The teaching of St. John in Gospel ami Epistle is not distinguisnable from that which he reports from his Master's lips, and need aot here be re- verted to afresh. Ihe same fundamental view- points meet us also in the Aijocalj-pse. The emj-hti'i.a there placed on the omnipotence of God rises Indeed to a climax. There only in NT (except 2 Co 6"), for example, is the epitliet nafroKpdrup ascribed to Him (1« 4« U" 15" 16'- " 19«- " 21--, cf. 15* 6"") ; and the whole purport of the book is the portrayal of the Divine guidance of history, and the very essence of its message that, despite all surface appearances, it is the hand of God that really directs all occurrences, and all things are hastening to the end of His determining. Salva- tion is ascribed unvaryingly to the grace of God, and declared to be His work (12'" 19'). The elect people of God are His by the Divine choice alone: their names are from the foundation of the world written in the Lamb's Book of Life (13« 17' 20'2-i» 21--), which is certainly a symbol of Divine appointment to eternal life revealed in and realized through Christ ; nor shall they ever be blotted out of it ('■i''). It is diflicult to doubt that the destination here a.sserted is to a complete salvation (19'), that it is individual, and that it is but a single instance of the com]iletene.ss of the Divine government to which the world is subject by the Lord of lords and King of kings, the Ruler of the earth and King of the nations, whose control of all the occurrences of time in accordance with His holy purposes it is the supreme object of this book to portraj'.
Perhaps le.ss is directly said about the purjiosc of God in the Epi>!tle to the Hebrews than in any other portion of NT of equal length. The technical phra.seol()gy of the subject is consi)iciiously absent. Nevertheless, the conception of the Divine counsel and will underlying all that comes to pass (2'°), and especially the entire course of the purchase (6", cf. If)*" 2») and ni.pli.ation (ll'-'-sl g") ,.f salvation, is fundaiiicntal to the whole tlioiigbt of the Epistle; and echoes of the modes in which tliis conception is elsewhere expressed meet us on i^vcry hand. Thus we read of God's eternal counsel
(/SouXt), C") and of His precedent will (d{\r)iui, 10'") as underlying His redemptive acts; of the enrolment of the names of His children in heaven (12^) ; of the origin in the energy of God of all that is good in us (13-'); and, above all, of a 'heavenly call' as the source of the whole renewed life of the Christian (3', cf. 9").
When our Lord spoke of * calling ' {xotknu, Mt 9'3, Mk 2*7, hk C^, and, panibolically, Mt aa- -i 5- a, Lk 148. 8. 10. 12. 13. l(i, n. 21 ; xXviTo;, Mt '2-.i'i ["Jolt*]) the tcnn was used in the ordinary sense of ' invitation," and refers therefore to a much tiroader circle than the 'elect' (Mt2;;l'*); and this fundamental sense of ' Itiddin^' ' niav continue to cling to the term in the hands 01 the evangelists (Mt 4'-i, Mk 12", of. Lk U', Jtt ^2), while the depth of meaning which might be attached to it, even in such a connotation, may he revealed by such a passage as Rev lJ)y • Blessed are they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' On the lips of the apostolic writers, however, the term in its application to the call of God to salvation took on deeper meanings, doubtless out of consideration of the author of the call, who h.as but to speak and it is done (cf. Ho 4'7). It occurs in these writers, when it occurs at all, as the synonym no longer of 'invitation,' but rather of 'election' itself ; or, more precisely, as e.vj)ressive of the temporal .act of the Divine etliciency by which elTect is given to the electing decree. In this profounder sense it is practically confined to the writings of St. I'aul and St. Peter and the lipistle to the Hebrews, occurring elsewhere only in Jude 1, Rev 17'^, where the children of God are designated the ' called,' just as they are (in various collocations of the tenu with the idea of election) in Ro 16. -, 1 Co r-i, Ko S2S, 1 Co 124 ^a. Uo 1', 1 Co 1'). K>.,t«, OS used in these passages, does not occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but in 3' x>.^.fftt occurs in a sense indistinguishable from that which it bears in St. l>aul (Ro llS, 1 Co 13", Eph I'H 41- 4, I'll 3'4, -l Th 111, 3 Ti 19) and St. Peter (-2 P I'O) ; and in 9'» (cf. special applications of the same general idea, 5-* lis), xaxi^ bears the same deep sense exiiressed bv it in St. Paul (Ro 830-30
911-24, 1 Co 19 716. 17. 18. 18.20. 'a. a 22.il, Gal 16.16 58.13, Eph
41.4, Col 315, 1 Th '212 4' 624, 2 Th 2", 2 Ti I'J) and in St. Peter (1115 ■2!i.2i 3U 510, 1113, cf. TM»5«<xi«,, Ac 239. and in the language of St. Luke, Ac 132 iglO). The contrast into which the 'called '(3') are brought in this E]tistle with the * evangelized* (42. 6), repeating in other terms the contrast which our Saviour institutes between the 'elect' and 'called* (Mt 2214), exhibits the height of the meaning to which the idea of the 'call' has climbed. It no longer denotes the mere invit-ition, — that notion is now given in 'evangelize,' — hut the actual ushering into salvation of the heirs of the promise, who are made partakers of the heavenly calling, and are called to the everlasting in- heritance just because they have been destined thereunto by God (1'4), and are enrolled in heaven as the children given to the Son of God (2'3).