INTRODUCTION
[p. 405] INTRODUCTION
The following Notes on the Epistle to the Hebrews having been read with profit by one and another into whose hands they have come are now presented in print, in the hope and confidence that they may be serviceable to the people of God.
It will be observed that gaps appear in regard to portions of the epistle where Notes were not taken. These are chapter 1 and chapter 11 from verse 17 to end. A few remarks in reference to these passages may with advantage be made by way of introduction.
Chapter 1 presents to us the truth of a heavenly Christ instead of an earthly Messiah, beyond which the thoughts of Jews had hardly reached. The quotations in the chapter, taken almost exclusively from the Psalms, present to us the more excellent name (than angels) which He has inherited. We see in them all that which is under the eye of God in Christ — like the ark of the covenant in the holiest — when purgation has been made of sins.
The quotations begin with setting forth One who is of God’s nature and is viewed as in the relationship of Son to Him — who is the object of homage to angels — whose everlasting throne is based on proved discrimination between righteousness and iniquity — and who, in contrast to all created things, remains the same, and His years do not fail. For the time all is hid in Him in the place which He as man is called to occupy provisionally at the right hand of God, but will be displayed when the moment shall have come for His foes to be made His footstool.
[p. 406] All that has been noticed above is, as we have seen, established on testimonies drawn from the Old Testament scriptures. But the great additional light shines in this chapter that the One who has inherited the more excellent name is “the Son” by whom God has spoken in these last days.
Thus we have before us that blessed divine Person who, being the effulgence of the glory and the exact expression of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Such is the apostle — the speaker, in contrast to prophets; and it is evident from the fact of who He is that He must have the last word — no one can speak after Him. Hence the appeal is final; and it may also be added that speaking from heaven (not from mount Sinai) He brings to light all the counsel of God. “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you”.
It needs not to say much in regard to chapter 11. The thought will be found expressed in the notes that every individual testimony of faith will have its answer in the world to come. Saints before the flood received light as to the principles on which the world to come is founded, viz., acceptance through sacrifice, translation to heaven, and preservation through judgment. The promises refer in their full scope to the world to come; and the ground from Egypt to Canaan, traversed by Moses and the children of Israel, will never be trodden by them again. When the Lord comes He meets the Jew in the land. All the worthies died in faith, not having received the promises, though persuaded of them; but without us they were not to be made perfect.