CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
It is a great thing to know why a book was written; to be able to see why God sets forth His mind in the way He does in it. So it is well to read a book through before forming a judgement on it; for, from an isolated passage, it is impossible to get at the bearing of it. You may for instance read: “Woe unto them that rise up early”, and stop there. The context is therefore the best explanation to what it is in connection with.
The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish converts, to show them how superior Christianity is to Judaism, though Judaism in itself was a good thing - was of God. None of us ought to have needed Hebrews, but, as Christianity has dropped down into Judaism, it is necessary for us to read it; we may be very like the Jews, but we have no right to be. How far above and superior to anything that ever was before it, is the Christian position!
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son”. That is not true of us, but it was of the Jewish converts. “Whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1 - 2). This is a matter of faith; we believe that He did so.
Verses 3, 4. He has gone up to the throne. Verses 5, 6. He took the place of a creature, but far above all creature intelligences. Verses 7, 8. It is very interesting, as some one has remarked, that there is no revelation in Hebrews, such as you get in Ephesians [p. 9] for instance; it is all explanation of scriptures which the Jews already had. Verse 9. He is put in company with others - “fellows”. This is the great secret of the book.
I may say that Hebrews is a child’s book; it is addressed to a child - to babes. It is a book in which the believer is looked at in his lowest position. There is no union, no being in heaven, though there is going on to heaven; so it is a very simple book. In one sense we are all little children, because we know so little; but it is the simplest book we can take up. It takes the bright side of things here; Peter takes the dark one. He says there are desperate things out there; be sober, be vigilant. And we must have the two; if we have not we shall not get on; we must have the intercession of Christ as well as the sword of the Spirit. The Lord said, I will pray for you; but that did not keep Peter because he did not fight the devil. So that is the side he takes up, that we must fight the devil, for it is what he did not do himself.
Verses 10 - 14. The Creator comes out; He is Christ Himself. The Son has come forth, higher than the angels. And now, at the close of His career, He is called away to sit at God’s right hand till He make His enemies His footstool.
It is most important to get hold of the fact that Christ was only called away from earth because of the state of things here, to wait until that state should be altered. Things here were such that He was called to leave them until the time that there should be a change — till His enemies should be made His footstool. This it the time that we are in. It is like a sentence between brackets. God has called Him away because of the state of things here, and, if I be an honest and a righteous man, I shall own things to be in that state, and look for Him to come back to put an end to it. It is a parallel time to that in the gospels, where it says: “Neither [p. 10] durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions” (Matthew 22:46).
“Sit on my right hand”. The apostle delights in this passage; here he quotes it to show that Christ is called away from things here by Jehovah; and in chapter 10. to show that He can sit down because the work is finished: “After he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God”. (Hebrews 10:12) But the quotation coming in thus in chapter 1 is very important, as it points out the interval with which all our blessings is concerned. I do not belong to the place where my Lord is rejected, but to the place where He is received. If I am not within those brackets I have nothing. His rejection is one bracket. His return the other; we stand between the rejection and the return.
He is greater than creation; not only greater than the angels. All He has created will go to nothing, but He will not; they will all remove, be folded up like a vesture, but He will remain. He does not call the angels to make way, as he does all else in the epistle; they have to minister, that is their calling.