Hebrews 6

13. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he 14 sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply 15 thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily 16 swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Where- 17 in God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his 18 counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible 19 for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold 20 upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and 21 stedfast, and which entereth into that within the vail; whither the forerunner is for us 22 entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

1. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham re- 2 turning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also 3 King of Salem, which is, King of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; 4 abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the 5 patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins 6 of Abraham: but he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, 7 and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed 8 of the better. And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom 9 it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid 10 tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him. 11 If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Mel- 12 chisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, 13 there is made of necessity a change also of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken 14 pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priest- 15 hood. And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there 16 ariseth another priest, who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after 17 the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order 18 of Melchisedec. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before 19 for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

20. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest: (for those priests were made 21 without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord swore and 22 will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec:) by so much was 23 Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because 24 they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: but this man, because he continueth 25 ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 26 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, 27 and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he 28 offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for ever- more.

To have the great object of our thoughts placed beyond the chances of human life is to place ourselves beyond them! Our hope “entereth into that within the veil”! The Christian lays hold of a chain which is bound to the throne of God; the immutable attributes of the God of the universe are pledged for his security! The laws that bind together the elements of the universe may vanish and give place to new relations and connections; the law that binds together the eternal sovereignty of Christ with the happiness of his people is unchangeable as God himself! W. A. B.

In the grand mystery of Christ and his eternal priesthood—Christ, who ever liveth to make intercession—the righteous will be set in personal and experimental connection with all the great problems of grace and counsels of love, comprised in the plan by which they have been trained, and the glories to which they are exalted. Their subjects and conferences will be those of principalities and powers, and the conceptions of their great society will be correspondent, for they are now coming to the stature necessary to a fit contemplation of such themes. The Lamb of redemption and the throne of law, and a government comprising both, will be the field of their study, and they will find their own once petty experience related to all that is vastest and most transcendent in the works and appointments of God’s empire. Oh, what thoughts will spring up in such minds, surrounded by such fellow intelligences, entered on such themes, and present to such discoveries! How grand their action! How majestic their communion! Their praise how august! Their joys how full and clear! Oh, this power of endless life! great King of Life, and Priest of Eternity, reveal thyself to us, and us to ourselves, and quicken us to this unknown future before us! H. B.

17. God hath not left us to spell out our privileges or to reason ourselves into the hope of good things; he hath plainly told us what is in his heart; he hath put his merciful designs into the form of a covenant, and expressed them in a variety of gracious promises, by the help of which we may lay hold upon his truth. This privilege is common to all believers in Christ; the Lord of hosts is their guardian as well as their friend; he charget himself with their protection; he adopts them into his family; and not only dignifies them with the title of children, but doth likewise enrich them with all the immunities and privileges which that high and endearing appellation imports. And what may they not expect from such a father? whose wisdom is infinite, whose power is irresistible, whose “mercy is everlasting,” and whose “truth endureth to all generations.” R. W.

18. A true and blessed hope is the gift of a heavenly Spirit, a peculiar work of God the Holy Ghost in the heart. It is like holiness and love, the fruit of faith; of faith in God’s promises made to a world of sinners in Christ Jesus. It very much resembles faith, resting on the same foundation and exercising itself on the same objects, and yet it differs from it. Faith believes the promise, hope looks forward to the fulfillment of it. “There is a world of glory,” says faith, “for pardoned sinners, for all who are washed and cleansed in the blood of Christ.” “I am going to that world,” says hope; “that glory will be mine.” Faith discovers the treasure, hope rejoices in the expectation of gathering it up. C. B.—The work of grace may evidence to you the truth of your hope; but the ground it fastens on is Jesus Christ, in whom all our rights and evidences hold good: his death assuring us of freedom from condemnation, and his life and possession of glory being the foundation of our hope. If you would have it immovable, rest it there; lay all this hope on him, and when assaulted, fetch all your answers for it from him, for it is Christ in you that is your hope of glory. L.

19. Changing the figure, or rather adding another, this hope is thought of as an anchor to the soul. As the huge iron anchor goes into the great deep and fastens its flukes upon the moveless rocks, holding the ship “sure and steadfast,” so the Christian anchor [“hope”] goes up into the heavenly sanctuary (the place within the veil), for there our Jesus dwells; our forerunner, gone on before, sits there enthroned for ever, our great high priest; and upon him our immortal hope fastens itself, and we are held safely for ever, “sure and steadfast.” H. C.—Hope is an anchor of the soul! Among all the emblems of Scripture, is there one more beautiful or more just than this? A ship without anchor, a prey to the billows and the breakers, threatened on all sides by rocks and reefs; behold in this a soul without true hope! Assuredly the greatest poet of the middle ages could have engraved no more striking inscription on the place of eternal punishment than the famous “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Van O.

Faith believes the truth of the word, hope waits for the fulfilling of it. Faith lays hold of that end of the promise that is next to us, to wit, as it is in the Bible; hope lays hold of that end of the promise that is fastened to the mercy-seat. For the promise is like a mighty cable that is fastened by one end to a ship, and by the other to the anchor. The soul is the ship where faith is, and to which the hither end of this cable is fastened; but hope is the anchor that is at the other end of this cable, and “which entereth into that within the veil.” Thus faith and hope getting hold of both ends of the promise they carry it safely ALL away. Bun.—The habit of living in the future should make us glad and confident. We should not keep the contemplation of another state of existence to make us sorrowful, nor allow the transiency of this present to shade our joys. Our hope should make us buoyant, and should keep us firm. It is an anchor of the soul. All men live by hope, even when it is fixed upon the changing and uncertain things of this world. But the hopes of men who have not their hearts fixed upon God try to grapple themselves on the cloudrack that rolls along the flanks of the mountains; while our hopes pierce within that veil, and lay hold of the Rock of Ages that towers above the flying vapors. Let us then be strong, for our future is not a dim peradventure, nor a vague dream, nor a fancy of our own, nor a wish turning itself into a vision, but it is made and certified by him who is the God of all the past and of all the present. It is built upon his word, and the brightest hope of all its brightness is the enjoyment of more of his presence, and the possession of more of his likeness. That hope is certain. Therefore, let us live in it. A. M.

Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others; for this simple reason—that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and, if there be no hereafter, they can but be with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappointment, since “out of nothing, nothing can arise,” not even sorrow. Byron.

20. That same Jesus who died on Calvary has ascended, in our nature, to carry on the purposes of his grace in the hearts of his people. Having left his mediatorial throne to suffer for sins, he reassumed it, on his ascension, in a new character, man for men: as such he reigns “a PRIEST upon his THEONE” (Zech. 6 : 13), our true Melchisedec, king and priest both in one person; having all power given him in heaven and in earth to give eternal life to his people, and pleading their cause, as their ever-living “advocate with the Father.” Goode.

1,2. Melchisedec.** That he was a type of Christ, is affirmed: “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” The points of accordance are many and striking. The very name, which signifies “King of righteousness,” points directly to Him who, righteous in himself, wrought out for his people a justifying righteousness, works a sanctifying righteousness within them by his Spirit, and sways them with a scepter of righteousness. His designation “King of Salem,” that is “King of peace,” fitly enough points out one who, whether as regards the disposition for which he was distinguished, the blessing he died to procure, or the effects of his administration, is well entitled to be called “the Prince of Peace.” But the point which, most of all, marks him out as typical of our mediatorial king, is his combining in his own person the regal and sacerdotal offices. Besides being “king of Salem,” he was “priest of the most high God.” He was a royal priest—a sacerdotal king—and thus an eminent type of Him who, as exerting his power on the foot of his purchase, sits “a priest upon his throne.” W. S.

3. Without descent.** This explains the two preceding words: the meaning is, that the priesthood of Melchisedec was not, like the Levitical priesthood, dependent on his descent, through his parents, from a particular family, but was a personal office. Neither beginning, etc. Here, as in the previous without father and mother, the silence of Scripture is interpreted allegorically. Scripture mentions neither the father nor mother, neither the birth nor death of Melchisedec. C.—He had no genealogy on the Hebrew records. He stands there a priest, and this only; a priest for ever, for there is no hint that he ever ceased to be a priest. So far, therefore, as the Hebrew records go, he is made like the Son of God and abides a priest for ever.

4-15. The real clew to the sense of this whole case of Melchisedec is this: We must take him as he stands in Hebrew history, and on the old genealogies of their nation. We are to know nothing more; to ask nothing further. Taking him as he stands there, he is fatherless, motherless; never born, never dying; a priest only, therefore, and a priest for ever; greater than Abraham, and consequently greater than Levi, than Aaron, than any or all of Aaron’s line. All these points are turned to account as illustrating the priesthood of Jesus. To the ancient Hebrew people, how striking must have been that ancient figure in their history which stood, as Melchisedec did, alone in sublime, isolated grandeur, towering above their oldest patriarch, Abraham, and standing loftily apart from the long line of their national genealogies! H. C.

16. The priesthood of Christ is graduated by the wants and measures of the human soul as the priesthood of the law was not; the endless life in which he comes matches and measures the endless life in mankind whose fall he is to restore. Powers of endless life though we be, falling principalities, wandering stars shooting downward in the precipitation of evil, he is able to bring us off, reestablish our dismantled eternities, and set us in the peace and confidence of an eternal righteousness. Nothing meets our want in fact, but to see the boundaries of nature and time break away to let in a being and a power visibly not of this world. Let him be the Eternal Son of God and Word of the Father, descending out of higher worlds to be incarnate in this. As we have lost our measures, let us recover them, if possible, in the sense restored of our everlasting brotherhood with him. Let him so be made a priest for us, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life—the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his person—God manifest in the flesh—God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. H. B.

As a priest He ever lives, and the efficacy of his work is dependent upon the circumstance that he is incapable of death. His Divine Person is essentially immortal, and that assumption to itself of the entire nature of man by virtue of which he becomes a priest involves a union which can never be disturbed. He can never cease to be God and man in two distinct natures and one Person for ever. He is a priest after the power of an endless life. The victim which he offered was his human nature, which was susceptible of death by the separation of its parts, though the union of neither part with the divine Son could be dissolved. Here, then, the Priest, as living, lays down a life upon which death may seize without affecting the integrity of his own being. He lays it down and he takes it again. Both are his own acts, and the inconsistency of attributing to the dead the properties of the living is fully resolved. How he could die and yet be ever alive; how, as dead, he could resume a life which supposes him not to be dead—these are contradictions which can only be explained by the mystery of the incarnation, in which the union of the natures is maintained, each in its integrity, without confusion, amalgamation, or mixture. The priest lives, the victim dies; the priest is the actor, the victim the sufferer. J. H. T.

It is a magnificent conception, the power of an endless life! Life worthy to be called life; life holy, beatific, glorious, divine; life participant of God’s own holiness and blessedness. The power of such a life! endless, unchangeable, save only from accumulating glory; perpetual in its energy and freshness, with the boundlessness and security of infinitude before it for ever and ever! The mighty conflict which agitates the universe is a conflict for eternity, a conflict between two eternities, between the power of an endless life and the power of an endless death. Nothing less than this could range the Son of God incarnate on the one side and Satan on the other. Nothing less than the certainty and dreadfulness of an endless death could bring from heaven a divine Redeemer, the Lord of eternity, to take upon himself our flesh and blood that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death. G. B. C.—Whatever may be the force of other arguments, our faith in immortality actually takes its stand on divine testimony, rather than on abstruse reasons. In truth, we have need of this testimony to put an end to some doubts which reason could never solve. There are lines of argument which, although they might seem fairly to establish the doctrine of a life after the dissolution of the body, would not absolutely include the notion—amazing idea!—of Endless Existence. It is one thing to awake at death to a new life, and another to inherit absolutely a never-ending life. It is fearful, if we reflect upon what it implies, to bear relation in any way, even remotely, to infinitude—for who shall calculate the whole result of such a connection? How fearful then to carry infinity in our very bosoms! to be wedded inseparably to that which has no bounds! In comparison with this power of eternal life all powers are nothing; or should we not rather say that every faculty which is linked to this borrows from it an incalculable importance? I. T.

Verse 19 should run thus: (“for the law made nothing perfect), and there is a bringing in of a better hope, by which,” etc., putting no stop at end of verse 18. A.—The law made nothing perfect. It only told what the perfect was—did not inspire the motive, the love to keep it. If kept at all as law, it would be by fear or a selfish seeking for safety from its penalty, not by self-forgetting loyalty. “If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Law is compulsory; grace is free. Law is obligatory; the gospel is attractive. Law is command; the covenant in Christ, which “the law can not disannul,” is promise. Law is terrible; the Spirit is animating—pardon, peace, love, joy, gentleness, goodness, faith. Here stands the anxious conscience, troubled, discouraged, looking far up at the blazing standard, the commandment, and then looking back at its disordered and miserable self; no way of bringing the two together. It needs a Reconciler, who shall not lower the law, but keep it, honor it, magnify it, and at the same time lift up, forgive, reinvigorate man, and breathe a new life of the Holy Spirit into him. This is the bringing in of a better hope. F. D. H.

22. Jesus, as the Mediator between God and man, is the “Surety of the better covenant,” who has fulfilled all the terms upon which it rests. It has no terms for us to fulfill beyond the acceptance of the blessing, because, in his infinite love to man, he accomplished in his own person all that was needed, that God might be a just God and yet a Saviour. Goode.

25. The dignity of his person as the “eternal Word made flesh,” the perfection of his obedience, the merit of his sacrifice, his resurrection from the dead, and his exaltation to the right hand of God, leave no room to doubt of his saving power; while his own account of the errand upon which he came into the world, his free choice of the office of Redeemer, his generous offers of mercy to the chief of sinners, together with the regret he always expressed when these offers were rejected, may justly lead us to conclude that he is no less willing than “he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him.” These encouraging truths are written as with a sunbeam in the sacred Scriptures. R. W.—Christ saves to the uttermost because he suffered to the uttermost. He was not spared one blow, one drop, one sigh, one sorrow, one shame, one circumstance of all or any one of those which justice could demand as a satisfaction for man’s sin. Caryl.

It is as our great High Priest that he hath “passed into the heavens,” “where he ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Because he continueth ever, he “hath an unchangeable priesthood”; he is “consecrated for evermore.” Heaven is full of sacrificial recollections. Christ dies no more for ever, yet for ever he “appears in the presence of God for us,” his hands filled with priestly oblations, and his bosom covered with the sculptured names of his tribes. J. W. A.—Since Christ is an intercessor, believers should not rest at the cross for comfort: justification they should look for there; but, being justified by his blood, they should ascend up after him to his throne. There you shall see him wearing the breastplate of judgment, and with all your names written upon his heart. Then you shall perceive how he prevails with God the Father of mercies for you. Stand still awhile and listen, yea, enter with boldness unto the holiest, and see your Jesus as he now appears in the presence of God for you; what work he makes against the devil and sin, and death and hell, for you. This then is our High Priest; this is intercession—these the benefits of it. It lies in our part to improve it; and wisdom to do so—that also comes from the mercy-seat or throne of grace where he, even our High Priest, ever liveth to make intercession for us. To whom be glory for ever and ever. Bun.

26. Holy. With all other men there is some discrepancy in the inner life. The two poles of intellectual life, knowledge and feeling, head and heart; the two powers of the moral life, thought and will—in whom are they fully agreed? But in Jesus reigns perfect harmony of the inner spiritual life. His soul is at absolute peace. He is all love, all heart, all feeling; and yet he is all intellect, all clearness, all majesty. All is quiet greatness, peaceful simplicity, sublime harmony. Luthardt.

Separate from sinners. When we appeal to his humiliations under the flesh and as a man of sorrows, we really do not count on the flesh and the sorrows as being the Christly power, but only on what he brought into the world from above the world by the flesh and the sorrows—the holiness, the deific love, the self-sacrificing greatness, the everlasting beauty; in a word, all that most distinguishes him above mankind and shows him most transcendently separate from sinners. How great a thing is it that such a being has come into our world and lived in it—a being above mortality while in it; a being separate from sinners, bringing unto sinners, by a fellow nature, what is transcendent and even deific in the divine holiness and love! Yes, we have had a visitor among us, living out, in the molds of human conduct and feeling, the perfections of God! What an importation of glory and truth! Who, that lives, a man, can ever after this think it a low and common thing to fill these spheres, walk in these ranges of life, and do these works of duty, which have been raised so high by the life of Jesus in the flesh! The world is no more the same that it was. All its main ideas and ideals are raised. A kind of sacred glory invests even our humblest spheres and most common concerns. H. B.—And now, to draw closer to this Son of God evermore, and to feel the tide of life that comes from him, pouring with fuller flood around and through us; to have him in our heart and eye, and to follow in his steps of free, unselfish love to God and man; to be true and transparent as he was, saying the thing that is, and doing the thing that should be; to struggle toward this mark where we do not reach it, and send after it, from every fall, more earnest aim and effort: this, with the help of God, will deliver us from the bitter scoff that all the world is hollow, and man, at his best, a vain and frivolous thing. The groveling and the false will sink away beneath our feet, and we shall rise to that hold of God which gives his own unassailable peace within, and to that calm, though it may be sad, look on a fallen world and on poor tossing humanity, as still in his hand, and as destined to work out his purposes of free and everlasting grace. Ker.

26-28. This forcible grouping of the grand points in the priesthood of Jesus brings the long argument in this chapter to its consummation. Such a Great High Priest every way befits us; is adapted to our case and to all our wants. The Mosaic ritual made the utmost account of the symbols of purity in the priesthood; yet how could mere ritualities secure the purity itself? But Jesus was the embodiment of purity itself. Exalted, moreover, higher than the heavens; gone up into the upper sanctuary, at the very center of influence, before the throne of the Infinite Father, at the summit of dignity and glory, having no need, like those priests, to offer daily for his own sins ere he could offer for the people. And daily offerings for his people were superseded by his offering of himself once for all. Finally, to fill out this magnificent contrast to its utmost strength and glory, the old Mosaic law ordained for its priests men full of all infirmities; but the decree of the solemn oath which succeeded and supplanted that law ordained the very Son of God who is for ever infinitely perfect. The word “consecrated” is too weak to express the full force of the Greek which means perfected, holding the full consummation of all the glorious qualities of a High Priest before God. H. C.