40 - Heb_13:1-16

CHAPTER X L.

EXHORTATIONS AND BENEDICTIONS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Hebrews 13:1-16. THE argument and exhortation of the apostle seem to have reached their solemn and impressive conclusion in the twelfth chapter, especially in the heart-searching words of the last verse: "For our God is a consuming fire." But, as we find in other Pauline epistles,^* that after the apparent conclusion of the doctrinal and practical portion, the apostle adds isolated concise counsels, injunctions and benedictions, so also here. As if the apostle could not separate himself either from the theme or the people, so dear to his heart, and as if he felt that he had still much to communicate out of his abundant treasure of knowledge and love. (^*Compare in Romans, first conclusion,Romans 15:33; second,Romans 16:24; and third, 27.) But this concluding chapter possesses a special interest and value, because we seem to see more distinctly the writer’s individuality, and his personal relation to the Hebrews. As we read the chapter, in which many Pauline peculiarities occur, and in which we meet for the first time in this epistle the personal pronoun "I," we see more clearly the beloved countenance of the apostle, and feel more confirmed that we have been listening to the well-known voice of the chosen witness to "the Gentiles, and the children of Israel."^*(^* Acts 9:15.)

Hebrews 13:1-3. "Let brotherly love (ϕιλαδϵλϕια) continue." The intimate connection between love to God and love to the brethren, is constantly pointed out both by the Lord Himself and in the apostolic writings. In the epistles of John, this seems almost the central thought.

"Love never ceaseth;" and as the Hebrews had just been reminded that the things that are made shall be shaken and removed, they are now exhorted to let that abide which is of God, which is eternal, even love. Even prophecies, tongues, and knowledge shall vanish; but love never faileth. "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us."¹ Love to the brethren is always represented as the first indication and fruit of the new life² as well as the final aim and result of divine grace. (¹1 John 4:12;²1 John 5:1;Acts 16:33.) The Hebrews had given striking proof that they possessed this mark of Christ’s disciples, and the apostle had commended them for their love, their sympathy, and their compassionate and helpful charity.¹ Like the divine Master, he connects exhortation with commendation. We must watch and cherish the gifts of grace which we have received. Love to the brethren manifests itself specially in sympathy with the afflicted. "Whether one member suffer, all the members of the body suffer with it."² The children of God are to resemble their heavenly Father, who is a lover of the stranger.³ In showing hospitality they are often rewarded by receiving messengers of divine truth and blessing. The disciples of Jesus are to remember with sympathy and intercession their brethren in adversity; as long as we are in the body we may all be called to suffer, and the fellow-heirs of glory ought to abound in kindness and tenderness towards those who are counted worthy to endure affliction and persecution. It is one of our privileges on earth to weep with them that weep, and to comfort and help the Master Himself in succouring His tried and fainting disciples. Thus also shall we retain the spirit of strangers and pilgrims, whose home is above. (¹Hebrews 6:10; Hebrews 10:33;²1 Corinthians 12:26;³ Deuteronomy 10:18-19.) The next exhortations have reference to earthly life in two important aspects. First, as to marriage. It was instituted by God in Paradise before the fall, it was irradiated by the presence and blessing of Jesus at Cana, it is invested in Scripture with a sacredness most solemn and tender, for it is used as a symbol of the relation between Jehovah and His people, between Jesus and the Church. Let marriage then be regarded as honourable by all. Some are not called in providence to enter into this state; some, like the apostle Paul, voluntarily choose a single life, that they may serve God more freely; but let all regard this relation, as appointed by God, holy and full of blessing. And where the sacred character of marriage and of the family is recognized and felt, the result will be purity. All sins of impurity are sins against His holy ordinance of marriage, and against the divine institution of the family. God Himself will judge those who violate this funda mental law of His goodness.

Secondly, as regards the occupation whereby we earn our livelihood. Covetousness is idolatry; the love of money^* is the root of all evil. Jesus commands us, not to lay up treasure on earth, because our heart is where our treasure is. He does not merely forbid us to set our affection on earthly treasure, but to cut off the possibility of such heart- estrangement from God by not aiming at the accumulation of wealth. And as in the sermon on the mount, so here, covetousness is viewed as connected with a lack of faith in the living God; for God Himself (in the Scripture) hath said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."² The first expression assures us that God will never with draw His guiding hand; the second, that He will never withdraw His protecting presence.³ Having God’s gracious and considerate promise, may we not, like David, say with a soothed and quiet heart, " The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me? The Lord taketh my part with them that help me."⁴(¹ἀϕιλάργυροϛ. Compare1 Timothy 3:3; 1 Timothy 6:10;²Deuteronomy 31:6-8;1 Chronicles 28:20; and often in Isaiah.³Kurtz.⁴Psalms 118:6.) Our earthly life will be full of peace and contentment, of light and strength, though not without the needed difficulties and chastenings, if we obey these apostolic injunctions; if we cherish love to the brethren, and a sympathetic, considerate, and helpful spirit towards the suffering and needy; if we cultivate family affection and communion; and if we keep ourselves free from the feverish race for riches and worldly distinction, and learn to be content with such things as we have, eating our meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Have we not "enough" for the journey? When we reach home, and Jesus asks us, "Did you ever lack anything?" what will our answer be?

Having warned them against the dangers of selfishness, fleshly lusts, and covetousness, the apostle proceeds to warn them against the dangers threatening their faith and loyalty to Christ. He reminds them of the guides, the teachers and rulers, which God had given to them - men who laboured in the ministry of the Word, had sealed their testimony in their death, (Hebrews 13:7.) Some have thought the reference is pre-eminently to martyrs like Stephen. But all their departed teachers and elders had shown them in life and death what they had declared by their word: the just shall live by faith. They had passed away; but the great Prophet, the great Apostle and High Priest, the true Shepherd, remained - Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. He is the only foundation, and His the only name. The heart finds rest in thinking of Him, the Rock of ages, the eternal, unchanging Son of God, our Lord, Saviour, and Mediator. Of this inexhaustible verse, let us only indicate a few aspects for meditation. We contemplate here the Son of God as the Christ, set up from all eternity in the divine counsel. We behold Him as incarnate, God and man, two natures in one person. By a bold anticipation, not more bold than true, we call Him Jesus Christ even before His advent.¹ He is eternal, and yet He has a yesterday, to-day, and an endless future. His "yesterday" has no beginning, but it ends with His burial in that new tomb. His "to-day" commences with His resurrection, and is even now - this acceptable year of the Lord, the gospel dispensation - the "to-day" while we hear the voice of grace. His "forever" commences with His second advent. His dominion is everlasting. And throughout He is the same. From all eternity He is the Lover of our souls, the Friend of sinners, the Advocate, Intercessor, and Mediator; His incarnation is only the manifestation of the mind that was in Him from all eternity. Let us adore, and adoring, let us love and rejoice. Let us adore Jesus as our apostle did, when he, in this very epistle, applied to Jesus the words: "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth;" and, with the beloved disciple, let us hear the voice of Jesus in heaven, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty."² And thus beholding the glory, let us also behold the love, divine and brotherly, of the Lord Jesus, the Saviour, as Christ, Prophet, Priest, and King. Time’s waves and billows cannot move our Rock; we are but as grass, and as a flower of the field, but the eternal mercy, without beginning and without end, is upon us.³(¹ComparePhp 2:5;²Revelation 1:8. The same expressions which we read in the prophet Isaiah of Jehovah, "He is First and Last," Α and Ω; there are many intermediate letters, and some of them rebellious ones, that assert themselves. But He alone abideth. -- BENGEL.³Psalm 103.) This is the sure foundation on which we are to build. The heart can only be established on this Rock, and only by grace (Hebrews 13:9); for by grace (not by works) we were built on the stone which God laid in Zion; and only by grace, continually received by faith, we continue. The various Jewish laws (teaching both complicated and foreign from the gospel ποικίλαιϛ ϰαὶ ξέναιϛ) concerning eating and drinking, whether it refers to daily ordinary life, or to the sacrificial meals, stand in no connection with the life and growth of faith. For, as the type already taught, of that sacrifice which was offered up as an atonement for sin, only the blood was brought unto the most holy; the bodies were burnt outside the camp.¹ The meat of other sin-offerings had to be eaten by the priests in the holy place ("it is most holy"); but the sin-offering for atonement was to be carried forth without the camp. The priests were forbidden to eat of it.²(¹Leviticus 6:36;²Leviticus 16:27. Contr.Leviticus 6:25-26.) In the fulfillment Jesus suffered without the gate. The beloved city, Jerusalem, is viewed as the camp. Our Lord was crucified and buried outside the tent and the camp. In the type the sacrifice was slain in the outer court, and the body burnt outside the camp. In the fulfillment the idea is carried out even more fully. Jesus was the sin-offering. God made Him to be "sin" for us. He was numbered with the transgressors. To the eye of the world and of the unbelieving Jews, He was a transgressor dying on the accursed tree. By His precious blood, with which He entered the most holy, He has sanctified us. Here also the fulfillment is beyond the type. The blood is brought into the heavenly sanctuary, and we are separated unto God, and perfected forever.

We who believe possess therefore the true altar.^* Of the type of this altar they who serve the tabernacle were not allowed to eat. But the reality is hid from them. By faith we behold it, and our hearts are established. (^*Verse 10 [Hebrews 13:10] has had a great variety of interpretations, and offers many difficulties.ἔχομϵνcan, I think, refer only to believers. The expressionhaveis emphatic in this epistle.θυσιαστήριον, altar, does not refer to the actual cross, of which it cannot be said that we have it, but to Christ Himself, as the sin-offering. As Owen remarks, that .which the apostle throughout opposes unto all the utensils, services, and sacrifices of the tabernacle, is Christ alone. So here Christ is both sacrifice and altar, and by Him we offer the sacrifice of praise and good works. "They that serve the tabernacle." The Levitical priests (tabernacle is always used for temple) had no right to eat of the typical sin-offering of atonement, and in their ignorance of Christ and unbelief they did not know the true altar. The connection of thought seems to be: Do not think of the meat of the temple altar; look to Christ in heaven, in order that your heart may be established. He is our altar and sacrifice. Even in the type there was no eating connected with the sin-offering for atonement. Now Christ has sanctified you, and brought you nigh unto God. And this very position calls on you to go outside the camp and bear the reproach of Christ, to separate yourself from that which is waxing old. The thought lies very near, that in the fulfillment Christ gives us His body, which is meat indeed; and His blood, which is drink indeed. This however is connected with the Passover, which is the most comprehensive sacrificial type, and does not fall, we think, within the scope of the apostle’s present argument.) But our position, while it is heavenly with Christ, is here upon earth outside the camp. If with Jesus we have entered into the holy of holies, let us also go unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. We must be separate from all that is against Christ, from all that beguiles men from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus, and substitutes forms and outward legal observances for the body, the substance. In proportion as our worship, our affections, our aims are heavenly, as we seek the future and continuing city, we must expect to bear the reproach of Christ. For the "cross" of Christ will always be "outside the camp." True faith in Jesus will never, in this dispensation, be according to the spirit and taste of the world. Spiritual worship will always be an enigma to the world, and its aversion. But we have Jesus; and by Him we draw near as priests, and with sacrifices well-pleasing to the Father, (Hebrews 13:15.) We now worship the Father offering unto God praise, and bringing unto Him gifts with cheerful and thankful hearts. Praise and gifts are the sacrifices of the Christian. Nor must we forget that while there is nothing meritorious in our offerings, yet the praise of our lips, if it proceeds from the heart, and is confirmed by our lives, and the offering of our gifts, be it out of our affluence or poverty, be it the word of sympathy or the sacrifice of time and talent, are pleasing to God. So the apostle says here, "With such sacrifices God is well pleased; "and the apostle Peter, speaking of the same spiritual sacrifices, calls them "acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." Again, when alluding to the gift of money sent by the Philippians, Paul says, "The things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." Let not a one-sided view of justification by faith, or our latent sloth and selfishness deprive us of this most comforting and stimulating teaching of Scripture, that both our words and works, our praise-worship and our offerings and ministry to the poor and the house of God, are regarded by God with delight, and accepted by Him; that thus praise and works have a substantiveimportance, not merely as evidencing our faith, but as actual sacrifices offered through Jesus, and accepted sacrifices with which the Lord is pleased. When God has taken away all our iniquity, and has received us graciously, then, to use the significant expression of the prophet Hosea, "we render the calves of our lips." Song is but the outward expression of the inner praise, and of the general confession of Christ in word and life. The first song of praise is recorded in Exodus; for it is redemption, which brings praise. In Paradise man was able to sing unto God, the Creator, and with the angels ascribe glory and thanksgiving unto the Lord. But after the fall, sinners could only praise through redeeming grace. In Egypt, the house of bondage, were heard tearful sighs and earnest supplications; on the great night of the Paschal lamb Israel waited in solemn and awe-filled silence; at the Red Sea the cry of anguish unuttered rose up from the heart of Moses; but at last came completed redemption. The Red Sea separated Israel from Egypt; old things had passed away; and "then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously." This is our song: "Christ our passover was slain, Christ our Lord is risen again." On this God-made day may we indeed rejoice and be glad.^* For He who died for us, liveth now for evermore. (^*Psalm 118.)

It is good to give thanks unto God; to behold the beauty of the Lord; to rejoice in Him, our unchanging, faithful, and ever-blessed God. This thankfulness is an offering unto the Lord. He is pleased with it. Jesus still asks: Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Jesus loves to hear the voice of melody. Seven times a day, constantly, let us praise God. The heart that praises God is delivered from anxious care and self-centered gloom. The heart that praises God is like the temple filled with God’s glory.^* Praise is heaven anticipated; in praise we even now join angels and perfected saints. (^*1 Chronicles 22:5.)

How much did the apostle Paul abound in praise! His epistles are full of thanksgiving - of doxologies. His heart was always giving thanks, and ascribing glory. Think only of this man, who, like his divine Master, was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. From the hour that Jesus appeared to him, from those three days of awful, intense soul-dealings with God, in which his whole past life, righteousness, strength, were taken from him, and through dying to the law he became alive unto God, what was his whole earthly career but taking up the cross, and following Jesus? Hated by Israel, whom he loved so profoundly; persecuted, derided, imprisoned, and scourged; in poverty, in toil, in danger by land and sea; with the burden of all the churches upon his priestly heart; suspected by Jewish Christians, grieved and hindered by schismatic and self-willed disciples; without the solace of wife or child; going from city to city with this only certainty, that bonds and afflictions awaited him everywhere can you picture to yourself this man of prayer, of vigil, of tears, of heart-breathed intercessions for unbelieving Israel, and for unfaithful Christians; this lonely, suffering man, with his burning soul, with his toil-worn frame, with his body bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus, with all the world against him, and with the martyr’s death before him? Oh, then, see that in all this he was constantly offering the sacrifice of praise!^* In his heart is melody; he finishes his course with joy; and out of the overflowing thankfulness of his soul he writes to all the Christian churches, " Rejoice in the Lord: and again I say, Rejoice!" (^* Php 2:17; Php 4:4.)

Learn from him to offer up the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.

We praise God in declaring His name. The preacher’s petition is: "Open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise." I praise God when I preach Jesus, the Saviour of the sinner, the High Priest, example and joy of the saint,^* To confess and to praise is the privilege of God’s people, to show to the world that we are at peace, that we rejoice, that heaven is our home even now, that in sorrow and prosperity God is our song. We are to praise God always. When Christians are in deep sorrow, and when they are called to endure great trials, it is often given unto them to rejoice in God, and to praise Him who is good, and whose mercy endureth for ever. Many of David’s most jubilant songs were written in hours of persecution and distress. The Christians who are. most deficient in praise are not the suffering, poor, bed-ridden, and afflicted; but those whose earthly path is smooth and easy, who fall into a languid and dull routine, whose hearts become forgetful of the Lord and His marvellous love. (^*Some churches are reproached for being preaching, and not praying churches. Let us remember that true spiritual preaching is also praising God, and declaring His name.) A joyous heart is also a generous heart. When we praise the Lord, the bountiful giver, and thank Him for the gifts of His grace - gifts so undeserved, precious, and abundant - our hearts will be liberal. We shall not forget to do good and to communicate; rather shall we be anxious to discover the good works ordained for us, that we may walk in them, to find out the poor and needy, the lowly and afflicted members of Christ, that we may help and cheer them. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. He beholds in them our gratitude and love, a manifestation of the Spirit of His own Son, who for our sakes became poor. When we "abound" in this grace also,^* the blessing of God on our souls will descend plentifully, and we shall reap an abundant harvest of spiritual fruit. (^*2 Corinthians 8:7.)

Let us study and imitate the example of the first congregation at Jerusalem. They were filled with the Spirit, they rejoiced and praised, they did not suffer any member to lack. And thus they found favour with the people, and the beauty of the Lord was upon them; and the Lord added to the Church daily.¹ Study the exhortation to the grace of liberality given by the apostle Paul to the Corinthians; so urgent, so loving, so full of the gospel. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift"² is the conclusion as well as the foundation and the centre of his admonition. (¹Acts 2:44-47;²2Cor. 8 and 9. Two beautiful and important chapters.) The sacrifice of praise and of good works^* can only be offered "by Christ." As all the offerings of the old dispensation rested on the atonement, through the sacrifice for sin, as the necessary foundation, so it is only the forgiven children of God who offer now the sacrifice of praise, confessing the name of Christ, and declaring His truth; who by ministering unto the saints, by doing good to all men, by helping the mission-work of the Church, bring thank-offerings to God. And as both these sacrifices rest on the one and only sacrifice of Christ, and proceed out of a renewed heart; as both the praise and the works are fruits of the Spirit, brought forth by the living branches, so it is by Christ’s intercession they ascend unto the Father, and are well-pleasing unto Him. (^*"Ohne Loben und Lieben vergeh keine Stunde." Let no hour pass without praise and love.)