Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews | Page 4

contemplation. It is here just as it is in the Epistle to the
Colossians. There, as here, errors and confusions in the Church are in
view--a subtle theosophy and also a retrograde ceremonialism,
probably both amalgamating into one dangerous total. And St. Paul's
method of defence for his converts there--what is it? Above all, it is the
presentation of Jesus Christ, in the glories of His Person and His Work.
He places HIM in the very front of thought, first as the Head, Founder,
and Corner-stone of the Universe; then as the Head, Redeemer, and
Life of the Church. With HIM so seen he meets the dreamy thinker and
the ceremonial devotee; Christ is the ultimate and only repose, alike for
thought and for the soul.
In this Epistle as in that we have the same phenomenon, deeply
suggestive and seasonable for our life to-day. In both cases, not only
for individuals but for the Church, there was mental and spiritual
trouble. Alike in Phrygian Colossæ and wherever the "Hebrews" lived

there was an invasion of church difficulties and confusion. A certain
affinity in detail links the two cases together. Colossian Christians and
Hebrew Christians, under widely different circumstances, and no doubt
in very different tones, persuasive in one case, threatening in the other,
were pressed to retrograde from the sublime simplicity and fulness of
the truth. Their danger was what I may venture to call a certain
medievalism. Not Mosaism, not Prophetism, but Judaism, the successor
and distortion of the ancient revelations, invited or commanded their
adhesion, or, in the case of the "Hebrews," their return, as to the one
true faith and fold. There were great differences in detail. At Colossæ it
does not seem that the "medievalists" professed to deny Christianity;
rather they professed to teach the Judaistic version of it as the authentic
type. Among the "Hebrews" anti-Christianity was using every effort to
allure or to alarm the disciples back to open Rabbinism, "doing despite
to the Son of God." But both streams of tendency went in the same
general direction so far that they put into the utmost prominence
aspects of religion full of a traditional ceremonialism, and of the idea of
human meritorious achievement rather than of a spiritual reliance for
the salvation of the soul.
Deeply significant it is that in both cases we have the danger met
thus--by the presentation of the Incarnate Redeemer Himself, in His
personal and official glory, to the most immediate possible view of
every disciple, "nothing between." The Epistles, both of them, have
much to say on deep general principles. But all this they say in vital
connexion with Jesus Christ; and about Him they say most of all. He is
the supreme Antidote. He, "considered," considered fully, is not so
much the clue out of the labyrinth as the great point of view from
which the mind and the soul can look down upon it and see how
tortuous, and also how limited, it is.
But the message of our chapter has not yet been fully heard. It has
spoken to us of Christ Jesus, and of the "consideration" of Him to
which we are called. At its close it speaks to us of faith: "Take heed,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from
the living God" (ver. 12). "To whom sware He that they should not
enter into His rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they

could not enter in because of unbelief" (verses 18, 19).
That is to say, our "consideration" of Jesus Christ must not be all our
action towards Him, if we would be sure, and safe, and strong. It must
be but the preliminary to a "heart of faith." That is to say again, we
must personally and practically take Him at His word, and rely upon
Him, committing our souls and our all to Him, to Him directly, to Him
solely. We must, in the exercise of this reliance, use Him evermore as
our Prophet, Priest, and King. We must venture upon His promises, just
as Israel ought to have ventured upon the promises of Him who had
redeemed them, although He tried their will and power to do so by the
terrors of the wilderness and by the giants of Canaan.
Thus to rely is faith; for faith is personal confidence in the Lord in His
promise. And such faith is not only, as it is, the empty hand which
receives Divine blessings in detail. It is the empty arms which clasp
always that comprehensive blessing, the presence of "the living God" in
Christ, so making sure of a secret of peace, of rest, of decision, of
strength, of deep-sighted and tranquil thought upon "things which
differ," which