Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews | Page 6

cities of giants seem to frown upon us even on the other side? Shall we not dare thither to follow HIM out of the desert of our "own works"?
Much, says the Epistle (v. 11, etc.), is to be said about Him; the theme is deep, it is inexhaustible, for He is God and Man, one Christ. And the Hebrew believers (and is it not the same with us?) are not quick to learn the great lesson of His glory, and so to grow into the adult manhood of grace. But let us try; let us address ourselves to "bear onwards ([Greek: pher?metha]) to perfection" (vi. 1), in our thought, our faith, and so in our experience. The great foundation factors must be for ever there, the initial acts or attitudes of repentance, and of "faith towards God"; the abandonment of the service of sin, including the bondage of a would-be salvation of self by self, and the simple turning God-ward of a soul which has come to despair of its own resources--truths symbolized and sealed by the primal rites of baptism and blessing (vi. 2); and then the great revealed facts in prospect, resurrection and judgment, must be always remembered and reckoned with. These however must be "left" (vi. 1), not in oblivion but in progress, just as a building "leaves" the level of its always necessary foundation. We must "bear onwards" and upwards, into the upper air of the fulness of the truth of the glory of our Christ. We must seek "perfection," the profound maturity of the Christian, by a maturer and yet maturer insight into Him. Awful is the spiritual risk of any other course. The soul content to stand still is in peril of a tremendous fall. To know about salvation at all, and not to seek to develope the knowledge towards "perfection," is to expose one's self to the terrible possibility of the fate reserved for those who have much light but no love (vi. 4-9).[C] But this, by the grace of God, shall not be for the readers of the Epistle. They have shewn living proofs of love already, practical and precious, for the blessed Name's sake (vi. 10). Only, let them remember the spiritual law--the necessity of growth, of progress, of "bearing onwards to perfection"; the tremendous risks of a subtle stagnation; the looking back; the pillar of salt.
[C] I make no attempt here to expound in detail the formidable words of vi. 4-8. But I believe that their purport is fairly described in the sentence above in the text. Their true scriptural illustrations are to be sought in a Balaam and a Judas.
In order that full blessing may thus be theirs, let them look for it in the only possible direction. Let them take again to their souls the mighty promise of eternal benediction (vi. 14), sealed and crowned with the Promiser's gracious oath in His own Name, binding Himself to fidelity under the bond of His own majesty (vi. 13). Aye, and then let them again "consider" Him in whom promise and oath are embodied and vivified for ever; in whom rests--nay, in whom consists--our anchor of an eternal hope (vi. 19); Jesus, our Man of men, our High Priest of the everlasting order, now entered "within the veil," into the place of the covenant and the glory, and "as Forerunner on our behalf" (vi. 20). To follow Him in there, in the "consideration" of faith and of worshipping love--this is the secret, to the end, for "bearing onwards to perfection."
Our review of the passage is thus in some sort over. Confessedly it is an outline; but I do not think that any vital element in the matter has been overlooked. Much of the message we are seeking has been inevitably given us by the way; we may be content now to gather up and summarize the main result.
The "Hebrews," then, and their special circumstances of difficulty, are here in view, as everywhere else in the Epistle. Tempted to "fall away," to give up the "hope set before them," to relapse to legalism, to bondage, to the desert, to a famine of the soul, to barrenness and death--here they are dealt with, in order to the more than prevention of the evil. And here, as ever, the remedy propounded is our Lord Jesus Christ, in His personal glory, in His majestic offices, in His unfathomable human sympathy, seen in perfect harmony of light with His eternal greatness.
The remedy is Christ; a deeper, fuller, always maturing sight of Christ. The urgent necessity is first promptitude and then progress in respect of knowing Him.
At the risk of a charge of iteration and monotony, I reaffirm that here is the great antidote for the many kindred difficulties of our troubled time. From how many