Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews

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Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, by

Handley C.G. Moule This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews
Author: Handley C.G. Moule
Release Date: August 4, 2007 [EBook #22237]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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{Transcriber's Note: Obvious typographical errors, printing errors and mis-spellings have been corrected. Any other inconsistencies remain as they are in the original. Footnotes have been placed at the end of the paragraph in which they appear.}

MESSAGES FROM THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

MESSAGES FROM
THE EPISTLE TO
THE HEBREWS
By HANDLEY C.G. MOULE, D.D. BISHOP OF DURHAM

LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1909
THE BIBLE IS THE SKY IN WHICH GOD HAS SET CHRIST THE SUN.
JOHN KER, D.D.
First Edition May 1909 Second Impression July 1909

PREFACE
The following chapters are the work of intervals of leisure scattered over a long time. The exposition had advanced some way when an unexpected call to new and exacting duties compelled me to put it aside for several years. Accordingly a certain difference of treatment in the later chapters as compared with the earlier will probably be seen by the reader, particularly a rather fuller detail in the exposition. But purpose and plan are essentially the same throughout.
No attempt whatever is made, here or in the course of the work, to deal with those literary and historical problems which so conspicuously attach themselves to this Epistle. Who the "Hebrews" were is nowhere discussed. Nor is any positive answer offered to a question to which assuredly no such answer can be given, the question, namely, of the authorship. In my opinion, in face of all that I have read to the contrary, it still seems at least possible that the ultimate human author was St. Paul. All, or very nearly all, the objections to his name which the phenomena of the Epistle prima facie present, and some of which lie unquestionably deep, seem to be capable of a provisional answer if we assume, what is so conceivable, that the Apostle committed his message and its argument, on purpose, to a colleague so gifted, mentally and by the Spirit, that he might be trusted to cast the work into his own style. The well-known remark of Origen that only God knows who "wrote" the Epistle appears to me to point (if we look at its context) this way. Origen surely means by the "writer" what is meant in Rom. xvi. 22. Only, on the hypothesis, the amanuensis of our Epistle was, for a special purpose presumably, a Christian prophet in his own right.
In any case the author, if not an apostle, was a prophet. And he carries to us a prophet's "burthen" of unspeakable import, and in words to which all through the Christian ages the soul has responded as to the words of the Holy Spirit.
HANDLEY DUNELM.
Easter, 1909.

CONTENTS
I PAGE
CONSIDER HIM 1 Heb. i.-ii.
II
A HEART OF FAITH 8 Heb. iii.
III
UNTO PERFECTION 14 Heb. iv.-vi.
IV
OUR GREAT MELCHIZEDEK 23 Heb. vii.
V
THE BETTER COVENANT 32 Heb. viii.
VI
SANCTUARY AND SACRIFICE 42 Heb. ix. VII
FULL, PERFECT, AND SUFFICIENT 51 Heb. x.
VIII
FAITH AND ITS POWER 61 Heb. xi. (I.).
IX
FAITH AND ITS ANNALS 71 Heb. xi. (II.).
X
FOLLOWERS OF THEM 80 Heb. xii. 1-14.
XI
SINAI AND SION 90 Heb. xii. 14-28.
XII
APPEALS AND INSTRUCTIONS 100 Heb. xiii. 1-14.
XIII
LAST WORDS 110 Heb. xiii. 15-25.

MESSAGES
FROM THE
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
CHAPTER I
CONSIDER HIM
HEB. i.-ii.
Let us open the Epistle to the Hebrews, with an aim simple and altogether practical for heart and for life. Let us take it just as it stands, and somewhat as a whole. We will not discuss its authorship, interesting and extensive as that problem is. We will not attempt, within the compass of a few short chapters, to expound continuously its wonderful text. Rather, we will gather up from it some of its large and conspicuous spiritual messages, taken as messages of the Word of God "which liveth and abideth for ever."
No part of Holy Scripture is ever really out of date. But it is true meanwhile that, as for persons so for periods, there are Scripture books and Scripture truths which are more than ordinarily timely. It is not that others are therefore untimely, nor that only one class of book or one aspect of truth can be eminently timely at one time. But it seems evident that the foreseeing Architect of the Bible has so adjusted the parts of His wonderful vehicle of revelation and blessing that special fitnesses continually emerge between our varying times and seasons on the one hand and the