APPEALS AND INSTRUCTIONS
HEB. xiii. 1-14
The last chapter of the Epistle has a character quite of its own. Unlike
many of those often arbitrary divisions of the New Testament books which
we know as chapters, it is a naturally separate section. The long and
sustained arguments are over. The Writer's thoughts, gravitating to a
close, and occupied naturally as they do so with the personal conditions
of his Hebrew brethren, attach themselves now to one now to another side
of their duties, their difficulties, their more particular and detailed
needs, practical and spiritual. As he touches upon these, sentence by
sentence, we often see at a glance the probable occasion of the words,
but often again we are left in the dark about it. Who shall say
precisely why he insists (ver. 2) upon the exercise of hospitality? or
who were "the prisoners" (ver. 3) whom he bids them remember? Who shall
tell what in this particular community was the occasion for a solemn
emphasis (ver. 4) upon the holiness of marriage, or why again, just for
them, it was well to speak in warning (ver. 5) about the love of money
and the temptation to discontent? Nor can we be certain who were those
departed "leaders," "guides," of ver. 7, whose "faith" the disciples
were to "imitate," whose blessed "exit from their walk of life" they
were to "contemplate."
All we can say of these opening topics of the chapter is that, whatever
the occasions were, the words occasioned are for us inestimably
precious. Dear to the heart of the believing Church for ages have been
these precepts to love the brethren ([Greek: philadelphia]), to love the
stranger ([Greek: philoxenia]), to remember Abraham at Mamre and Gideon
at Ophrah with their angel-guests, and to see a possible angel-visitor
in every needing stranger at the door. The call (ver. 2) to remember the
captive, and the sufferer of every sort, comes with solemn power from
this paragraph, as it presses home the law of sympathetic fellowship,
and in one passing phrase ("_as being in the body_") reminds us that,
for the Christian, all sufferings, all burthens of pain and care, cease
for ever when once he is "out of the body." Sacred is the witness borne
here to the pure dignity of wedlock (ver. 4): "Be[S] marriage
honourable in all things, and the bed unspotted; for fornicators and
adulterers"--not only adulterers, but those also who sin that other sin
which the world so easily and so blindly condones--"God will judge." And
when the Christian is warned (ver. 5) against the greed of gain, the
quoted words of the Old Testament make, by the use they are put to, a
possession for ever valuable to the believing reader of the Scriptures.
For not only are they in themselves wonderful in their emphasis: "I will
never give thee up; I will never, never desert thee." They are
inestimable as an example of the sort of use which this New Testament
prophet could make of the spiritual riches of the Old Testament. For
here he sees a Divine watchword for the new life, not only in the
glorious outburst of faith (ver. 6) in Psalm cxviii., the _Hallel_ of
the Passover. In the words spoken to Joshua, and to all appearance
spoken _to him personally and alone_ (ver. 5: see Josh. i. 5), we are
led equally to see a message from the heart of God straight to every
Christian soul. Seldom, if ever, are we more powerfully and tenderly
encouraged than we are here to use with confidence that old-fashioned
and now often disparaged sort of Bible study, the collection of eternal
and universal principles of spiritual life out of an "isolated text."
[S] The sentence demands an understood _imperative_ verb, without which
the "_for_" which (in the true reading) introduces the second clause is
out of place.
Then comes the passage where the departed "guides" are commemorated.
Whoever they were, were they a Stephen and a James, or saints utterly
unknown to us, that passage is precious in its principles, true for all
time, of remembrance and appeal. It consecrates the fidelity of the
Christian memory. It assures us that to cherish the names, the words,
the conduct, the holy lives, the blessed deaths, of our teachers of days
long done is no mere indulgence of unfruitful sentiment. It is natural
to the Gospel, which, just because it is the message of an unspeakably
happy future, also sanctifies the past which is the living antecedent to
it. Just because we look with the love of hope towards "our gathering
together unto Him," we are to turn with the love of memory towards all
the gifts of God given to us through the holy ones with whom we look to
be "gathered together." "The exit of their walk of life" (ver. 7) is to
be our study, our meditation. We are to "look it up and down" ([Greek:
anatheorountes]) as we would some great monument of victory, and from
that contemplation we are to go back into life, to "imitate their
faith," to do just what they did, treating (xi. 1) the unseen as
visible, the hoped-for as present and within our embrace. Thank God for
this authorization and hallowing of our recollections. Precious indeed
is its assurance that the sweetness of them (for all its ineffable
element of sadness, as eyes and ears are hungry for the faces and the
voices gone, for the look and tone of the preacher, the teacher, through
whom we first knew the Lord, or knew Him better) is no half-forbidden
luxury of the soul but a means of victorious grace.
But now comes in a passage of the chapter which more obviously tells its
own story of occasion and aim. The Writer recurs to the supreme theme of
the Epistle, the antithesis between the Lord Jesus, with His finished
work and absolute permanence, and the transitory antecedents of the
older dispensation. Once more the Hebrews are to remember His eternity,
His eternal personal identity, unbeginning and without end (ver. 8); He
is "the same, yesterday, and to-day, and unto the ages." Before all
types and preparations, before law, and ritual, and prophecy, He is.
When, having done their long work, they cease, He still is. Over the
glory of His being and character passes no "shadow of turning." Never to
the endless ages shall He need to be other than He is, or to be
succeeded by a greater. "JESUS, MESSIAH"; He is Alpha; He is also
Omega. The whole alphabet of revelation between the first letter and
the last does but spell out the golden legend of His unalterable glory.
In contrast to Him, thus unchangeably Himself, place the "teachings
variegated and alien" (ver. 9) which would draw you from beside Him
([Greek: parapheresthe]) back to an outworn ceremonial distorted from
its true purpose. "Looking unto Jesus," stay still and be at rest in
Him. The ritual law of "food" ([Greek: bromata]) had its perfectly
befitting place in the age of elementary preparation. But to make it now
a rival to the message of that "grace" which means a life lived by faith
in the Son of God, is to defraud "the heart" of that which alone can
"establish" it in peace, holiness, and hope. To walk in Him is to go
from strength to strength. To "walk in them" ([Greek: hoi
peripatountes]) is to miss the very "benefit" you seek. It is to move
away from the light, backward, into spiritual death.
Here follows in close sequence a passage of pregnant significance. It
begins with ver. 10, and the connexion is not finally broken till ver.
16. The Writer, prompted perhaps by the allusion to a ceremonial law of
"meats," turns abruptly to the still existing ritual of the Law,
familiar to his Hebrew readers as to himself. From it he leads their
thoughts once more to the profound import and ultimate efficacy of the
supreme atoning Sacrifice, in all its shame and all its glory, and to
the call which that great fact conveys to the believer to break for
ever, at whatever cost, from the old order, _considered as a rival to
the Cross_. Such is the true bearing of this often debated passage, if I
am not greatly mistaken. The "altar" which "we have" (ver. 10) is not,
if I read the argumentative context rightly, either the atoning Cross,
at least as to any direct reference of the word, or the Table of the
Christian Eucharist. As to this latter conjecture indeed the reference
is totally unsupported by any really primeval parallel.[T] And _in this
Epistle_ it is scarcely conceivable that, if that were the meaning, if
we were to be abruptly informed here that we Christians have in the Holy
Table a sacrificial altar, no allusion, however slight, should intimate
that the Christian minister is not a "leader" only but a sacrificing
priest. The whole Epistle may be said to circle round the great topic of
Priesthood. From various points of view, and with purposes as practical
as possible in regard of faith, hope, and life, that topic has been
handled. But is it too much to say that, for the Writer, the one
Christian priesthood which is analogous to the Levitical priesthood, as
a sacrificial and mediatorial function on behalf of the Church, is the
High Priesthood of the Son of God? The Christian Ministry indeed hardly,
if at all, comes into view throughout the argument. We find it at length
in this chapter, the chapter which tells the readers that they "have an
altar." Twice over the pastors of the Church are mentioned here (verses
7, 17); but how? As "leaders," "guides," [Greek: hegoumenoi]: as those
who "speak the word of God," as those whose vigilance over the souls of
the flock claims a loving and grateful loyalty. That is to say, the
Christian Ministry is above all things a pastorate. To a sacerdotal
aspect of its special functions no reference appears. And that is
noteworthy just because of the profound sacerdotalism of the whole
context of the Epistle.
[T] Lightfoot (on Ign. _ad Eph. v., et alibi_) has clearly shewn that
Ignatius' use of [Greek: thysiasterion] is altogether mystical. He means
not the Holy Table but (among other references) the Church of Christ as
the sphere or place of spiritual sacrifice.
On a careful review of the words before us (verses 10-16), we are
justified in the conclusion that the reference is, not to a Christian
institution at all but precisely to the Hebrew ritual, in which Writer
and readers still had part as members of _the nation_. The thing in view
is an altar whose law was such that the sacerdotal "ministers ([Greek:
hoi latreuontes]) of the Tabernacle" might not use its sacrifices for
food. But why? Not of course because they were not Christians, but
because the sacrifices in question presented there were to be wholly
"burned," "burned without the camp." The entire thought moves within the
limits of the typical ceremonial. It deals with the holocaust which even
the sacrificer might handle only to commit it to the fire; the victim
whose destiny was to be--not eaten by the priestly family but carried
outside the camp as wholly devoted for the people's sins.
It is possible, within the lines of the Levitical ritual, to interpret
in more ways than one the "altar" in question. It may be the great
altar, regarded in its special use on the Atonement Day (Lev. xvi); not
another structure than that used for other sacrifices, but that same
altar regarded, for the moment, as if separated and alone, because of
the awful speciality of the stern while merciful ritual of that great
day. Or again, as it has been argued with learning and force[U], the
reference may be to the altar of incense, the golden altar of the
Holiest, on which the blood not only of the atonement victims but of all
sin-offerings was sprinkled; and every sacrifice so treated was regarded
as a holocaust; no part of it was reserved for food. But in either case
the altar in question is not of the Church but of the Tabernacle. The
"we" of ver. 10 is the community in its Hebrew rather than in its
Christian character.
[U] By the Rev. James Burkitt, in _The Golden Altar: an Exposition of
Hebrews xiii. 10, 11_.
So the whole thought centres itself in the supreme Sacrifice, as
Antitype answering to type. Jesus is our holocaust, wholly sacrificed
for our sins. His sacrifice involved in its awful ritual the shame and
agony of rejection by His own, excommunication from "the camp" of the
chosen. Then let the Hebrew believer, "receiving that inestimable
benefit," be ready also to follow his Redeemer's steps in rejection and
in shame. Let him also be prepared for casting out by priest and scribe.
Let his yearning heart, with whatever anguish, inure itself to the
thought that the beloved "city of his solemnities" is not the final and
enduring Jerusalem. Let his "thoughts to heaven the steadier rise," as
he looks, like Abraham before him, to "God's great town in the unknown
land," where sits on high the Mediator of the New Covenant, the "Priest
upon His throne."