The word of God is living and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and
spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
(Hebrews 4:12 NIV)
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.