Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews | Page 7

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 sides comes the strain! Sometimes from that of an
open naturalism; sometimes from that of a partial yet far-reaching
"naturalism under a veil" which some recent teachings on "The Being
of Christianity" may exemplify, with principles and presuppositions
which largely underlie the extremer forms, certainly, of the modern
critique of Scripture; sometimes from the opposite quarter of an
ecclesiasticism which more or less exaggerates or distorts the great
ideas of corporate life and sacramental operation. It would be idle to
ignore the subtle nuances of difference between mind and mind, and

the resultant varying incidence in detail of great and many-sided truths.
But is it not fair and true to say that, on the whole, the supreme
personal glory of Christ, as presented direct to the human soul in its
august and ineffable loveliness, in its infinite lovableness, is what alike
the naturalistic and the ultra-ecclesiastic theories of religion tend to
becloud? On the other side, accordingly, it is in the "consideration" of
that glory, in acquaintance with that wonderful Christ, that we shall
find the glow which can melt and overcome the cloud. We must put
ourselves continually in face of the revelation of this in the Word of
God. We must let that revelation so sink into the heart as to do its
self-verifying work there thoroughly, yet with a growth never to be
exhausted. We must "bear onwards" evermore "unto perfection"--in
"knowing Him." So we shall stand, and live, and love, and labour on.
CHAPTER IV
OUR GREAT MELCHIZEDEK
HEB. vii.
There is a symmetrical dignity all its own in the seventh chapter of the
Hebrews. I recollect listening, now many years ago, to a characteristic
exposition of it by the late beloved and venerated Edward Hoare, in a
well-known drawing-room at Cromer--a "Bible Reading" full alike of
mental stimulus and spiritual force. He remarked, among many other
things, that the chapter might be described as a sermon, divided under
three headings, on the text of Psalm cx. 4. This division and its
significance he proceeded to develope. The chapter opens with a
preamble, a statement of the unique phenomena which surround, in the
narrative of Genesis, the name and person of Melchizedek. Then,
starting from the presupposition, to whose truth the Lord Himself is so
abundantly a witness, that the Old Testament is alive everywhere with
intimations of the Christ, and remembering that in the Psalm in
question a mysterious import is explicitly assigned to Melchizedek, the
Writer proceeds to his discourse. Its theme is the primacy of the
priesthood embodied in Melchizedek over that represented by Aaron,
and the bearing of this on the glory of Him who is proclaimed a priest

for ever after Melchizedek's order. This theme is presented under
headings, somewhat as follows. First (verses 4-14), the one priesthood
is greater than the other in order. Abraham, bearing the whole Aaronic
hierarchy potentially within him, defers to Melchizedek as to his
greater. Hence, among other inferences, the sacred Personage who is a
priest for ever after Melchizedek's order, wholly independent of
Levitical limits, must dominate and must supersede the order of the
sons of Aaron with their inferior status and with their transitory lives.
Secondly (verses 15-19), the one priesthood is greater than the other in
respect of the finality, the permanence, the everlastingness, of the
greater Priest and of His office. He is what He is "for ever, on the scale
of the power of indissoluble life."[D] As such, He is the Priest not of an
introductory and transient "commandment" but of that "better hope"
which (ver. 19) has at last "made perfect" the purpose and the promise,
fulfilled the intention of eternal mercy, and brought us, the people of
this great covenant, absolutely nigh to God. Thirdly (verses 20, 21), this
second aspect of the supremacy of the greater Priesthood is emphasized
and solemnized by one further reference to Psalm cx. 4. There the
Eternal, looking upon the mysterious Partner of His throne, is heard not
to promise only but to vow, with an oath unalterable as Himself, that
the Priesthood of "His Fellow" shall be everlasting. No such solemnity
of affirmation attended Aaron's investiture. There is something greater
here, and more immediately Divine. The "covenant" (ver. 22)
committed to the administration of