But God does not leave His people to get on as best they can. He has provided His word, living, and powerful, which can do what the keenest blade cannot, pierce even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (12, 13) Thus by the Word the believer may detect the springs of his actions, and see all in the light of the divine presence; “for all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” But more is wanted than the searching and dissecting action of the Word. We need grace for the wilderness walk. Now this the High Priest procures, so the writer next dwells (4:14-8: 13) on the present service of the High Priest, before dwelling on the sacrifice and offering up of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The grace needed the High Priest procures. Able to succor them that are tempted (2: 18), He is also able to sympathize with His people, having been in all points tempted like as they are-sin apart. He knows what is needed, and intercedes for us with God, that we coming to the throne of grace may reap the fruit of His intercession by receiving mercy and seasonable help. (4: 14-16) Having then a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, i.e. has gone up to the throne, Jesus, Son of God, let us hold fast the confession. A great High Priest He is called. Aaron was high priest. Jesus, the Son of God, is greater. The Hebrews then were in this no losers by embracing Christianity. The Jews might boast of the Aaronic line of priesthood; these Hebrews could say, “The Son of God is our High Priest.”
But this new priesthood, centered in Him who is in heaven, must be shown to be really of God, else none of those on whose behalf the Aaronic priesthood was instituted would be authorized to turn away from it. So Psa. 110 is quoted to prove it. The One who called Him His Son is the One who addressed Him as Priest after the order of Melchizedek. And He has passed through death, having learned, too, obedience by the things which He suffered. A High Priest who first passed through death, having learned obedience by what He suffered, and having experienced deliverance by God out of the deepest trials, who among the sons of Aaron could be compared with Him for fitness to understand the difficulties of the people, and to sympathize with each and all in their need? Each year that Aaron lived he might be better able to understand the personal difficulties of the people. But the Lord had learned them all, and fully, ere He entered on His office of High Priest. What encouragement was there in this for the saints in trial!
But the apostle could have unfolded more had the spiritual state of the Hebrews not hindered it. They had become γεγόνατε, dull of hearing, needing to be taught the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, when for the time they ought to have been able to teach others; and they had become such as had need of milk, and not of solid food. They had become this, let the reader observe. It was not the condition in which the gospel had found them. It was the condition into which they had got through not going on unto perfection; i.e. full growth.
To that the sacred writer would lead them. The word of the beginning of Christ, truth common to Jews and Christians, was not all that God was teaching, nor would that establish souls. He would therefore pass on from it to perfection; i.e. what belonged to full growth (6:1-3), not now occupying himself with such as had enjoyed every advantage a professor could share in without the heart being really changed. (4-8) Fruitfulness through the truth working in power was what was desired, as the illustration of the ground shows us, and explains for any that need it, the real bearing of verses 4-6.
Two plots of ground receiving in common rain from heaven-the one fruitful, producing herbs meet for him by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; the other, not requiting the labor bestowed upon it, and producing only briers and thorns, is found worthless, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. So of those called Christians. All enjoying the same outward advantages, those really converted are fruitful, the rest, mere professors, are unfruitful. With such, if they fall away, he could do nothing. They had heard, and had professed to receive, all Christian teaching. These then he would leave, addressing himself to those to whom he was writing, who had given evidence of the reality of their faith. (9, 10) Yet they needed stirring up to show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, and to imitate those who through faith and patience have been inheritors of the promises. Now all was really secure, God’s promise and God’s oath made that certain, and the entrance of the forerunner, Jesus, within the veil made it plain. (11-20)
And He is High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. On the value of this for the saints the writer would now insist (7), reminding them of Melchizedek’s history and of Abraham’s interview with him (Gen. 14); and bow the patriarch, by giving him tithes of all, and by receiving his blessing, acknowledged his superiority. Hence a priesthood after this order must be more excellent than one after the Aaronic order; for, first, Levi, as it were, paid tithes to Melchizedek as being in the loins of Abraham (9, 10); second, the institution of this order of priesthood, after the induction of Aaron and of his sons into their priesthood, indicates a setting aside of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof (for the law made nothing perfect), and the bringing in of a better hope by the which we draw nigh to God (18, 19); third, the Lord was made priest by oath, which Aaron and his sons never were (20-22); and lastly, He has, like Melchizedek of old, an unchangeable priesthood (23, 24), whence He is able also to save completely those who approach by Him to God, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Further, He who is our High Priest has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the holy places, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. He is also mediator of a better covenant, the new covenant, established on the footing of better promises. (8)
Now what could Judaism offer in comparison with all this? Who among the tribe of Levi could present such credentials, and provide what is needed for the wilderness path, as He who, uniting the functions of Moses and Aaron in His own person, was addressed by God as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek?
A minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle the Lord is. So we read next of the service which He has performed inside the veil. Having dwelt on His present priestly service, as meeting what the saints needed in their pathway on earth, the writer now proceeds to point out the superiority of the Lord’s sacrifice of Himself above all that the Mosaic ritual could provide, by the shedding of His blood (9), and the excellency of the sacrifice of Himself. (10)
There was the holiest on earth, and at the date of this epistle the Mosaic ritual was still carried on. There is the sanctuary on high, of which this epistle treats. Into the former the High Priest went alone once every year with the blood of bulls and of goats.
Into the latter the Lord Jesus Christ, the High Priest of good things to come, has entered by His own blood, and remains there, having found eternal redemption. Now blood had a prominent and important place in the ritual of old; so on the surpassing excellency of the blood of Christ we are taught to dwell. It purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. By His death redemption of the sins that were under the first covenant is effected, that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. By His blood too forgiveness is procured; on it the new covenant will rest, and the heavenly things themselves are purged with better sacrifices than any earth could have provided. For into heaven itself has He entered now to appear in the presence of God for us. Not to offer Himself afresh, for that He did once when manifested here for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And He will appear again the second time to them that look for Him without sin unto salvation.
Once He has suffered, never to repeat it. His death was enough. By God’s will believers are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (10: 10) By His one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified (14), and has sat down in token that all has been done in the sanctuary that He intended and came to do. Thus we learn what God thinks of the sacrifice, since we are sanctified by it. We see what the Lord thinks of it, since He has sat down, never to renew it. And the Holy Ghost attests its sufficiency, as He tells us by the prophet (Jer. 31:3434And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:34)) that the sins and iniquities of the redeemed people God will remember no more. Hence there can be no more offering for sin, and believers have boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, the new and living way, which He has consecrated for us through the veil; that is, His flesh. And having a great priest over the house of God, we are to approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, sprinkled as to our hearts from an evil conscience, and washed as to our bodies with pure water, holding fast the confession of hope without wavering, caring for one another, assembling together, and exhorting one the other as we see the day approaching. The Lord will come. The just shall live by faith, but in one who draws back God will have no pleasure. (15-39)
Hereupon we are reminded how the worthies of old walked by faith (xi), the order in which they appeared on the scene illustrating the life of faith for the Christian. With what interest a Hebrew must have read this portion of the epistle, learning from it how God had been ordering the appearance on earth of person after person herein mentioned in pursuance of a design which has now been unfolded.
Commencing with a statement of what faith is, the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, we learn that it takes God at His word (11: 3), and by it the person connected with the sacrifice, as illustrated in the case of Abel, is accepted before God. Then in one of two positions will the saint be found, either, like Enoch, to be taken away ere the judgment comes; or, like Noah, to be preserved on earth through it. Christians will be in this like Enoch, the godly remnant of the earthly people like Noah. But if we stand accepted in connection with the sacrifice, awaiting the being caught up to be with Christ, we are made at once pilgrims here, whose home is elsewhere. Hence faith, for the pilgrimage walk, illustrated in the lives of the patriarchs, is next set before us. They looked for a city prepared for them by God (10). Abraham by counting on the fulfillment of his hopes in the heir raised, as it were, from the dead (17-19); Isaac by blessing Jacob and Esau, showing that the inheritance does not run in the order of nature (20); Jacob by blessing both the sons of Joseph, intimating that the double portion belongs to him who was rejected of his brethren (21), to be made good in the fullest way to the Lord, who will have heaven and earth as His inheritance; and Joseph by giving commandment concerning his bones (22), all tell us of the proper expectation and desire of the saints-the full deliverance of God’s people, coupled with the wish to rest in the portion allotted them by God.
But if there is the pilgrimage walk, there will also be conflict. So illustrations of faith in times of conflict next come; yet all in the order of history (23-31), followed by examples of the life of faith in times of declension (32-34), and in times of persecution. (35-40) Yet encouraging as this exposition of Old Testament times must have been, no one of these worthies could be a perfect example for them or for us. One only of all who have walked on earth is fitted to be that, even Jesus, the Leader and Perfecter of the faith, who, having endured the cross, despising the shame, is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (12:1-3) From Old Testament history we learn that the walk of faith was nothing new. In the Lord Jesus’ walk on earth we have the perfect pattern of it, and in His exaltation we see where the road will surely lead us.
Exhortations then, follow, and encouragements, first by reminding them that their sufferings were a proof that they were God’s sons (4-17), and next by telling them to what they had come; viz., above and beyond all Jewish expectation and portion, and above all angelic ranks on high, to God the Judge of all, from whom receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, they were to serve Him acceptably with reverence and godly fear. “For also our God is a consuming fire.”
With further exhortations as to brotherly love, hospitality, remembrance of those in bonds, and marriage; with warnings too against uncleanness and discontent, their leaders who had passed away by death they were called to remember, and to imitate their faith. But if leaders pass away, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Hence, they were not to be carried away by divers and strange doctrines, but to have the heart established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited those who have been occupied therein. But Christians have an altar, whereof no Jew could eat, as they feed on Him who was the sin-offering, who suffered without the gate. Since, then, that is the case, they must go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach; yet offering the sacrifice of praise to God continually, the fruit of their lips giving thanks to His name; doing good and communicating likewise; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Then, exhorting subjection to their leaders, and asking for an interest in their prayers, and expressing his wishes for them (17-21), the writer closes his letter. What a communication it was! How it opened up the Old Testament, and ministered Christ as Apostle and High Priest, to establish the Hebrews in the doctrines and continued confession of Christianity.
C. E. S.