PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews
Moule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn) · 26,968 words · 39 reading sections
Preface
Produced by Colin Bell, Thomas Strong and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net {Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors, printing errors and mis-spellings have been corrected. Any other inconsistencies remain as they are in the original. Footnotes have been placed at the end of t…
447 wordsSECTION 2Consider Him
_Easter, 1909._ I PAGE CONSIDER HIM 1 Heb. i.-ii. A HEART OF FAITH 8 Heb. iii. UNTO PERFECTION 14 Heb. iv.-vi. OUR GREAT MELCHIZEDEK 23 Heb. vii. THE BETTER COVENANT 32 Heb. viii. SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE 42 Heb. ix. VII FULL, PERFECT, AND SUFFICIENT 51 Heb. x. FAITH AND ITS POWER 61 Heb. xi. (I.). F…
917 wordsSECTION 3Consider Him
Thus the Epistle, on its way to recall its readers, at a crisis of confusion and temptation, to certainty, patience, and peace, leads them--not last but first--to Jesus Christ. It unfolds at once to them His glories of Person, His Wonder of Work and Love. It does not elaborately travel up to Him through general conside…
519 wordsSECTION 4A Heart Of Faith
HEB. iii. We have just endeavoured to find a message, "godly and wholesome, and necessary for these times," in the opening paragraphs in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We come now to interrogate our oracle again, and we open the third chapter as we do so. Here again we find the Epistle full, first, of "Jesus Christ Hims…
778 wordsSECTION 5A Heart Of Faith
Deeply significant it is that in both cases we have the danger met thus--by the presentation of the Incarnate Redeemer Himself, in His personal and official glory, to the most immediate possible view of every disciple, "nothing between." The Epistles, both of them, have much to say on deep general principles. But all t…
484 wordsSECTION 6Unto Perfection
HEB. iv.-vi. Our study of the great Epistle takes here another step, covering three short but pregnant chapters. So pregnant are they that it would be altogether vain to attempt to deal with them thus briefly were we not mindful of our special point of view. We are pondering the Epistle not for all that it has to say,…
785 wordsSECTION 7Unto Perfection
Such is the "Leader of our faith," so great, so glorious, so perfect, so tender, so deep in fellowship with us. Shall we not follow Him into "the rest," though a "Jordan rolls between" and though cities of giants seem to frown upon us even on the other side? Shall we not dare thither to follow HIM out of the desert of …
689 wordsSECTION 8Unto Perfection
The "Hebrews," then, and their special circumstances of difficulty, are here in view, as everywhere else in the Epistle. Tempted to "fall away," to give up the "hope set before them," to relapse to legalism, to bondage, to the desert, to a famine of the soul, to barrenness and death--here they are dealt with, in order …
403 wordsSECTION 9Our Great Melchizedek
HEB. vii. There is a symmetrical dignity all its own in the seventh chapter of the Hebrews. I recollect listening, now many years ago, to a characteristic exposition of it by the late beloved and venerated Edward Hoare, in a well-known drawing-room at Cromer--a "Bible Reading" full alike of mental stimulus and spiritu…
686 wordsSECTION 10Our Great Melchizedek
Such on the whole, as I recall it, was the exposition of my venerable friend, in 1887. Each new reading of the chapter seems to me to bear out the substantial accuracy of it; indeed the symmetry and order of the chapter make it almost inevitable that some such line should be taken by the explanation. Thus then it lies …
814 wordsSECTION 11Our Great Melchizedek
In the age of Christ, no office can for one moment put one "man having infirmity" nearer to God than another, if this chapter means what it says. Mediatorial priesthood, a very different thing from commissioned pastorate, has no place in apostolic Christianity, with the vast exception of its sublime and solitary place …
455 wordsSECTION 12The Better Covenant
HEB. viii. The Person and greatness of our High Priest are now full before the readers of the Epistle. The paragraph we enter next, after one more deliberate contemplation of His dignity and His qualifications, proceeds to expound His relation to the better and eternal Covenant. We shall find here also messages approp…
711 wordsSECTION 13The Better Covenant
But then further, does this passage really intimate at all that He is offering now? The thought appears to be decisively negatived by the grandeur of the terms of the first verse of this chapter. Where, in the heavenly sanctuary, is our High Priest now? He has "taken His seat on the right hand of the throne of the maje…
894 wordsSECTION 14The Better Covenant
This is the new, the better, the everlasting Covenant. It is placed here in the largest and most decisive contrast over against the old covenant, the compact of Sinai, "written and engraven in stones" (2 Cor. iii. 7). That compact had done its mysterious work, in convincing man of his sinful incapacity to meet the will…
671 wordsSECTION 15Sanctuary And Sacrifice
HEB. ix. The Epistle has exhibited to us the glory of the eternal Priest and the wealth and grandeur of the new Covenant. It advances now towards the Sanctuary and the Sacrifice wherein we see that covenant sanctified and sealed, under the auspices of our great "Priest upon His throne." The Teacher first dilates to t…
1,190 wordsSECTION 16Sanctuary And Sacrifice
[H] I think the Revisers are right in giving "_now_ present" instead of "_then_ present" as the rendering for [Greek: ton enestekota] (ver. 9). The Epistle alludes, so I should conjecture, to the period of its writing as a time when the sacrifices were still going on, albeit on the eve of cessation.--It seems best to r…
669 wordsSECTION 17Full, Perfect, And Sufficient
The messages of this chapter for our time are equally manifest and weighty. It closes with the assertion of a principle which should be for all time decisive against all sorts and forms of "re-presentation" of the Lord our Sacrifice. He has "offered" Himself once and for ever, and is now, on our behalf, not in the Pres…
725 wordsSECTION 18Full, Perfect, And Sufficient
We believe--nay, with the Psalms in our hands, such Psalms as xxiii., and xxxii., and ciii., we know--that for the really contrite and loyal heart, even under the Law, there were large experiences of peace and joy. But these blessings were not due to the sacrifices of the tabernacle or the temple, however divinely orde…
717 wordsSECTION 19Full, Perfect, And Sufficient
And why? Because, for the new Israel, for the chosen people of faith (ver. 39), the supreme sacrifice and offering has done its work. It has "sanctified" them (verses 10, 29); that is to say, it has hallowed them into God's accepted possession by its reconciling and redeeming efficacy. For its virtue does much more tha…
840 wordsSECTION 20Faith And Its Power
Now, as then, the tenth chapter of the Hebrews points with a golden rod to the one path of life, and peace, and perseverance to the end. "Rejoice in the Lord; _for you it is safe_" (Phil. iii. 1). The "boldness" of a humble assurance of a present and a great salvation traces the way for us, as it traced the way of old,…
666 wordsSECTION 21Faith And Its Power
The reason is not far to seek. The tenth chapter closes with that word, or rather with that truth: "My righteous man shall live by faith"; "we are of them that have faith, unto the saving of the soul." And this close is only the issue of a strain of previous teachings, going far back towards the opening of the Epistle.…
703 wordsSECTION 22Faith And Its Power
Think of the contrast between such historic invitations to "walk by sight" towards the bosom of Abraham, and the call to "come out and be separate" in some Christian upper-room, devoid of every semblance of decorative art and dignified proportion, only to listen to the Word, to pray and praise in the name of the Crucif…
851 wordsSECTION 23Faith And Its Annals
In our next chapter we will consider both the account of faith here given and some main points in the illustration of it by examples. HEB. xi. (II.) We considered in the last chapter the account of Faith with which the apostolic Writer opens this great recital of the "life, work, and triumph of faith" in holy human l…
665 wordsSECTION 24Faith And Its Annals
[M] It is obvious that these elementary reflections have everything to do with the need of caution in explaining those most sacred words, "This _is_ my body which is given for you." Here we have precisely that last application of the verb substantive, only in an exact and most noble antithesis. "Seeing is believing," …
738 wordsSECTION 25Faith And Its Annals
But when that pregnant side-word has once been said, the argument settles itself forthwith upon the recorded examples of the potency of faith as "the elders" exercised it. We see man after man enabled to treat the invisible as visible, the promised as present, by reliant rest upon the word of God, however conveyed. To …
590 wordsSECTION 26Followers Of Them
HEB. xii. 1-14 The Epistle approaches its close. The Writer has much yet to say to the disciples upon many things, all connected with that main interest of their lives, a resolute fidelity to the Lord, to the Gospel, and to one another. But he has not yet quite done with that side of their "exceeding need" to which th…
730 wordsSECTION 27Followers Of Them
In that rich treasury of sacred song, _Hymns from the Land of Luther_, is included the translation of a noble hymn by Simon Dach, _O wie selig seid ihr doch, ihr Frommen_, "O how happy are ye, saints forgiven." That hymn beautifully illustrates this verse. It is written responsively all through. One stanza, sung upward…
661 wordsSECTION 28Followers Of Them
And may we not be sure that on many a previous occasion of minor and yet bitter trial, when evil men gathered round Him with cynical objections and ruthless denials of His claims, the victory was akin to the victory of Gethsemane? Often, surely, a strange "bewilderment" must have beset the Redeemer's soul, of which the…
666 wordsSECTION 29Sinai And Sion
With the thought of the witness-cloud around us, and "looking off" to the Prince of Faith, ascended, yet present with us, and sure of the ultimate and eternal "fruit of righteousness" which lies hidden in the chastening of the Father of our spirits--we too will live by faith, taking God at His word, and saying Amen to …
1,042 wordsSECTION 30Sinai And Sion
[P] The word [Greek: orei] is certainly absent from the true text. We are left as in presence of a mysterious _somewhat_, a mighty mass, mantled in terror and without form or name. [Q] A traditional utterance must be referred to. But the whole narrative in Exodus and in Deuteronomy supports it. It is a wonderful pict…
876 wordsSECTION 31Sinai And Sion
So let the disciples clasp their sublime privileges, and greatly rejoice--and also greatly fear to "decline" them, to surrender them, to treat them lightly. They "are in receipt ([Greek: paralambanoutes]) of a kingdom unshakable," for they have become the willing vassals of the eternal David of the true Israel, in whos…
396 wordsSECTION 32Appeals And Instructions
HEB. xiii. 1-14 The last chapter of the Epistle has a character quite of its own. Unlike many of those often arbitrary divisions of the New Testament books which we know as chapters, it is a naturally separate section. The long and sustained arguments are over. The Writer's thoughts, gravitating to a close, and occupi…
946 wordsSECTION 33Appeals And Instructions
But now comes in a passage of the chapter which more obviously tells its own story of occasion and aim. The Writer recurs to the supreme theme of the Epistle, the antithesis between the Lord Jesus, with His finished work and absolute permanence, and the transitory antecedents of the older dispensation. Once more the He…
748 wordsSECTION 34Appeals And Instructions
[T] Lightfoot (on Ign. _ad Eph. v., et alibi_) has clearly shewn that Ignatius' use of [Greek: thysiasterion] is altogether mystical. He means not the Holy Table but (among other references) the Church of Christ as the sphere or place of spiritual sacrifice. On a careful review of the words before us (verses 10-16), w…
530 wordsSECTION 35Last Words
HEB. xiii. 15-25 The connexion of ver. 15 with the antecedent context is suggestive. We have been led to a contemplation of the Lord Jesus in His character as Antitype and Fulfilment of the holocaust of the Levitical atonement. Even as the chief animal victim of the old covenant, the symbolical bearer of the sins of I…
676 wordsSECTION 36Last Words
Following these appeals, in a connexion which we can trace, the thought passes (ver. 17) to the Christian Ministry. "Outside the gate" of the old order, the disciple finds himself at once not an isolated unit but included in _a new order_. He is one of a spiritual community, which has of course its system, for it has t…
667 wordsSECTION 37Last Words
* * * * * The closing sentences of the great Letter (ver. 18 and onwards) call for little detailed explanation, with one great exception. The Writer asks for intercessory prayer for himself and his colleagues, in the accent of one who knows his own unreserved desire (ver. 18) to keep his whole "life-walk honourable," …
810 wordsSECTION 38Last Words
One closing word remains. Observe this designation just here applied to the Lord Jesus Christ; "the Shepherd, the great Shepherd, of the sheep." It is noteworthy, because in our Epistle it stands here quite alone. We have had the Christ of God presented to us throughout under the totally different character of the High…
360 wordsSECTION 39*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Messages From The Epistle To The Hebrews ***
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141 wordsSource & rights
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.