II. The Lord Christ, in all his perplexities and troubles, betook himself unto the protection of God, trusting in him. See Isa. 1. 7-9. And he always made an open profession of this trust, Imsomuch that his enemies reproached him with it in his greatest distress, Matt. xxvii. 43. But this was his course, this was his refuge, wherein at length he had blessed and glorious success.
III. He both suffered and trusted as our head and precedent. What he did in both these kinds he calls us unto. As he did, so must we undergo perplexities and dangers in the course of our pil- grimage. The Scripture abounds with instructions unto this purpose, and experience confirms it; and professors of the gospel do but indulge unto pleasing dreams when they fancy any other condition in this world unto themselves. They would not be willing, I sup- pose, to purchase it at the price of inconformity unto Jesus Christ. And he is a precedent unto us in trusting as well as in suffering, As he betook himself unto the protection of God, so should we do also; and we shall have the same blessed success with him.
There remains yet one testimony more, which we shall briefly pass through the consideration of: “Behold I and the children which God hath given me.” It is taken from Isa. viii. 18. That it is a prophecy of Christ which is there insisted on we have proved at large in our Prolegomena, so that we need not here again further to discourse that matter. That which the apostle aims at in the citation of this testimony, is further to confirm the union in nature,
VER, 11-13.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, 431
and the relation that ensues thereupon, between the captain of salvation and the sons to be brought unto glory. Now, as this is such that thereon he calls them brethren, and came into the same condition of trouble with them, so they are, by the grant and appointment of God, his children. Being of the same nature with them, and so meet to become a common parent unto them all, God, by an act of sovereign grace, gives them unto him for his children. This is the aim of the apostle in the use of this testimony unto his present purpose. In the words themselves we may consider,—
1. That God gives all the sons that are to be brought unto glory to Jesus Christ: ‘The Lord hath given them unto me.’ “Thine they were,” saith he, “and thou gavest them me,” John xvii. 6. God having separated them as his peculiar portion, in the eternal counsel of his will, gives them unto the Son to take care of them, that they may be preserved and brought unto the glory that he had designed for them. And this work he testifies that he under- took; so that none of them shall be lost, but that, whatever difficul- ties they may pass through, he will raise them up at the last day, © and give them an entrance into life and immortality.
2. He gives them to him as his children, to be provided for, and to have an inheritance purchased for them, that they may become heirs of God and co-heirs with himself. Adam was their first parent by nature; and in him they lost that inheritance which they might have expected by the law of their creation, They are therefore given to “the second Adam,” as their parent by grace, to have an inheritance provided for them; which accordingly he hath purchased with the price of his blood.
8. That the Lord Christ is satisfied with and rejoiceth in the portion given him of his Father, his children, his redeemed ones. This the manner of the expression informs us in, “Behold I and the children;” though he considers himself and them at that time as “signs and wonders to be spoken against.” He rejoiceth in his portion, and doth not call it Cabul, as Hiram did the cities given him of Solomon, because they displeased him. He is not only satisfied upon the sight of “the travail of his soul,” Isa. liii. 11, but glorieth also that “the lines are fallen unto him in pleasantnesses, that he hath a goodly heritage,” Ps. xvi. 6. Such was his love, such was his grace; for we in ourselves are “a people not to be desired.”
4, That the Lord Jesus asswmes the children given him of his Father into the same condition with himself, both as to tume and eternity: “I and the children.” As he is, so are they;—his lot is their lot, his God is their God, his Father their Father, and his glory shall be theirs.
5. From the context of the words in the prophet, expressing the
432 AN EXPOSITION OF THE ~ [OHAP. If.
separation of Christ and the children from the world and all the hypocrites therein, combined together in the pursuit of their sinful courses, we are taught that Christ and believers are in the same covenant, confederate to trust in God in difficulties and troubles, in opposition unto all the confederacies of the men of the world for their carnal security
And thus by this triple testimony hath the apostle both confirmed his foregoing assertion, and further manifested the relation that is between the children to be brought unto glory and the captain of their salvation, whereby it became righteous that he should suffer for them, and meet that they should enjoy the benefit of his suffer- ings; which he more fully expresseth in the following verses.