Q.-The Epistle to the Hebrews, who wrote it? Learned men contend for Apollos, Barnabas, Silas, Titus or Luke. Is there any real ground to doubt the prevalent belief that it was the apostle Paul?
Z.
A.-The difference of style has been pleaded, the absence of Paul's name, and the circumcision addressed in it, all proved by the nature of its contents. But there is nothing in any or all these circumstances to weaken the claim of the apostle. That it expounds the law more fully than does any other of his Epistles, that he withholds his name and title purposely, the one as writing outside his allotted sphere of the Gentiles, and the other as presenting the Lord Jesus in the light of the apostle of the Christian confession, may satisfactorily account for its peculiarities. Here he is the inspired interpreter of the O. T. rather than unveiling the mysteries of the N. T.
But it is certain from 2 Peter 3:1515And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; (2 Peter 3:15), that Paul wrote an Epistle to the Jewish believers as Peter addressed both his Epistles to the same. This is here distinguished from “all” the rest of his Epistles, as written to Jewish Christians, according to the wisdom given to him, and speaking of the grand scenes which await the coming and the day of the Lord, as Peter was then treating of these things in his way as directed of the Holy Spirit. In them were some things hard to understand which the untaught and ill-established wrest, as also the other scriptures (for it too was scripture), to their own destruction. That such an Epistle of Paul's should be lost would be a harsh and intolerable supposition; but if so, it must be the so called Epistle to the Hebrews. It is in fact the only Epistle attested as Paul's definitely by another inspired writer of the N. T. Yet this is the one which more than any other has been denied to the great apostle. What a proof of men's trusting in their own wisdom, and of their blindness to divine authority
A.-It is the change from Jewish faith to Christian. Henceforward it was to be no longer a present and visible Messiah, but the Lord invisibly known in heaven. As they believed in God without seeing Him, they were now to believe in their Master on high, when they ceased to behold Him here below.