relation to the law, but to God’s original ideal, and to the harmony with God’s entire economy in nature and revelation. Man, nature, history, alike illustrate the incarnation. The Son of God, through whom the worlds were made, is the heir of all things, and, as creator and heir, interprets all life. He not only creates, but bears on all things by the word of his power toward the consummation— complete harmony with the divine archetype. As high priest he makes God and man at one in every sphere of being. He stands for the solidarity of humanity. He isnot perfected without the community of sons (xi. 40). He is himself a son, a partaker of human nature.
With Paul, the law is chiefly a law of ordinances to be replaced by the gospel. It is abolished in Christ. It cannot be perfectly observed. It generates the knowledge of sin. It cannot generate righteousness. Christianity is a manifesta- tion of the righteousness of God apart from the law. Faith is counted for righteousness to him that worketh not but be- lieveth. The law works wrath, and is unto death. It is sub- sidiary, with a special view to the concrete development of sin.
Equally our epistle shows the insufficiency of the law to reconcile men to God, but in a different way. Paul emphas- ises the substitution of the gospel for the law: Hebrews the germ of a saving economy contained in the law, and the necessity of its development by the gospel. Paul does not overlook the fact that the law was our pedagogue to bring us to Christ, but he does not show how, as our writer does. The latter emphasises the unity of the divine plan, shows how the Levitical institutions pointed forward to Christ, and how the heavenly archetype was foreshadowed in the ritual system. With all Paul’s strong assertion of the holiness of the law, he never dwells on it with the sad tenderness for the vanishing system which marks the Epistle to the Hebrews. With Paul the break with the law was sharp and complete. The law, as a champion of which he had been a persecutor of Christ, is thrown into sharp relief against Christ and the gospel. With James and Peter the case was different. It would not be strange if some writing should issue from their circle as “the last voice of the apostles of the circumcision,” contem-