Preamble
The "Preface" to any book is
intended to serve the purpose of letting its readers know
what the writer has to say as to his purpose in writing,
and anything that does not really form a part of the
subject matter. While it ought to be regarded as
important, many people do not read the Preface, and by
not doing so, may unintentionally do the writer an
injustice. To guard against this risk, I ask at the
outset for a careful perusal of what follows.
I am well aware that what will be said
will represent for multitudes of Christians today no less
an upheaval and revolution than that which was presented
at the beginning by the transition from Judaism to a
fully-fledged Christianity as presented by the Apostles
when they were through that transition and interpreted
the significance of Christ. If it should cause or result
in as violent a reaction and hostility, it will be no
surprise.
There are two causes for comfort in such a
case: one is the deep sense of Divine urge and commission
to write, "whether they will hear or whether they
will forbear"; and the other, the knowledge that for
a long time and in an ever deepening way there has been a
growing realization on the part of many that all is not
well with Christendom, even with evangelical
Christianity. With the exception of two classes of
Christians, there is an increasing concern over the
actual or comparative weakness and ineffectiveness of the
spiritual life and witness of Christians and the
churches. This concern shows itself in various ways.
Sometimes by enquiries and discussions as to what is
wrong, and sometimes in the holding of an increased
number of conventions and meetings "for the
deepening of the spiritual life."
The two classes excepted are, those who
have so organized Christian activity as to have made it
all a matter of a tremendous business to be maintained by
drive and its own momentum: which unceasing activity is
itself thought to be life and power: with the result that
there is little time or interest to be given in the
matter of spiritual depth, and Divine measure. The other
class is comprised of those who are so settled in
tradition and a fixed position in doctrine and practice
as to make it wellnigh impossible for the Holy Spirit to
lead into the way of a greater fullness of Christ. Both
of these conditions marked Judaism in the first days, and
they both provided a ground for the strong resentment and
antagonism from which the Apostles and first believers
had to suffer.
It is not too much to say that a time and
state of crisis is upon traditional Christianity. This,
and its nature, will be shown more fully in what follows;
but in concluding the Preamble may I ask that, should you
at any point be so vexed as to be inclined to put the
whole thing aside, you will just pause and give place to
a supposition. Supposing it should be right? In
the year 1939 many responsible people, governments, and
officials, came under severe condemnation because - it
was said - they refused to believe facts. For years
Germany had been most thoroughly establishing Fifth
Column agents and forces in almost every country. But
whenever anyone said so and warned the Governments of
those countries that it was so, not only was the
suggestion repudiated, but evil intent was disbelieved.
Well, the persistently disbelieved reports proved true,
but it meant suffering, sorrow, and horror unparalleled
in history. Supposing that in 1939 someone had prophesied
that in less than a year Germany would have defeated and
overrun Holland, Belgium, and France, in addition to a
number of other European countries, what would have
happened to such a prophet? He would have been ridiculed,
if not put into prison or an asylum as a defeatist or a
lunatic. He, himself, most likely would have been
regarded as an enemy agent, as in effect were Jeremiah
and other prophets of old. But those
"unbelievable" things became actualities. Thus,
untold suffering and loss are the price of refusing to
entertain a supposition.
But there was another factor of a very
subtle nature. It was a studied part of the success of
that German technique that the agents should spread
abroad the impression that no such evil intent existed.
To disarm suspicion and impress with good will was a
vital part of the success of the scheme. This has its
counterpart in the "heavenlies," and it will
only be those who keep much in the secret place with the
All-knowing Spirit of God who will be saved from the
infinite perils which lie in the way of a superficial
optimism which is such a secret weapon of Satan's
campaign against the fullness of Christ.
Pause then, and ask, Supposing what is
here written should be right? Would it result in spiritual
and eternal loss or gain? Supposing it should
eventually prove to be God's message?
The Letter To The Hebrews
(1) The Approach
In the Preamble we have used the word
Crisis. The letter which is before us had its occasion in
a crisis in two dimensions or phases. Immediately, it was
related to those who had taken a real step with Christ
and were in peril of resolving Christianity into a
Judaism which acknowledged rather than rejected Him. But
it also related to the great event which was imminent, in
which the whole Jewish system would be swept away, and
all the prophecies as to Israel's rejection and
scattering would be fulfilled. It is always important to
remember that, when God deals with any of His people on a
spiritual issue, there is always a literal issue bound up
with it sooner or later. He would save us from the
historic disaster which He knows to be coming by putting
us into a spiritual position where the event will be no
disaster to us. Thus the crisis is a turning point
- as in a critical illness - with life or death as the
issue. The letter repeatedly warns and entreats in the
light of the tremendous consequences which are in the
balances. We may say without fear of being contradicted
that some of the most terrible things in the whole Bible
are found in this letter. Thus does it become us to note
the significance of the opening statements.
God in past times spoke in fragments and
various ways, but now He has spoken in fullness and in
one all-inclusive way, and that with finality. He will
not speak again; He will neither add to nor vary what He
has said in the final way. The fragmentary speech of God
in past ages had very great consequences involved in
man's attitude and reaction; but that was small compared
with what is bound up with this final Speech. This kind
of approach is preserved like a theme through the whole
letter; it comes to the ear in various connections,
sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible. The upshot of it
all is this: You have had in your midst and available to
you the full Revelation of God's mind. For that you are
now responsible. That Revelation was, and is, intended to
bring you into a certain spiritual position and to govern
the entire order of your life. The measure of your
spiritual life in terms of Divine satisfaction will be
determined by your living apprehension of and obedience
to that Revelation. The degree of your
ineffectiveness and unfruitfulness, individually and
collectively, will declare the degree of your
failure in your apprehension of that
Revelation.
The letter is intended to be tremendously
serious. While it contains most glorious things, it is
the possibility of missing these (a possibility so nearly
becoming an actuality in the case of its first readers)
which makes the tone so solemn at times. Thus our
approach must be with the shoes off our feet: the shoes
of prejudice, self-sufficiency, pride, formalism, and
such-like. Having adjusted our approach, we are able to
contemplate something of the import or implications of
the letter.
(2) The Implications
It is here that we have to begin to say
some of the things not easy to say, and still less easy
to accept.
This letter to the Hebrews sets forth the
all-inclusive revolution or reconstitution which God made
when He brought His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world -
that is, the religious revolution. This
revolution, which was rejected by Judaism, has been
almost entirely overlooked or lost sight of by
Christendom since Apostolic times. The entire present
system of Christianity as generally accepted would be
impossible if the meaning of this letter were received as
a heavenly revelation in the power of the Holy Spirit.
That is - if it came into the heart by the Spirit's power
with the effect of a revelation in the same way as the
Apostle Paul came to see who "Jesus of
Nazareth" is, then a Christian-Judaism, or
Judaistic-Christianity (which Christendom so largely is)
would be impossible; as it became in his own case. The
Letter to the Hebrews is only one other aspect of the
battle fought out in the Letters to the Romans and
Galatians. In the light of such a spiritual eye-opening a
whole lot of things would go: but being a "heavenly
vision," there would be no tears, no sense of loss,
and no fond farewells. The gain and joy would rather put
all such things into the category of a worn-out and
no-longerto-be-desired suit of clothes. In saying this we
are only contemplating the full-tide of spiritual life
known before any of these things came into being. These
things only came in when the fullness of the Spirit had
gone out, and being an artificial substitute they can
never but be limiting things in the realm of Divine
purpose. And yet, behold how these things have become the
very nature of traditional and organized Christianity! So
much so that to touch them in any way which threatens
their existence is to meet something more bitter and
formidable than any persecution from the world. This is
not said carelessly. Religion can be, and is very
largely, a terrible force; and Christianity has become a
religion. There are very few communities of Christians -
even the most evangelical, and spiritual - who wholly
escape the tendency or propensity to persecute or
ostracize other bodies of Christians who might be
regarded as rivals in their field of activity. All
the talk about "sheep-stealing" has little or
nothing to do with stealing from the fold or the
Shepherd, but only relates to some private religious
fold of organized Christianity.
We have - without mentioning them
specially - spoken of things which would have to go if a
true spiritual revelation were received, and doubtless
the reader is wondering what those things are. Well, this
letter which we are considering will make them plain, so
let us come closer to it. On the very face of it there
appears for all who have eyes the contrast between
Judaism and Christ. Judaism was an earthly religious
system: Tabernacle, Temple, Priests, Vestments, Rites,
Sacrifices, Feasts, Ministries, Orders, etc. The New
Testament, and this letter in particular, has some very
clear things to say about this Jewish system.
(1) As To Its Intent And Purpose
It was instituted by God as a copy of
things in the heavens. Not that heaven contained such
things literally, but just as all visible and created
things were intended to embody heavenly laws and
principles, so this system was intended to represent the
centremost spiritual things of God's universe. But the
instrument or type was never intended to do more than
serve a purpose for a time. It represented a
dispensation, or method of God for a period only. Never
was it intended to be an end in itself, nor was it meant
to be carried on in any detail or respect beyond a
certain point in time. God meant it ever and always to be
a prophecy of "better things to come," and to
be held so loosely as to constitute no difficulty when
the "better things" arrived. The letter which
is before us affirms that the era of the "better
things" had arrived some time since. "God...
hath at the end of these days spoken... in His Son."
But the new era and new order had brought
out a new and mightier-than-ever conflict. A very serious
and grim part of that conflict was with the religion of
tradition, the religion which worshipped the same Lord,
and embodied in a symbolic way all the truth of
the new era. One great warrior apostle was the champion
of the new spiritual order - himself one who had been
deeply and powerfully embedded in the old system, but by
a mighty revelation emancipated from it. He called that
revelation "the heavenly vision," and that word
"heavenly" defined for ever the nature of the
change in the dispensations. Into this battle he was
forced by the ubiquitous Judaisers. It was fought in his
letters to the Romans and to the Galatians. Whether or
not we believe that Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews,
there is no doubt that he had a big part of influence in
it, and in it again is the same battle carried on.
If the main feature of Judaism is sought,
it will be found to be the resolving of heavenly and
spiritual things into a purely earthly system. It is the
making of the things of God purely sentient, a matter of
the physical and soul senses: sight, sound, feeling,
reason, emotion, etc., with the numerous and various
complex elements of human constitution. One of the
inclusive arguments of this letter is that a religious
system based upon the natural senses has no power to
bring those who adhere to it to spiritual fullness. Such
the Jewish system was, and it failed utterly and
tragically. God did not mean it to do more than lead to
something other; and in this dispensation even that is
set aside and the other has become the first and only
thing in God's acceptance. The earthly, natural, and
temporal has been supplanted by the heavenly, spiritual
and eternal, which lay behind the illustration. The
failure was inevitable because it was never intended to
be an end in itself, and because of man's condition. It
only operated at all in the realm of man's soul, a very
unstable and variable thing; whereas everything with God
is a matter of man's spirit, in the first instance. This
is the point of verse twelve of chapter four, which
should be considered with the context preceding.
The whole thought of God, running right
through this letter, is spiritual fullness; and any
religion - even Christianity - mixing and confusing soul
and spirit, the sentient and the spiritual (as did the
Christian-Judaism and as does organized Christianity) is
doomed to the destiny of Judaism. If we draw upon the
soul resources of people to build up Christianity,
instead of recognizing that "all things are out from
God" - that all must first come from Him and have
its first point of contact with man in his spirit, which,
being renewed (made anew) becomes the vessel and vehicle
of all divine things for ever after - no matter how
immense may be our structure, it is going to crash when
the great "shaking" comes. Christianity now is
very largely a built up thing with many Jewish features
in it; i.e., outward orders, forms, vestments, titles,
buildings and rigidly fixed boundaries of apprehension of
truth. Viewed from a heavenly standpoint, it is all so
much nonsense, child's-play; albeit so seriously regarded
by its children.
It is important to recognize that this
letter was addressed to a people who - for a long period
- had held the position nationally of a people whom God
had taken out of the world unto Himself. It seeks to
explain their nature and history in the light of Christ
and true spiritual Christianity. It shows that even such
a people may make their separation earthly and
earthbound, and that for so doing they have been
"overthrown," and will - even as Christians -
be overthrown again if they repeat in Christianity what
their fathers did in Judaism. There is something here
much more than typology interpreted and the
interpretation accepted as to salvation from sin and
judgment; it is the essential and indispensable heavenly
relatedness and life of the Lord's people as inwardly detached
from the natural life even in a religious sense.