Produced by Marcia Brooks, Colin Bell, Nigel Blower and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
Libraries)
[Transcriber's Note:
This e-text is intended for users whose text readers cannot display
the Unicode (utf-8) version of the file. Greek words have been
transliterated and enclosed in equals signs, e.g. =ho logos=.
_Italic_ and *bold* words have been similarly enclosed in
underscores and asterisks respectively.
A few minor typographical errors and incorrect verse numbers have been
silently corrected.
The Table of Contents and Index refer to page numbers in the original
text.
All advertising material has been placed at the end of the text.]
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor," etc._
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
BY
THOMAS CHARLES EDWARDS, D.D.
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMIV
THE
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
BY
THOMAS CHARLES EDWARDS, D.D.
PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH
_NINTH EDITION_
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMIV
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
PREFACE.
In this volume the sole aim of the writer has been to trace the unity of
thought in one of the greatest and most difficult books of the New
Testament. He has endeavoured to picture his reader as a member of what
is known in the Sunday-schools of Wales as "the teachers' class," a
thoughtful Christian layman, who has no Greek, and desires only to be
assisted in his efforts to come at the real bearing and force of words
and to understand the connection of the sacred author's ideas. It may
not be unnecessary to add that this design by no means implies less
labour or thought on the part of the writer. But it does imply that the
labour is veiled. Criticism is rigidly excluded.
The writer has purposely refrained from discussing the question of the
authorship of the Epistle, simply because he has no new light to throw
on this standing enigma of the Church. He is convinced that St. Paul is
neither the actual author nor the originator of the treatise.
In case theological students may wish to consult the volume when they
study the Epistle to the Hebrews, they will find the Greek given at the
foot of the page, to serve as a catch-word, whenever any point of
criticism or of interpretation seems to the writer to deserve their
attention.
T. C. E.
ABERYSTWYTH, _April 12th, 1888_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE REVELATION IN A SON 3
CHAPTER II.
THE SON AND THE ANGELS 21
CHAPTER III.
FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS 51
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST 69
CHAPTER V.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL 83
CHAPTER VI.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE 99
CHAPTER VII.
THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK 113
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NEW COVENANT 133
CHAPTER IX.
AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION 183
CHAPTER X.
FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF 199
CHAPTER XI.
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM 213
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAITH OF MOSES 233
CHAPTER XIII.
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 259
CHAPTER XIV.
CONFLICT 273
CHAPTER XV.
MOUNT ZION 293
CHAPTER XVI.
SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS 315
INDEX 331
SUMMARY.
I. THE REVELATION IN A SON: i. 1-3.
1. The previous revelation was in portions; this is a Son, Who is the
Heir and the Creator.
2. The previous revelation was in divers manners; this in a Son, Who is
(1) the effulgence of God's glory; (2) the image of His substance; (3)
the Sustainer of all things; (4) the eternal Priest-King.
II. THE SON AND THE ANGELS: i. 4-ii. 18.
1. The Revealer of God Son of God: i. 4-ii. 4.
2. The Son the Representative of man: ii. 5-18. (1) He is crowned with
glory as Son, that His propitiation may prove effectual, and His
humiliation involves a propitiatory death. (2) His glory consists in
being Leader of His people, and His humiliation fitted Him for
leadership. (3) His glory consists in power to consecrate men to God,
and His humiliation endowed Him with this power. (4) His glory consists
in the destruction of Satan, and Satan is destroyed through the Son's
humiliation.
III. FUNDAMENTAL ONENESS OF THE DISPENSATIONS: iii. i-iv. 13.
1. Moses and Christ are equally God's stewards.
2. The threatenings of God under the Old Testament are in force in
reference to apostasy from Christ.
3. The promises of God are still in force.
IV. THE GREAT HIGH-PRIEST: iv. 4-v. 10.
1. His sympathy.
2. His authority.
V. (A DIGRESSION) THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RENEWAL IN THE CASE OF SCOFFERS:
v. 11-vi. 8.
Their renewal is impossible (1) because the doctrine of Christianity is
practical, and (2) because God's punishment of cynicism is the
destruction of the spiritual faculty.
VI. (CONTINUATION OF THE DIGRESSION.) THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FAILURE: vi.
9-20.
VII. THE ALLEGORY OF MELCHIZEDEK: vii. 1-28.
1. Melchizedek foreshadows the kingship of Christ.
2. Melchizedek foreshadows the personal greatness of Christ.
3. The allegory teaches the existence of a priesthood other than that of
Aaron, viz., the priesthood founded on an oath.
4. The allegory sets forth the eternal duration of Christ's priesthood.
VIII. THE NEW COVENANT: viii. 1.
1. A new covenant promised through Jeremiah: viii. 1-13. The new
covenant would excel (1) in respect of the moral law; (2) in respect of
knowledge of God; (3) in respect of forgiveness of sins.
2. A new covenant symbolized in the tabernacle: ix. 1-14.
3. A new covenant ratified in the death of Christ: ix. 15-x. 18.
IX. AN ADVANCE IN THE EXHORTATION: x. 19-39.
X. FAITH AN ASSURANCE AND A PROOF: xi. 1-3.
XI. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM: xi. 8-19.
1. His faith compared with the faith of Noah.
2. His faith compared with the faith of Enoch.
3. His faith compared with the faith of Abel.
XII. THE FAITH OF MOSES: xi. 23-28.
1. Faith groping for the work of life.
2. Faith chooses the work of life.
3. Faith a discipline for the work of life.
4. Faith renders the man's life and work sacramental.
XIII. A CLOUD OF WITNESSES: xi. 20-xii. 1.
XIV. CONFLICT: xii. 2-17. Faith as a hope of the future endures the
present conflict against men.
1. The preparatory training for the conflict consists in putting away
(1) our own grossness; (2) the sin that besets us.
2. The contest is successfully maintained if we look unto Jesus (1) as
Leader and Perfecter of our faith; (2) as an example of faith.
3. The contest is necessary as a discipline in dealing with (1) the
weaker brethren, (2) the enemy at the gate, and (3) the secular spirit.
XV. MOUNT ZION: xii. 18-29. The revelation on Sinai preceded the
sacrifices of the tabernacle; the revelation on Zion follows the
sacrifice of the Cross. Hence--
1. Sinai revealed the terrible side of God's character, Zion the
peaceful tenderness of His love.
2. The revelation on Sinai was earthly; that on Zion is spiritual.
XVI. SUNDRY EXHORTATIONS: xiii. 1-25.
CHAPTER I.
_THE REVELATION IN A SON._
"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by
divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in His Son, Whom He appointed Heir of all things,
through Whom also He made the worlds; Who being the effulgence of
His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all
things by the word of His power, when He had made purification of
sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."--HEB. i.
1-3 (R.V.).
"God hath spoken." The eternal silence has been broken. We have a
revelation. That God has spoken unto men is the ground of all religion.
Theologians often distinguish between natural religion and revealed. We
may fairly question if all worship is not based on some revelation of
God. Prayer is the echo in man's spirit of God's own voice. Men learn to
speak to the Father Who is in heaven as children come to utter words: by
hearing their parent speak. It is the deaf who are also dumb. God speaks
first, and prayer answers as well as asks. Men reveal themselves to the
God Who has revealed Himself to them.
The Apostle is, however, silent about the revelations of God in nature
and in conscience. He passes them by because we, sinful men, have lost
the key to the language of creation and of our own moral nature. We know
that He speaks through them, but we do not know what He says. If we were
holy, it would be otherwise. All nature would be vocal, "like some
sweet beguiling melody." But to us the universe is a hieroglyphic which
we cannot decipher, until we discover in another revelation the key that
will make all plain.
More strange than this is the Apostle's omission to speak of the Mosaic
dispensation as a revelation of God. We should have expected the verse
to run on this wise: "God, having spoken unto the fathers in the
sacrifices and in the prophets, institutions, and inspired words," etc.
But the author says nothing about rites, institutions, dispensations,
and laws. The reason apparently is that he wishes to compare with the
revelation in Christ the highest, purest, and fullest revelation given
before; and the most complete revelation vouchsafed to men, before the
Son came to declare the Father, is to be found, not in sacrifices, but
in the words of promise, not in the institutions, but in holy men, who
were sent, time after time, to quicken the institutions into new life or
to preach new truths. The prophets were seers and poets. Nature's
highest gift is imagination, whether it "makes" a world that transcends
nature or "sees" what in nature is hidden from the eyes of ordinary men.
This faculty of the true poet, elevated, purified, taken possession of
by God's Holy Spirit, became the best instrument of revelation, until
the word of prophecy was made more sure through the still better gift of
the Son.
But it would appear from the Apostle's language that even the lamp of
prophecy, shining in a dark place, was in two respects defective. "God
spake in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners." He
spake in divers portions; that is, the revelation was broken, as the
light was scattered before it was gathered into one source. Again, He
spake in divers manners. Not only the revelation was fragmentary, but
the separate portions were not of the same kind. The two defects were
that the revelation lacked unity and was not homogeneous.
In contrast to the fragmentary character of the revelation, the Apostle
speaks of the Son, in the second verse, as the centre of unity. He is
the Heir and the Creator of all things. With the heterogeneous
revelation in the prophets he contrasts, in the third verse, the
revelation that takes its form from the peculiar nature of Christ's
Sonship. He is the effulgence of God's glory, the very image of His
substance; He upholds all things by the word of His power; and, having
made purification of sins, He took His seat on the right hand of the
Majesty on high.
Let us examine a little more closely the double comparison made by the
Apostle between the revelation given to the fathers and that which we
have received.
_First_, the previous revelation was in portions. The Old Testament has
no centre, from which all its wonderful and varied lights radiate, till
we find its unity in the New Testament and read Jesus Christ into it.
God scattered the revelations over many centuries, line upon line,
precept after precept, here a little and there a little. He spread the
knowledge of Himself over the ages of a nation's history, and made the
development of one people the medium whereby to communicate truth. This
of itself, if nothing more had been told us, is a magnificent
conception. A nation's early struggles, bitter failures, ultimate
triumph, the appearance within it of warriors, prophets, poets, saints,
used by the Spirit of God to reveal the invisible! Sometimes revelation
would make but one advance in an age. We might almost imagine that God's
truth from the lips of His prophets was found at times too overpowering.
It was crushing frail humanity. The Revealer must withdraw into silence
behind the thick veil, to give human nature time to breathe and recover
self-possession. The occasional message of prophecy resembles the
suddenness of Elijah's appearances and departures, and forms a strange
contrast to the ceaseless stream of preaching in the Christian Church.
Still more strikingly does it contrast with the New Testament, the
greater book, yea the greatest of all books. Only two classes of men
deny its supremacy. They are those who do not know what real greatness
is, and those who disparage it as a literature that they may be the
better able to seduce foolish and shallow youths to reject it as a
revelation. But honest and profound thinkers, even when they do not
admit that it is the word of God, acknowledge it to be the greatest
among the books of men.
Yet the New Testament was all produced--if we are forbidden to say
"given"--in one age, not fifteen centuries. Neither was this one of the
great ages of history, when genius seems to be almost contagious. Even
Greece had at this time no original thinkers. Its two centuries of
intellectual supremacy had passed away. It was the age of literary
imitations and counterfeits. Yet it is in this age that the book which
has most profoundly influenced the thought of all subsequent times made
its appearance. How shall we account for the fact? The explanation is
not that its writers were great men. However insignificant the writers,
the mysterious greatness of the book pervades it all, and their lips are
touched as with a live coal from the altar. Nothing will account for the
New Testament but the other fact that Jesus of Nazareth had appeared
among men, and that He was so great, so universal, so human, so Divine,
that He contained in His own person all the truth that will ever be
discovered in the book. Deny the incarnation of the Son of God, and you
make the New Testament an insoluble enigma. Admit that Jesus is the
Word, and that the Word is God, and the book becomes nothing more,
nothing less, than the natural and befitting outcome of what He said and
did and suffered. The mystery of the book is lost in the greater mystery
of His person.
Here the second verse comes in, to tell us of this great Person, and how
He unites in Himself the whole of God's revelation. He is appointed Heir
of all things, and through Him God made the ages. He is the Alpha and
the Omega, the first and the last, He which is, and which was, and which
is to come,--the spring from which all the streams of time have risen
and the sea into which they flow. But these are the two sides of all
real knowledge; and revelation is nothing else than knowledge given by
God. All the infinite variety of questions with which men interrogate
nature may be reduced to two: Whence? and whither? As to the latter
question, the investigation has not been in vain. We do know that,
whatever the end will be, the whole universe rises from lower to higher
forms. If one life perishes, it reappears in a higher life. It is the
ultimate purpose of all which still remains unknown. But the Apostles
declare that this interrogation is answered in Jesus Christ. Only that
they speak, not of "ultimate purpose," but of "the appointed Heir." He
is more than the goal of a development. He is the Son of the living God,
and therefore the Heir of all the works and purposes of His Father. He
holds His position by right of sonship, and has it confirmed to Him as
the reward of filial service.
The word "Heir" is an allusion to the promise made to Abraham. The
reference, therefore, is not to the eternal relation between the Son and
God, not to any lordship which the Son acquires apart from His
assumption of humanity and atoning death. The idea conveyed by the word
"Heir" will come again to the surface, more than once, in the Epistle.
But everywhere the reference is to the Son's final glory as Redeemer. At
the same time, the act of appointing Him Heir may have taken place
before the world was. We must, accordingly, understand the revelation
here spoken of to mean more especially the manifestation of God in the
work of redemption. Of this work also Christ is the ultimate purpose. He
is the Heir, to Whom the promised inheritance originally and ultimately
belongs. It is this that befits Him to become the full and complete
Revealer of God. He is the answer to the question, Whither? in reference
to the entire range of redemptive thought and action.
Again, He, too, is the Creator. Many seek to discover the origin of all
things by analysis. They trace the more complex to the less complex, the
compound to its elements, and the higher developments of life to lower
types. But to the theologian the real difficulty does not lie here.
What matter _whence_, if we are still the same? We know what we are. We
_are_ men. We are capable of thinking, of sinning, of hating or loving
God. The problem is to account for these facts of our spirit. What is
the evolution of holiness? Whence came prayer, repentance, and faith?
But even these questions Christianity professes to answer. It answers
them by solving still harder problems than these. Do we ask who created
the human spirit? The Gospel tells us who can sanctify man's inmost
being. Do we seek to know who made conscience? The New Testament
proclaims One Who can purify conscience and forgive the sin. To create
is but a small matter to Him Who can save. Jesus Christ is that Saviour.
He, therefore, is that Creator. In being these things, He is the
complete and final revelation of God.
_Second_, previous revelations were given in divers manners. God used
many different means to reveal Himself, as if He found them one after
another inadequate. And how can a visible, material creation
sufficiently reveal the spiritual? How can institutions and systems
reveal the personal, living God? How can human language even express
spiritual ideas? Sometimes the means adopted appear utterly incongruous.
Will the great Spirit, the holy and good God, speak to a prophet in the
dreams of night? Shall we say that the man of God sees real visions
when he dreams an unreal dream? Or will an apparition of the day more
befittingly reveal God? Has every substance been possessed by the spirit
of falsehood, so that the Being of beings can only reveal His presence
in unsubstantial phantoms? Has the waking life of intellect become so
entirely false to its glorious mission of discovering truth that the God
of truth cannot reveal Himself to man, except in dreams and spectres?
Yet there was a time when it might be well for us to recall our dreams,
and wise to believe in spiritualism. For a dream might bring a real
message from God, and ecstasy might be the birth-throes of a new
revelation. Some of the good words of Scripture were at first a dream.
In the midst of the confused fancies of the brain, when reason is for a
time dethroned, a truth descends from heaven upon the prophet's spirit.
This has been, but will never again take place. The oracles are dumb,
and we shall not regret them. We consult no interpreter of dreams. We
seek not the seances of necromancers. Let the peaceful spirits of the
dead rest in God! They had their trials and sorrows on earth. Rest,
hallowed souls! We do not ask you to break the deep silence of heaven.
For God has spoken unto us in a Son, Who has been made higher than the
heavens, and is as great as God. Even the Son need not, must not, come
to earth a second time to reveal the Father in mighty deeds and a
mightier self-sacrifice. The revelation given is enough. "We will not
say in our hearts, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring
Christ down:) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring
Christ up from the dead.) The word is nigh us, in our mouth, and in our
heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach."[1]
The final form of God's revelation of Himself is, therefore, perfectly
homogeneous. The third verse explains that it is a revelation, not only
in a Son, but in His Sonship. We learn what kind of Sonship is His, and
how its glorious attributes qualify Him to be the perfect Revealer of
God. Nevermore will a message be sent to men except in Jesus Christ.
God, Who spake unto the fathers in divers manners, speaks to us in Him,
Whose Sonship constitutes Him the effulgence of God's glory, the image
of His substance, the Upholder of the universe, and, lastly, the eternal
Redeemer and King.
1. He is the effulgence of God's glory. Many expositors prefer another
rendering: "the reflection of His glory." This would mean that God's
self-manifestation, shining on an external substance, is reflected, as
from a mirror, and that this reflection is the Son of God. But such an
expression does not convey a consistent idea. For the Son must be the
substance from which the light is reflected. What truth there is in this
rendering is more correctly expressed in the next clause: "the image of
His substance." It is, therefore, much better to accept the rendering
adopted in the Revised Version: "the effulgence of His glory." God's
glory is the self-manifestation of His attributes, or, in other words,
the consciousness which God has of His own infinite perfections. This
implies the triune personality of God. But it does not imply a
revelation of God to His creatures. The Son participates in that
consciousness of the Divine perfections. But He also reveals God to men,
not merely in deeds and in words, but in His person. He _is_ the
revelation. To declare this seems to be the Apostle's purpose in using
the word "effulgence." It expresses "the essentially ministrative
character of the person of the Son."[2] If a revelation will be given at
all, His Sonship points Him out as the Interpreter of God's nature and
purposes, inasmuch as He is essentially, because He is Son, the
emanation or radiance of His glory.
2. He is the image of His substance. A solar ray reveals the light, but
not completely, unless indeed it guides the eye back along its pencilled
line to the orb of day. If the Son of God were only an effulgence,
Christ could still say that He Himself is the way to the Father, but He
could not add, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."[3] That the
revelation may be complete, the Son must be, in one sense, distinct from
God, as well as one with Him. Apparently this is the notion conveyed in
the metaphor of the "image." Both truths are stated together in the
words of Christ: "As the Father hath life in Himself, so _hath He given_
to the Son to have life _in Himself_."[4] If the Son is more than an
effulgence, if He is "the very image" of God's essence, nothing in God
will remain unrevealed. Every feature of His moral nature will be
delineated in the Son. If the Son is the exact likeness of God and has a
distinct mode of subsisting He is capable of all the modifications in
His form of subsisting which may be necessary, in order to make a
complete revelation of God intelligible to men. It is possible for Him
to become man Himself. He is capable of obedience, even of learning
obedience by suffering, and of acquiring power to succour by being
tempted. He can taste death. We might add, if we were studying one of
St. Paul's Epistles (which we are not at present doing), that this
distinction from God, involved in His very Sonship, made Him capable of
emptying Himself of the Divine form of subsisting and taking upon Him
instead of it the form of a servant. This power of meeting man's actual
condition confers upon the Son the prerogative of being the complete and
final revelation of God.
3. He upholds all things by the word of His power. This must be closely
connected with the previous statement. If the Son is the effulgence of
God's glory and the express image of His essence, He is not a creature,
but is the Creator. The Son is so from God that He is God. He so
emanates from Him that He is a perfect and complete representation of
His being. He is not in such a manner an effulgence as to be only a
manifestation of God, nor in such a manner an image as to be a creature
of God. But, in fellowship of nature, the essence of God is communicated
to the Son in the distinctness of His mode of subsisting. The Apostle's
words fully justify--perhaps they suggested--the expressions in the
Nicene and still earlier creeds, "God _of_ God, Light _of_ Light, very
God _of_ very God." If this is His relation to God, it determines His
relation to the universe, and the relation of the universe to God. Philo
had described the Word as an effulgence, and spoken also of Him as
distinct from God. But in Philo these two statements are inconsistent.
For the former means that the Word is an attribute of God, and the
latter means that He is a creature. The writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews says that the Word is not an attribute, but a perfect
representation of God's essence. He says also that He is not a creature,
but the Sustainer of all things. These statements are consistent. The
one, in fact, implies the other; and both together express the same
conception which we find in St. John's Gospel: "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were
made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been
made."[5] It is also the teaching of St. Paul: "In Him were all things
created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things
invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
all things have been created through Him, and unto Him; and in Him all
things consist."[6]
But the Apostle has a further motive in referring to the Son as Upholder
of all things. As Creator and Sustainer He reveals God. He upholds all
things _by the word of His power_. "The invisible things of God are
perceived through the things which are made, even His everlasting power
and Divinity."[7] There is a revelation of God prior even to that given
in the prophets.
4. Having made purification of sins, He took His seat on the right hand
of the Majesty on high. We come now, at last, to the special revelation
of God which forms the subject of the Epistle. The Apostle here states
his central truth on its two sides. The one side is Christ's priestly
offering; the other is His kingly exaltation. We shall see as we proceed
that the entire structure of the Epistle rests on this great
conception,--the Son of God, the eternal Priest-King. By introducing it
at this early stage, the author gives his readers the clue to what will
very soon prove a labyrinth. We must hold the thread firmly, if we wish
not to be lost in the maze. The subject of the treatise is here given
us. It is "The Son as Priest-King the Revealer of God." The revelation
is not in words only, nor in external acts only, but in love, in
redemption, in opening heaven to all believers. It is well termed a
revelation. For the Priest-King has rent the thick veil and opened the
way to men to enter into the true holiest place, so that they know God
by prayer and communion.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rom. x. 6-8.
[2] Newman, _Arians_, p. 182 (ed. 1833).
[3] John xiv. 6, 9.
[4] John v. 26.
[5] John i. 1, 3.
[6] Col. i. 16, 17.
[7] Rom. i. 20.