READINGS ON HEBREWS (1)
READINGS ON HEBREWS (1)
BTF Would you think that the commencement of the epistle to the Hebrews connects with the scene on the mount of Transfiguration when the Father said: “This is my beloved Son: hear him”. Mark 9:7?
JT It would connect with it, the Speaker is before us here.
AFM He is to be heard.
Would you mind giving us some idea of what the object was in this epistle being written?
JT To call out the people of God from an order of things which was about to be judged. Their safety lay in getting out. Lot’s safety lay in getting out of Sodom; but he had no object presented to his heart. He was to flee; but the point of this book is to present an object great enough to control the minds and hearts of the saints; so that in going out it should be with no uncertain step.
CB I suppose when such an One speaks there is something very definite in view.
JT It is the Speaker first, because it is a principle with God that we are to know who speaks.
FL The emphasis at the beginning is that “God ... has spoken to us in ... Son”. Does not that suggest that we have come to finality? No voice to be heard after that.
ANW Is the title of the epistle inspired?
JT I think not.
“Has spoken to us in Son”. You will observe the unusual form of the passage — the article is omitted — “in Son”; so as to throw into greater relief that the Person Himself is divine — it is none less than God [p. 2] Himself.
JCH Would it be, in that connection, the reason why the writer of the epistle omitted making any reference to himself?
JT It is to throw into full evidence the One who is the Speaker. The writer speaks as one of themselves, “spoken unto us”. He wishes to put all possible emphasis upon what he has in mind, that is, that the One who speaks is none less than God Himself; but, nevertheless, a Man so as to be in direct communication with men.
FL I suppose it is only by inference that we understand it to be an epistle to Israel, that is, “God having spoken in ... many ways formerly to the fathers”, now speaks to us in Son. So the whole framework of the epistle is formed around the Jewish system — assuming the light of God as known in it.
JT And all is to give force to the word at the end: “Therefore let us go forth to him without the camp”, Hebrews 13:13. If He has acquired a place, through the instruction of this chapter, in our hearts, a certain foundation is laid for the final appeal; because it is that believers should go forth to a Person.
BTF Would you say that attention is called, not only to the voice, but to the gracious Person of the Son?
JT Yes. As just remarked, in the end of this book you have One to whom to go: “Therefore, let us go forth to him”, Hebrews 13:13.
FL In chapter 6 the Lord is presented in the thought of a city of refuge; and as the epistle proceeds, the greatness of Christ is opened out as that place of refuge.
AFM Corresponding with that, is there not a ministry in the epistle to build up what is spiritual — a spiritual order of man in the people addressed, so that their state toward God was relative to their place outside the camp?
JT So you have a great spiritual system evolved [p. 3] in connection with the great Speaker; hence the saints are rendered wholly independent of all human organisations; indeed, it is intended to call the saints out of a system of things which had had divine approval — there could be nothing better than that on this earth — but the epistle is intended to set the saints up here independent even of that. They now have in a spiritual way all that which formerly was suggested in a material way. As formed by this epistle, there would be a company of people governed by heavenly principles, wholly outside of man’s organisation. So it is directly adapted to our own time.
FL Does it not make a very powerful appeal? That in which the Hebrew saints found themselves enmeshed, we find our brethren, very generally, enmeshed in like manner. Whilst the light did originally come from God, now they are entangled and held; so this epistle is very helpful today.
JT If you had lived in Jerusalem in the day in which this epistle was circulated there, and met a Jewish Christian (one who had accepted Christianity but had not definitely left Judaism), he would have said to you: What are you going to do; are you going to withdraw from the temple and all with which we have been going on? You would have answered: See the Person we have presented to us! He is the Builder of the universe; “By whom also he made the worlds”. And you would have gone through this chapter and pointed out to him that there could be no lack if we have Him. And, moreover, He is the great antitype of Solomon. Solomon built the material structure, but He built the spiritual structure, and we are going in for that. Indeed, everything they had materially we are going to have spiritually. It matters not whether we are living in Judaea, Greece, Italy or any other place, we have got Him, and we have a spiritual order of things which [p. 4] is going to subsist. That is how one would have spoken to such an one in that day and, I think, it all applies now. People do not understand how you can get on without an organisation; therefore, the first great thing is to get an apprehension in your soul of the greatness of the Person who addresses you.
ANW You spoke of human organisations; but this letter would lead us to see that what was divinely appointed is superseded.
JT Yes. Stephen says, quoting from the prophet, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord, or where is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?” Acts 7:49,50. This epistle says: “He who has built all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4); but then, the Builder is the Son. He who builds the house is greater than the house. The first thing is to get the greater; that is, the Person.
FL So we get: “Consider how great this personage was”; who was “assimilated to the Son of God”, Hebrews 7:3,4.
DMR In speaking of the greatness of the Person in this way, would it set forth that He was competent to inaugurate a system according to God?
JT That is what comes out. This chapter lays the basis for all that. If you get into your soul the greatness of this Person, then all the other things become simple. The saints are not going to be left at any disadvantage: they have everything in a spiritual way that others may claim to have in a material way. But the first thing to be sure about is the Person who is speaking.
CAM God’s system will fill the universe in that way: by whom also He made the universe.
JT “The worlds”.
CAM The tabernacle system was a picture of this — the universal [p. 5] system.
JT We have it in a spiritual way. That is the thing to get hold of. “By whom also he made the worlds”, refers to the universe. Some of us were recently remarking that there is so little time. Time is the scarcest thing one knows of. One who was a great astronomer remarked that the waste of time in teaching music was intolerable to him, although he had been a great musician, because he had begun to see the greatness of the physical universe — of what God had in a material way; but this is spiritual, and the question with us should be: When shall I get hold of all this? When you come to this epistle it is the spiritual thing. As you said, the tabernacle was a pattern of the universal system, and it is for us to explore that.
DMR It brings in the truth of Ephesians; “that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, Ephesians 3:18,19.
JT The thing is so vast. If you look into the universe that now is (of course, one knows very little about it), even with the naked eye, you are lost in the contemplation of it; but think of the spiritual order of things, evolved by the One who built the universe in which we are to have part!
CAM In the beginning of Leviticus it says: “The Lord ... spoke ... out of the tabernacle of the congregation”: out of the tabernacle condition of things; but here it is in the Person of the Son, speaking out of the universe.
JT You come to that later. It is only touched on here, but the expression “the worlds” undoubtedly is the universe. The tabernacle is a figure of that in a spiritual way; and what one feels is the little time there is to go in for that.
BTF Would you say that the chapter shows, in a remarkable way, divine wisdom, by unfolding in [p. 6] a peculiar manner the glories of the Son so that souls might be attracted?
JT That is the thought, I am sure. The first great feature of the epistle is to bring into our souls the knowledge of the Son.
ANW Is the suggestion of relationship wholly absent from that title, “in Son”? John’s way of putting it is that if you have the Son you have the Father also.
JT Of course, you have the Son here; but inasmuch as the article is omitted, which is usually present in designating the Lord in that way, it is to throw into greater relief the Person as being Himself God; that is, it is God speaking, only in the Person of the Son.
FL It refers to Deity here. God is speaking but “in Son”.
AFM But as Man. Whilst it is God, it is One in manhood; otherwise the voice would not be intelligible to us.
FL The great point here is, He speaks “in Son” — Deity.
JT The first thing is a divine Person speaking. He is no less than that.
OS What do “the worlds” mean?
JT It is a form of expression which conveys what we call the universe. It is not simply the world; but “the worlds”, the whole physical system.
FL The heavens, the earth and all the families. In other words, everything that is materially created is embraced in the universe.
JT The whole system. It brings God to you; what He is. The book of Job helps you in an educational way. It makes one feel very small it has the effect of humbling one; see Job 33 to Job 42:6.
AP What does “being made so much better than the angels” mean?
JT The correct reading is, “taking a place by so much better than the angels”. It is the position He takes.
FL In Jeremiah 51:15, we have, “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding”, Jeremiah 51:15. I suppose the introduction of these things here, in connection with the greatness of Christ, is to show that He who evolved the material universe has now undertaken to bring to pass a spiritual universe which is instinct with life.
JT Great as the thought of creation is, the next statement is really greater, that is, He is “the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”. The material worlds are in themselves far beyond our apprehension, therefore, that in itself establishes the Lord as divine; but then, “the effulgence of his glory”. Think of that! Think of the Man on the well of Sychar being that — the shining out of the glory, the effulgence of God.
JS This enhances the greatness of His Person.
B It is very wonderful when you come to look at a scripture like this. If you are brought into touch with divine Persons, and you take account of their movements, you see a divine system being formed and in that system a divine Centre; then the necessity of listening to the instructions to attach you to that Centre.
ANW Establishing the greatness of His Person would give ample authority to come out from this divinely appointed material system.
JT Yes. The sciences are quite right, as far as they go, investigating what is; but this third verse speaks about “the effulgence”. Scientists miss all that.
AFM What is “the effulgence”?
JT It is the complete shining out of God. There is not a ray of light that has not found full expression in Christ. You take the greatest astronomer or [p. 8] geologist, supposing he should read this and providing he were born again he would put aside all his explorations, for his heart would be touched — this would appeal to the moral part of his being — that is what God is seeking to do.
DMR You were speaking of the Lord sitting on the well of Sychar. Would the dignity of His Person shine out there on that occasion?
JT “If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”, John 4:10. That is the effulgence. If you know that! She knew about the well; perhaps others knew even more; they possibly had made an analysis of the water and the rocks, but the Lord said, “If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is”, John 4:10. That is what John brings in in his gospel — the effulgence.
FL The thought of effulgence would carry with it that everything which can be known of God shines out through the Son. In 2 Corinthians 4 we get: “Because it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts, for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. That would not be effulgence exactly, it would be a shining forth; but the word’effulgence’carries with it the completeness of the light of God shining out in the Person of Jesus.
JT You are brought into the midst of this vast system called “the worlds” here; but you are also brought to what is moral — what commands your mind and affections: this is what God is seeking to do. So it says: “who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”. Now the mind goes back to the gospels. The gospels control your mind and affections.
FL “No one hath seen God at any time; [p. 9] the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1:18. Every revelation of God finds its expression in Christ.
JS So apart from the understanding of the gospels, you would hardly understand this.
JT In the gospels God begins at the top. The gospels seem simple; but they are only understood by those who understand the epistles. God begins at the top; He presents what is final from the outset. The gospels are really the explanation of this — “the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”. What a field for your soul in that!
TA The glory which the apostles beheld — “we beheld his glory” — was really this.
JT The word should be contemplated. “We have contemplated his glory”, showing that they valued the thing. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. They valued what had come so near to them. Then he adds: “and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a father”. It was not a passing look; but contemplation. It reminds you of Moses who turned aside to see the great sight. The apostles did that; they contemplated His glory.
FL The epistle being based on this speaking by God in Son, makes the holiest of Hebrews 10 essential, for we could never reach this had we not access there.
BTF Does this statement, “the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”, give a clue to the line developed in Hebrews, that is, it leads away at once from all that is material to what is moral and spiritual?
JT Quite. Then we have, “having made [by Himself] the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”. It is thus that the way is clear for the establishment of a new system; but, before you have that, you have a further reference to certain sections of the Old Testament,
[p. 10] which would have weight with the Jewish mind, to re-enforce this. So it says: “taking a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they. For to which of the angels said he ever, Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee? and again, I will be to him for Father, and he shall be to me for Son? and again, when he brings in the Firstborn into the habitable world, he says, And let all God’s angels worship him. And as to the angels He says, Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire; but, as to the Son, Thy throne, O God [is] to the age of the age, and a sceptre of uprightness [is] the sceptre of thy kingdom”. These scriptures indicate the inheritance — the name He inherited. What you get first is a name — He inherits a name.
OS Why is He contrasted to the angels?
JT Because they were recognised by the Jews as the greatest beings. It was through them the law came. The prophets show that the ministry that attended Israel was largely through them; and we know there will be angels in the heavenly city. The comparison would be readily understood by a Jew.
AFM Was man then not inferior to angels; but now in the Person of Christ superior to them?
JT Quite. The first verses stand alone in regard to creation and the shining out of God; but, the Scriptures had their place, and they unfolded a name which some one inherited, and this is the One He had before Him. It did not refer to angels, therefore it enhances the greatness of the Person who speaks. All these expressions of relationship and dignity awaited the incoming of the Son: that the Jews could not deny. “For to which of the angels said he ever, Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee?” The question would silence them. “And again, I would be to him for Father, and he shall be to me for Son?”This all referred to One [p. 11] who had not appeared in Old Testament times; but now has appeared.
CAM “Who have received the law by the disposition of angels”, Acts 7:53.
JT That is what you get here.
CAM What made the old system of such dignity was that it was received by the disposition of angels.
FL Referring to the name. In verse 12 we have, “Thou art the same”. That is a title which the Lord assumes in the prophets and in the Psalms, that is, “The Same”, or, “I am”. It is an inherent name of Deity in the Old Testament. It is beautiful the way it is introduced here in contrast to everything perishing and passing away.
AFM In Psalm 102 that is emphasised. There is a break in the middle of verse 24, and God addresses Christ as having years from generation to generation; and in verse 27 He says, “but thou art the Same, and thy years shall have no end”.
JT It is a well-known term referring to absolute Deity. It was really unfolded to Moses in the wilderness — “I AM ... this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations”, Exodus 3:14, 15. The expressions used in the Psalms answer to that, for the Psalmist says: “Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever; and thy memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations”, Psalm 135:13. Experience with God proved that. So in Nehemiah 9, the children of Israel in deep contrition of heart twice express: “Thou art the Same”. God honoured Christ previously by addressing Him in well known terms; as if you were to say, ‘Your Majesty’, an expression universally understood. God addressed Him in that way in Psalm 102, “Thou art the Same”.
FL The way in which nearly all this first chapter is built up on the Psalms greatly dignifies the Psalms in one’s eyes in that respect. One sees how the book is full of the glory of the Person [p. 12] of Christ.
AFM There is a quotation from each book of the Psalms in this first chapter.
JT In the Pentateuch you have the truth presented from the divine side [although the book of Deuteronomy is included in the Pentateuch and is more on the experimental side]; but the five books in a general way present the divine side. The remaining part of the Old Testament was to bring believers in their experience with God to that standard. And, as I was remarking, the saints in Nehemiah’s time were equal to it, and they recognised that God was “the Same” yesterday, today and for ever. Think of God Himself, taking up the thing so universally known, and, applying it to Christ! Who could question Who He is after that Moses wrote psalms too (he wrote one at any rate). Moses was forty years with God alone, that is, he had an experience which perhaps no other man had — forty years in a desert alone with God; then, forty years with God and the people in the desert. An experience built up on eighty years spent thus is worth something, and that experience is all put into the book of Deuteronomy. He impresses on the people what God was — the God he had known. If you are to be with Him in His own land, you must be with Him suitably: that is the burden of the book.
FL That reference to Moses is very helpful. The way in which those of known experience are used of the Spirit in this way is very instructive. It conveys the suggestion that every ray of light, that had been developed in the Old Testament, is made to bear upon the Person of Christ in this opening of Hebrews, and we may well consider how great that Person is.
JT The name inherited being brought out from the experimental side of Scripture, presents what Christ is amongst the saints. You have what He is in creation, and after that what He is as “the effulgence of his [God’s] glory and the expression of his substance”; but, what is He among the saints?
ANW You do not wonder that the Psalms end with “Hallelujah!”
AFM “Let all the angels of God worship him”. If He has this place amongst the angels, could we do less than that?
OS What is the name inherited?
JT The name inherited is brought out from the experimental side of Scripture, referring to what Christ is to the saints. Not only does it refer to what God was in the wilderness; but what Moses was in the wilderness, who was prophetically Christ, the Mediator. He came down from the mount with the two tables in his hands: he could not preserve them; but he was prepared to be blotted out of the book for the saints — he was Christ — and from that point on he comes into greater prominence with God. God speaks to him face to face.
What is Moses with the people? If you read Deuteronomy you get that. It is what Moses said. It is his own exercises, his own affections; so in Deuteronomy 10 he ends with this: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” Deuteronomy 10:12,13. We see there what he is among the saints, bringing in the rights of God. Then he says: “Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of [p. 14] lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward; he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude”. That is Moses amongst the saints. And so you get in the Psalms the Spirit of Christ among the saints, and it is there He is addressed as “The Same”, as at the end of this chapter. It is what Christ is amongst the saints.
AFM So He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.
JT That is what the Lord is amongst the saints because it is in that connection that He inherits the name. That is where the inherited name is. What have we found Him to be?
FL “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”, Hebrews 13:8.
JEH Why an inherited name here, but a given name in Philippians?
JT The point is what the Old Testament had predicated of Him; but in these Old Testament passages the Holy Spirit has in view the Lord amongst the saints — what He is as known amongst them. As regards the angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out for service on account of those who shall inherit salvation?” But, what is this Person amongst us? He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.
FL The epistle develops it very beautifully. We [p. 15] are to consider the conversation, and the manner of life of those who have been before us: “Considering the issue of their conversation, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. What you have been leading us through in Deuteronomy, we come to in the end of this epistle.
JT “Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”, Hebrews 13:7. That is the secret of the present recovery. That is what the Lord has effected for us in view of His near return. He is at the end what He was at the beginning.
You work things out from your own knowledge of the Lord: What have you found Him to be?
BTF When you say, “among the saints”, do you mean how He is known among the saints? Actually, He is that in connection with all creation.
JT It is a great thing to find the thing out yourself. Moses said at the end, “Yea, he loved the people”, Deuteronomy 33:3 He found that out himself.