“In the day thou eatest thou shalt die.” The life forfeited by sin has never been regained by man. There has been a constant witness to this. The setting of the cherubim at the gate of the garden of Eden, at the very beginning, to keep every way the way of the tree of life, was a witness to this. The ordinances under the law, nay so early as the day of Noah, that blood was not to be eaten, was a like witness. For blood “ was as the life,” and eating implied communion; so that the ordinance which forbade the eating of blood expressed this, that man had lost all communion with life, all title to it, and enjoyment of it. And thus was it witnessed again and again, that the life which man had lost by sin he never of himself could regain. Trial was made by the man for the man that did the law was to live by it. But all in vain. But the Lord Jesus, the Son of the living God, the living God Himself in flesh had it in Himself, and has regained it for us; and in its infallible, eternal condition, beyond the fear of a second forfeiture, or the reach of the power of death, has imparted it to us. He was the living ‘God, and came into this scene of death to act in it as such. The victory of life over death He achieved, and the fruit of that victory He is sharing with His people.
In the days of His ministry He recognized Himself (Jesus Son of Man as He was) as the living God. (See John 2:19; 8:51; 9:2519Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (John 2:19)
51Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. (John 8:51)
25He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25)). And He gave pledges that He was so, by healing diseases and forgiving sins. At His death He accomplished the triumph of the living God, inasmuch as He thereby set aside sin, the source and principle of death; the rent veil being a solemn writing as under the hand of God in the highest place of judgment that sin had been put away. He rose from the dead as in the accomplished victory of life; He acted as the living God breathing on His people, as of old He had breathed the former life into the nostrils of man.
Thus has the living God been here in this death-stricken world, doing his proper work. Jesus is He—as the Spirit in John, looking at Him, says, “This is the true God and eternal life.” Death reigned, but in due time the Son was “made of a woman;” that He might taste death; and as soon as He did He triumphed over it, destroying him that had the power of it.
This is simple. But among the witnesses of this great mystery, we find one deeply to be listened to in the epistler to the Hebrews. There Jesus is presented as the living one, and the living one for us. Wherever in that epistle He is seen in contact with death, He is seen also on the other side of it in life and honor. He is there presented eminently as the dead or crucified One. He is the Lamb slain, the victim on the altar, the One who shed His blood. But as eminently is He alive from the dead, and seated in some place of honor and authority on the other side of death. And this proclaims His victory. The rent veil proclaimed it in its way; the empty sepulcher proclaimed it in its way; faith (as in the woman who anointed the Lord’s body for his burial) proclaimed it in its way; but the Holy Ghost, who in this epistle discloses the crucified Jesus in honor and eternal life, proclaims it in His way. Thus, in chapter 1:1-3, He is the purger of our sins, which character we know He gained by reason of death. But in the same passage we see Him now, beyond death, in the place of highest honor, on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
In chapter 2:5-9 we find Him by the grace of God having tasted death. But we find Him in the same scripture crowned with glory and honor, and in expectation of universal dominion into which He will lead us as “sons of glory.”
In chapter 2:14, 15 we find Him again under the dominion of death for a moment, but immediately upon that we find Him death’s destroyer, and the deliverer of those who were death’s captives and bondmen.
In chapter 5: 6-10 we read that His personal title to life. was owned and sealed of Him who was able to save Him from death; but we read also of His surrender of Himself in the spirit of obedience to death for us, and that this death has seated Him in the honor of a Melchizedec priesthood constituted in the power of an endless life (and by the oath. of Him who must swear by Himself) for us.
In chapter 9:14, 15 we see him as the one who had offered Himself to God as the Lamb whose blood was needed. But we see Him also as the mediator of the better covenant providing by His death for the transgressions of His people, and securing to them an eternal inheritance.
In chapter 9:28, we see Him somewhat after the same manner, once offered up bearing the sins of the people of God, but now appointed to appear in due time as with salvation and glory, and the power of a kingdom, and that, too, for all that look for Him.
Death He suffered as verily and more tremendously than it was ever suffered. But it was “through the Eternal Spirit” He offered Himself; and death, which leads us to judgment? (Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)) led Him, as we thus see, to life, and honor, and power; and this life, and honor, and power of Jesus, once dead but now risen from the dead, is our salvation. He is the living God, and that in victory, doing more glorious. work than in Gen. 1, and whatever this living one touches He perfects, imparting the value of eternity to it. Whether it be the Altar, the Priesthood, the Covenant, or the Kingdom, all is forever! He obtained “eternal” redemption for us, and secures an “eternal” inheritance to us, inasmuch as He offered Himself through the “Eternal Spirit.” (9:12-15.) His kingdom “cannot be moved.” (12: 28.) His covenant is ever “new.” (8:13.) His altar or sacrifice perfects “forever” them that are sanctified.” (10:14.) His priesthood is “unchangeable,” and His consecration to it is “for evermore.” (7:24-28.)
Thus life and eternity are indeed brought back to us. We are in a region of life through the Son of God dead and risen, as we had been in a region of death through sin and Satan. A way has truly been opened, whereby the living God has brought His banished ones home to Him.
Surely, therefore, the suited exhortation is, “Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”
It is excellent beyond all thought. It is the empty sepulcher we are looking into when we read this wondrous epistle. He was there, but He is there no more forever. Come see the place where the Lord did lie; but He is not there, He is risen. The living God has proved that the gates of hell instead of prevailing, have given way and been broken to pieces. Samson has carried the gates of Gaza to the hilltop. Jesus has made a show of the power of death and darkness. It is the woman in the Gospel who anointed His body for the burial; by faith setting Him in honor and authority, and life, on the other side of death that we are looking at when we read this epistle. For the Holy Ghost in this epistle seats Him in the same place, or reveals Him as seated there; divine counsels thus verifying and vindicating the finest apprehensions of faith. And surely we can therefore understand why it was that the Lord Himself set such a seal by that strange and marvelous act of faith, saying of it, “Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached, in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.”
In the course of this epistle to the Hebrews, warnings, rebukes, exhortations are again and again employed, for the end of keeping our ear, as I may speak, nailed to the door of the Master that is now speaking to us from heaven, this living God, Jesus. Very solemn these warnings are. But let me add for comfort, that it is not where the heart is feeble, and the faith small, that the Spirit is thus moved to sound an alarm in our ears. It is only where the ear is advisedly withdrawn from His voice, and lends itself to another voice, which makes it a liar. The writer of this epistle delights to own what is of life in the saints he addresses, and he addresses them still as saints beloved, though he sounds these alarms in their hearing. (See 6:9, 10:39.) But lie makes no terms whatever with an advised turning away of the ear to another voice— “the voice of a stranger,” as the Lord Himself speaks in John 10
For, blessed be His name, weak faith, accompanied most likely with many a grief at heart in the longing for a bolder and more happy assurance, is under His eye, a very different thing from advised revival of ordinances as the stay and hope of the soul.
“The living God,” from whom we are not to depart, according to this epistle (3: 12), is now to be worshipped by us (9:14), and in due time will judge all that have refused Him (10:31), and finally have His own city in the region of the eternal glory (12:22). It is an evil thing to depart from Him, a fine thing to worship Him; a fearful thing to fall into the hands of His judgment, a glorious thing to reach the heights of His city on the top of the hill.
Thus, being brought back to “the living God” we never lose Him or leave Him. We can worship Him, and forever shall we know His city of glory. And know to depart from Him is, by and bye to meet Him in judgment.