And here the apostletakes his leave of Moses,—he treats not about him any more; and therefore he gives him as it were an honourable burial. He puts this glorious epitaph on his grave, “ Moses, a faithful servant of the Lord in his whole house.”
Aarndnoo- peeve.
560 ' AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. III.
Ver. 6.—“But Christ as a son over his own house.” The term “faithful” is here to be repeated, “Was faithful as a son over his own house.” Every word almost proves the pre-eminence asserted. He is a son, Moses a servant; he over the house, Moses in the house; he over his own house, Moses in the house of another.
In what sense the Lord Christ is said to be the son over his house hath been so fully declared in our exposition of the first chap- ter, that it need not here be insistedon. Absolute and supreme authority over all persons and things is intended in this expression. All persons belonging unto the house of God are at his disposal, and the institution of the whole worship of it is in his. power alone. Which things, as was said, have been already spoken unto.
“Whose house are we.” Having confirmed his argu- ment, the apostle returns, after his manner, to make application of it unto the Hebrews, and to improve it for the enforcement of his exhortation unto constancy and perseverance. And herein, first, he makes an explanation of the metaphor which he had insisted on. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘spoken these things of a house and its building; but it is the church, it is ourselves that I intend.’ “Whose house are we.” Secondly, That they might know also, in particular, whom it is that he intends, he adds a further description of them, “If we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of hope unto the end.”
“Whose house are we;” that is, believers, who worship him according unto the gospel, are so. And the apostle frequently, both in exhortations and applications of arguments and threatenings, joineth himself with the professing Hebrews, for their direction and encouragement. Now, believers are the house of Christ upon a treble account :—
1. Of their persons. In them he dwells really by his Spirit. Hence are they said to be “living stones,” and on him to be built into a “holy temple,’ 1 Pet. ii. 5. And as such doth he dwell in them, Eph. ii. 20-22, 1 Cor. iii. 16, 2 Cor. vi. 16, John xiv. 17.
2. Of their being compact together in church-order according to his institution, whereby they are built up, cemented, united, and become a house, like the tabernacle or temple of old, Eph. iv. 16, Col. ii. 19.
3. Of their joint worship performed in that order; wherein and whereby he also dwells among them, or is present with them unto the consummation of all things, Rev. xxi. 3, Matt. xxviii. 20.
“Tf we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of hope firm unto the end.”
OF oixos topey.
a3
These words may have a double sense: First, to ex-
press the condition on which the truth of the former assertion doth depend: ‘We are his house, but on this condition,
*Edverep.
VER. 3-6.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 561
that we hold fast,” ete. Secondly, to express a description of the persons who are so the house of Christ, by a limitation and distinc- tion amongst professors, showing that in the former assertion he in- tends only those who hold fast their confidence firm to the end.
According unto these several interpretations the words are seve- rally employed. Those who embrace the first sense make use of them to prove a possibility of the falling away of true believers, and that totally and finally, from Christ; for, say they, without the supposition thereof, the words are superfluous and useless. Those who cleave to the latter sense suppose the words irrefragably to confirm the certain permanency in the faith of those who are truly the house of Christ, they being such alone as whose faith hath the adjuncts of permanency and stability annexed unto it. For others, whatever they may profess, they are never truly or really the house of Christ; whence it undeniably follows that all true believers do certainly persevere unto the end.
I shall not here engage into this controversy, having handled it at large elsewhere. Only, as to the first sense contended for, I shall briefly observe,—first, that the supposition urged proves not the inference intended; and, secondly, that the argument from this place is not suited unto the hypothesis of them that make use of it. For, as Paul puts himself among the number of those who are spoken of, whose faith yet none will thence contend to have been liable unto a total failure; so such conditional expressions of gospel-com- minations, although they have a peculiar use and efficacy towards believers in the course of their obedience, as manifesting God’s detestation of sin, and the certain connection that there is by God’s eternal law between unbelief and punishment, yet they do not include any assertion that the persons of believers may at any time, all things considered, on the part of God as well as of themselves, actually fall under those penalties, as hath been at large elsewhere evinced. Again, this argument suits not the hypothesis that it is produced in the confirmation of; for if it be the condition of the foregoing assertion, whereon the truth of it doth depend, then are none at present the house of God, but upon a supposition of their perseverance unto the end. But their opinion requires that persons may be really this house by virtue of their present faith and obedi- ence, although they afterwards utterly fall from both, and perish for