(Read Hebrews 1-3:1.)
THE first chapter of Hebrews presents the Lord Jesus in His character of Son of God; the second chapter gives Him as the Son of Man; while the first verse of the third bids us “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” In the first chapter He is the Apostle, and in the second He is the Priest. As Apostle, He came out from God to us; as Priest, He is gone in to God for us. If you get hold of these two precious truths, your soul will have peace and rest forever.
There is another way of looking at it. The first chapter presents His glories and beauties as the Son of God from all eternity. His Manhood was the vessel in which He displayed them―not merely was He Man, though perfect Man, but God as well. Before He went back to give heaven a new sight―a Man at the right hand of God―He did a work that gives God a righteous title to pick up the vilest sinner, and to set him down washed and cleansed at the very side of the risen Man in glory.
The question which arises now is, Do you know Him? “Oh, I have heard about Jesus,” you reply. I did not ask you that, but―Do you know Him? Have you heard His voice? If not, you are in darkness still, because this scripture opens with this, that God speaks by His Son. It is God who speaks. It is a grand thing to get hold of this. When God speaks, we have just to listen, and when once He gets our ear, He will get our heart. Oh, what grace! It is God who speaks to man, and speaks in the life, the words, and matchless ways of His Son Jesus.
Now we shall see who He is. He is God’s Son (ver. 2). God has no longer sent apostles or prophets. And do you not think that the Son knew the Father? That is the wonderful thing; He has revealed Him. We can say we see Him now, all that He is has been perfectly unfolded in the person of Jesus; who exhibited the moral nature of God in His life, and then, in death, shed His blood on the cross to meet the claims of that nature for others.
He made all things, all belong to Him, and He is the brightness of God’s glory too; the express image of His person. The word image does not convey the idea of likeness; the postage stamp bears the image of the Queen, but it is not her likeness. It is representation, not similarity. Jesus is, the image of God. He represented Him; but, more, He exhibited Him, and seeing Jesus, we see the Father.
If you have got a thought of God, which does not find its counterpart in Jesus, it is what the Apostle John bids us beware of in his first epistle, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” A wrong thought of God is an idol. I got a great lift when I saw that, for I thought Jesus was kind, loving, and gracious; but somehow God seemed to me to be different, more severe, to be kept at arm’s length. Everyone knows the feeling, though they may not put it in so many words, perhaps. Oh, “consider this Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” He came down from the Father’s house, charged with all the love and affection of a Father’s heart. Born in one man’s manger, laid in another man’s tomb, and in His life compelled to say, “Show me a penny,”―not having one of His own, ―He was the personification of absolute grace and goodness, and in Him we see God.
Men try to make out that natural laws keep the world going, and so on. But who made these laws and the worlds they govern? My Saviour, “upholding all things by the word of his power.” Can you say that? Go a little further.” When he had by himself purged our sins. “God comes down from the wonders of creation to talk of sins now. Whose? Yours and mine. What does this mean,” by himself “? It means there was no help from man, none from you or me. But must we not pray? Listen―” When he had by himself purged our sins.” Whose? Mine; faith always says, Mine. Faith is a wonderfully possessive thing. Re came down to put away our sins, and then sat Himself down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. You may look up and see Him there in glory without your sins. That is what I see, thank God!
In Leviticus 16 no man was in the tabernacle of the congregation when Aaron went in “to make atonement.” Christ was all alone in the work of the cross, in the work of atonement. Will He be alone in the glory? Oh no! He is going to have me at any rate. Where are you going to spend eternity? In heaven, I hope, do you say? We must be a little more definite, my friend. Nothing fills hell like “hopes.” Faith seizes the person of Christ, it lays hold of Him, like the blind man in the ninth of John, who said, “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see.” Faith has positive, definite assurance, and rests on the finished work of Christ. Hope rests on self. A man says, I am not what I ought to be, not what I should like to be. It is all I, self. Go to the Christian; he says, Oh, the Lord is so good, He keeps me happy all the day long. It is all the Lord with him. Faith is occupied with the Lord, unbelief with self. Self-occupation is a sorrowful and, alas, widespread disease; the only cure is Christ.
Those to whom God writes here―the Hebrews―were in danger of turning back to the beggarly elements of ceremonies and ordinances, ―the shell, as it were. So He presents Christ, the kernel. The difference between law and Gospel is this, the law appeals to man (and we have got enough of self-conceit to think that we can do something), while the Gospel is another thing entirely, it is all Christ, and what He does. He comes down to where the sinner lies in his sins, and picks him up without them, and, like the shepherd who, when he had found the sheep, carried it home on his shoulders, so Jesus does not let us drop, but brings us home to the Father in safety. If you were to get to heaven by your way, viz., doing something to gain it, you could not sing that beautiful song in Rev. 5, saying to the Lamb, “Thou art worthy... for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood”. No, you would say, He is worthy of some credit; but we have prayed, and wept, and given alms, &c. The Lord describes in the Gospel of John the work that is necessary for your salvation: ― “This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent”, There are two kinds of works which man can bring forth. If you have been wild and fast-living, sowing wild oats, these are wicked works. But you get awakened up to see such a life will not do for God; you go to a mission, perhaps, and think you will be better, you cease this habit, and give up that one, you become religious; in fact, your life is changed, you read the Bible and pray. True, the outside is changed, but what of the inside? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” No! “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” These works are “dead works,” as the ninth of Hebrews tells us. The first were “wicked” works, now these are “dead” works. What you do cannot save you. Suppose you were to break a window; well, you may put in a new one, but that does not repair the old. If you were to turn over a new leaf that would not undo the past. The Gospel tells us, that Christ has gone into death to purge away our sins, and has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. It bids us look there; He is no longer here, He has been here but has gone to glory. Oh, make much of Him, consider Him, turn to Him, and lose yourself in Him.
Oh, the sweet, precious name of Jesus! How it wakes up a thousand memories of His love, His blood, His salvation. Has it any charm for you? Or are you insensible to its beauties? Is Jesus a friend of yours? You can soon tell: the believer’s heart responds to that name at once. In Psalm 41:5,5Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish? (Psalm 41:5) the wicked say, “When shall he die, and his name perish?” Perish! no, never! “The memory of the wicked shall rot;” but God says of Him in Psalm 45:17,17I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever. (Psalm 45:17) “I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee forever and ever.” Precious, blessed name. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” Oh, how it has soothed many a dying bed, and broken many a hard heart! Truly, it is not the terrors of a broken law, nor the wrath of a sin-hating God, but the love of Jesus that breaks the sinner’s heart. Will you not let the One, who by Himself purged our sins, save you? You cannot save yourself, only yield yourself to Him. Delay is dangerous.
I do not dwell on all that is in the first chapter, but pass on to a solemn word in chapter 2― “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” What was the word spoken by angels? The law. Have you not transgressed? What is the just recompense of reward? It is sin that gets its reward. The sinner is sent from the presence of the Lord into blackness of darkness, eternal damnation. You who have sinned with a high hand, who have lived without Christ in sin, whom Present things have commanded, you will get your just recompense; it is death, and after death the judgment. What that is no tongue can tell. Do you say you do not believe it? Ah! my friend, you will be converted someday―not to Christ, not to the Lord, but to the truth of that solemn scene in Luke 16, of the rich man in hell. “Oh, a picture!” you say. Do you think that my Lord paints pictures to tickle sinners’ ears? Oh no! If the picture is so terrible, what must the reality be? O sinner, how blind and infatuated you must be, not to believe it. Answer this. If you neglect so great salvation, how shall you escape? YOU CANNOT.
Angels might tell men they would die if they sinned; but Jesus comes, and says that you will be saved if you believe in Him. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord?” Go back to the Gospels and look when He began; He was always speaking it. He speaks yet from the glory― “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” “I am the bread of life.” “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.” Be like the woman who touched Him and was healed. The moment you touch you are healed, then will you not confess Him too? She was going away without doing it (and if you do, Satan may, very likely, tempt you that you were not rightly saved), but Jesus said, “Daughter!” She had never been called that before. He cures her out and out, and promises she shall never have a relapse. “Be whole of thy plague.” What a sweet gospel!
I want you to look to Him, let nothing come in to hinder your simple acceptance of Him. And then we have Him only to look on. “We see Jesus.” We do not want to see anything else; the more you look, the brighter will all get. If you want to be miserable look in; if distracted, look around; if happy, then look up. May you henceforth simply “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.”
W. T. P. W.