FOOTNOTES:

“For not unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying,What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;Thou crownedst him with glory and honour,And didst set him over the works of Thy hands:Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold Him Who hath been made a little lower than the angels,evenJesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God He should taste death for everyman. For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and through Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,I will declare Thy name unto My brethren,In the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise.And again, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the children which God hath given Me. Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb.ii. 5–18, R.V.).

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

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

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

I will declare Thy name unto My brethren,In the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise.

And again, I will put My trust in Him. And again, Behold, I and the children which God hath given Me. Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily not of angels doth He take hold, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb.ii. 5–18, R.V.).

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

The passage on the consideration of which we now enter is difficult, because the interpretation offered by some of the best expositors, though at first sight it has the appearance of simplicity, really introduces confusion into the argument. They think the words of the Psalmist,[17]as applied by the Apostle, refer to Christ only. But the Psalmist evidently contrasts the frailty of man with the authority bestowed upon him by Jehovah. Mortal man has been set over the works of God’s hand. Man is for a little inferior to the angels; yet he is crowned with glory and honour. The very contrast between his frailty and his dignity exalts the name of his Creator, Who judges not as we judge. For He confronts His blasphemers with the lisping of children, and weak man He crowns king of creation, in order to put to shame the wisdom of the world.[18]

We cannot suppose that this is said of Christ, the Son of God. But there are two expressions in thePsalm that suggested to St. Paul[19]and the author of this Epistle a Messianic reference. The one is the name “Son of man;” the other is the action ascribed to God: “Thou hast made him lower than the angels.” The word[20]used by the Seventy, whose translation the Apostle here and elsewhere adopts, means, not, as the Hebrew, “to create lower,” but “to bring from a more exalted to a humbler condition.” Christ appropriated to Himself the title of “Son of man;” and “to lower from a higher to a less exalted position” applies only to the Son of God, Whose pre-existence is taught by the Apostle in chap. i. The point of the Apostle’s application of the Psalm must, therefore, be that in Christ alone have the Psalmist’s words been fulfilled. The Psalmist was a prophet, and testified.[21]In addition to the witnesses previously mentioned,[22]the Apostle cites the evidence from prophecy. An inspired seer, “seeing this beforehand, spake of Christ,” not primarily, but in a mystery now explained in the New Testament. The distinction also between crowning with glory and putting all things under his feet holds true only of Christ. The Psalmist, we admit, appears to identify them. But the relevancy of the Apostle’s use of the Psalm lies in the distinction between these two things.The creature man may be said to be crowned with glory and honour by receiving universal dominion and by the subjection of all things under his feet. “But we see not yet all things put under him;” and, consequently, we see not man crowned with glory and honour. The words of the Psalmist have apparently failed of fulfilment or were at best only poetical exaggeration. But Him Who was actually translated from a higher to a lower place than that of angels, from heaven to earth—that is to say, Jesus, the meek and lowly Man of Nazareth—we see crowned with glory and honour. He has ascended to heaven and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. So far the prophecy has come true, but only so far. All things have not yet been put under Him. He is still waiting till He has put all enemies, even the last enemy, which is death, under His feet. As, then, the glory and honour are bestowed on man through his Representative, Jesus, so also dominion is given him only through Jesus; and the glory comes only with the dominion. Every honour that falls to man’s share is won for him by the victory of Christ over an enemy. This is the nearest approach in our Epistle to the Pauline conception of Christ as the second Adam.

But is there any connection between Christ’s victory and His being made lower than the angels? When the Psalmist describes the great dignity conferred on frailman, he sees only the contrast between the dignity and the frailty. He can only wonder and worship in observing the incomprehensible paradox of God’s dealings with man. The Apostle, on the other hand, fathoms this mystery. He gives the reasons for the strange connection of power and feebleness, not indeed in reference to man as a creature, but in reference to the Man Christ Jesus. Apart from Christ the problem that struck the Psalmist with awe remains unsolved. But in Christ’s incarnation we see why man’s glory and dominion rest on humiliation.

1. Christ’s humiliation involved a propitiatory death for every man, and He is crowned with glory and honour that His propitiation may prove effectual: “that He may have tasted[23]death for every man.” By His glory we must mean the self-manifestation of His person. Honour is the authority bestowed upon Him by God. Both are the result of His suffering death, or rather the suffering of His death. He is glorified, not simply because He suffered, but because His suffering was of a certain kind and quality. It was a propitiatory suffering. Christ Himself prayed His Father to glorify Him with His own self with the glory He had with the Father before the world was.[24]This glory was His by right of Sonship. But He receivesfrom His Father another glory, not by right, but by God’s grace.[25]It consists in having His death accepted and acknowledged as an adequate propitiation for the sins of men. In this verse the great conception of atonement, which hereafter will fill so large a place in the Epistle, is introduced, not at present for its own sake, but in order to show the superiority of Christ to the angels. He is greater than they because He is the representative Man, to Whom, and not to the angels, the world to come has been put in subjection. But the Psalmist has taught us that man’s greatness is connected with humiliation. This connection is realised in Christ, Whose exaltation is the Divine acceptance of the propitiation wrought in the days of His humiliation, and the means of giving it effect.

2. Christ’s glory consists in being Leader[26]of His people, and for such leadership He was fitted by the discipline of humiliation. There is no incongruity in the works of God because He is Himself the ground of their being[27]and the instrument of His own action.[28]Every adaptation of means to an end would not become God, though it might befit man. But this became Him for Whom and through Whom are all things. When He crowns man with glory and honour, He does this, not by an external ordinance merely, but by an inwardfitness. He deals, not with an abstraction, but with individual men, whom He makes His sons and prepares for their glory and honour by the discipline of sons. “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”[29]Thus it is more true to say that God leads His sons to glory than to say that He bestows glory upon them. It follows that the representative Man, through Whom these many sons are glorified, must Himself pass through like discipline, that, on behalf of God, He may become their Leader and the Captain of their salvation. It became God to endow the Son, in Whose Sonship men are adopted as sons of God, with inward fitness, through sufferings, to lead them on to their destined glory. Perhaps the verse contains an allusion to Moses or Joshua, the leaders of the Lord’s redeemed to the rich land and large. If so, the author is preparing his readers for what he has yet to say.

3. Christ’s glory consists in power to consecrate[30]men to God, and this power springs from His consciousness of brotherhood with them. But, first of all, the author thinks it necessary to prove that Christ has a deep consciousness of brotherhood with men. He cites Christ’s own words from prophetic Scripture.[31]For Christ has vowed unto the Lord, Who has delivered Him, that He will declare God’s name unto Hisbrethren. Here the pith of the argument is quite as much in the vow to reveal God to them as in His giving them the name of brethren. He is so drawn in love to them that He is impelled to speak to them about the Father. Yea, in the midst of the Church, as if He were one of the congregation, He will praise God. They praise God for His Son; the Son joins in the praise, as being thankful for the privilege of being their Saviour, while they offer their thanks for the joy of being saved. That is not all. Christ puts His trust in God. So human is He that, conscious of utter weakness, He leans on God, as the feeblest of His brethren. Finally, His triumphant joy at the safety of His redeemed ones arises from this consciousness of brotherhood. “Behold, I and the children” (of God) “which God hath given Me.”[32]The Apostle does not fear to apply to Christ what Isaiah[33]spoke in reference to himself and his disciples, the children of the prophet. Christ’s brotherhood with men assumes the form of identifying Himself with His prophetic servants. Evidently He is not ashamed of His brethren, though, like Joseph, He has reason to be ashamed of them for their sin. The expression means that He glories in them, because His assumption of humanity has consecrated them. For this consecrationsprings from union. We do not, for our part, understand this as a general proposition, of which the sanctifying power of Christ is an illustration. No other instance of such a thing exists. Yet the Apostle does not prove the statement. He appeals to the intelligence and conscience of his readers to acknowledge its truth. Whether we understand the word “sanctification” in the sense of moral consecration through an atonement or in the sense of holy character, it springs from union. Christ cannot sanctify by a creative word or by an act of power. Neither can His power to sanctify be transmitted by God to the Son externally, in the same way in which the Creator bestows on nature its vital, fertilising energy. Christ must derive His power to sanctify through His Sonship, and men must become sons of God that they may be sanctified through the Son. Our passage adds Christ’s brotherhood. He that consecrates, therefore, and they that are consecrated are united together, first, by being born of the same Divine Father, and, second, by having the same human nature. Here, again, the chain connects at both ends: on the side of God and on the side of man. Now to have dwelling in Him the power of consecrating men to God is so great an endowment that Christ may dare even to glory in the brotherhood that brings with it such a gift.

4. Christ’s glory manifests itself in the destruction ofSatan, who had the power of death, and his destruction is accomplished through death.[34]The children of God have every one his share of blood and flesh, which means vital, mortal humanity. Blood signifies life, and flesh the mortality of that life. They are, therefore, subject to disease and death. But to the Hebrews disease and death involved vastly more than physical suffering and the termination of man’s earthly existence. They had their angel, by which is meant that they had a moral significance. They were spiritual forces, wielded by a messenger of God. This angel was Satan. But, following the lead of the later Jewish theology, our author explains who Satan really is. He identifies him with the evil spirit, who from envy, says the Book of Wisdom, brought death into the world. To make clear this identification, he adds the words, “that is, the devil.” The reference to Satan is sufficient to show that the writer of the Epistle means by “the power of death” power to inflict it and keep men in its terrible grasp. But the difficulty is to understand how the devil is destroyed through death. Evidently the death of Christ is meant; we may paraphrase the Apostle’s expression by rendering, “throughHisdeath.” At first glance, the words, taken in connection with the reference to Christ’shumanity, seem to favour the doctrine, propounded by many writers in the early ages of the Church, that God delivered His Son to Satan as the price of man’s release from his rightful possession. Such a notion is utterly inconsistent with the dominant idea of the Epistle: the priestly character of Christ’s death. A Hebrew Christian could not conceive the high-priest entering the holiest place to offer a redemptive sacrifice to the spirit of evil. Indeed, the advocates of this strange theory of the Atonement admitted as much when they described Christ as outwitting the devil or escaping from his hands by persuasion. But the doctrine is quite as inconsistent with the passage before us, which represents the death of Christ as thedestructionof the Evil One. Power faces power. Christ is the Captain of salvation. His leadership of men implies conflict with their enemy and ultimate victory. Death was a spiritual conception. Here lay its power. Deliverance from the crushing bondage of its fear could come only through the great High-priest. Priesthood was the basis of Christ’s power. We shall soon see that Christ is the Priest-King. The Apostle even now anticipates what he has hereafter to say on the relation of the priesthood to the kingly power. For as Priest Christ delivers men from guilt of conscience and, by so doing, delivers them from their fear of death; as King He destroys him who had the power to destroy. He is“death of death and hell’s destruction.” It has been well said that the two terrors from which none but Christ can deliver men are guilt of sin and fear of death. The latter is the offspring of the former. When the conscience of sin is no more, dread of death yields to peace and joy.

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

But an interesting view of the passage has been proposed by Hofmann, and accepted by at least one thoughtful theologian of our country. They consider that the Apostle identifies the humiliation and the glory. In the words of Dr. Bruce,[35]“Christ’s whole state of exinanition was not only worthy to be rewarded by a subsequent state of exaltation, but was in itself invested with moral sublimity and dignity.” The idea has considerable fascination. We cannot set it aside by saying that it is modern, seeing that the Apostle himselfspeaks of the office of high-priest as an honour and a glory.[36]Yet we are compelled to reject it as an explanation of the passage. The Apostle is showing that the Psalmist’s statement respecting man is realised only in the Man Christ Jesus. The difficulty was to connect man’s low estate and man’s glory and dominion. But if the Apostle means that voluntary humiliation for the sake of others is the glory, some men besides Jesus Christ might have been mentioned in whom the words of the Psalm find their accomplishment. The difference between Jesus and other good men would only be a difference of degree. Such a conclusion would very seriously weaken the force of the Apostle’s reasoning.

In bringing his most skilful and original argument to a close, the Apostle recapitulates. He has said that the world to come,—the world of conscience and of spirit,—has been put in subjection to man, not to angels, and that this implies the incarnation of the Son of God. This thought the Apostle repeats in another, but very striking, form: “For verily He taketh not hold of angels, but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham.” Though the old versions were incorrect in so rendering the words as to make them express the fact of the Incarnation, the verse is a reference to theIncarnation, described, however, as Christ’s strong grasp[37]of man. By becoming man He takes hold of humanity, as with a mighty hand, and that part by which He grasps humanity is the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise was made.

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

Thus is the Son better than the angels.

FOOTNOTES:[8]Col. i. 15, 19.[9]Acts vii. 53.[10]Gal. iii. 19.[11]ἀγαγόντα.[12]Matt. xxv. 31.[13]Luke xxii. 43. The genuineness of the verse is somewhat doubtful.[14]μὴ παραρυῶμεν(ii. 1).[15]Matt. xxi. 33, sqq.[16]Heb. x. 29.[17]Ps. viii. 4.[18]Ps. viii. 2.[19]1 Cor. xv. 27.[20]ἠλάττωσας.[21]Cf. Acts ii. 30.[22]Chap. ii. 4.[23]γεύσηται(ii. 9).[24]John xvii. 5.[25]χάριτι.[26]ἀρχηγόν(ii. 10).[27]δι' ὅν.[28]δι' ὁὖ.[29]Chap. xii. 7.[30]ὁ ἁγιάζων(ii. 11).[31]Ps. xxii. 22.[32]Chap. ii. 13.[33]Isa. viii. 18[34]Chap. ii. 14.[35]Humiliation of Christ, p. 46.[36]Chap. v. 4, 5.[37]ἐπιλαμβάνεται(ii. 16).

[8]Col. i. 15, 19.

[9]Acts vii. 53.

[10]Gal. iii. 19.

[11]ἀγαγόντα.

[12]Matt. xxv. 31.

[13]Luke xxii. 43. The genuineness of the verse is somewhat doubtful.

[14]μὴ παραρυῶμεν(ii. 1).

[15]Matt. xxi. 33, sqq.

[16]Heb. x. 29.

[17]Ps. viii. 4.

[18]Ps. viii. 2.

[19]1 Cor. xv. 27.

[20]ἠλάττωσας.

[21]Cf. Acts ii. 30.

[22]Chap. ii. 4.

[23]γεύσηται(ii. 9).

[24]John xvii. 5.

[25]χάριτι.

[26]ἀρχηγόν(ii. 10).

[27]δι' ὅν.

[28]δι' ὁὖ.

[29]Chap. xii. 7.

[30]ὁ ἁγιάζων(ii. 11).

[31]Ps. xxii. 22.

[32]Chap. ii. 13.

[33]Isa. viii. 18

[34]Chap. ii. 14.

[35]Humiliation of Christ, p. 46.

[36]Chap. v. 4, 5.

[37]ἐπιλαμβάνεται(ii. 16).

Hebrewsiii. 1–iv. 13 (R.V.).“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High-priest of our confession,evenJesus; who was faithful to Him that appointed Him as also was Moses in all his house. For He hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some one; but He that built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken; but Christ as a Son, over His house; Whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end. Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost saith,To-day if ye shall hear His voice,Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation,Like as in the day of the temptation in the wilderness,Wherewith your fathers temptedMeby provingMe,And saw My works forty years.Wherefore I was displeased with this generation,And said, They do always err in their heart:But they did not know My ways;As I sware in My wrath,They shall not enter into My rest.Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God: but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called to-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin: for we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end: while it is said,To-day if ye shall hear His voice,Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.For who, when they heard, did provoke? nay, did not all they thatcame out of Egypt by Moses? And with whom was He displeased forty years? was it not with them that sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that were disobedient? And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard. For we which have believed do enter into that rest; even as He hath said,As I sware in My wrath,They shall not enter into My rest:although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He hath said somewhere of the seventhdayon this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all His works; and in thisplaceagain,They shall not enter into My rest.Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience, He again defineth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, To-day, as it hath been before said,To-day if ye shall hear His voice,Harden not your hearts.For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.”

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

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

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

To-day if ye shall hear His voice,Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

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

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

As I sware in My wrath,They shall not enter into My rest:

although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He hath said somewhere of the seventhdayon this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all His works; and in thisplaceagain,

They shall not enter into My rest.

Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience, He again defineth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, To-day, as it hath been before said,

To-day if ye shall hear His voice,Harden not your hearts.

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

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

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

At the outset the writer’s tone is influenced by this doctrine. He turns his treatise unconsciously into an epistle. He addresses his readers as brethren, holyindeed, but not holy after the pattern of their former exclusiveness; for their holiness is inseparably linked with their common brotherhood. They are partakers with the Gentile Churches in a heavenly call. Startling words! Hebrews holy in virtue of their sharing with Greeks and barbarians, bond and free, in a common call from high Heaven, which sees all earth as a level plain beneath! The middle wall of partition has been broken down to the ground. Yet soothing words, and full of encouragement! The Apostle and his leaders were standing near the end of the Apostolic age, when the Hebrew Christians were despondent, weak, and despised, both by reason of national calamities and because of their inferiority to their sister Churches among the Gentiles. The Apostle does not bluntly assure them of their equality, but gently addresses them as partakers of a heavenly call. His words are the reverse of St. Paul’s language to the Ephesians, who are reminded that the Gentiles are partakers in the privileges of Israel. Those who sometimes were far off have been made nigh; the strangers and sojourners are henceforth fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. Here, on the contrary, Hebrew Christians are encouraged with the assurance that they partake in the privileges of all believers. If the wild olive tree has been grafted in among the branches and made partaker of the root,the branches, broken off that the wild olive might be grafted in, are themselves in consequence grafted into their own olive tree. Through God’s mercy to the Gentiles, Israel also has obtained mercy.

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

This spiritual vision is not ecstasy. We realise Christ as Apostle and as High-priest. We behold Him when His words are a message to us from God, and when He carries our supplications to God. Revelation and prayer are the two opposite poles of communion with the Father. The dispensation of Moses rested on these two pillars,—apostleship and priesthood. But the fundamental conceptions of the Old Testament centre in Jesus. Though our author has distinguished between God’s revelation in the prophets and His revelation in a Son, he teaches also that eventhe prophets received their message through the Son. Though he contrasts in what follows of the Epistle the high-priesthood of Aaron with Christ’s, still he regards Aaron’s office as utterly meaningless apart from Christ. The words “Apostle and High-priest” pave the way, therefore, to the most prominent truth in this section of the Epistle: that whatever is best in the Old Testament has been assimilated and inspired with new energy by the Gospel.

1. To begin, we must understand the actual position of the founders of the two dispensations. Neither Moses nor Christ set about originating, designing, constructing, from his own impulse and for his own purposes. Both acted for God, and were consciously under His directing eye.[38]“It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.”[39]They have but to obey, and leave the unity and harmony of the plan to another. To use an illustration, every house is built by some one or other.[40]The design has been conceived in the brain of the architect. He is the real builder, though he employs masons and joiners to put the materials together according to his plan. This applies to the subject in hand; for God is the Architect of all things. He realises His own ideas as well through the seeming originality of thinkers asthrough the willing obedience of workers. Now, the dispensation of the old covenant was one part of God’s design. To build this portion of the house He found a faithful servant in Moses. The dispensation of the new covenant is but another, though more excellent, part of the same design; and Jesus was not less faithful to finish the structure. The unity of the design was in the mind of God.

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

Yet we must acknowledge a difference. God has accounted Jesus worthy of greater honour than Moses, inasmuch as Moses was part of the house, and that part the pre-existent Christ erected. Moses was “made” all that he became by Christ, but Christ was “made”[41]all that He became—God-Man—by God. Moreover, though Moses was greater than all the other servants of God before Christ, because they were placed in subordinate positions, while he was faithful in thewholehouse, yet even he was but a servant,whereas Christ was Son. Moses was in the house, it is true; but the Son was placed over the house. The work which Moses had to do was to uphold the authority of the Son, to witness, that is, to the things which would afterwards be spoken unto us by God in His Son, Jesus Christ.[42]

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

2. Again, the threatenings of the Old Testament for disobedience to God apply with full force to apostasy from Christ. They are the authoritative voice of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle is reminded by the words which he has just used, “We are God’s house,” of the Psalmist’s joyful exclamation, “He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.”[43]Then follows in the Psalm a warning, which the Apostle considers it equally necessary to address tothe Hebrew Christians: “To-day, if indeed you still hear His voice (for it is possible He may no longer speak), harden not your hearts, as you did in Meribah, rightly called,—the place of contention. Your fathers, far from trusting Me when I put them to the test, turned upon Me and put Me to the test, and that although they saw My works during forty years.” Forty years,—ominous number! The readers would at once call to mind that forty years within a little had now passed since their Lord had gone through the heavens to the right hand of the Father. What if, after all, the old belief proves true that He returns to judgment after waiting for precisely the same period for which He had patiently endured their fathers’ unbelief in the wilderness! God is still living, and He is the same God. He Who sware in His wrath that the fathers should not enter into the rest of Canaan is the same in His anger, the same in His mercy. Exhort one another. In the wilderness God dealt with individuals. He does so still. See that there be no evil heart, which is unbelief, inany oneof you at any time while the call, “To-day!” is sounded in your ears. For sin weakens the sense of individual guilt, and thus deceives men by hardening their hearts.[44]All that came out of Egypt provoked God to anger. But theyprovoked Him, not in the mass, but one by one, and one by one, with palsied limbs,[45]they fell in the wilderness, as men fall exhausted on the march. Thus, for their persistent unbelief, God sware they should not enter into His rest—“His,” for He kept the key still in His own hand. But persistent unbelief made them incapable of entering. If God were still willing to cut off for them the waters of Jordan, theycouldnot[46]enter in because of unbelief.

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

To prove the identity of the promises under the two dispensations, the Apostle singles out one promise, which may be considered most significant of the national no less than the religious life of Israel. The Greek mind was ever on the alert for something new. Its character was movement. But the ideal of the Old Testament is rest. Christ came into touch with the people at once when He began His public ministry with an invitation to the weary and heavy-laden to comeunto Him, and with the promise that He would give them rest. Near the close of His ministry He explained and fulfilled the promise by giving to His disciples peace. The object of our author, in the difficult chapter now under consideration, is to show that the idea most characteristic of the old covenant finds its true and highest realisation in Christ. After the manner of St. Paul, who, in more than one passage, teaches that through the fall of Israel salvation is come unto the Gentiles, the writer of this Epistle also argues that the promise of rest still remains, because it was not fulfilled under the Old Testament in consequence of Israel’s unbelief. The word of promise was a gospel[47]to them, as it is to us. But it did not profit them, because they did not assimilate[48]the promise by faith. Their history from the beginning consists of continued renewals of the promise on the part of God and persistent rejections on the part of Israel, ending in the hardening of their hearts. Every time the promise is renewed, it is presented in a higher and more spiritual form. Every rejection inevitably leads to grosser views and more hopeless unbelief. So entirely false is the fable of the Sibyl! God does not burn some of the leaves when His promises have been rejected, and come back with fewer offers at a higherprice. His method is to offer more and better on the same conditions. But it is the nature of unbelief to cause the heart to wax gross, to blind the spiritual vision, until in the end the rich, spiritual promises of God and the earthly, dark unbelief of the sinner stand in extremest contrast.

At first the promise is presented in the negative form of rest from labour. Even the Creator condescended thus to rest. But whatsuchrest can be to God it were vain for man to try to conceive. We know that, as soon as the foundations of the world were laid and the work of creation was ended, God ceased from this form of activity. But when this negative rest had been attained, it was far from realising God’s idea of rest either for Himself or for man. For, though these works of God, the material universe, were finished from the laying of the world’s foundations to the crowning of the edifice,[49]God still speaks of another rest, and threatens to shut some men out for their unbelief. Our Lord told the Pharisees, whose notion of the Sabbath was the negative one, that He desired His Sabbath rest to be like that of His Father, Who “worketh hitherto.” The Jewish Sabbath, it appears, therefore, is the most crude and elementary form of God’s promised rest.

The promise is next presented as the rest of Canaan.[50]This is a stage in advance in the development of the idea. It is not mere abstention from secular labour, and the consecration of inactivity. The rest now consists in the enjoyment of material prosperity, the proud consciousness of national power, the growth of a peculiar civilization, the rise of great men and eminent saints, and all this won by Israel under the leadership of their Jesus, who was in this respect a type of ours. But even in this second garden of Eden Israel did not attain unto God’s rest. Worldliness became their snare.

But God still called to them by the mouth of the Psalmist, long after they had entered on the possession of Canaan. This only proves that the true rest was still unattained, and God’s promise not yet fulfilled. The form which the rest of God now assumed is not expressly stated in our passage. But we have not far to go in search of it. The first Psalm, which is the introduction to all the Psalms, declares the blessedness of contemplation. The Sabbath is seldom mentioned by the Psalmist. Its place is taken by the sanctuary, in which rest of soul is found in meditating on God’s law and beholding the Lord’s beauty.[51]The call is at last urgent. “To-day!” It is the last invitation. Itlingers in the ears in ever fainter voice of prophet after prophet, until the prophet’s face turns towards the east to announce the break of dawn and the coming of the perfect rest in Jesus Christ. God’s promise was never fulfilled to Israel, because of their unbelief. But shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God of none effect? God forbid. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. The promise that has failed of fulfilment in the lower form must find its accomplishment in the higher. Even a prayer is the more heard for every delay. God’s mill grinds slowly, but for that reason grinds small. What is the inference? Surely it is that the Sabbath rest still remains for the true people of God. This Sabbath rest St. Paul prayed that the true Israel, who glory, not in their circumcision, but in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, might receive: “Peacebe upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”[52]

The faithfulness of God to fulfil His promise in its higher form is proved by His having accomplished it in its more elementary forms to every one that believed. “For he that entered into God’s rest did actually rest from his works”[53]—that is to say, received the blessings of the Sabbath—as truly as God rested from the work of creation. The Apostle’s practicalinference is couched in language almost paradoxical: “Let usstriveto enter into God’srest”—not indeed into the rest of the Old Testament, but into the better rest which God now offers in His Son.

The oneness of the dispensations has been proved. They are one in their design, in their threatenings, in their promises. If we seek the fundamental ground of this threefold unity, we shall find it in the fact that both dispensations are parts of a Divine revelation. God has spoken, and the word of God does not pass away. “Think not,” said our Lord, “that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the Law till all things be accomplished.”[54]On another occasion He says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”[55]These passages teach us that the words of God through Moses and in the Son are equally immutable. Many features of the old covenant may be transient; but, if it is a word of God, it abides in its essential nature through all changes. For “the word of God is living,”[56]because He Who speaks the word is the living God. It acts with mighty energy,[57]likethe silent laws of nature, which destroy or save alive according as men obey or disobey them. It cuts like a sword whetted on each side of the blade, piercing through to the place where the natural life of the soul divides[58]from, or passes into, the supernatural life of the spirit. For it is revelation that has made known to man his possession of the spiritual faculty. The word “spirit” is used by heathen writers. But in their books it means only the air we breathe. The very conception of the spiritual is enshrined in the bosom of God’s word. Revelation has separated between the life of heathenism and the life of the Church, between the natural man and the spiritual, between the darkness that comprehended it not and the children of the light who received it and thus became children of God. Further, the word of God pierces to the joints that connect the natural and the supernatural.[59]It does not ignore the former. On the contrary, it addresses itself to man’s reason and conscience, in order to erect the supernatural upon nature. Where reason stops short, the word of God appeals to the supernatural faculty of faith; and when conscience grows blunt, the word makes conscience, like itself, sharper than any two-edged sword. Once more, the word of God pierces to the marrow.[60]It reveals toman the innermost meaning of his own nature and of the supernatural planted within him. The truest morality and the highest spirituality are both the direct product of God’s revelation.

But all this is true in its practical application to every man individually. The power of the word of God to create distinct dispensations and yet maintain their fundamental unity, to distinguish between masses of men and yet cause all the separate threads of human history to converge and at last meet, is the same power which judges the inmost thoughts and inmost purposes of the heart. These it surveys with critical judgment.[61]If its eye is keen, its range of vision is also wide. No created thing but is seen and manifest. The surface is bared, and the depth within is opened up before it. As the upturned neck of the sacrificial beast lay bare to the eye of God,[62]so are we exposed to the eye of Him to Whom we have to give our account.[63]

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