EXTRACTS
JT ... What Christians ought to see is, that we have all that is requisite to carry us through the world, and for the maintenance of the service of God. If Christians saw this, they would refuse all that exists today in Christendom. We do not need all these great dignitaries. We have a Priest who has the priesthood intransmissible, and “according to power of indissoluble life”. The testimony is, that He lives and is in heaven, as it says in chapter 8, “who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens”, Hebrews 8: 1 (A.V.). This light received into our souls lifts us out of what exists in the religious systems around us, for it brings us into the gain of what we have got.
If a Jew and a Greek had met before Christ came, and composed notes, the Jew could have said—We have the temple, and its priestly service as inaugurated by Moses, direct from God Himself; and we have wonderful privileges as the people of God. The Greek would reply—We have our beautiful temples, and worship of the gods; our learning and mythology. Now when we come to Christianity, men are grouped under three heads by Paul—Jews, Greeks and the assembly of God. Had a Jew, or a Greek asked Paul what he had got, this is one of the first things he could have told them. “We have such a one High Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens”. And he could have gone on to unfold the greatness of the Christian’s position, advantages and privileges. Where would Judaism, or what the Greek had, be beside that? Apply the foregoing to our day; set an enlightened Christian beside a religionist and let the latter say what he has got. What has he got? Nothing! Now the Christian knows that he has got what Paul had; and can unfold it, where there is an opening.
AFM What would be the moral effect upon us of our coming to this blessed conclusion that “we have such a one High Priest”?
JT The first effect would be, that if connected with any other system, one would abandon it as not any better than Judaism, which is said to have grown old, become aged and is near disappearing. The next thing is, you are independent of man’s systems. You are consciously independent of them because of the wonderful supply we have in Christ. “We have such a one High Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens”.
J. Taylor (Vol. 19, pp.113, 114)
The apostle resumes the thread of his instructions, by taking up—as he does in all his epistles—the moral consequences of his doctrine. He places the believer at the outset on the ground of God’s mercy, which he had fully developed already. The principle of grace that saves had been established as the basis of salvation. The ground of all Christian morality is now laid in this fundamental principle—to present our bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God—an intelligent service, not that of the hands, not consisting in ceremonies which the body could perform—a simple but deep-reaching and all-efficacious principle.
This was for man personally. As to his outward relationships, he was not to be conformed to the world. Neither was this to be an outside mechanical nonconformity but the result of being renewed in mind, so as to seek for and discern the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect; the life being thus transformed. This connects itself with the end of chapter 6. It is not those sitting in heavenly places, imitators of God as dear children, but men on earth set free by the delivering power of redemption and grace, yielding themselves up to God to do His will. The exhortation follows the character we have seen to be that of the epistle.
Thus the Christian walk was characterised by devotedness and obedience. It was a life subjected to the will of another, namely, to the will of God; and therefore stamped with humility and dependence. But there was absolute devotedness of heart in self-sacrifice. For there was a danger, flowing from the power that acted in it, of the flesh coming in and availing itself of it. With regard to this, every one was to have a spirit of wisdom and moderation, and to act within the limits of the gift which God had dispensed to him, occupying himself with it according to the will of God; even as each member has its own place in the body, and should accomplish the function which God has ascribed to it. The apostle passes on insensibly to all the forms which duty assumes in the Christian, according to the various positions in which he stands, and to the spirit in which he ought to walk in every relationship.
J. N. Darby (‘Synopsis’ Vol. 4, pp.147, 148)
That is the position in which we stand; we have accepted death here with Christ. That means you sever your connection with the world; it is essential to salvation to have a true estimate of the world. John says, “The whole world lies in the wicked one” (1 John 5: 19); every element of it is evil. John also says, “Love not the world, nor the things in the world ... because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”, 1 John 2: 15, 16. If you judge it thus, you accept baptism and come into the good of the Lord’s present place. Peter exults in the thought, “Gone into heaven”. It is more than what he saw in Acts 1. In Acts 2 he says, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God”, but in the epistle he says, “Who is at the right hand of God, gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him”. Now you come into the good of all that, and, as a baptised person, it is a question of putting to the test what Christ can be to you. The Lord has salvation, and “Whosoever, who shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved”. You want to do that! No better advice can I give, in having to do with a world that hates Christ, than to count upon the Lord’s word in little things as in great.
J. Taylor (Vol. 98, p.49)
There is nothing we meet with more commonly than two Christians forming diverse judgments about the same thing. Is it man’s mind looking at the thing, or God’s? Instead of being very ready to give an opinion, first see whether you are with the Lord about it. Be in a right state, and then you will see His mind. When God wants to tell you anything, He must put you where there is nothing to interfere with His communications; He cannot communicate where there is interference with His dealings.
J. B. Stoney (New Series, Vol. 8, p.465)
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