READING: Heb. 1:1-3; 2:5-12; 3:1-2, 7-8.
This letter to the Hebrews seems to grow
bigger and bigger. I sometimes think it is one of
the biggest things we have. Here are some clauses given, which are clues to the letter, but
also clues to something far bigger than the letter.
In chapter 2 and verse 5, we have these words: "The inhabited world to come,
whereof we
speak", or, more literally, of which we are speaking. Does not that
strike you as being tremendous in its significance?
You ask the Apostle what is in his mind,
what has led him to write, what has governed all that he is writing. He will
say, "The inhabited world to come, whereof we speak", of which we are speaking.
Everything in this letter relates to that. It
shows us all the ways and means of God for securing, not only the kind of
inhabited world to come upon which He has set His heart, but the
government of that world. Thus what is being spoken of in this letter is the
dominion of the inhabited world to come, and we are being
spoken to as related to that in God's purpose.
We will break that up, and see several things which arise.
God's Original Purpose
That comes out clearly in chapter 1 and in chapter 2.
God had a special concept, man, that which is meant by
a humanity created as expressive of God's thought,
namely, that man should have dominion over the
creation. "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or
the son of man that thou visitest him"? The latter phrase
may be more literally rendered "that thou makest
mention of him". "Thou madest him for a little while
lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory
and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy
hands: thou didst put all things in subjection under his
feet". That was God's intention. That was what was in
the eternal counsels of God; to have man in dominion
over the creation, the inhabited world. That was God's
original purpose.
Then comes the great tragedy of the fall, and man
never reaching the full measure of God's purpose. Man
who had but entered upon that, at its very beginnings fell
and lost, not only the position which he did hold, but the
position which he was intended to hold. We are
confronted with the tragedy of man's fall and all that
came in with it. Thus the next thing that comes up in this
letter is
The Securing of the Original Intention and
Purpose
This is brought about by means of (1) The incarnation of His Son; (2) The
atoning and redemptive work of His Son. "God... hath at the end of these days
spoken unto us in his Son... who... when he had made purification of sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." God secures in His Son the
original intention.
So the Apostle says, Now we do not see, so far as
man himself is concerned, all things under his feet; we do
not see God's original intention realised in man, but we
do see a Man, God's Son, the Son of God and Son of
Man, crowned with glory and honour, because of the
suffering of death; and, so far as He is concerned as the
representative Man, all things are under His feet. "Sit
thou on my right hoand, until I make thine enemies the
footstool of thy feet". This is said to the Son. "We see
Jesus". It is always the title of incarnation, the title of the
Son of Man,
that which has to do with the humanity of that Divine Person, that is used. Thus
we see, in the second place, the securing of the original purpose in Christ through incarnation and the Cross.
Then the third thing which arises is
The Heavenly Calling and Partnership of the Sons
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of (partners in)
a heavenly calling consider the Apostle and High Priest
of our confession..." The Apostle says later, "We are
become partakers with Christ, if we hold fast the
beginning of our confidence firm unto the end" (R.V.
margin). This means dominion over the inhabited world
to come in fellowship with Christ, not just to be on the
inhabited earth to come. It will be a good thing to be in
that world, a great thing to be there, and not to have
been dismissed and wiped out in judgment and have no
more place. But that is not all that is here; it is the
government thereof, which is something more, and not
everybody who is on it will be in the government of it. It
is the people of this particular dispensation who are
being called out for the government of the inhabited
world to come. It is the Church which is to be the
governmental instrument of that world. It is to be through
His Body that Christ is to administer His rule. There is a
difference between being in the new heaven, with a
relationship to the new earth, and merely being on the
new earth which is to be, when the fire has purged it and
it has been renewed and adjusted. It seems very clear
that not only has sin entered into mankind and upset the
human race, but there has been a great cosmic
disturbance, so that the very world in its cosmic position
has been deranged. There is a prince of the power of the
air, who has a lot to do with atmospherics. All that is
going to be done away. There is to be a new heaven and
a new earth, and it is going to be a glorious earth. There
will be nations thereon, but we are further told that there
is to be a heavenly city, a new Jerusalem. That is only
figurative language. It is a figure of the Church, and the
nations are going to walk in the light of it. It is the
government of the city which is in view.
That is the heavenly calling. It seems that, at the time
of his writing to the Ephesians and Philippians, the
Apostle Paul had come to see in a very full way that
there was something more than just being saved. We
recall but one
passage, and that the well known passage in the third
chapter of the letter to the Philippians: "Forgetting the
things which are behind, and stretching forward to the
things that are before, I press on toward the goal unto
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus". Paul
never had to do anything to secure his salvation, but he
had caught a glimpse of something more than of merely
being an inhabitant of the world to come. He had seen
throne-union with Christ. "To him that overcometh will I
grant to sit with me in my throne..." That is the calling of
the Church, and that is what is here meant by the
heavenly calling.
The Apostle gives us an historic link by way of
illustrating what he means. He takes us back to Israel in
the wilderness, to the generation that failed to enter the
land, and recalls the word of warning of which they
became the occasion: "Wherefore, even as the Holy
Spirit, saith, Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not
your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the day of
the temptation in the wilderness, wherewith your fathers
tempted me by proving me, and saw my works forty
years. Wherefore I was displeased with this generation... as I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my
rest". The generation that did go over, the subsequent
generation, had the land and the peoples in it subjected
to them. It is to that the Apostle is referring by way of
illustration. The inhabited world to come is to be brought
under the dominion of those who today are being called
into the heavenly calling. The Lord says, 'Do you hear
My voice? Then do not harden your hearts and miss
what I intend'. God intends dominion over the inhabited
world to come. This, then, is what is meant by the calling
and the voice, and by partnership with Christ.
The Training of Sons
The next thing which arises in this letter in connection
with this purpose and this calling is the training of sons;
because this calling is going to be realised in sonship,
and if we are to attain unto sonship we must be trained.
Thus after opening his letter on the note of sonship, and
striking that note again and again, and repeatedly
mentioning that related word "brethren", and after
working his way through the great redemptive process
of the Cross, the atoning work, the priestly activity, and
dealing with all that which has to do with man's
redemption, so that he can come back to God's original purpose, the
Apostle reaches chapter 12 and the matter of sonship is
taken up as to its training. Here you are being dealt with
as sons, and you are inclined to feel that it is too much
discipline, too much chastening, too much of strange
experiences and trials. But stay a moment: dominion of
the inhabited world to come, partnership with Christ, and
all that this is to mean of glory and value, is by way of
chastening, discipline. Paul says that the Lord "scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth". That does not relate to us
merely as children of God, but is something beyond, and
the Greek makes it quite clear and says, "every son
whom he receiveth" (or literally, places). The son is
something more than the child. A son is one grown up in
the house; a child is one born in the house. When
sonship has been reached, then the father places the son
in a position of honour and responsibility. We speak of
someone being our "right hand man", and the Bible
speaks of "the son of the right hand".
The Apostle has something further to say to us on the
matter. "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you
as with sons". This follows upon a previous observation
that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth". Then the
Apostle continues: "Furthermore, we have had fathers of
our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them
reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto
the Father of our spirits, and live?" The Father is dealing
with our spirits. It will be in the inhabited world to come
that those whose spirits have been developed, who have
been spiritually brought to maturity, will reign. These are
going to govern in the inhabited world to come. It brings
us very near to our subject, the relationship between life
in the Spirit and God's ultimate purpose. The question is
one of spiritual education, spiritual development.
Sonship Defines God's Purpose in Man
Now we have one or two more things to say in this
connection. The first is that this word
"son", or "sonship", defines for us what is in the mind of God in
creating man. Man is man, but it is man in a full sense that
God has in view for this particular purpose, and man in
a full sense is set forth in the term "son". Now you will
understand what we meant when we said that God has
as His thought, a representation of Himself. When He
said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness",
He was only
saying, in other words, Let
us make a
representation of Ourselves.
You can see how in various ways that illustrates things for us. We may instance the sending of a representative into any realm or part of
the realm. That representative is as ourselves
there. He has our mind about things. He has
authority from us concerning things, and the
way in which he is treated is the way in which
we are treated. We are one. That is the precise
meaning of that term which occurs so much in
the Old Testament in respect of the prophets,
namely, "Son of man". If you look at the context, you will see that it is God speaking in His
representative, and the treatment received by
the prophets was taken by God as treatment to
Himself, and the term "Son of man" was
simply the term which means "representative".
God is going to govern the inhabited world to
come by a representative, a corporate representative.
Representation, then, is through sonship. Let
us remember that sonship is that point of maturity where responsibility is taken, and a man's
son in the full sense, (especially amongst the
Greeks, who would have understood this term
immediately) is one who represents his father.
We speak of a son as a child sometimes, and
know what we mean, but amongst the Greeks
that could never have been. It would have been
a shameful thing for any father to speak of his
son who had reached his majority as his child.
When the child reached his majority he was
placed in a position of responsibility and trust
and honour, because he was now regarded as
mature, as a fullgrown man. Sonship, being
more than childhood, is that which stands for
representation. God is represented in His Son,
and then that Son brings many sons to glory.
Sonship becomes an inclusive term of Christ and
His members brought to maturity, to govern an
inhabited world to come.
Sovereignty Inherent in Sonship
There is this further thing that comes out
quite clearly in this letter, that sovereignty or
government is inherent in sonship. The two
things go together. If we are in God's Son, "whom he appointed heir of all things", then
"we are fellow-heirs". We are called into
fellowship with God's Son, but He is working
with us to make it possible for us to take that
position by reason of spiritual intelligence, spiritual growth, spiritual maturity. If you go through this letter you will see that such things
as the inheritance or heirship are related to sonship all the time.
This representation in sonship and sovereignty has
also certain features.
Firstly, it is related to a resurrection position. While
the Lord Jesus was God's Son at His birth, He was
especially marked out as God's Son in resurrection. That
is said by the Apostle emphatically and precisely. In
literal language he said, "Marked out as Son of God by
resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of
holiness". Resurrection ground is the ground from which
all that is of the flesh has been put away. On resurrection
ground sonship is brought into view, and sonship,
therefore, speaks of a relationship in which all things are
out from God. If you take it as illustrated in the life of the
Lord Jesus you see that as God's Son that was very true
of Him.
That leads to this next point, that this representation
by sonship is by the Holy Spirit. Nothing comes out
from ourselves, but everything is of the Spirit, and herein
is the relation between the life in the Spirit and the
purpose of God. A son is one who is governed by the
Spirit in all things. "For as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, these are sons of God".
Then there is the third thing. This representation in
sonship and sovereignty is in the Divine order. Order
becomes a great matter here. This Divine order means,
to begin with, subjection to Christ as Head, and
subjection to the Father of our spirits in His dealings
with us. Disorder is, of course, to assume any kind of
personal government or control in the things of God,
and to refuse to allow the Lord to deal with us in
training. That upsets everything at the outset, and God
can never reach His end where such conditions obtain.
The Need of Adjustableness
Another thing is the need of adjustableness on our
part. That is a very important thing with God. Are we
adjustable? We have many examples or illustrations of
the principle of adjustableness in the Word of God. The
Apostle Paul speaks of serving, "in newness of spirit".
If any man knew the meaning of that, he did. Look at his
spirit in the old days before he was saved. It was a
spirit of personal domination, personal aggression. But
now he thus speaks of serving
"in newness of spirit". Paul no longer serves in a "self"
spirit, in the strong self-will of Saul of Tarsus. There is a
new spirit, and you cannot help seeing the newness of
spirit in his service. The point is that he was adjustable.
The Lord could do nothing until Saul of Tarsus humbled
himself and said, "Lord, what wilt thou?". It is
doubtful whether Saul of Tarsus had ever been of that
disposition. It seems that again and again he had to
adjust. He assayed to go into Bithynia. Had you put
Saul of Tarsus in that position he would have gone, and
not have asked anybody's guidance; but as Paul the
Apostle he knew the leading of the Spirit was against
that, and he did not go. Again, he was inclined to go into
Asia, but being forbidden of the Holy Ghost he did not
go. Then, knowing him to be conscious of that inward
check, the Lord presented another course, and Paul
took that course. He was adjustable.
You can take the eleven disciples as an illustration,
and you see the adjustableness of those men, how they
adjusted to the risen Lord. They had very strong ideas
about the kingdom, and right up to the last, whilst He
was yet with them, they were still saying, "Lord, wilt
thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Did
they go off in a huff at His reply? They went back to
Jerusalem, and delayed, waited there, to adjust to the
new situation.
That is what you have in the whole of this letter to the Hebrews and in the
letter to the Galatians. It is a case of adjusting to a new position. The
Hebrews had been brought up in Judaism, in the rigid course of the temple
service. Now the Apostle is telling them that Christ has fulfilled all that was
there set forth, and that, having come as the anti-type of all the types,
those types are done with; there is no more temple, no
more priest; there are no more sacrifices, no more of
that at all in God's eyes; it has all been flilfilled in the
Person and put away. It meant that they had to adjust. It
was no longer the earthly system, but the heavenly. To
be gathered together in the Name of Jesus is the temple.
The sacrifice is gathered up in the atoning work of the
Lord Jesus, and likewise the priesthood in the present
priestly work of Christ in heaven, where He ever liveth
to make intercession. The whole question is of what
God is able to do with us, of determining what God is
able to use, of His having a free way to reach His end
by our being adjustable.
That is all very clear in the Word, but it is very
practical when it becomes applied to us. Many of the
Lord's people stop short at adjusting to the truth. It very
often means breaking with something that we have
regarded as very important and very precious. We have
come to see that, after all, that was only our conception
of it. In God's view that does not occupy the place at all
that we had thought it occupied, and it has to be left
behind; we have to adjust to something higher and fuller
than that, to a more spiritual and heavenly conception of
things.
The issue for these Hebrew believers was just this,
that were they to adjust themselves to the new
situation, then the temple at Jerusalem must be as a
thing past and gone in their eyes, seeing that it was as a
thing no more in the eyes of God. All its service was now
finished and gathered up in Christ, and for them,
therefore, the temple and all its service was at an end. If
they leave it what is going to happen? The whole of the
Jewish community would be set against them as
apostates. Thus the Apostle raises the issue and says, "Let us therefore go to him without the camp, bearing his
reproach". Is that what is going to happen? Is that what
it will cost? Does it mean we are going to be outside of
the camp? What camp? The camp of the whole
accepted, recognised religious order maybe. They would
be under reproach. What reproach? His reproach. Are
we adjustable? We are not if we are halting over the
cost; and if not adjustable, then God cannot reach His
end. God's end is dominion over the inhabited world to
come.
You see our calling, you see what is necessary if we
would reach that calling, and you see the great, inclusive
thing, life in the Spirit, life under the government of the
Holy Spirit. Oh, the urge and exhortation in the light of
the great end, the purpose which governs this
dispensation, namely, the securing of a Body out from
the nations to govern the redeemed nations which are not
of that Body, to rule the inhabited world to come.
You can look more fully into it, and see if that is right. I am sure you will see that is what the heavenly calling
is.