, of 
 a blessedness which made him independent of the 
 world's best goods.'^ Sorrow and grief are quite 
 compatible with unchanged confidence in God. The 
 self-examinations of a thoughtful saint, who finds 
 himself visited by some unlooked-for grief, are a 
 certain prelude to the bolder song of gladness which 
 will celebrate his emergence from the cloud of sor- 
 row into a brightness never fitly known till then. 
 
 The clearest proof that chastening has been to 
 profit, is a conscious augmentation of the sufferer's 
 peace. But where God's dealings are not recognized 
 by faith, this cannot be. Passive endurance, with 
 no accompanying exercise of spirit, only hardens 
 and debases the recipient of discipline. God knows 
 the measure of His children's dispositions. He has 
 means of managing the most refractory, while His 
 joy is rather to guide, with no sensible restraint, the 
 willing listeners to His word of grace.^ Meanwhile, 
 that He is jealous, is the very safety of His children. 
 He will not leave them to themselves. He is their 
 sure Conductor, by the ways of faith and patience, 
 to the glory which is their appointed rest. 
 
 Verse 12. " Wherefore, lift up," &c. They should 
 not, therefore, faint because of sorrowful experiences, 
 but should rather comfort and encourage one an- 
 other. Because they were partakers in common of 
 the children's portion, they should exercise a mutual 
 sympathy as helpers of each other's joy; sustaining 
 themselves and their brethren by God's faithful 
 words of promise. Their hands must no more 
 
 7 Gal. V. 12-15. 8 Ps. xxxii. 8. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBEEWS. 377 
 
 listlessly hang down, for the Lord was calling them 
 to occupy until He should return. Their feeble 
 knees would gain new strength, and bear them 
 boldly on the race of patience, when their loins 
 were freshly girded by the truth of their salvation. 
 Verse 13. That they might run their common race 
 together, not only steadily, but safely, they should 
 endeavour "to make straight paths" for one another's 
 feet. This is a weighty and important exhortation. 
 Its manifest reference is chiefly to the restoration 
 and happier progress of those who, whether from 
 deficiency of faith, or through paucity of knowledge, 
 or, it might be, through culpable neglect, had, as it 
 were, fallen lame, and were in danger of turning out 
 of the right ways of the Lord. Two things are 
 embodied in this counsel. First, a vigilant holding 
 fast of the word of sound doctrine; and, secondly, 
 the patient exercise of love and much spiritual 
 tenderness towards the weaker of the flock. Christ's 
 sheep are to be tended in the love of Christ. The 
 strong are to bear the infirmities of the weak, and 
 not to please themselves. The feeble-minded are not 
 to be pressed beyond their strength. Souls that are 
 driven further than their faith can carry them, 
 presently fall lame. What is clear as daylight to 
 the practised eye of one who has been nourished up 
 and soundly taught in Christ, may be a stumbling 
 to another who (it may be blamably),^ has need of 
 milk, and cannot bear strong meat. But there is 
 none occasion of stumbling, even to the weakest, 
 where our walk is in the light and love of God.^ 
 Eebuke may be invoked by carnal listlessness, and 
 
 9 Ante, chap. v. 11-U. i 1 John ii. 10. 
 
378 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 warning must be ministered to the disorderly, but 
 patience must be shown to alL^ This epistle is, in 
 all its parts, an exhortation. How the same meek- 
 ness and gentleness of Christ may vary its expression 
 between the far extremes of indignant reprehension, 
 and endearing tenderness, we have had abundant 
 opportunity of seeing. Not to know good from evil, 
 is a low condition for a Christian's mind. To lift it 
 up from thence, and, by pouring Christ's pure light 
 upon the soul's enfeebled vision, to arouse it to a 
 juster apprehension of its calling, is a labour which 
 God's Spirit only can achieve. But He fain would 
 w^ork that work by means of the knowledge, the 
 long-suffering and kindness, the love unfeigned, 
 and the patient faith of those whom He exhorts 
 to bear each other's burdens, and so to fulfil the law 
 of Christ.^ 
 
 Yerse 14. They were to follow peace with all men. 
 Tor while a Christian may have many enemies, he is 
 himself a foe to none. Knowing the way of peace 
 in Jesus, he is to walk therein. Grace, and not 
 bitterness, is in the hearts which Christ has filled. 
 Their mouths, which may have once been full of 
 cursing, are taught to speak another language by the 
 Spirit, who acquaints His people with the love of 
 God. As the peace of God, which is His people's 
 calling, should rule within their hearts,^ so, if they 
 walked with Him, their constant aim would be to 
 live peaceably with them that are without, as well 
 as one toward the other. Peace is endangered when 
 men seek their own. While Christians walk in love, 
 and only follow what is good, the Lord of peace 
 
 2 1 Thess. V. 14. 3 Gal. vi. 2. ^ Col. iii. 15. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBREWS. 379 
 
 Himself is their Protector, and can make their 
 fiercest enemies to cease from strife.^ 
 
 But holiness must be pursued, as well as peace. 
 For without holiness none shall see the Lord. Un- 
 cleanness, whether of the flesh or of the spirit, is 
 the way of nature. Holiness is the way of God. 
 We have .been called by grace from one into the 
 other. But, because the flesh remains still in the 
 believer, and lusts continually against the Spirit, we 
 have constant need of admonition as it respects our 
 daily walk. The " holy brethren," therefore, are to 
 shun the way of evil; to cleanse themselves with 
 diligence from all that clashes with the holy pro- 
 mises of God.*^ The Holiness which qualifies a man 
 to see the Lord is Christ. To abide in Him, is to 
 endeavour to pursue His way. The unholy are yet 
 under law, which lawfully condemns the sinner in 
 his ways.'^ The grace of God instructs the children 
 in a better way. It is by such clear and express 
 responses to the conscience that God's oracles pre- 
 serve the saint from the delusive speciousness of 
 those "vain words," by means of which the children 
 of disobedience prepare themselves but more effec- 
 tually for the coming wrath of God.® Grace is the 
 true source of holiness in the believer. And grace 
 is tasted, not by a mere assent to doctrine, but 
 through the faith which looks to Jesus. Having 
 found a Saviour in the stricken Lamb of God, the 
 believer owns the Lord of his obedience in the 
 trusted and beloved Redeemer of his soul. 
 
 Yerse 15. While, therefore, practical holiness 
 
 5 1 Pet. iii. 6 2 Cor. iv. 14, vii. 1. 
 
 7 1 Tim. i. 8, 9. 8 Eph. v. 6. 
 
380 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 was earnestly to be pursued, they were to see care- 
 fully to its producing cause. They should look 
 diligently that none among them fell short of the 
 grace of GocV Nothing was more essential to 
 their common well-being than this. If anything 
 that clashed with God's pure word of grace should 
 come to be accepted by them for sound Christian 
 doctrine, the Gospel was virtually gone. When a 
 legal spirit, instead of being censured as a grave 
 defect, should be recognized with honour in the 
 Church, its true character, as the household of the 
 Son, was lost. It had already quitted its first love. 
 Christ was of no avail to any who, under an osten- 
 sible confession of His name, still counted other 
 things than Christ essential to salvation. The evil 
 here warned against is not more dangerous than 
 subtle. It is by privy entrances, while men are 
 slumbering, that Satan gains admittance for his 
 spies upon the liberty of Christ.^ Such a deadly 
 mischief must, therefore if possible, be anticipated 
 in its earliest workings. No man who failed to 
 allege the grace of God as the sole reason of his 
 hope in Christ, should be acknowledged as a genuine 
 believer. Weakness of faith, or timid hesitation in 
 appropriating to the full the amazing riches of the 
 grace of God, because of a present conflict with 
 one's personal corruptions, is not at all in question 
 in this passage. They only are contemplated who, 
 
 ^ ''EiriaKOTTovvThQ fir) tiq vfTTspuJv oLTTo rijg x'^pirog rov Qeov. 
 " Inclem ihr zusehet das nicht Jemand hinter der Gnade Gottes zuriick- 
 bleibe." — De Wette. "... che niuno scada dalla grazia di Dio.'" — 
 DiOD. The use of the preposition seems rather to imply an apostasy 
 from a once clear profession of grace. 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 4. 
 
n6tES ox the HEBREWS. 381 
 
 with settled minds, and positive doctrinal views, are 
 found, in their estimate of doctrine, to come short of 
 Gospel truth. Where men maintained, for instance, 
 that to keep the law was necessary to salvation, they 
 were subverters of their brethren's souls.^ The 
 apostle knew full well that holiness could only 
 flourish upon grace. But he was quite as well 
 aware that such is not the natural thought of our 
 hearts. More especially were Hehreivs, accustomed 
 from their infancy to associate together the ideas 
 of personal righteousness and human effort, in 
 danger of defilement from this deepest and most 
 quickly-spreading root of bitterness. But although 
 at its early entrance legalism was, in strictness, a 
 Jewish corruption of the faith, yet the principle is 
 one of readiest acceptance in the natural heart of 
 every man. It was when works received an equal 
 honour, in the professing Christian body, with the 
 grace of God, that the spirit yielded to the flesh. 
 Corruption grew on prosperously under such a sanc- 
 tion, until what was once betrothed as a chaste 
 virgin to the Lord, has turned to be the harlot of 
 the world, and the mysterious mother of abomina- 
 tions,^ 
 
 While the communion of the Holy Ghost can 
 rest on nothing but the finished grace of God, it 
 can only be practically maintained and enjoyed by 
 vigilance and active holiness. Systematic self-right- 
 eousness is, doubtless, fatally destructive to true 
 spiritual fellowship. For by faith alone we stand. 
 But there are other roots of bitterness whose spring- 
 ing must be as watchfully anticipated or repressed. 
 
 2 Acts XV. ^ Rev. xvii. 
 
382 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWs. 
 
 ISTothing is more forcibly insisted on by the Holy 
 Spirit of God than the exclusion of evil from the 
 Church, which is the habitation of His presence. 
 The contagious power of neglected sin, is a topic of 
 very frequent as well as solemn warning in the word 
 of truth. That "one sinner destroy eth much good," 
 is a standing maxim of Divine wisdom. The leaven 
 of wickedness, if suffered through carelessness to 
 lurk within the lump, will certainly infect it with 
 a constantly -increasing energy. God is the true 
 Detector of all evil. Where w^e walk with Him, 
 His presence speedily discovers any practical vari- 
 ance from the holiness of His way. In contrast to 
 the dereliction of tlie grace of God, there stands the 
 opposite and not less deadly evil of its deliberat-e 
 abuse. Both these extremes appear to be comprised 
 within the general expression, "root of bitterness." 
 Verses 16, 17. They were to beware of such. 
 Tor sanctification, body, soul, and spirit, was the 
 wdll of God concerning them.* They should know 
 the natural man, in spite of his disguise, and shun 
 wdth care all recognition of profaneness in the 
 temple of the living God. The standing type of "a 
 profane person"^ is Esau, the despiser of his birth- 
 right. In his sale of the birthright, we have an 
 example of nature's estimate of heavenly things. 
 His heart was never really on the birthright, be- 
 cause he had no true appreciation of the inherit- 
 ance. As the apparent heir of the promises of 
 God, he stood in an entirely false light. For he 
 
 4 1 Thess. V. 22, 23. 
 
 5 Bkf37]Xog. ^^ Frofanus." It has in tliis passage its ordinary sense 
 of unliallowed, " one uninitiated in the mystery of the Gospel." 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 383 
 
 was destitute of that faith which alone makes pro- 
 mise precious. When a crisis, therefore, comes, 
 and the birthright, as a thing invisible, is compared 
 with the smallest measure or the lowest quality of 
 temporal advantage, there is a deliberate preference 
 of the creature to the Creator. God, never having 
 been enjoyed, while Esau held a title whose sole 
 value was its expectance of His favour, was no 
 strength to Esau in his day of trial. A little of 
 the meat which perisheth was more to him than the 
 living and eternal God. For his soul's desires were 
 on this side death. Yfhen faint, and at the point to 
 die, the birthright lost all value in his eyes. His 
 heart was on it only while it ministered to the flesh. 
 He valued his title as the chief of Isaac's house, 
 but he never thought of it as something better than 
 his life.^ 
 
 In despising his birthright, Esau gave up God ; 
 but he by no means surrendered his expectations as 
 the eldest -born of Isaac. He knew his father's 
 natural partiality, and relied upon it for the ultimate 
 attainment of the blessing which he desired to in- 
 herit. Having satisfied his hunger at this fearful 
 cost, he went his way, and lived long years as he 
 had lived before, a cunning hunter, ranging at his 
 will the fields which pleased him best, without a 
 feeling of regret, still less of repentant desire, in 
 relation to his vacated birthright. Such is the 
 impression conveyed to our minds by the scanty 
 narrative which Scripture affords respecting Esau, 
 previously to the decisive repudiation of his claim. 
 His alliance by marriage with the Canaanite is the 
 
 <5 Gen. XXV. 32-34. 
 
384 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 solitary but liiglily cliaracteristic incident related of 
 him until the hour of his bitter undeceiving. With 
 an exceeding great and bitter cry he received from 
 Isaac the unlooked-for extinction of his hope. His 
 former confidence is now the cause of his despair. 
 He had trusted in his natural parent for things 
 which only God could give, and of Isaac he is now 
 rejected. With a reiterated blessing he bestowed on 
 Jacob the inheritance/ The tears of Esau could 
 not move a revocation of the blessing once pro- 
 nounced. It followed the birthright which the 
 first-born had so long ago despised. He sought it 
 carefully, but could not obtain it. There was no 
 repentance, either in God's calling of the younger 
 born to the inheritance, or in the lieart of Esau 
 towards the God whom he had formerly renounced.^ 
 
 Even in the Apostle's days, the Esau character 
 attached to many wdio yet bore the name of Christ. 
 There were not a few who outwardly professed the 
 faith, whose condition called for tears of anguish 
 from one who knew the terror of the Lord, and saw 
 men recklessly advancing to destruction under the 
 infatuation of a carnal confidence.^ Wholly indif- 
 ferent to that in which the child of God alone finds 
 real enjoyment, they were minding earthly things. 
 Instead of following the Lord, they were pursuing 
 their own pleasure. They gloried in it. It was 
 
 7 Gen. xxvi. 33. 
 
 8 It is difficult to determine whether avrriVy the closing word of 
 verse 17, is to be referred to fieravoiac, or to evXoyiav. In my own 
 judgment, it should be connected with the former. The unrepentant 
 person is Isaac, not Esau, in this passage. On the other hand, that 
 Esau u-as unrepentant toward God, notwithstanding the genuineness 
 of his grief for the loss of the blessing, is plain, from the sequel of 
 his history. » Phil. iii. 18, 19. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 385 
 
 Christian liberty, they said, to act as they saw fit. 
 They loved the name, but did not know the power 
 of the liberty of Christ. Neither faith nor patience 
 had their exercise in these false brethren. Exceed- 
 ing great and precious promises were stored in 
 Scripture for the comfort of God's saints. But they 
 gave no relish to pursuits which took men far away 
 from God. They were, therefore, disregarded and 
 disused. Yet there was no lack felt of confidence 
 and full assurance. Men who only served their 
 bellies were without all fear in the assemblies of 
 God's saints.^ They sported with their own de- 
 ceivings.^ With no compunction, they kept on a 
 steady course of sin. 
 
 Such was the case while Christian profession was a 
 dangerous adventure, and none, it miglit be thought, 
 would name the name of Christ who had not really 
 known the power of God's kingdom. When nothing 
 but reproach and trial, apparently, awaited those 
 who joined themselves to such a new and hated 
 profession, it w^as natural to expect that genuine 
 conviction and conversion could alone embolden 
 men to take the step. But nature is ever less 
 deceiving than deceived.^ Guided by instincts of 
 pure selfishness, men easily adopt what seems to 
 promise them repose of conscience, without trench- 
 ing on their natural liberty. Moreover, hypocrisy 
 is such a deeply-rooted principle of human conduct, 
 that wherever truth appears, its counterfeit is pro- 
 duced immediately. But if these things were so 
 when God began His work of mercy on the earth, 
 and even then there needed such strong exhortations 
 
 1 Jude 12. 2 2 Pet. ii. 13. s Tit. iii. 3. 
 
 S 
 
386 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 for the preservation of a pure confession of the name 
 of Jesus; with what feelings must the thoughtful 
 Christian read such passages, whose lot is cast in 
 these our latter days ? For, on contemplating the 
 broad field of outward Christianity, he sees now a 
 reversal of the former order. They who love the 
 Lord have now to seek each other diligently among 
 masses of profession without life. The world pur- 
 sues its course more tranquilly and confidently since 
 its prince has assumed the new and portentous 
 character of a Christian philanthropist. The capi- 
 tal device which now deludes the multitude, is the 
 blending of natural and spiritual liberty ; of the 
 will, that is, of God with that of man. But Christ 
 vanishes entirely in such a fusion. The second Adam 
 is a nonentity in much of the Christianity of the 
 day. The claims, on the one hand, of the tyrannous 
 blasphemy of Eome, and on the other, of the carnal 
 liberalism of merely natural self-will, which vails 
 itself extensively under the convenient watchword 
 of Protestantism, leave but a narrow option for the 
 true disciple of the Lord. Blessed be God, if the 
 path be straight, it is also clear. To consider Him, 
 and to run the race in which He leads us,^ is to find 
 noon-day amid the darkness, and to know a joy which 
 is unspeakable and full of glory, while perplexity 
 and fear may be around that narrow way on every 
 side. 
 
 Esau was at his ease till Isaac spake from God. 
 In the same way, the careless world, which grounds 
 its expectations on a fleshly confidence, and not on 
 faith, and sleeps securely now upon a false pro- 
 
 4 John viii. 12. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 387 
 
 fession, must, ere long, be awakened to a dread 
 conviction of its error. Wailing, instead of glad- 
 ness, will fill the tabernacles of unrighteousness at 
 the appearing of the Judge. Meanwhile, to all who 
 reverence the truth of God, these verses speak with 
 an authoritative counsel still. God's word remains 
 the guide of them that love Him, until He come m 
 PESSON to fulfil its precious promises in the eternal 
 consummation of their hope. 
 
 Verses 18-24. "For ye are not come," &c. This 
 remarkable passage which is so richly declarative 
 of the privileges and blessings which attach to the 
 true heirs of promise, is in close moral connection 
 with the foregoing v/arnings. It is because we are 
 not come to the mount which might be touched — 
 into immediate and ostensive contact, that is, with 
 Divine holiness in its visibly judicial manifestation, 
 but are come to another mount, where holiness and 
 truth are taught us in the perfection of pure grace — 
 that we are thus exhorted. For holiness becomes 
 His house for ever. The children of His Covenant 
 are "holy brethren." It is in the knowledge of the 
 exceeding riches of the great salvation that we are 
 to find an efficacious motive to walk worthy of the 
 Lord. 
 
 With respect to the striking contrast here pre- 
 sented between the former and the latter mounts, 
 the outline is quite clear. There is a solemn recital 
 of the terrors of the Law, that we may the better 
 understand from what we have escaped. There is a 
 rich and full enumeration of the blessings of the 
 Gospel, that our hearts may more than ever burn 
 within us with desire for the day of their entire 
 s 2 
 
388 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 realization. The former things are once more set in 
 their array of fear, that they may be removed for 
 ever from the conscience of the justified partakers 
 of the better Covenant. "We are not come unto the 
 mount which might be touched," &c. The impres- 
 sion produced upon the souls of those who came to 
 Sinai, and who there beheld a portion of God's 
 terrible majesty, was one of distance and exceeding 
 dread. What their eyes beheld appalled them. 
 What was uttered in their ears from the tempes- 
 tuous blackness which Jehovah chose at that time 
 for His sanctuary, instead of reassuring them, 
 completed their discomfiture. They fled away from 
 God, when He began to communicate with His 
 people as their Lawgiver and Judge.^ They en- 
 treated that they might not listen to a voice which 
 seemed to speak of death, and not of life. For, 
 although God spake but in His natural tone, and 
 angels, who had not sinned, but kept their first 
 estate, were ready ministers in setting forth the 
 glory of that covenant. His voice is fatal to the 
 sinner when He speaks from Sinai, though the com- 
 mandment which he delivers be ordained to life.*' 
 They could not endure God's necessary charge. 
 Moses might speak to them, and they would bear 
 the word, but God must cease, unless He would 
 destroy His people.'' Such was the feeling of their 
 hearts when under the immediate influence of God's 
 outward dread. They knew not, until taught by 
 sore experience, that the sights and sounds of terror 
 which alarmed them were but the natural accompa- 
 niments of a covenant, which in effect excluded 
 
 « Exod. XX. 18. 6 liom. vii. 10. 7 Exod. xx. 19. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 389 
 
 every knowledge of God, except as an Avenger, in 
 holiness, of His broken and dishonoured Law.® 
 
 Precautions must be rigidly observed, in prospect 
 of God's conference with Israel as their Lawgiver, 
 which may well have chilled the people's hearts. 
 They had known the glory of His power, when He 
 led them forth from Egypt, and gave Pharaolvs host 
 to utter ruin for their sakes. From heaven He had 
 dropped down manna for their food, and had opened 
 wells of water in the barren rock for their refresh- 
 ment ; although it was not faithful prayer, but 
 thankless murmurings, that drew His attention to 
 their need. But now their Saviour is their chief 
 alarm. The common danger both of man and beast 
 is God their Maker and Preserver (verse 20). The 
 very mediator who was charged to manage for Jeho- 
 vah this portentous meeting with His people, fell 
 sick of dread at the discovery of God's majesty in 
 this unwonted guise. Moses had communed face to 
 face with Him in other shapes, and to look on God 
 had always been an awful and a solemn thing. He 
 
 8 It was ignorance of themselves (although they had not heen 
 without experience, both of their "weakness and unprofitableness, in 
 their exodus from Egypt and their early journeys in the desert) that 
 made the people bold to pledge themselves to do God's reasonable 
 service in answer to His first proposal. (Exod. xix. 5-8.) It was 
 blind and sinful infatuation — the self-deception of the evil heart of 
 unbelief — that they persisted in such an undertaking, through the 
 medium of Moses, after they had found that what God spake from 
 Sinai filled their hearts with dread. (Deut. v. 27.) To suppose that 
 God as a Lawgiver was less terrible at a distance than when near, and 
 that through the ministry of merely human mediation to fidfil the 
 covenant of debt was still a practical thing, betrayed a deficient un- 
 derstanding of the nature both of holiness and sin. "What was in 
 reality essential, was in their eyes only adventitious. They did not, 
 that is, perceive that the terrors of Sinai are the natural expression of 
 Divine holiness when contemplated from the level of sinful, and, 
 therefore, mortal flesh. 
 
390 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 hid Ms face while listening to the words of mercy, 
 which announced to his delighted ears Jehovah's 
 purpose of deliverance for His people.^ But now, 
 instead of the quietness of reverential awe, his heart 
 was overwhelmed by deadly fear. He gave utterance 
 to his sensations. "I exceedingly fear and quake," 
 was his acknowledgment of feelings which declared 
 his participation in the common distance to which 
 man finds himself repelled from God, when justice, 
 and not mercy, is the platform upon which they 
 meet. 
 
 We are not come a second time to Sinai. God, 
 who then shrouded in His perfect glory by a vail of 
 darkness, has now dispelled the former shadows by 
 the light of life. He has changed the thunders, 
 which expressed the majesty and power of a God 
 whose holiness had yet to be appeased, into the 
 kindly greeting of a Father's voice. The Gospel 
 brings the children to no sight of terror. We can 
 endure what is commanded as no grievous burden, 
 when we find God's finished will in Christ to be the 
 sure salvation of our souls.^ 
 
 Believers now enjoy a different access to their 
 God. " We are come unto Mount Zion," &c. (verse 
 22.) God's rest is not on Sinai, but on Zion.^ For 
 it is the chosen seat of royal and triumphant grace. 
 To Jewish faith, the place where David dwelt was 
 venerated and desired as the destined centre of the 
 blessings which the accession of Messiah to His 
 earthly throne should establish, for Israel and for the 
 nations, according to the ancient Covenant. Sion 
 maintains, in the Old Testament, its literal meaning. 
 
 » Exod. iii. 6. i 1 John v. 3. » Ps. cxxxii. 14. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 391 
 
 For the prophecies addressed to Israel and to Judah 
 have attached to them specific local certainties, as 
 well as a general burden of prospective national 
 blessing. But earthly blessings are but a shadow 
 and reflection of heavenly originals. The security 
 and substance of all blessing, heavenly or earthly, 
 is Christ, the eternal Covenant of promise. What 
 Israel is hereafter to obtain, to the glory of God's 
 faithfulness and mercy, who is not a Man that He 
 should repent what He has sworn,^ the Church now 
 enters on in another and yet higher form of blessing. 
 To the partakers, therefore, of the heavenly calling, 
 the Spirit ministers their joy by means of names 
 and tokens, which, because they are expressions of 
 truths which are paramount to any special dispensa- 
 tion, suit equally the diverse branches of the one 
 great family of grace. 
 
 In this enumeration of the blessings to which 
 faith already brings the children. Mount Zion 
 appears to be the first mentioned, not only as the 
 proximate contrast which would naturally suggest 
 itself to a believing Hebrew at the remembrance 
 of the former mount, but likewise, in a generic and 
 widely -comprehensive sense, as a symbolic expres- 
 sion of the grace to which w^e have access, and in 
 which we stand.^ 
 
 Next to the chosen seat of sovereign grace, is 
 named "the city of the living God, the heavenly 
 Jerusalem." God has settled the lasting abodes of 
 life and praise upon the sure foundations of His 
 righteous mercy. This reference to the heavenly 
 Jerusalem would be felt with an especial force by 
 
 3 Eom. xi. 29. * j^om. v. 2. 
 
392 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 them to whom he wrote. For they well knew what 
 it was that had made the earthly Jerusalem an object 
 of such veneration and desire to the Jewish heart. 
 It was the name and temple of Jehovah that had 
 sanctioned in the distant but devoted Israelite a 
 loving zeal, which chose the city of solemnities 
 above his chiefest joy.^ For there only could the 
 people's joy be full, when, at the Lord's appointed 
 feasts, the entire family of Jacob was assembled to 
 do homage to the God of their salvation, and to 
 delight themselves in the abundance of His good- 
 ness. And now that, in tlie power of the new and 
 heavenly calling, they are bidden to forget the former 
 things, their hearts would gladly find the name of 
 their hereditary joy preserved as an abiding token of 
 a yet more excellent desire. Their faith already 
 brought them to the heavenly courts. We are come 
 to the city of the living God. The fathers saw it afar 
 off.^ By faith the Christian is already there. That 
 city is the heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem, 
 indeed, is not forgotten of Jehovah. She shall be 
 built again upon her former heap. The Lord, who 
 has forsaken her, will yet return to her again. The 
 bill of her divorcement shall be annulled in the 
 relentings of that mercy which rejoices against 
 judgment. She will again be known and honoured 
 as a wife of youth.'' But our mother is Jerusalem 
 above.^ The bright interior of that home of blessed- 
 
 6 Ps. cxxxvii. 6 Chap. xi. 13-16. 7 iga. Hy. 
 
 8 Gal. iv. 26. It is interesting to find that aU the recent editors, 
 whose authority is most regarded, concur in rejecting Trdvrwv from 
 this verse. "Jerusalem above," the apostle says, "which is our 
 mother, is free." Then follows a quotation from Isaiah liv., in which 
 the coming liberty and blessing of the earthly city, when brought 
 within the bond of the better covenant, are described. But that this 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. ' 393 
 
 ness is now opened by the Spirit to the view of those 
 who have, through grace, good hope to dwell there in 
 the light of God and of the Lamb.^ Our citizenship 
 is now in heaven. We are strangers here. "We sit 
 in heavenly places, by the faith of our risen and 
 exalted Head. Our worship and our joys are there. 
 
 We are. come, moreover, to the myriads which 
 form the general assembly of God's angel host.^ 
 Angels are always mentioned as attendant witnesses 
 of the Divine majesty. In many thousands they 
 descended upon Sinai when Jehovah gave His cove- 
 nant from thence.^ They then were objects of the 
 people's dread, when, as a flame of fire, they shone 
 brightly, yet terribly, amid the blackness that was 
 gathered round that mount. They are now known 
 to the believer as the ready ministers of Jesus, sent 
 forth to succour at their need His brethren and 
 fellow-heirs.^ For they are all His worshippers, and 
 the doers of His bidding. They are gathered by 
 myriads and by thousands round the throne in 
 heaven, to give glory and full worship to the Lamb.* 
 They have been seen on earth at intervals, when, in 
 vision, or by an open revelation, God disclosed in 
 ancient times the nearness of His sure protection to 
 
 is tut a partial adaptation of the prophecy to a distinct subject, for 
 the purpose of illustrating the principle of grace on which the 
 Church, as well as ransomed Israel, can only stand, is evident from 
 the tenor of the prophecy referred to. God never forsook or was 
 wroth with the heavenly city of His rest. 
 
 9 Rev. xxi. 
 
 ^ Kat fivpiatJiVy ayysXwv Travrjyvpei, k. \. Few, perhaps, are 
 agreed as to the true punctuation of this passage. For my o\\ti part, 
 I cannot condemn the common English version, though, on the 
 whole, TravTjyvpcg seems to stand better with the angels, than the 
 first-bom, respect being had to its strict signification, which indicates 
 a national and general assembly, as opposed to a family re-union. 
 
 2 Psa. Ixviii. 17. ^ ^nte, chap. i. 13, 14. * Rev. v. 11. 
 
 s 5 
 
394 • NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the chosen vessels of His favour.^ They will be 
 seen again, ascending and descending on the Son of 
 man, in the coming day of Israel's full blessing, 
 when the national confession shall at length respond 
 to the witness of eternal truth, and Israel shall be 
 Israel indeed.^ They are now conversed with only 
 by the faith which makes them known to us as 
 fellow -servants of all those who keep the sayings 
 written in the book of God.'^ 
 
 The object next presented, is the Church or assem- 
 bly of the first -horn, who are written or enrolled in 
 heaven.^ In this passage only has the Spirit used 
 this remarkable description of the Church. Most 
 aptly is it found in an epistle, one great end of 
 which is the instruction of the Christian in the 
 characteristic blessings and glory of his calling. A 
 title which is elsewhere only given to the Lord, is 
 here conferred upon that Church which is His body, 
 the fulness of Him that fiUeth all in all.^^ Jesus, 
 as His blessed name implies, must ever be distin- 
 guished from the people whom He saves ; but 
 inasmuch as He has bestowed upon the Church of 
 His election that glory which the Father has given 
 to Him as the reward of His obedience. He is iden- 
 tified, in His risen and ascended Person, vnih. the 
 brethren whom He is not ashamed to call His own. 
 In the language, therefore, of the Spirit, the Head 
 and His mystic members form the perfect Christ} 
 Union with Him who is at God's right hand, is now 
 the blessing of every believer. It was not always 
 
 5 Gen. xxviii. xxxii. ^ John i. 49-51, and Ps. cxlix. 1, 2. 
 
 7 Rev. xxii. 9. 
 
 8 Ka* BKKXt]aia rpioTOTOKOJV Iv ovpavoiQ aTroyEypaixfisvujv. 
 
 9 Eph. i. 23. 1 1 Cor. xii. 12 ; Eph. iv. 13. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 395 
 
 thus. Until the Holy Ghost came down from 
 heaven, to reveal the Saviour in His heavenly exal- 
 tation, this truth, though partly spoken by the Lord 
 to His disciples, was a hidden and inoperative thing. 
 The fathers, who embraced the promises from far, 
 could not discern the future calling of the Church of 
 the first-born. For God reserved it as a secret in 
 Himself It was not divulged to any of the sons of 
 men, until, upon the final gainsaying of Israel, God 
 reached His chosen opportunity for the revelation of 
 the mystery of Christ.- 
 
 In strictness of dispensational limitation, the ex- 
 pression "Church of the first-born ones" seems 
 properly to describe those who live and die in Jesus 
 crucified, between His former and His latter advents. 
 It is distinguished in the present passage from the 
 "just men made perfect," of whom mention is after- 
 wards made. The pecuLLar force of "first-born" as 
 a relative title has been discussed in the earlier part 
 of this book,^ when examining it in its immediate 
 application to the Lord. As Jesus takes precedence 
 of His many brethren, not only in all other things, 
 but also as the First-begotten from the dead, so there 
 appears to be assigned to the Church a corres- 
 ponding relation to the multitude which must yet 
 be born, and whose time of birth is postponed in 
 Scripture to the second advent of the Lord. Xor, 
 indeed, could anything mark more emphatically the 
 distinctive position which grace has assigned to the 
 confessors of Jesus Crucified than this application, 
 to the individual members of the Church, of a title 
 
 2 Xotes on the Ephesians^ chap. iii. 
 
 3 See the remarks on chap. i. 6. 
 
896 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 whicli originally and properly belongs to Himself 
 alone.* The Churcli in her mystic union with Him 
 who is the first-born from the dead, has been be- 
 gotten by Divine power as a "kind of first-fruits" 
 of God's creatures.^ The nation of Israel is here- 
 after to be born, as in a day, to life in Immanuel at 
 His appearing, and through them the Gentiles will 
 receive the full measure of their promised blessing.* 
 This subject has already been so frequently before 
 us, in the progress of these Notes, that I am un- 
 willing to dwell longer on it in this place. 
 
 We are come also "to God, the Judge of all." 
 Judgment is an inseparable attribute of God. At 
 Sinai He was not approachable, because the burden 
 of his unperformed commandment was there imposed 
 upon the people. In Christ we now draw nigh. 
 There is no condemnation to be feared by them 
 that are already passed, in Him, from death to life. 
 The secret of the Christian's heart has been already 
 judged. He has been made manifest to God'' in all 
 his personal wretchedness and guilt ; and, through 
 the riches of His grace, he has obtained a plenary 
 remission by the blood of Jesus. God's presence 
 is become to the believer his sanctuary of eternal 
 refuge and security. For by the decision of His 
 holy judgment He has both absolved and justified 
 him in the name of Jesus. He is in Christ become 
 the holy habitation of His children's peace. As has 
 been remarked already, it is the proximity of Him 
 who judgeth every man's work, that gives to Chris- 
 tian communion one of its strongest characteristic 
 
 6 Notes on the Romans, chap. xi. '' 2 Cor. v. 11. 
 
 * Col. i. 15. 5 jas. i. 18. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 397 
 
 features. We are to judge ourselves, because God 
 dwelleth in us. We are commanded to judge that 
 which is ivifJiin the Ghiircli, because it is God's holy 
 temple, which is not to be defiled.^ God is Himself 
 the Judge of them that are without. The subject of 
 His judgment in the coming day is unacknowledged 
 sin. Meanwhile, He acts in this character among^ 
 His own who fail to anticipate His visitation by 
 self-judgment in their ways.^ 
 
 In the pure light of God, the Judge of all, we see 
 the spirits of those righteous men who now are per- 
 fected^ as well as we, through the one offering of 
 the Son of God.^ They were justified by faith, 
 although they could not know perfection until God 
 openly declared His righteousness, as the just God 
 and the Saviour, by the cross of Jesus.^ What they 
 were always in God's counsels, they are now declared 
 to be. The eleventh chapter has made clearly mani- 
 fest by what means it was that these just men 
 obtained their good report. The intervention of the 
 name of God, the Judge of all, between them and 
 the " Church of the first-born," in the present recital, 
 is no accident. The Spirit purposely distinguishes 
 two bodies, which, although, perhaps,* eventually 
 
 8 1 Cor. iii. v. ^ 1 Pet. i. 17 ; 1 Cor. xi. 31, 32. 
 
 1 Kat 7rvevixa(n diKaiujv TETsXeiijJixevojv. The English reader 
 might easily refer the perfection spoken of to their spirits instead of 
 to the just themselves. 
 
 2 Chap. X. 3 Eom. iii. 25, 26. 
 
 ^ Certainty on this interesting subject of enquiry is hardly to be 
 looked for during a dispensation in which the most enlightened 
 Christian knows but "in part." The symbolic presentation of New 
 Jerusalem as the Bride, the Lamb's wife, appears, when considered in 
 its details, to favour the conclusion suggested in the text, and which 
 is no doubt the faith of the majority of Christ's disciples. On the 
 other hand, there are numerous passages of Scripture which seem 
 
398 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 found united in the glory, are called while on earth 
 to a confession not at all identical, as has been 
 shown sufficiently in the remarks on the preceding 
 chapter. We are come to the spirits of departed 
 saints, who having joyed to see remotely the fair 
 days of promise, waited until death for God's sal- 
 vation, and now partake with us perfection through 
 the finished work of Christ. The better thing which 
 we enjoy, instead of severing, unites us.^ While 
 bowing our knees in grateful adoration and desire to 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every 
 family^ in heaven and earth is named, and seeking a 
 yet fuller knowledge of the proper hope of our 
 
 susceptible of a different interpretation, althougli not necessarily 
 demanding it ; e.g. the varied grouping and position of the redeemed 
 as exhibited in the earlier chapters of the Kevelation. Perhaps, the 
 strongest scriptural support which can be furnished to the notion of 
 perpetuity in thes3 distinctions, is to be found in 2 Cor. iv. 18, a 
 passage which has, accordingly, been already alleged by the upholders 
 of that view. The "Church," and the "spirits of just men," &c., 
 are as truly "unseen things," in the presentation here made of 
 them to our faith, as are the other objects enumerated. Hence is 
 inferred by some the eternity of the distinction here made. But 
 this cannot be accepted as conclusive, since in this very passage we 
 have both "the Chvirch" and "the heavenly Jerusalem" mentioned 
 separately, while in Rev. xxi., the latter is expressly described as the 
 Bride, a special and well-known title of the Church. The subject is 
 one capable of extensive discussion, bat is clearly not a point of 
 faith. To accept the clear testimonies of the Spirit is our ^\dsdom ; 
 and will, to those who seek meekness as well as truth, be as a girdle 
 of strength, and an ornament of praise. To engage the mind exten- 
 sively with secondary questions, however interesting in themselves, 
 is to enfeeble our souls by withdrawing om' contemplation from its 
 proper object, which is Christ. 
 
 « Chap. xi. 40. 
 
 ^ Uaaa Trarpui. Eph. iii. 15. "The whole family" does not 
 accurately represent this phrasj. God, who now knows and is known 
 (through the Spirit of adoption) as the Father, is likewise, in a wider 
 sense, the common Parent of all who, whether in heaven or on earth, 
 will stand or be upheld by virtue of redemption. Angels are, by 
 description, " sons of God." The Church, with her heavenly calling, 
 and Israel in the enjoyment of millennial earthly blessing, stand 
 equally though in different degrees, related thus to the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
NOTES OX THE HEBREWS. 399 
 
 calling, who first hope in an exalted though still 
 hidden Christ/ it is our joy to taste by faith com- 
 munion with their spirits who have gone before us 
 in the path of pilgrimage and strangership on earth. 
 
 "And to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Cove- 
 nant, or Testament." Not to him who at the sight 
 of God's dread majesty was filled with weakness 
 and affright, but to Him who, proceeding forth from 
 God, with strength and will to perfect all His 
 pleasure, has become the Mediator of anotlier and 
 better Covenant, by having first fulfilled and so 
 annulled the old. We are come to a Saviour, and a 
 surety of eternal peace, instead of a minister of sin 
 and death. 
 
 Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, is the 
 answer of the God of grace to the instinctive desire 
 of the human conscience, when brought openly 
 within the searching light of truth. He was pro- 
 mised as a Prophet of salvation to His people, in 
 answer to their natural though ignorant entreaty in 
 the day of the assembly at the former mount of 
 God.^ They had spoken well in that confession of 
 their dread.^ They were, in truth, unable in them- 
 selves to have to do with God. But the honour 
 which, in the selfish perturbation of alarm and igno- 
 rance, they would vainly thrust on Moses, should 
 abide enduringiy on One whose fitness to speak 
 words of comfort to His people should be far beyond 
 what they could either ask or think. He should be 
 
 ■^ Tovg TrpotjXTriKorag Iv t<^ Xpiarip. Eph. i. 12. 
 
 8 Deut. xviii. 16-39. 
 
 9 Although they erred in spirit when they reckoned upon human 
 mediation as an adequate relief from the intolerable pressure of the 
 Law. Ante, pp. 388, 389, Note. 
 
400 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 like His predecessor in His office, but in His blessed 
 Person, above all comparison. God would provide 
 a Mediator, who should speak the words of God.^ 
 According to commandment He should speak, but 
 life eternal should be in His words.*^ The voice 
 which, while the Son of God remained on earth, 
 spoke what appeared "hard sayings," even to His 
 own, until the true Interpreter should come, now 
 utters plainly all the counsel of the God of peace to 
 the believing people of His name. Moses is mute 
 w^hile Jesus speaks. We have no more knowledge 
 of the former mediator and his work of death. The 
 Saviour is to us the sole Expounder of the God of 
 truth. By such a Mediator we are made acquainted 
 with that love of God, which casts out fear, and 
 makes His holy light the consummation, of His 
 people's joy.^ 
 
 We are not come to many mediators, but to One, 
 the Man Christ Jesus.* Unlike His trembling pre- 
 decessor, who delivered to the people a command- 
 ment which took at once all confidence and joy from 
 those who knew no other way to God, Jesus, who 
 gave Himself a ransom for His people, is the de- 
 lighted Minister of righteous and effectual grace. 
 God, who is One, now speaks to us by Him. By 
 the Man who is His Fellow, and in the Son, who is 
 for ever as Himself,^ the Father now expresses to the 
 children the full counsel of His peace. It is no 
 longer, as in the former case, the negociation of a 
 covenant of parties, but an announcement of com- 
 pleted promise.^ Jesus declares with joy, as the 
 
 1 Jolin iii. 34. 2 John xii. 50. ^ 1 John i. 4, 5. 
 
 4 1 Tim. ii. 5. 5 John x. 30. 6 Gal. iii. 20. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 401 
 
 Mediator of the New Covenant, the full name and 
 emphatic blessing of the true and only GodJ It is 
 God who speaks, but in the familiar presence 
 and with the kindly accents of a Man. Jesus de- 
 clares God's secret with the knowledge and authority 
 of one who speaks of His own things. As God's 
 Interpreter, . He speaks to all who have an ear to 
 hear. His words are addressed directly to His 
 peox:)le's hearts. A fearful woe belongs to any who 
 shall intercept those words, or seek to stand between 
 the Shepherd and His sheep. He, and He only, is 
 entitled to give audience in the name of God. All 
 matters must be brought to Him. For He alone 
 has power to declare the will of God. Because of 
 His presence on the throne of grace, that throne is 
 become, by Divine appointment, the sole "confes- 
 sional" of the distressed believer.® He claims the 
 immediate confidence of our faith. To come, there- 
 fore, to Him, is to find certain and abiding peace; 
 for by His lips God tells us of Himself, and of His 
 w^ay. He makes us know, through Him, the riches 
 of His glory, and commends to us the endless con- 
 solations of His love. Since we are come to Him, 
 let our watchful heed be that no stranger's voice 
 entice us from His side. To abide in Him, is to 
 abide in God. To turn from Him, is to do injury to 
 our only Saviour, and (as far as lies in us), to put 
 away the cup of life from our lips. 
 
 Lastly, and to close this summary of the be- 
 liever's blessedness, we have mention of " the blood 
 of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than 
 Abel."^ Abel's accepted offering speaks to the be- 
 
 7 John xvii. 3. s j^^te, p. 122. 9 Hapa tov ' X^iX. 
 
402 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 liever as a witness of the righteousness which is 
 by faith. His hlood spoke only of a crime which 
 called on God for vengeance; for it cried to Him 
 in testimony of his brother's sin; confessing, more- 
 over, by this mute appeal, the present victory of Him 
 that hath the power of death. The blood of Jesus 
 speaks to us of better things. It tells, indeed, of 
 ruthless murder, and is a fearful witness of the guilt 
 and condemnation of a world whose choice was 
 darkness, and not light. But to God, and to His 
 people, it declares, as the blood of sprinkling, better 
 things. It speaks to God of full atonement made 
 for sin, while it announces to the believer the com- 
 plete annihilation of the oppressor's power. Thus 
 it speaks to us of perfect and abiding peace with 
 God. There was no sacrificial virtue in the blood of 
 Abel to remove the wickedness which made it flow. 
 It was upon the murderers of Jesus that the efficacy 
 of the blood of sprinkling was first proved. As 
 many in Jerusalem as gladly listened to the word 
 of grace found, in that precious blood, a full re- 
 mission of their sins.^ 
 
 But besides this general contrast between the 
 tokens, respectively, of condemnation and forgive- 
 ness, there is a peculiar force in the expression, 
 " blood of sprinkling," in its relation to the worship- 
 per once purged. We are come to it, among the 
 other blessings of that grace wherein we stand. It 
 is not as sinners hitherto in ignorance of grace, but 
 as saints, already perfected by Christ's one offering, 
 but who find constant need of inward renovation, 
 and of a continuous purgation from the defilement 
 
 1 Actsii. 36-41. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 403 
 
 of our daily walk,- that we are come to this blood of 
 better testimony. It is by a frequent and earnest 
 recurrence to the general truth of our one remission 
 that a sense of conscious purity is maintained within 
 our hearts. We drink the blood of Jesus that our 
 souls may live from day to day.^ 
 
 Yerse 25.- "See that ye refuse not Him that speak- 
 eth," &c. To all these things of Christ the believer is 
 in spirit come; the means and power of his access 
 being the one Spirit of adoption. And shall he 
 refuse to hear the voice which speaketh of such 
 things? Nay, the same Spirit has already answered 
 on behalf of all the holy brethren : " We are not of 
 them who draw back unto perdition ; but of them 
 that believe to the saving of the soul."* Yet in the 
 heart of every Christian there is a constant tendency 
 to turn av/ay. It is by warning, therefore, mixed 
 with promise, that God keeps His children in the 
 place of safety. They who had heard Him when 
 He spake on earth, refused His word. Terrors, 
 which turned their hearts to water, wrought no 
 change upon their evil wills. For God did not speak 
 to Israel at Sinai with a word of life. There was no 
 quickening power in the letter of commandment. 
 Nature could therefore only act on its own instinct, 
 which refuses from its birth the will of God.^ To 
 the transgressor of the former covenant, there was 
 no way of escape from the Law's recorded sentence ; 
 nor will there be from a far sorer judgment to the 
 despiser of the word of grace. God speaks to us no 
 more on earth, but from heaven and of heavenly 
 
 2 John xiii. ^ John vi. 53-57. 
 
 4 Chap. X. 39. s Pg. lyiu. 3. 
 
404 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 things. He speaks in Jesus. To turn away from 
 Him is to renounce salvation, and to give up life and 
 righteousness for condemnation and eternal death. 
 
 Verse 26. "Whose voice," &c. His voice then 
 shook the earth. But He has given promise of 
 another and yet greater shaking. He will shake not 
 the earth only, but also heaven. This promise had 
 been given through the prophets, who foretold the 
 coming day of Israel's hope.^ With more or less 
 distinctness, it had been announced by almost all 
 by whom God spake. But the particular reference 
 in the present verse is to the remarkable prophecy 
 of Haggai,"^ in which the advent of Messiah, as the 
 desire of all nations, is communicated to the feeble 
 remnant who had set their hearts once more to build 
 again the temple of the Lord of hosts, their God.^ 
 It was in connexion with that work, and its dispirit- 
 ing result,^ that the promise was delivered. The 
 latter glory of the house should far exceed the 
 former. In that jplace Jehovah would give peace. 
 It is unnecessary to insist at length upon the non- 
 fulfilment of this promise. Jerusalem above is now 
 the city of God's peace. The true worshippers no 
 longer seek Him where Zerobabel, and his small 
 remnant, wrought their acceptable work. God's 
 Minister of peace is entered for His people, not into 
 holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself. 
 It is there that God has set His peace, having first 
 made it by the blood of Him who suffered death 
 without the gate. It is from thence that it is spoken 
 now to us. Christ is in truth the desire of all 
 
 ejoeliii. 16. 7 Chap. ii. 6-9. 
 
 8 Hagg. i. 14. 9 Hagg. ii. 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 405 
 
 nations, and in the revelation of His kingdom He 
 will be recognized and owned as sucli.^ But at 
 present He is an object of desire only to His 
 Church, which looks with unveiled face upon His 
 glory. His Gospel is a derision, or a stumbling, 
 save to them who are effectually called of God. As 
 yet creation groans, because the time of peace is 
 still deferred.'^ It will not always be delayed. For 
 He will come into the world a second time. As the 
 Governor among the nations, He will fill the earth 
 with equity and peace.^ 
 
 Yerse 27. But His advent will be announced by 
 one great shaking, which will move from their foun- 
 dations all things which are not settled in the power 
 of redemption. Things not established by the grace 
 of Christ will be surely shaken and removed at the 
 revealing of His poiuer} "Things which are made'* 
 must be displaced. The expression is a very com- 
 prehensive one. In its fullest meaning it extends to 
 the eventual dismissal of the first creation, which is 
 to be effected at some hour of the day of the Lord, 
 though not at its commencement.^ In a nearer 
 application, it respects the general arrangements of 
 a world in which Satan is allowed to reign until He 
 come whose right it is to take the kingdom and 
 
 1 Ps. Ixxii. 17-19. 8 Rom. viii. 19-22. 3 Ps. Ixvii. 
 
 * To ^k ""En airaK" drjXol tSjv (raXivofisvojv ttjv fieTaOacriv. 
 
 The marginal rendering, "may be shaken," is to be preferred. Per- 
 haps "change" is better than "removal" as a translation of [iet 6.6 e(ng. 
 (Comp. chap. xi. 5.) " Verdnderung." — De Wette. There will be 
 a change, as well as a destruction. The structure of human pride 
 and Satan's crafty power, will become as chaff upon the summer 
 threshing-floors. (Dan. ii. 35.) The kingdoms of the world, so long 
 deceived and wasted by the prince of darkness, will become the 
 kingdoms of Jehovah and His Christ. (Rev. xi. 15.) 
 5 2 Pet. iii. 
 
406 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 dominion under the whole heaven, even as He sits 
 already by inheritance upon the throne of God in 
 heaven. There will be a final riddance of the 
 heavenly places from the presence of the accuser 
 of the brethren. Both the host of the high ones 
 that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon 
 the earth, await the visitation of the coming day.^ 
 The Lord will shake terribly tlie earth at His 
 arising. The maker and his work will be alike con- 
 founded in that day. Things lofty, which God's 
 word now warns in vain, will be shaken into dust 
 when He appears. He will establish the kingdom 
 of His Christ upon the ruin of the former things. 
 The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 
 
 The apostle's purpose in this present reference to 
 the prophecy seems to have been less to remind 
 them of the coming performance of Israel's millen- 
 nial promise, than to settle and establish — while he 
 did not cease to loarn — their souls, by showing 
 them in what relation the partaker of the heavenly 
 calling stands to these prospective terrors of the 
 Lord. "But noiv hath He promised,'' &c. The im- 
 minence of that great shaking, while it stirred up 
 watchfulness, should give the children no alarm. 
 For the dissolution of the present things is a part of 
 the believer's hope in Christ. It is a promise that 
 they shall not long remain unchanged. For their 
 continuance is but a prolongation of the reign of 
 evil. There is no rest for us in that tranquillity. 
 Still, solemn feelings are expected to arise in our 
 hearts at the near prospect of the day of God. It 
 is true that when the Lord comes nigh with clouds, 
 
 6 Isa. xxiv. 21. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 407 
 
 and shows Himself to every eye, His brethren will be 
 with Him in that glory. But the promises of God 
 will yield a present blessing only to the watchful 
 Christian. If we are not habitually living in His 
 presence, we shall find no precious treasure in His 
 words.'' 
 
 Verses 28, 29. While then such things are daily 
 drawing nearer, we are exhorted to look well to our 
 own peculiar portion. As the adopted brethren of 
 Jehovah's Christ, we are receivers of a kingdom 
 which cannot be moved. The everlasting kingdom 
 of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is already 
 made accessible to our faith, and presently we are to 
 enter it in person, and to reign with Him. God's 
 kingdom is His children's sure inheritance. Grace 
 has thus settled us upon a hope which mocks all 
 dread from outward change. The removal of all 
 other things will be the demonstration of the en- 
 during stability of the kingdom which we now 
 receive. The glory which we wait to enter is above 
 the sphere within which God will make His power 
 known as a destroyer or a changer of existing 
 things. We are already, and for an eternal safe- 
 keeping, in the hands of Him who is to shake the 
 kingdoms, and lay low the proud throne of iniquity. 
 We belong to God. That we may worthily acknow- 
 ledge the relationships in which we stand to Him, 
 we must hold fast the grace which has established 
 them. If by faith we joy in Him through Jesus 
 Christ, our hearts will be the ready servants of His 
 will. 
 
 The world, which is ready to be shaken, is without 
 7 Ps. cxix. 72. 
 
408 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 the fear of God. The believer, on the other hand, 
 confesses Him before the world, both, as a servant 
 and a son. Honour is His due as our Father ; and 
 fear, as our God.® We serve Him acceptably when, 
 in true discernment of His mercies, we no longer 
 are conformed to this world, but, by the renewing of 
 our minds, are transformed into the moral semblance 
 of the only One who did His will. To have (or 
 hold fast^) grace, is insisted on as the one great 
 essential to a truly holy walk, just as we have 
 already seen^ declension from that grace associated 
 with practical evil and profaneness of life. We can- 
 not serve God acceptably while our hearts are un- 
 instructed in the grace wherein we stand. True 
 reverence and godly fear belong to those alone who 
 realize immediate dependence upon God. In Christ 
 He is our staff of pilgrimage, and the full river of 
 our present joy and peace. But He never loses His 
 essential character of perfect and uncompromising 
 hohness. " Our God is a consuming fire." What He 
 showed Himself to be at Sinai, when He crowned 
 the mountain with devouring flame, and what in 
 vision He disclosed of His appearance to His ^yo- 
 phet,^ is now known to us completely in the Gospel 
 of salvation. It is in the sacrificial death of Jesus 
 that the perfect brightness of that holy fire is 
 perceived. 
 
 God is eternally against all sin. But we are 
 naturally full of sin. We have, therefore, to con- 
 duct our warfare against evil by using the strength 
 
 8 Mai. i. 6. 
 
 9 Ix^ofiiv x'^P"^' The marginal reading agrees better with the 
 general drift of the subject. 
 
 1 AntCy chap. v. 15. « Ezek. i. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 409 
 
 of God against ourselves. We do this when we 
 walk by faith and in the power of His grace. To 
 attempt to serve Him in our own strength, is to fail 
 with ignominy. We are not stronger than ourselves. 
 Meanwhile, let us remember that the Holy One, 
 whom we are bidden thus to serve, is Himself the 
 Supplier of our utmost need. It is the God of all 
 grace whom we fear and reverence in the perfection 
 of His holiness and truth. It is He who has called 
 us unto His eternal glory, and who already has 
 translated us into the kingdom of His weU-beloved 
 Son. May we then hold fast grace, and thus lay up 
 a good foundation for the coming time. Knowing 
 the numbered days of all things present, may we 
 lay hold upon eternal life, not satisfied with having 
 a good hope through grace, but in the power of that 
 grace endeavouring, while yet the opportunity of 
 choice is left to us, to walk in ways well pleasing in 
 His sight. May it be His children's aim to live 
 amid the world that cares not for the things of 
 God, as those who know Him ; and because they 
 know Him, love Him, esteeming His glory more 
 than the pursuits which nature follows in forgetful- 
 ness that God will surely come,^ and will be known 
 to all as a consuming fire. He is such. But He is 
 also OUR God— to bless us, and to keep us now, and 
 in a little while to present us before the presence of 
 His glory with exceeding joy. 
 
 1 Is. 1. 3; Matt. iii. 12: 2 Thess. i. 8. 
 
410 NOTES ON THE HEBKEWS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Veese 1. The sententious exhortation^ with which 
 the present chapter opens is quite in harmony with 
 what immediately precedes it. To the reverence 
 and godly fear which, when added to the faith which 
 holds fast grace, give the true tone to spiritual wor- 
 ship, they are now exhorted to join brotherly kind- 
 ness. The Spirit constantly observes this order in 
 His teaching. The faith, which, through obedience 
 to the truth, establishes the children in the sight of 
 God, is also a preparation for their mutual love. 
 God is Himself the sole effective Teacher of true 
 brotherly love.^ For to know God truly, is to love, 
 not Him alone, but all those also who are born of 
 Him. It is when He fills the children's hearts 
 with the light of His own gracious presence, that 
 
 1 It is remarkable, as a characteristic feature in this epistle, that 
 each of the" things to which they are exhorted in the earlier verses of 
 this chapter, has been previously made a subject of their commen- 
 dation. Their love, their sympathy, their disregard of earthly goods, 
 &c., had been conspicuous in their happier state. While laboiiring 
 t» re-establish them in grace, he exhorts them to a renewal of the 
 former works. 
 
 2 1 Thess. iv. 9. For a confirmation of the general principle of 
 the Spirit's teaching just alleged, see 1 Pet. i. 21, 22; 1 John v. 1 ; 
 2 Pet. i. 7, &c. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 411 
 
 their affection JBLows spontaneously toward each other 
 in the constraining power of a mightier bond. 
 
 The Hebrew brethren had shown each other much 
 affection. While their faith was firm, and they 
 were joying in their heavenly portion, their love was 
 strong.^ Even in their state of spiritual declension 
 they had not ceased to minister to the saints,^ and 
 they are now exhorted to continue in this mind. 
 As they held fast grace, and kept themselves indi- 
 vidually in the love of God, they would abound in 
 love toward the brethren. For brotherly kindness 
 is a sentiment which nothing rouses into practical 
 activity but conscious communion in our hearts with 
 Jesus.^ It must wax or wane within our souls, 
 according to the degree of warmth and brightness 
 in which the Light of life is there enjoyed. 
 
 Yerse 2. Nor should their love confine itself 
 within the house. The God of their worship is a 
 lover of the stranger.^ In His gracious philan- 
 thropy,^ He had succoured them when strangers. He 
 had clothed them in their nakedness, and had given 
 them His Living Bread to eat. What they had 
 freely received, therefore, they should be ready to dis- 
 tribute. Their temporal not less than their spiritual 
 blessings were the gifts of God, who sometimes put 
 His angels into the disguise of wayfarers, that He 
 might know if they who bore His gracious Name 
 before the world were like Him in the largeness of 
 their hearts. They should remember this, not doubt- 
 
 3 Chap. X. 33, 34. * Chap. vi. 10. 
 
 6 Johu xiii. XV. 6 Deut. x. 18, 19. 
 
 ^ God saved us in His kindness and His love to man, (piKavOpojiria. 
 (Tit. iii. 4.) Faith is an imitator of God. It is the believer alone 
 who is capable of showing true philanthropy. 
 
 T 2 
 
412 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 ing that the God who gave them richly all things 
 to enjoy, would bless them largely in requital of 
 the kindness done to those whom He commended to 
 their love. 
 
 Verse 3. "Eemember them that are in bonds," 
 &c. Debtors as they were in love to all God's 
 children, there were among their brethren some who 
 had urgent and peculiar claims upon their sympathy. 
 There were prisoners, who wore their bonds for 
 Christ and for the Gospel. There were also others, 
 who were suffering largely from trials natural to 
 man. The former they are taught to consider as 
 their fellow-'piisoiieTs. For they were partakers of 
 the afflictions of the Gospel, which is the common 
 glory of the saints. They had themselves both borne 
 reproaches and afflictions, and had comforted by 
 their companionship their suffering brethren.^ If 
 now they were enjoying outward peace, they would 
 not cease to think of those who still pined on in 
 chains as evil doers, the blameless prisoners of Jesus 
 Christ. With respect to the others who were suffer- 
 ing adversity, they should regard their condition, not 
 only with sympathizing interest, because the joys 
 and griefs of every member of Christ's body are a 
 common interest to all, but also with a grateful 
 sense of special mercy in their present exemption 
 from the like distress. For while in the body they 
 w^ere liable to drink of the same cup. They should 
 then remember such. The prayer of faith might 
 mitigate their sorrow. God had opened prison doors 
 for some, and shamed the langour of His people's 
 faith by granting suddenly what they desired.^ The 
 
 8 Chap. X. 35. 9 Acts xii. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 413 
 
 prayer of faith had often healed the sick. And even 
 if no outward change were wrought in the estate of 
 their afflicted brethren, yet it would rejoice their 
 hearts, and bring much increase of thanksgiving to 
 the Lord, to know that they were thought of in the 
 bowels of His love.^ 
 
 Verse 4. "Let marriage be honourable in all,"^ 
 &c. God's primal institution must be honoured by 
 His worshippers. A Christian might renounce the 
 privilege, if, by doing so, he thought to be more free 
 to serve the Lord. It was even better to be single, 
 where God's adjustment of His gifts made celibacy 
 no hard burden to the flesh.^ But whoever married 
 in the Lord assumed an honourable place. How 
 this verse condemns beforehand the bold wickedness 
 of that apostasy which wrongs God doubly, first, by 
 its lying invention of clerical distinction, and then, 
 by degrading emphatically what God pointedly 
 extols, has been often noticed by the simple reader 
 of the word. Those who, instead of honour, chose 
 dishonour, God would judge. 
 
 Verses 5, 6. "Let your conversation be without 
 covetousness," &c. They had once taken joyfully 
 the spoiling of their goods. Yet they are not above 
 the necessity of a warning against covetousness. 
 
 1 With the doctrine of verses 2, 3, we may well compare the Lord's 
 words to His disciples in Matt, xxv., " I was a stranger, and ye took 
 me in," fee. It was unawares that godly men of old received angelic 
 guests. Not less amazing will be the glad discovery in the coming 
 day that acts of simple kindness done for Jesus' sake are owned with 
 everlasting recompence by Him whom angels serve, and who is 
 afflicted in all the afflictions of his brethren here below. 
 
 2 ^'- Ehrcnwerth set die Ehe bei alien." — De Wette. As the order 
 of the words is exactly the same as in the following verse, it seems 
 preferable to assimilate their construction. 
 
 3 1 Cor. vii. 
 
414 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 For, as they declined in grace, they had g^o^yn in 
 selfishness. Alms might be given to the saints, 
 while yet an anxious and heart -engrossing diligence 
 was being exercised to add to their own worldly 
 goods. This had ever been a chief ground of 
 Jehovah's controversy with His people. It was 
 "for the iniquity of his covetousness" that He had 
 smitten Jacob with a wrathful stroke;* while in 
 the formula of thanksgiving, " Blessed be the Lord, 
 for I am rich," with which the Spirit elsewhere in- 
 dignantly upbraids His people, we seem to have an 
 average specimen of apostate Jewish godliness.* 
 The Hebrew saints had, therefore, need of warning; 
 lest their fathers' iniquity should also be found 
 cleaving to their hands. 
 
 Nor is such an exhortation at all less season- 
 able to the Gentile saint. For, as is elsewliere 
 said,^ "The love of money is the root of all e\dl," a 
 root which, latent or confessed, exists in the heart 
 of every living man.'' The true antidote to this 
 soul -corrupting evil, is trust in God, its exactly 
 opposing principle. Where God is trusted, money 
 can never become an object of desire on its own 
 account. It is as our hearts remove fix)m Jesus, that 
 the master -passion of natural selfishness begins to 
 gather strength. God is the competent Provider of 
 His people. He has said, "I will never leave thee 
 nor forsake thee" to each several pilgrim of His 
 ffrace. For the words with which He comforted the 
 
 o 
 
 fathers, when He spoke to them in vision as their 
 
 4 Isa. Ivii. 17. ^ Zecli. xi. 5. ^ i Tim. vi. 10. 
 
 7 For, as need hardly be said, it is not a miserly love of coin for its 
 own sake, tliat is here condemned, hut a heart-reliance upon money 
 for what it can effect. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 415 
 
 Saviour and tlieir Blesser, have been written for the 
 nourishment of our faith. That godliness with con- 
 tentment is great gain, was a lesson that the Hebrew 
 saints had but imperfectly acquired. They would 
 prove its value and enjoy abundantly its blessings, 
 if they took God simply at His word. They daily 
 needed Him, and by His promise He anticipated 
 all their need. For the God of the believer is the 
 God of salvations,^ not one, but many. Having 
 given His own Son for their redemption. He with- 
 holds no good thing from the cherished people of 
 His blessing. And He would have this known and 
 reckoned on by us. Because of His words of 
 faithful promise, we may speak confidently amid 
 circumstances of the most disheartening appearance. 
 Each one may holdlij say, "The Lord is my Helper." 
 And if we say thus much in faith, we shall not 
 spare to add with meekness, yet with all assurance, 
 the remainder of the Spirit's words. For man is 
 still and harmless before the power of the Lord, who 
 numbers, for safe keeping, all the hairs of our heads. 
 For his temporal weal, the man whom truth has 
 made a pilgrim need feel no alarm. The earth and 
 its fulness are the Lord's, who loves him. Enough is 
 promised him to speed him on his way. God shows 
 His children only kindness, when He traverses their 
 foolish and injurious schemes of personal aggran- 
 dizement in the present world.^ 
 
 Verse 7. They are next exhorted not to be un- 
 mindful of those who had spoken to them the word 
 of God, and were thus their guides and leaders^ in 
 
 ^ mrtriD^ h^ Mh h^r\. (Ps. Ixviii. 20.) 
 
 9 1 Tiin. vi. 9. ^ 'Hyov/x£vot. '■^ Fuhrer.'" — De "Wette, 
 
416 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 the path of faith. It ought not to be needful to 
 exhort them thus ; for where truth is heartily en- 
 joyed, its ministers are cherished for its sake. If 
 we are really growing in the grace of Christ, we 
 shall not think coldly of the chosen channels which 
 the Spirit uses to convey refreshment to our souls. 
 In the present passage there seems to be an especial 
 reference to those who, having laboured in the 
 Gospel, had already closed their warfare by a con- 
 fident departure in the faith of Christ.^ Their faith 
 was to be imitated, for their conversation while on 
 earth was not in vain. They did not fight like men 
 who beat the air. They had lived and died in Jesus 
 and for Him. Their lives were passed in travail and 
 in trials ; but they had neither wrought nor suffered 
 without recompence. According to the measure of 
 the grace afforded them, they had severally laboured 
 in the vineyard of the Lord. They had run on 
 steadily the race of patience, and had found an end 
 of peace. They had finished their career with joy, 
 as happy witnesses of the surpassing grace of God. 
 And now they rested from their toils. The better 
 lot was theirs.^ They, therefore, who remained 
 should think of their forerunners in the race. They 
 should strive to follow, not the outward semblance 
 of their conversation, but the effective princix3le of 
 faith which had made them thus ensamples to the 
 flock of God. In the shining of that word of God 
 which they had spoken, they should seek the happy 
 path of peace in which their guides had walked. 
 
 2 Although the langiiage of the apostle is general, there is most 
 probably an allusion, which his readers would readily appreciate, to 
 the earlier martyrs of Jewish blood. (Comp. Acts viii. and xii.) 
 
 3 Phil. i. 23. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 417 
 
 Yerse 8. " Jesus Christ, [is] the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever."* Although this verse is 
 completely independent of its context, as a declara- 
 tive expression of doctrine, yet it stands in closest 
 moral connexion with what immediately precedes it, 
 and, as we shall presently see, with the verses which 
 follow next in order. To an exhortation to imitate 
 the faith of those who had led them in the way, 
 there naturally succeeds a statement of the funda- 
 mental doctrine on which all that they had taught 
 was based. Accordingly, the name of Jesus Christ 
 is here presented as the substance and entirety of 
 all sound doctrine. He is the true God, and the 
 eternal life. In His name and in His power He is 
 evermore Salvation. Yesterday, to-day, and for 
 ever He abides the same. He was the eternal 
 Eesting-place of all God's counsel. He is the pre- 
 sent Glory and Uplifter of His people's heads. He 
 will be for ever the'' full portion of their perfect joy. 
 By naming Him, believers vindicate the hope which 
 they profess before the world. By trusting in Him, 
 they obtain the warrant of their present peace. By 
 hoping in Him, they anticipate their sure reward. 
 He is crowned already with the glory which His 
 people wait to share. Their heavenly inheritance is 
 secured to them in Him who has entered as their 
 Captain of salvation on the promised rest of God. 
 Some of their guides and teachers had already passed 
 away, and on those remaining, time and change 
 
 4 'Iy](rovg Xpiarbg x^^C '^('■'^ (rr/jutpov 6 avTog^ Kai tig Tovg aiuivaq. 
 It is to be much regretted, that through an erroneous punctuation 
 (a colon only being placed at the conclusion of v. 7) in the common 
 editions of the English Bible, the unlearned reader is often entirely- 
 mistaken in his view of this passage. 
 
 T 5 
 
its NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 would work their sure effects. But Jesus Christ, the 
 Shepherd aud the Bishop of His people's souls, 
 would not remove. In His continuance they would 
 find their steadfast confidence and joy. 
 
 Verse 9. This was God's sure foundation. They 
 were to build their souls up steadfastly on Jesus 
 Christ. There were other doctrines which men 
 taught in manifold variety ; but in the mind of the 
 Spirit they all of them were strange. For Christ is 
 the unity of all the truth of God. The Spirit only 
 testifies of Rim, and of the Father's glory as revealed 
 in Him. Instability of soul and spiritual poverty 
 would be the certain attendants of any deviation 
 from the sound words of the Gospel. For the name 
 of Jesus is the home and wealth of the believing 
 soul. The good thing of the Spirit's choice is grace, 
 not meats. For in the one there would be found a 
 sure establishment of heart with God ; while in the 
 other there was nothing that could profit. There 
 was promise, but no performance; there was cease- 
 less effort, reaping only disappointment. Meats 
 were carnal ordinances. They were, therefore, of no 
 spiritual value, and contained no saving efficacy. 
 They had no living virtue, and could give assurance 
 of no blessing. For they were held a,nd observed in 
 the fruitless impotency of that flesh which jirojitdli 
 nothing.^ 
 
 Meats had been tried, and the results were plainly 
 visible to every discerning eye. Grace too had 
 borne its fruits in part. By faith the elders had 
 
 •^ John vi. 63. It is evident that under the single term "meats" 
 the apostle here comprehends the whole series of Jewish ordinances. 
 Chap. ix. passim. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 419 
 
 obtained a good report. They also who had been 
 the teachers of these Hebrew brethren in the word 
 of grace, had had a joyful issue to their good conver- 
 sation in Christ. They were, moreover, their own 
 witnesses in both these things. It fared better with 
 their souls, when, in their early love, they counted 
 all things loss for Christ, than when, through lack of 
 constancy in looking to the Apostle and High Priest 
 of their profession, their manly vigour had shrunk 
 back to childish ignorance and feebleness.*^ Their 
 own experience would add force to an admonition 
 which persuaded them to cease entirely from man. 
 God knovv\s his j)eople's hearts, and has consulted 
 their stability by founding them, through faith, upon 
 Himself. Spirit, and not flesh, is the reliance of His 
 saints. His work, and not their own, procures their 
 everlasting peace. The name of Christianity must 
 not be suffered to mislead the sheep of Christ. The 
 most fervent professions of devotedness to Him may 
 easily be made by those whose doctrine, nevertheless, 
 is error and deception, rather than the truth of God. 
 To mingle works with grace is to spoil both.'^ The 
 Spirit knows of no such mixture ; it is confusion 
 and darkness, instead of light and peace. God only 
 blesses us by means of His own truth. But truth 
 divides itself into a double testimony; first, to the 
 sin which has ruined us completely in ourselves, and 
 then, to the perfect grace by which God stablishes 
 His children's hearts in Christ.^ 
 
 Verse 10. " We have an altar," &c. Meats did 
 not profit ; it is grace that establishes the heart. 
 
 6 Supra, cliap. v. 11- U. ^ Eom. xi. 6. 8 2 Cor. i. 21. 
 
420 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 But the believer thus established is a worshipper. 
 He is, moreover, a priestly worshipper. He is fed, 
 therefore, upon that which has first been consecrated 
 unto God. The servants of the tabernacle were 
 partakers of the altar. By a perpetual statute God 
 provided for His ministers from the meat of His 
 people's acceptable sacrifices.^ We also have an 
 altar, dressed acceptably with its precious offerings, 
 but both hidden from the view and forbidden to the 
 touch of those who serve the earthly tabernacle. 
 
 "For (verse 11) the bodies of those beasts," &c. 
 The meat by which the soul of the believer is sus- 
 tained is the flesh of Him whose blood has been 
 presented for him in the holiest. But to the Leviti- 
 cal minister it was forbidden to eat the sin-offering 
 of atonement.^ The bodies of the national and 
 priestly sin-offerings of Israel were burned without 
 the camp. They were an avoidance both to priest 
 and worshipper. They must be consumed by fire, 
 not upon God's altar, but as a thing accursed, with- 
 out the camp wherein His tabernacle stood. While 
 atonement was a figure only, and not a reality, the 
 worshipper had no communion with what furnished 
 it. But now the deepest and richest springs of the 
 believer's conscious blessing are found in his discern- 
 ment of the hody as well as the precious blood of 
 Christ. He is, accordingly, presented in the follow- 
 ing verse as the antitype of that part of the Levitical 
 ordinance which was performed without the camp, 
 just as in the ninth chapter we have seen His blood 
 conveyed for us within the veil. 
 
 Verse 12. "Wherefore, Jesus also, that He might 
 
 8 Numb, xviii. ^ Lev. vi. 30. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 421 
 
 sanctify the people^ with His own blood, suffered 
 without the gate." It is nnder its judicial aspect 
 that the cross is here displayed. We see Jesus made 
 a curse for us, numbered among the transgressors, 
 and laden with the grievous burden of His people's 
 iniquities. It was from this death of bitterness that 
 the blood of our sanctification must be furnished. 
 Tor the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, 
 and by His stripes it is that we are healed. His 
 own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree. 
 Unlike the former ordinance, the broken body of the 
 sinner's Substitute is the appointed nourishment of 
 his soul.^ The believer now has fellowship \vith 
 that which, while the figure lasted, was appreciable 
 by God alone. In the judicial abandonment of Jesus 
 to the power of darkness, he finds the truth which 
 loosens all his bonds. In communion with the 
 grace unspeakable which led the Saviour thus to 
 suffer, he first learns to think and feel rightly as 
 a worshipper of God. He is strengthened by that 
 meat to offer the true sacrifice of praise. 
 
 Verse 13. "Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him," 
 &c. The cross of Jesus is the earthly meeting-place 
 of the partakers of the heavenly calling. The Spirit 
 leads us forth from all that has a name or standing 
 of natural pretension, to the place of nature's igno- 
 miny and decease. Judicial death is acknowledged 
 by the Christian to have already acted upon him in 
 the cross of Christ. His glory, therefore, as a man, 
 is turned to shame. By faith in Jesus he has 
 
 2 Tbv \a6vy an expression of wide significance, comprising all for 
 ■whom Christ died, and in a peculiar sense the nation of Israel. 
 (John xi. 51.) Its immediate application is, of course, to the Church 
 alone. ^ John vi. 
 
422 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 "crucified the flesh."* Its comeliness, not less com- 
 pletely than its vileness, is condemned and set aside. 
 The confession of this is the beginning of his glory 
 as a saint. The reproach of Christ can be borne 
 ^Yell by those who justly estimate, by faith, the 
 difference betvvTen the honour which men give to 
 one another, and the glory which the God of all 
 grace has reserved for them who now have boldness 
 to confess Him in His Son. 
 
 God and His true altar of worship are without 
 the camp. They who would seek Him or His 
 honour, must inquire for Him there. They must 
 consent to the reproach of Jesus crucified. There 
 is a peculiar force in the repetition here of the 
 expression "without the camp." In verses 11, 12, 
 we have seen the precious analogy which exists, in 
 the mind of the Spirit, between the Levitical sin- 
 offering and the suffering of Jesus, without the gate. 
 We have now, in close moral connexion with this, 
 an evident allusion to that solemn moment in the 
 history of Israel, when, after their great national 
 defection from the living God, when they changed 
 their glory into the likeness of the gods of Egypt,^ 
 Moses took the ta.bernacle of His presence, and 
 pitched it without the camp.^ By this action he 
 had intimated, in the most emphatic manner, that 
 althouQii Divine lonff-sufferino- mic^ht still bear the 
 manners of a stiff-necked people, the Covenant had 
 
 4 Gal. V. 24. 5 Exod. xxxii. ; Ps. cvi. 20. 
 
 6 "And Moses took tlie tabernacle, and pitched it witliout the 
 •camp, afar off from the cainp, and called it the tabernacle of the 
 congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the 
 Jiord, went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was 
 without the camp." (Exod. xxxiii. 7.) 
 
XOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 423 
 
 been already broken, upon which the nation stood at 
 Sinai. Accordingly, we find the Holy Spirit, dating 
 from this point Jehovah's repudiation of the natural 
 seed of Abraham. He would, indeed, return again 
 to the camp which He had left, to occupy the taber- 
 nacle which Moses had in charge to build, and which, 
 with all its furniture, was a figure and pattern of 
 good things to come ; but the moral standing of the 
 people was entirely changed. Sacrifice and priestly 
 ministration preserved them under a broken covenant 
 of Law, and from that moment the course of true 
 Jewish faith was a prolonged enquiry, and hopeful 
 waiting for Him of whom Moses and the prophets 
 spake. 
 
 On the other hand, the " uncircumcised in heart 
 and ears," found a snare in that which should have 
 been their preservation, and lost themselves among 
 the shadows which should have led them to the 
 Lord. To them, the outward ordinance was every- 
 thing ; and so, although repudiated by the prophets,^ 
 and disallowed by the forerunner of the Lord,^ 
 Israel, after the flesh, still claimed to be the people 
 of God, and Jerusalem was, outwardly, the city of 
 solemnities, while Jesus lived on earth. As the 
 true Shepherd, He began to separate His own slieep 
 from that fold before the time for laying down His 
 life was come.^ His death was His deliberate re- 
 jection by the world. More emphatically, He was 
 rejected by His own. He was denied by the nation 
 which alone professed to know Him. Israel would 
 none of Him. But God has made the blood of His 
 
 7 Isaiah xxx. 8, 9 ; Jer. vi. 30 ; Hosea i. 9. 
 
 8 Luke iii. 8. ^ John x. 
 
 / 
 
424 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 rejected Son the sanctifi cation of the believer for a 
 new and heavenly calling. The Hebrew, then, who 
 hoped in Christ, must be content to give up that 
 which once had been his honour and chief gain. 
 He must forsake his people for the Lord. The camp 
 still stood; but God had quitted it. To enter on 
 the way of life eternal, he must first pass that gate 
 by which the Saviour had gone forth to die the 
 death of his redemption. 
 
 A similar experience belongs to the believer at 
 the present day. His natural birth is, generally 
 speaking, within the limits of professing Christen- 
 dom. He grows up amid associations outwardly 
 religious, and bearing more or less distinctly an 
 Evangelic character. The world on which his eyes 
 are opened is professedly a Christian world. But 
 when the power of the Gospel is effectually known, 
 and, by the grace of God, the inheritor of a Chris- 
 tian form and tradition becomes acquainted savingly 
 with Christ, he finds himself in a new, and as it 
 were, a foreign relation to the former things. Like 
 the man blind from birth, whose eyes were opened 
 by the Son of God, he finds himself at variance with 
 the accredited religion of the world.^ Because of the 
 light which he has received, he is no longer suited 
 to the world, which, under Christian semblance, 
 is in darkness still, and natural hatred of the 
 light. He must, therefore, if faithful to his calling, 
 go forth to Jesus. His place on earth is now, as 
 then, without the camp. The reproach of His cross 
 has not yet ceased for those, who, in the true dis- 
 cernment of the grace of God, desire to walk worthy 
 
 1 John ix. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 425 
 
 of His name. It is He who by His Spirit still leads 
 forth His sheep. For within there is no fellowship 
 for them that glory in His cross. Flesh and blood 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God ; nor can 
 nature perform the worship of the Spirit. The altar 
 of our sacrifice is far away from that which vainly 
 sends up lip-service to the Searcher of all hearts, 
 or consecrates self- righteousness as an acceptable 
 offering to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Verse 14. "For here we have no continuing 
 city,"^ &c. It cannot be; for our city is in heaven. 
 The former clause of this verse is often on the lips 
 of men who use it rather to express reluctant acqui- 
 escence in man's natural vanity, than as a plain 
 declaration that they are estranged from earthly 
 things by the bright attraction of a better and hea- 
 venly inheritance. But the spiritual man disowns 
 continuance here. His desire is wholly in the 
 future. He is waiting, not abiding, in his present 
 life. Amid the dwellings which the world builds 
 solidly for permanent endurance, he has an altar and 
 a moving tent. Although Babylon's allurements are 
 
 2 Let the reader observe again the dispensatioual contrast here 
 implied. Israel had an abiding city here. They will have such 
 again, when the promise is fulfilled which has established Zion's 
 palaces upon a long-enduring base. (Ps. xlviii. ; Jer. xxxi. 38-40.) 
 In the land of promise they will long enjoy their portion. (Isaiah 
 Ixv.) But we, whose mansions are in heaven, have only pilgrima;: e 
 on earth. We cannot have a settlement in heaven a)id on earth. 
 The reproach of Christ, which is His people's glory, is the world's 
 contradiction of the rights of Jesus. To bear this, we must be 
 without the camp. The certain consequencie of an imperfect appre- 
 hension of the heavenly calling, is conformity to the world by those 
 whose calling is to shine in it as witnesses of Him who is in heaven. 
 It is impossible to overrate the importance of these things. God is 
 glorified according to the distinctness and fidelity with which the 
 special ti'uth of the existing dispensation is confessed. 
 
426 NOTES ON THE HEBEEWS. 
 
 around his path as visible enticements every day, he 
 has less temptation, if his faith be simple, to become 
 a settler than the patriarchs of old. For they knew 
 that long years intervened betwixt them and their 
 soul's desire. It is not so with us who look for 
 Jesus. For He has not set the measure of our 
 patience. Neither times nor seasons are the subject 
 of the Spirit's tidings, who announces to us that 
 the Saviour is at hand. Men naturally seek their 
 rest in present things. They have, or wish to have, 
 a long abode on earth. Because their treasure is 
 not Christ, they are not looking for the city where 
 He dwells. The promise of His coming sounds 
 unwelcome in their ears. To one who dwells within 
 the camp, the predicted "end of all things" is the 
 breaking up of the foundations of his rest. The 
 close of the believer's patience is the beginning of 
 the world's alarm. 
 
 Verse 15. "By Him, therefore,'' &c. Outside the 
 camp the Christian finds himself with God. His 
 altar and the preparation for His acceptable worship, 
 are provided there. It is by Jesus, whom the world 
 disowns, that we are called to offer now the sacrifice 
 of praise ; a service which finds -no free exercise 
 within the camp. For it can be rendered only by 
 the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, 
 and have no confidence in the flesh. Their rejoicing 
 is only in Christ Jesus. The pleasant odour of 
 their offering is the believing celebration of His 
 love. The sacrifice of praise which God accepts is 
 the fruit of lips which make confession of His 
 name.^ The praise which God thus looks for from 
 
 ^ KapTTov %£i\6wv 6ixo\oyovpT(jjv T(p ovoixari avrov. The name, 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 427 
 
 the lieirs of His salvation, should not only find 
 utterance at particular seasons, but be always on our 
 lips. It is looked for by the God of our worship as 
 a continual sacrifice ; for it is the believer's recog- 
 nition of an abiding Saviour. Time and circum- 
 stance, which tell so powerfully on the children's 
 natural experiences, are incapable of altering the 
 Spirit's note of praise. For Christ, who is the song 
 of the believer, is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 for ever. In Him we find a joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory, amid the needful heaviness of our 
 manifold temptations. Praise is the Spirit's contrast 
 to the godless hilarity of the natural man. To be 
 abounding in the faith, with thanksgiving, is a true 
 token of the Christian's spiritual growth. With a 
 solemn consciousness of his position in a world 
 which is not " of the Father," the believer is to put 
 away, as inconvenient and incongruous, the former 
 things. Wliile the world rejoices in its own in- 
 ventions, unmindful of the woe in which its laugh 
 must be extinguished,"* God's children are to stand 
 arrayed in their Divinely -furnished comeliness of 
 thanksgiving and praise.^ 
 
 Verse 16. " But to do good," &g. While our own 
 lips are to be fruitful in the praise of God, we 
 should seek also to open more abundantly the lips 
 of others.^ God loves a free communicator of His 
 gifts. But Christian beneficence is regarded as a 
 sacrifice. It is to be rendered, that is, for the love of 
 Him to whom the life of the believer is a thanks- 
 
 that is, of Jesus. The object of our praise being the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Comp. Phil. ii. 11.) 
 
 4 Luke vi. 25. ^ Ps. xssiii. 1 ; E^A. y. 4; Jas. v. 13. 
 
 6 2Cor. ix. U-13, 
 
428 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 giving. The parsimonious parings which are grudg- 
 ingly bestowed, rather to still a legal conscience, 
 than to succour Jesus in His needy people, can give 
 no pleasure to the God of grace. He knows who 
 pour the richest gifts into His treasury. Faith"^ 
 enters as a principal ingredient into every acceptable 
 work. A feeling of natural kindliness may find 
 pleasurable exercise in an active benevolence ; but, 
 no doubt, this is no sacrifice. For we have nothing 
 truly our own to give, but what we first received 
 from God ; and if, in forgetfulness of this, we do 
 our kindness independently of Him, we both wrong 
 Him and deceive ourselves. 
 
 Verse 17. "Obey them that have the rule," &c. 
 They should obey their leaders, and submit them- 
 selves. For in doing so they honoured Him who 
 had made them overseers of the flock of God. They 
 were not to think of them as masters, but as faith- 
 ful guides. For they watched for their souls, and 
 were accountable to the chief Shepherd for their 
 charge. Themselves exemplifying in love the doc- 
 trines which they taught, they joyed or grieved, 
 according to the spiritual condition of their brethren. 
 In the love of the Spirit, and not by forced con- 
 straint, they had given themselves to be their 
 servants, and the helpers of their joy. While, 
 therefore, steadfastness of faith and godly order 
 were observed, the labour of their guides would be 
 a pleasure and reward. If carnal liberty were 
 claimed, and, in the foolish jealousy of ignorance, 
 they despised the Spirit's distribution of His gifts, 
 it would fill the hearts of those who tended them 
 
 7 Mark xii. 43. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 429 
 
 with sorrow, while tliey would reap no profit from 
 the fruit of their own way. 
 
 Yerses 18, 19. " Pray for us," &c. He was him- 
 self a watcher for their souls. In that character, 
 and in the consciousness of grace and power from 
 the Lord, he had exhorted them, rebuked them and 
 instructed them. He had probed to the quick the 
 seat of their spiritual disease, and he had wisely 
 ministered the true restorative of their souls. As one 
 set over them, he could direct them w^ith authority ; 
 for his responsibilities were not to them, but to 
 the Lord. But if he was their guide and teacher, he 
 was also their companion in their tribulation and 
 their hope. As a partaker of Christ, he w^as a 
 sharer of their common joy. As one, moreover, who 
 had been put in trust to keep the Master's charge, 
 he felt his own infirmity, and desired to be streugth- 
 ened through their prayers. It is more than likely^ 
 also, that he was in bonds for Christ, when he thus 
 addressed his Hebrew brethren. But if so, he wore 
 them lightly. For his confidence was steadfast in 
 the sight of Him who tries the hearts. He was 
 conscious of no evil, though for the Gospel he might 
 suffer trouble as an evil-doer even unto bonds.^ 
 
 He sought their sympathy as one who suffered 
 blamelessly. But besides this, he desired still more 
 earnestly that through their prayers he might re- 
 
 8 Morally certain, to my own mind. But as the epistle contains 
 no positive mention of his bonds (the translation in x. 34, "my 
 bonds" having been made from M-hat is allowed to be a wrono- 
 reading), I prefer stating it as above. Perhaps the language of verse 
 23 may justify a supposition that he was no longer in confinement, 
 but, from some cause not explained, prevented from immediately 
 re-visiting Palestine. 
 
 » 2 Tim. ii. 9. 
 
430 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 visit them once more. It is a gracious picture. He 
 does not put tliem in remembrance of his apostolic 
 dignity, and, as it were, dictate their supplications 
 for himself, as if his liberty were indispensable to 
 their well-being. But in the zeal of his affectionate 
 desire, and in the happy spirit of confiding love, he 
 urges his request. He reckoned on a due appre- 
 ciation, on their parts, of his fervent love. He 
 reckoned, also, on the ready answer of the Lord to 
 prayers which sought the furtherance of His people's 
 joy. 
 
 Verses 20, 21. " Now the God of peace," &c. To 
 his expressed desire for their prayers, succeeds a full 
 and blessed utterance of his own valedictory request 
 on their behalf. God is invoked for His children 
 as the God of peace. The special subject of his 
 prayer was their practical adornment of the doctrine 
 of their God and Saviour. But to serve God accept- 
 ably, they must know Him well. Their souls must 
 be established and made glad by their perception of 
 His work, before the necessary strength can come to 
 bring forth fruits of righteousness well pleasing in 
 His sight. Accordingly, his prayer for them in the 
 Holy Ghost uplifts the countenance of the God of 
 peace on them and on their works. God had en- 
 titled Himself to their full confidence as the Maker 
 of their peace. For He had brought again from 
 death the Shepherd whom the sword of judgment 
 had smitten in their stead. They had come to put 
 their trust beneath the shadow of His wings who 
 had called to them from heaven as the God of peace. 
 Thus he once more shows them, in his parting words, 
 the firm security on which their hope is built. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 431 
 
 God's peace is not a truce of time, but an agree- 
 ment for eternity. For it is based upon the blood 
 of an Eternal Covenant. By means of sacrifical 
 death all enmity has been destroyed, and only love 
 remains. The heirs of God's salvation are as sheep 
 which have a shepherd. The Lord, who died to 
 save them, has returned again to life, to fold in 
 perfect peace the flock which He has purchased 
 by His blood. By a secret resolution of the 
 counsels of the Godhead, that blood was shed in 
 righteousness. Having flowed to satisfy the just 
 inflexibility of Holiness, it is become the security of 
 an open and abiding Covenant of grace and mercy 
 to believing sinners. Peace is therefore now the 
 just expression of God's holiness to the believer. 
 He blesses us in Christ. To the great Shepherd, He 
 commits His flock in peace. By bringing Jesus 
 from the dead, He has acknowledged the validity 
 of His atonement. By confessing Jesus, in His 
 death and resurrection, to be our Lord, we place 
 ourselves by faith within the sure bond of the ever- 
 lasting Covenant of peace. 
 
 God's people work His works. But the strength in 
 which they do this is the grace in which they stand; 
 faith alone being the instrumental means of doing 
 what is pleasant in the sight of God. The desire of 
 the apostle was his brethren's perfection in every 
 good work ; and he looks for the accomplishment of 
 this desire to the God of peace. For God is the 
 Doer of His people's acceptable works ; by His 
 Spirit He effects in them compliance with His will. 
 To own this truth, and act on it in faith, is the per- 
 fection of obedience. Jesus has led us in this faith. 
 
432 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 "My father tliat dwelleth in me, He doeth the 
 works," were His words when just about to con- 
 summate in death, for our sakes, the work of that 
 obedience through which we stand unblamably 
 before the God of peace/ It is a faithful discern- 
 ment of this fundamental maxim that alone confers 
 on the believer a competency for the doing of all 
 works which God calls good.^ 
 
 Thus he quiets every fear and misgiving which 
 his heart might feel on their account, by casting all 
 their burden, and liis own, upon the God of peace. 
 He was bringing His own many sons to glory. In 
 due time He would bid them everlasting welcome to 
 His rest. Meanwhile, He was their Keeper; and 
 He did not slumber in His charge. In Christ, God 
 would preserve both him and liis dear brethren in 
 peace. To Jesus, the Great Shepherd, they should 
 look for the needed pasture of their souls, even as 
 through His intercession, as their great High-priest, 
 they held perpetually a sure standing as God's 
 acceptable people. Their obedience unto well pleas- 
 ins as beloved children would result from their full 
 enjoyment, through the Spirit, of the holy liberty 
 with which the Son of God had made them free. 
 
 Verse 22. And now his work of faithful love is 
 at an end; and having finished it, he offers it to 
 their acceptance, in a tone of earnest and affectionate 
 entreaty. He would have them take his exhortation 
 in the same spirit, both of brotherly affection and of 
 glad submissiveness to God,^ which had moved him 
 to write it for their sakes. From God, and in His 
 sight, he had taught them in the doctrine of His 
 
 1 John xiv. 10. 2 John xv. 5 ; Phil. iv. 13. 3 Chap. vi. 3. 
 
NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 433 
 
 Son. When he thought upon the greatness of the 
 subject he had treated, and regarded his epistle as a 
 token of the love he bore them in the Lord, his 
 words, though many, seemed to him but few. Yet 
 he had said all that the Spirit gave him then to say. 
 He had, therefore, said enough. 
 
 Verse 23. But he would not close his letter 
 without apprising them of what he knew they 
 would rejoice to hear, even as it gladdened his own 
 heart to tell it. One of the prisoners, whose bonds 
 they shared in spirit, was now free. Moreover, he 
 had himself full expectation of soon witnessing and 
 participating in the joy of their re-union in the 
 flesh. He trusted that the Lord, who had procured 
 His servant's liberty, might also add this further 
 blessing both to him and them. 
 
 Verse 24. He had begun his letter without greet- 
 ing, entering at once upon the rich and weighty 
 subject of his "exhortation." He concludes it by 
 a salutation both to them and to their guides. In 
 this expression of His love the saints of Italy unite. 
 From the manner of this salutation, there is room 
 for an inference that this epistle was not addressed 
 to them from Eome; and what is said in the pre- 
 ceding verse, respecting Timothy, may be taken to 
 support this view. The scene of Timothy's im- 
 prisonment was at some other place than where 
 the writer of this salutation at the time resided, 
 whether then in bonds or free. If Timothy came 
 shortly, he would bring him to the Hebrew saints. 
 On the whole, it seems probable, that the epistle 
 was written after his release from his imprisonment 
 at Eome, but that he felt himself detained still for 
 
 u 
 
434 NOTES ON THE HEBREWS. 
 
 a season in Italy. No evidence, however, is known 
 to exist from which definitive conclusions may be 
 formed respecting the sequel of the apostle's per- 
 sonal history, from the close of his two years' resi- 
 dence at Eome.* It is a point which may interest 
 critics, but the solution of which would add nothincr 
 to the solid blessing of the believer. 
 
 May the closing benediction (verse 25) of the 
 Spirit be continually with the Christian reader of 
 these Notes. Amen. 
 
 ^ Acts xxviii. 30. 
 
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