PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews
Edwards, Thomas Charles · 78,874 words · 111 reading sections
Preface.
Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) [Transcriber's Note: This e-text is intended for users whose text readers cannot display t…
404 wordsSECTION 2Summary.
ABERYSTWYTH, _April 12th, 1888_. PAGE CHAPTER I. THE REVELATION IN A SON 3 CHAPTER II. THE SON AND THE ANGELS 21 CHAPTER III. FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS 51 CHAPTER IV. THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST 69 CHAPTER V. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL 83 CHAPTER VI. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE 99 CHAPTER VII.…
668 wordsSECTION 3_The Revelation In A Son._
3. The contest is necessary as a discipline in dealing with (1) the weaker brethren, (2) the enemy at the gate, and (3) the secular spirit. XV. MOUNT ZION: xii. 18-29. The revelation on Sinai preceded the sacrifices of the tabernacle; the revelation on Zion follows the sacrifice of the Cross. Hence-- 1. Sinai reveale…
685 wordsSECTION 4_The Revelation In A Son._
In contrast to the fragmentary character of the revelation, the Apostle speaks of the Son, in the second verse, as the centre of unity. He is the Heir and the Creator of all things. With the heterogeneous revelation in the prophets he contrasts, in the third verse, the revelation that takes its form from the peculiar n…
672 wordsSECTION 5_The Revelation In A Son._
Here the second verse comes in, to tell us of this great Person, and how He unites in Himself the whole of God's revelation. He is appointed Heir of all things, and through Him God made the ages. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, He which is, and which was, and which is to come,--the spring from wh…
1,025 wordsSECTION 6_The Revelation In A Son._
The final form of God's revelation of Himself is, therefore, perfectly homogeneous. The third verse explains that it is a revelation, not only in a Son, but in His Sonship. We learn what kind of Sonship is His, and how its glorious attributes qualify Him to be the perfect Revealer of God. Nevermore will a message be se…
668 wordsSECTION 7_The Revelation In A Son._
3. He upholds all things by the word of His power. This must be closely connected with the previous statement. If the Son is the effulgence of God's glory and the express image of His essence, He is not a creature, but is the Creator. The Son is so from God that He is God. He so emanates from Him that He is a perfect a…
637 wordsSECTION 8_The Son And The Angels._
[1] Rom. x. 6-8. [2] Newman, _Arians_, p. 182 (ed. 1833). [3] John xiv. 6, 9. [4] John v. 26. [5] John i. 1, 3. [6] Col. i. 16, 17. [7] Rom. i. 20. HEBREWS i. 4-ii. 18. The most dangerous and persistent error against which the theologians of the New Testament had to contend was the doctrine of emanations. The p…
767 wordsSECTION 9I. The Revealer Of God Son Of God.
"Having become by so much better than the angels, as He hath inherited a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, This day have I begotten Thee? and again, I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son? And when He again bringeth in the Firstborn…
679 wordsSECTION 10I. The Revealer Of God Son Of God.
The author reverts to the Son's pre-incarnate existence. The Son created earth and heaven, and, for that reason, He remains when the works of His hand wax old, as a garment. Creation is the vesture of the Son. In all the changes of nature the Son puts off a garment, while He remains unchanged Himself. Finally, our aut…
671 wordsSECTION 11I. The Revealer Of God Son Of God.
The first danger of the Hebrew Christians would arise from indifference. The first warning of the Apostle is, Take care that you do not drift.[14] In the Son as the Revealer of God we have a sure anchorage. Let us fasten the vessel to its moorings. That the Son has revealed God is beyond question. The fact is well assu…
721 wordsSECTION 12Ii. The Son The Representative Of Man.
"For not unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; Thou crownedst him with glory and honour, And didst set him over …
1,064 wordsSECTION 13Ii. The Son The Representative Of Man.
But is there any connection between Christ's victory and His being made lower than the angels? When the Psalmist describes the great dignity conferred on frail man, he sees only the contrast between the dignity and the frailty. He can only wonder and worship in observing the incomprehensible paradox of God's dealings w…
652 wordsSECTION 14Ii. The Son The Representative Of Man.
3. Christ's glory consists in power to consecrate[30] men to God, and this power springs from His consciousness of brotherhood with them. But, first of all, the author thinks it necessary to prove that Christ has a deep consciousness of brotherhood with men. He cites Christ's own words from prophetic Scripture.[31] For…
1,077 wordsSECTION 15Ii. The Son The Representative Of Man.
In these four ways is the glory of Christ connected with humiliation, and thus will the prophecy of the Psalmist find its fulfilment in the representative Man, Jesus. His humiliation implied propitiation, moral discipline, conscious brotherhood, and subjection to him who had the power of death. His glory consisted in t…
570 wordsSECTION 16_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
[8] Col. i. 15, 19. [9] Acts vii. 53. [10] Gal. iii. 19. [11] =agagonta=. [12] Matt. xxv. 31. [13] Luke xxii. 43. The genuineness of the verse is somewhat doubtful. [14] =mê pararyômen= (ii. 1). [15] Matt. xxi. 33, sqq. [16] Heb. x. 29. [17] Ps. viii. 4. [18] Ps. viii. 2. [19] 1 Cor. xv. 27. [20] =êlattôsas…
691 wordsSECTION 17_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
To-day if ye shall hear His voice, Harden not your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us …
683 wordsSECTION 18_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
This spiritual vision is not ecstasy. We realise Christ as Apostle and as High-priest. We behold Him when His words are a message to us from God, and when He carries our supplications to God. Revelation and prayer are the two opposite poles of communion with the Father. The dispensation of Moses rested on these two pil…
688 wordsSECTION 19_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
2. Again, the threatenings of the Old Testament for disobedience to God apply with full force to apostasy from Christ. They are the authoritative voice of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle is reminded by the words which he has just used, "We are God's house," of the Psalmist's joyful exclamation, "He is our God, and we are …
847 wordsSECTION 20_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
At first the promise is presented in the negative form of rest from labour. Even the Creator condescended thus to rest. But what _such_ rest can be to God it were vain for man to try to conceive. We know that, as soon as the foundations of the world were laid and the work of creation was ended, God ceased from this for…
677 wordsSECTION 21_Fundamental Oneness Of The Dispensations._
The oneness of the dispensations has been proved. They are one in their design, in their threatenings, in their promises. If we seek the fundamental ground of this threefold unity, we shall find it in the fact that both dispensations are parts of a Divine revelation. God has spoken, and the word of God does not pass aw…
604 wordsSECTION 22_The Great High-Priest._
[38] Chap. iii. 2. [39] 1 Cor. iv. 2. [40] Chap. iii. 4. [41] =poiêsanti=. [42] Chap. iii. 5. [43] Ps. xcv. 7, sqq. [44] Chap. ii. 13. [45] =ta kôla=. Cf. chap. xii. 12. [46] =ouk êdynêthêsan= (iii. 19). [47] =euêngelismenoi= (iv. 2). [48] Reading =synkekerasmenos=. [49] Chap. iv. 3. [50] Chap. iv. 8. [51]…
913 wordsSECTION 23_The Great High-Priest._
The entire structure of the Apostle's inferences rests on the twofold argument of the first two chapters. Jesus Christ is a great High-priest; that is, King and High-priest in one, because He unites in His own person Son of God and Son of man. One is tempted to find an intentional antithesis between the awe-inspiring …
830 wordsSECTION 24_The Great High-Priest._
In the case of the great High-priest, Jesus the Son of God, the end must be sought in another way. He is not so taken from the stock of humanity as to be stained with sin. He is not one of many men, any one of whom might have been chosen. On the contrary, He is holy, innocent, stainless, separated in character and posi…
653 wordsSECTION 25_The Great High-Priest._
2. The second essential qualification of a high-priest was authority to act for men in things pertaining to God, and in His name to absolve the penitent sinner. Prayer was free to all God's people and even to the stranger that came out of a far country for the sake of the God of Israel's name. But guilt, by its very na…
426 wordsSECTION 26_The Impossibility Of Renewal._
[64] Chap. viii. 4. [65] Chap. ix. 24. [66] Cf. chap. x. 21. [67] Chap. iv. 15. [68] =eukairon= (iv. 16). [69] Chap. v. 1, 2. [70] =metriopathein=. [71] Lev. xvi. 6. [72] Chap. vii. 26. [73] Chap. vii. 28. [74] Chap. v. 10, 11. [75] Chap. v. 7. [76] Luke xxii. 44. The genuineness of the verse is not quite c…
825 wordsSECTION 27_The Impossibility Of Renewal._
Philo had already emphasised the distinction between the child in knowledge and the man of full age and mature judgment. St. Paul had said more than once that such a distinction holds among Christians. Many are carnal; some are spiritual. In his writings the difference is not an external one, nor is the line between th…
782 wordsSECTION 28_The Impossibility Of Renewal._
But, before he faces the rolling wave, the Apostle tells his readers why it is that, in reference to Christian doctrine, character is the necessary condition of intelligence. It is so for two reasons. _First_, the word spoken by God in His Son has for its primary object, not speculation, but "righteousness."[95] Theol…
692 wordsSECTION 29_The Impossibility Of Renewal._
The four parts of the simile and of the application correspond. _First_, drinking in the rain that often comes upon the land corresponds to being once enlightened, tasting of the heavenly gift, being made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasting the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. The rain descen…
870 wordsSECTION 30Footnotes:
But the Hebrew Christians have not come to this.[104] The Apostle is persuaded better things of them, and things that are nigh, not unto a curse, but unto ultimate salvation. Yet they are not free from the danger. If we may appropriate the language of an eminent historian, "the worship of wealth, grandeur, and dominion…
359 wordsSECTION 31_The Impossibility Of Failure._
"But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak: for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye showed toward His name, in that ye ministered unto the saints, and still do minister. And we desire that each one of you may show the …
905 wordsSECTION 32_The Impossibility Of Failure._
But, if the oath of God to Abraham is to inspire us with new courage, we must resemble Abraham in the eager earnestness and calm endurance of his faith. The passage has often been treated as if the oath had been intended to meet the weakness of faith. But unbelief is logician enough to argue that God's word is as good …
726 wordsSECTION 33_The Impossibility Of Failure._
We have said that the oath met, not the weakness, but the strength, of Abraham's faith. If so, why was it given him? _First_, it simplified his faith. It removed all tendency to morbid introspection and filled his spirit with a peaceful reliance on God's faithfulness. He had no more need to try himself whether he was …
741 wordsSECTION 34_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
Thus, with the help of metaphor heaped on metaphor in the fearless confusion delightful to conscious strength and gladness, the Apostle has at last come to the great conception of Christ in the sanctuary of heaven. He has hesitated long to plunge into the wave; and even now he will not at once lift the veil from the ar…
749 wordsSECTION 35_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
Jesus has entered heaven as our Forerunner, in virtue of His eternal priesthood. The endless duration and heavenly power of His priesthood is the "hard saying" which the Hebrew Christians would not easily receive, inasmuch as it involves the setting aside of the old covenant. But it rests on the words of the inspired P…
1,008 wordsSECTION 36_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
His name even is symbolical. He is "King of righteousness." By a happy coincidence, the name of his city is no less expressive of the truth to be represented. He is King of Salem, which means "King of peace." The two notions of righteousness and peace combined make up the idea of priesthood. Righteousness without peace…
763 wordsSECTION 37_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
Now this is the gist and kernel of the Apostle's beautiful allegory. The argument points to the Son of God, and leads up to the conception of His eternal priesthood in the sanctuary of heaven. Let us see how the parable is interpreted and applied. That Jesus is a great High-priest has been proved by argument after arg…
782 wordsSECTION 38_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
_Third_, the entire system or covenant based on the Aaronic priesthood has passed away and given place to a better covenant,--better in proportion to the firmer foundation on which the priesthood of Jesus rests.[130] Beyond question, the promises of God were steadfast. But men could not realise the glorious hope of the…
723 wordsSECTION 39_The Allegory Of Melchizedek._
_Fourth_, the climax of the argument is reached when the Apostle infers the endless duration of Christ's one priesthood.[133] The number of men who had been successively high-priests of the old covenant increased from age to age. Dying one after another, they were prevented from continuing as high-priests. But Melchize…
722 wordsSECTION 40_The New Covenant._
[117] Ps. cx. 4. [118] Matt. xxii. 45. [119] Zech. vi. 11, 13. [120] _SS. Legg. Alleg._, iii. (vol. i., p. 103. Mang.). [121] Chap. vii. 6-10. [122] =ep' autês= (vii. 11). [123] Cf. chap. vi. 1. [124] =Anatetalken=. Cf. Zech. vi. 12. =Anatolê=, _dawn_. The citation, as usual, is from the Septuagint. [125] Chap.…
1,032 wordsSECTION 41_The New Covenant._
The Jewish priesthood itself teaches the existence of a heavenly sanctuary.[146] All the arrangements of tabernacle and ritual were made after a pattern shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. The priests, in the tabernacle and through their ritual, ministered to the holiest place, as the visible image and outline of the real h…
298 wordsSECTION 42I. A New Covenant Promised Through Jeremiah.
"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with thei…
655 wordsSECTION 43I. A New Covenant Promised Through Jeremiah.
Now the peculiar character of the old covenant was that it dealt with men in the aggregate which we call the nation. Nationalism is the distinctive feature of the old world, within the precincts of Judaism and among the peoples of heathendom. Even the prophets could not see the spiritual truth, which they themselves fo…
931 wordsSECTION 44I. A New Covenant Promised Through Jeremiah.
2. So also of knowing God. The moral attributes of the Most High are revealed under the former covenant, and the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. Abraham knows Him as the everlasting God. Elisha understands that there is no darkness or shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. Ba…
663 wordsSECTION 45I. A New Covenant Promised Through Jeremiah.
It remains--and it is the only supposition left to us--that peace of conscience must have been the result of another revelation, simultaneous with the covenant of the Law, but differing from it in purpose and instruments. Such a revelation would be given through the prophets, who stood apart as a distinct order from th…
546 wordsSECTION 46Ii. A New Covenant Symbolized In The Tabernacle.
"Now even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and its sanctuary, a sanctuary of this world. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the first, wherein were the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the Holy place. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the H…
930 wordsSECTION 47Ii. A New Covenant Symbolized In The Tabernacle.
Contrast with all this the ministry of Christ. He made His appearance on earth as High-priest of the things which have now at length come to us.[161] The blessings prophesied by Jeremiah have been realised. As High-priest He entered the true holiest place, a tabernacle greater and more perfect, even heaven itself.[162]…
752 wordsSECTION 48Ii. A New Covenant Symbolized In The Tabernacle.
On the other hand, Christ entered the true holiest place by His own blood. He offered Himself. The High-priest is the sacrifice. Under the old covenant the victim must be "without spot." But the high-priest was not without blemish, and he offered for himself as well as for the errors of the people. But in the offering …
634 wordsSECTION 49Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
"And for this cause He is the Mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him …
658 wordsSECTION 50Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws on their heart, And upon their mind also will I write them; _then saith He_, And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."--HEB.…
729 wordsSECTION 51Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
Not that the heaven of God is polluted. Even the earthly shrine had not itself contracted defilement. The blood sprinkled on the tabernacle and its vessels was not different from the blood of the sacrifice. As sacrificial blood, it consecrated the place, and was also offered to God. Similarly the blood of Christ made h…
686 wordsSECTION 52Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
Then follows a very original piece of reasoning, plainly intended to be an additional proof that Christ's dying once put away sin for ever. To appear on earth often, and to die often, would have been impossible for Him. He was true man, of woman born, not an apparition, not an angel assuming the appearance of humanity,…
943 wordsSECTION 53Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
Must we, therefore, say that Christ entered the holiest place at His death, not at His ascension? Does the Apostle refer only to the entrance of the soul into the invisible world? The question is not an easy one. If the Apostle means the Ascension, what doctrinal use does he make of the interval between the Crucifixion…
705 wordsSECTION 54Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
To prove the unreal nature of these ever-recurring sacrifices, the writer argues that otherwise they would have ceased to be offered, inasmuch as the worshippers, if they had been once really cleansed from their guilt, would have had no more conscience of sins.[195] The reasoning is very remarkable. It is not that God …
818 wordsSECTION 55Iii. A New Covenant Ratified In The Death Of Christ.
It will be observed that the Apostle is not contrasting sacrifice and obedience. His meaning is not precisely the same as the prophet Samuel's: that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."[204] It is perfectly true that the sacrifice of the Son involved obedience,--a conscious, delibera…
548 wordsSECTION 56Footnotes:
[142] =kephalaion= (viii. 1). [143] =leitourgos= (viii. 2). [144] Chap. viii. 3. [145] Chap. viii. 4. [146] Chap. viii. 5 [147] Chap. viii. 6. [148] Jer. xxxi. 31-34. [149] Lamentations, _Preface_. [150] John vi. 45. [151] =autous= (viii. 8). [152] Chap. viii. 4. [153] Rom. v. 20. [154] Rom. iv. 7. [155] I…
347 wordsSECTION 57_An Advance In The Exhortation._
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a great Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our heart…
716 wordsSECTION 58_An Advance In The Exhortation._
This being so, the Apostle no longer urges his readers to be confident. He now appeals to them as having confidence,[212] in virtue of the blood of Jesus, so that they tarry not in the precincts, but enter themselves into the holiest. The high-priest alone dared enter under the former covenant, and he approached with f…
756 wordsSECTION 59_An Advance In The Exhortation._
The chief of all reasons for exhorting the readers to habitual attendance on the Church assemblies the writer of the Epistle finds in the expectation of the Lord's speedy return. They could see for themselves that the day was at hand. The signs of the Son of man's coming were multiplying and thrusting themselves on the…
1,026 wordsSECTION 60_An Advance In The Exhortation._
From the terrible expectation of future judgment the Apostle turns away, to recall to his readers the grounds of hope supplied by their steadfastness in the past. He has already spoken of their work and the love which they had shown in ministering to the saints.[234] God's justice would not forget their brotherly kindn…
613 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.