Christ's superiority to moses.
Heb. iii. 5, 6. Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which tvere to be spoken after; hut Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
IN order to have a just conception of the Chris- tian dispensation, we must above all things acquire scriptural views of the person of Christ, as God and man, and of his mediatorial character, as Emmanuel,
2279. J Christ's SUPERIORITY TO MOSES. 183
God with us. It is in this latter view more espe- cially, that we are led to contemplate him through- out this whole epistle. As God, he is " the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person ;" whilst, as man, " he has purged our sins, and is set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high'' :" but it is as God and man in one Christ that his sacrifice becomes effectual for this great end. It is in his mediatorial capacity, as God-man, that he is exalted above all the angels in heaven, who are expressly enjoined to " worship him''." And it is in the same capacity that we are now called upon to *' consider him as the Apostle and High-priest of our profession °." As " the Apostle" of our profession, setit like Moses, to instruct us in the mind and will of God, he is superior to Moses, whose instructions he is sent to supersede. And, in like manner, will his superiority to Aaron also be declared, when we shall come, in a subsequent part of this epistle, to consider his priesthood. It is the comparison between him and Moses which alone we have to notice at this time.
We proceed then to mark,
I. The superiority of Christ to Moses —
The character given of Moses is most exalted —
[He was " faithful in all God's house ^." From the first moment of his undertaking the office that was assigned him, he was faithful in the discharge of it. Whatever was com- manded him to do, he did ; adding nothing, omitting nothing, neglecting nothing. Wliether the commands were moral or ceremonial, he was observant of every the minutest direction that was given him. He was aware that all which he was commissioned to say or do, had respect to a future period, and was intended to shadow forth something under a future dis- pensation : and so accurate was he in every particular, that there is not the smallest want of agreement between the Jewish and Christian codes, the one answering to the other, as the coin to the die by which it is stamped. As the tabernacle, even to the smallest pin, was " made according to the pattern shew to him in the mount;" so was that whole dispensation in perfect accordance with that under which we live.
a Heb. i. 3. ^ Heb. i. 4 — 6. <^ ver. 1. ^ Numb. xii. 7.