Title Page |
Preface |
Chapter 1 - ROMANS |
|
The Epistle to the
Romans more than any
other a complete
treatise on the
fundamentals of
Christian doctrine,
-- No fresh
revelations from God
can nullify those
which preceded them,
-- The points of
truth that introduce
the epistle, --
Faith—obedience its
character, -- The
apostle’s desire to
communicate with
those he had never
seen, -- Beware of
contracted views of
salvation, --
Conscious
deliverance in the
power of the Holy
Spirit should be the
result of the gospel
preached, -- The
meaning of the
phrase, “From faith
to faith,” -- Not
all that is now
revealed is the
gospel, -- Holding
the truth in
unrighteousness, who
do it, --
The moral history of man,
--
What
the natural conscience of man can do,
--
God’s judgment of man in respect of
conscience and of law,
--
The place of the Jew in this estimate of man,
--
Condemned by that in which he blindly made his boast,
-- Righteousness of
God, what is it? -- Pręter—mission of sins,
--
God looks for the sinner’s
submission, not his victory,
--
The question is not what man should be for
God, but what God can be and is for man,
--
Abraham the proof of the value of
faith in justification before God,
--
Abraham’s circumcision never constituted his righteousness,
--
The connection of the promise to Abraham
with resurrection,
--
What gives peace with God?
--
Creature standing gone
forever; the glory of God the only ground now,
--
The difference between
man’s guilt and man’s nature,
--
Justification of life,
--
Sin and death
are proof of one man’s disobedience with or without law,
--
Life and liberty
are proofs of one man’s obedience,
--
Practical holiness is not founded on
Christ having died for my sins, but on my being dead to sin,
--
Baptism means
not that I must die to sin, but that I have died to it,
--
Remission of sins and deliverance from sin essentially different,
--
Christ dead and risen is the answer to both,
--
God has not only pardoned the sinner, but condemned
the fallen nature,
--
Flesh and Spirit contrasted,
--
The Spirit as a
power, a divine person dwelling in us,
--
How does the gospel affect Israel’s
distinctive place?
--
The blessing of being a son of Abraham depends on its
descent through Isaac,
--
Israel, lost but for mercy, are but on a level with
Gentiles,
--
The stumbling--stone the key to Israel’s coming ruin,
--
“Whosoever,”
--
Israel forced to bear witness that the heathen should be brought in,
--
Israel past, present, and future, in Romans --
Zion the scene of final triumph,
--
Our reception of one another according to
Christ’s reception of us, to the glory of God,
-- True ministry
gives not merely
truth but suited
truth to the
saints.. |
Chapter 2 - FIRST
CORINTHIANS.
|
|
The unfolding of the assembly in a practical way is the
object of this epistle, --
The unbelief of Christendom tries to annul this
epistle more than any other,
--
No amount of gift, in few or many, can of
itself produce holy spiritual order,
--
Corinth saw the early rise of the
Church of God among the Gentiles,
--
Christ crucified puts all man’s glory in
the dust,
--
Jew and Greek— opposite as the poles— agree thoroughly in slighting the
cross,
--
The cross more than redemption merely,
--
Christ crucified the death—knell for all man’s wisdom, power, and
righteousness,
--
Man incapable of fathoming the depths of divine things,
--
The Holy Spirit
the sole means of communicating blessing to the saints,
--
How little many a
young convert knows what will best lead him on!
--
What care each servant
needs to take how and what he builds!
--
The Apostle’s lowliness a source of
reproach among men,
--
his highest glory before God,
-- Church
discipline, --
Who are to exercise it?
--
The Holy Spirit’s estimate of sin; what is a railer? --
Brother going to law with brother,
--
Why personal purity is essential to a Christian,
--
Revelation and inspiration,
--
The
commandment of the Lord, and a spiritual judgment,
--
Marriage. The position
of a slave,
--
What a wonderful antithesis of man is the Second Man!
--
Without responsibility nothing is more ruinous than power and liberty,
--
What grace does in respect to matters of right,
--
How to use a gift,
--
The danger of liberty lapsing into license,
--
True ground is no ground for false conduct,
--
The grace of Christ and the authority of the Lord,
--
People generally fail in that of which they boast most,
--
Woman’s place in the assembly,
--
What became her if she had the gift of prophecy?
--
The
Agape and its influence on the Lord’s Supper,
--
The Apostle’s regulation
concerning it,
--
Spiritual powers and their source,
--
In the spiritual body there are important members not seen at all,
--
The church a vessel of power for the maintenance of God’s glory, and
responsible for this here below,
--
Gifts that suppose the exercise of spiritual understanding have a far higher
place than others,
--
The aim and purpose of prophesying,
--
The difference between the power of the Spirit and the power of a demon,
--
The connection between Christianity and the resurrection,
--
From what root of evil clerisy has grown,
--
Man likes to understand before he believes—this is
ruinous to faith,
--
What is meant by a “mystery,”
--
We shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed,
--
Do we every one of us give as we are prospered by the way?
--
A selfish personal keeping to ourselves of what we have is even worse than a
too lavish expenditure,
--
Liberty and responsibility of ministry in their mutual relations,
-- It is good to
maintain the
specialty of
ministry in the
Lord. |
Chapter 3 - SECOND
CORINTHIANS. |
|
Contrast between first and second epistles,
--
Resemblance to the Epistle to the Philippians,
--
Contrast with Philippians,
--
Mutual consolation and affliction,
--
The power of the Holy Spirit
working in the new man lifts the believer completely above the flesh,
--
“Yea
and nay,”
--
Satan has not lost but acquired in the dominion of the world a
higher place by the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, --
The devotion of
apostolic love, --
Directions for dealing with the humbled delinquent of the
first epistle, --
There is nothing like a manifestation of grace to call out
grace, --
Righteousness in Christ connected with heavenly glory, --
The
saints a letter of commendation, -- The Lord that Spirit that giveth life, --
The Spirit of the Lord, --
The ministrations of death, life,
righteousness, and glory, --
The ministration of the Spirit over and above
life, --
come down from the exalted man in glory, --
The vessel that
contains the heavenly treasure, --
Liveliness of nature hinders the
manifestation of the treasure, but its judgment leaves room for the light to
shine out, --
For we which live are always delivered unto death, --
“Clothed” and “naked,” --
Clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up
of life, --
Always confident, --
The judgment--seat of Christ, --
and
those who stand at it, --
The effect of manifestation, --
Contrast of
Messianic hopes with a higher glory, --
A Christian not occupied with a
Messiah come to bless the world, --
In Christ, and what it signifies, --
God was in Christ
not is), --
A sinner awakened takes God’s part against
himself, -- It is never right to be narrow, and always wrong to be lax, --
Responsibility, individual as well as corporate, --
Inspiration far
above the will of man, and the fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit, --
Contributions for saints, -- Trials of the Apostle in his labors of love, --
The prizes and honors the world gave him, --
A man in Christ taken
up, in contrast with Paul in a basket let down, --
Patience a sign of
apostleship, -- Conclusion. |
Chapter 4 -
GALATIANS. |
|
A serious and grieved spirit manifest in the epistle,
--
The
fountain of grace touched by the intrusion of perverted law, --
Christianity
knows nothing of successional arrangements, --
The facts of Christianity,
and their value for the mind and walk, --
Abruptness of the opening of the Galatian letter, --
Integrity of the gospel as preached by Paul; any
departure from it for another fatal, --
Rome, seeking to derive her
authority from Peter, proclaims her identity with the circumcision, --
Connection between a servant and his testimony, --
Jealousy of man, when the
grace of God works in a new channel and gives the go--by to antiquity, --
The
Apostle separated from man by God, in order to proclaim more strikingly the
singular ministry peculiar to him, --
Conference with flesh and blood out of
place with a perfect revelation, --
Revelation of His Son in Paul and to
Peter and the rest, --
Man, craving an appearance of unity and strength,
sacrifices heaven for earth, Spirit for flesh, --
True desire for unity
knows how to walk alone with God, --
Singularity of Paul’s conversion set in
the highest place at the outset, --
Tenderness towards his nation does not
prevent his snapping every earthly link with it, --
His testimony
characteristically heavenly, --
Unity secured by deciding at Jerusalem the
question of circumcision for Gentiles, --
The case of Titus, --
No
interference with the work which others had been given to do, --
The gravity
of Peter’s easy--going yieldingness to the Judaizing party, --
Peter’s act
went to maintain a difference between Jew and Gentile, --
The true way to
measure things is by their effect on Christ’s glory, --
The history of the
flesh is soon over, but the history that faith opens into never closes, --
Everyone who goes back from such a gospel frustrates, as far as it goes, the
grace of God, --
The cross judges the legalism of Galatians, as it judged
the worldliness of Corinthians, --
The law holds out, but never gives,
blessing, --
Gentiles were not under the curse of the law, --
The
relation of law to the promises, --
“The seed” in its plurality, --
“The
seed” in its unity, -- Christ the true Heir of all the promises of God, --
Promise was before the law, and flowed out of the grace of God, --
“God is one,” contrasted with the law which supposed two parties, --
In
grace God in the person of His Son speaks and accomplishes all, --
Had grace
and law been working together, there would have been two antagonistic roads to
blessing, --
A person is not baptized into his own death, but into the death
of Christ, --
Old and New Testament saints contrasted, --
“Abba,” the
cry of the saint and Christ, --
Going back to Judaic elements is going back
to heathenism, -- Idolatry no less gross because Jesus is the subject of it, --
Days and months and times and years, sensible helps to idolatry, --
“Be as I am; for I am as ye are,” --
An infirmity in the flesh, --
A
stickler for law proves himself an Ishmaelite, --
Jerusalem and its desolate
condition under law, --
There is no power for walk resulting from mere
forgiveness of sins, --
Sense of duty is not power, --
Liberty first,
power and love afterward, --
Occupation with Christ alone produces the love
the law claimed, --
Power may be lost, responsibility never, --
Eternal
life in a double sense: I have it and I seek it, --
If you take up the law
in one particular, you must take it up altogether, --
Christianity brings
everything to a climax, and settles all questions, -- “The marks of the Lord
Jesus,” in contrast
with circumcision. |
Chapter 5 -
EPHESIANS. |
|
God from Himself and for Himself, as the adequate motive and
object before Him, even His own glory, --
The tendency to set aside what is
personal for what is corporate, --
There is no place good enough for Christ,
the Son, but heaven, --
Our blessing independent of the old creation, --
Angels not adequate judges of what pertains to us, --
“Child” differs in
dignity from “Son” in its application to the Lord or the saints, --
The
mistakes of human philosophy in its thoughts of the Godhead have arisen from
importing the question of time, --
A divine nature given to us in its
qualities of holiness and love, --
The terms wisdom and prudence applied to
the saints, --
Not to be taken up as names or barren titles, --
There is
nothing to indicate to mankind at large what God purposes to do, --
Nature
and relationship, --
The riches of the glory of the inheritance, --
The
Christian is even now the object of the very same power that raised up Christ
from the dead, --
Christ was not raised up as an insulated individual,
severed from others, --
The sinner’s place contrasted in Romans and
Ephesians, --
Jew and Gentile in their mutual relation as sinners, --
God’s new workmanship, --
which workmanship we Christians are, --
A new
man in which Jew and Gentile lose their distinctive place, --
The heavenly and the earthly aspect of the church, --
That which was first in counsel is last in revelation, --
The mystery revealed to holy apostles and prophets was not revealed by them
all, --
The mystery does not mean the church merely, --
but Christ, and the church as a consequence, --
What the principalities and powers behold, -- The difference between the prayer
of the first and
that of the third
chapter, --
Rooted that ye may be able, and so forth, --
Knowing Christ’s love, though unknowable, and God’s fullness, though
infinite, --
The unity of the Spirit, --
Intrinsic unity, and of
profession, --
Universal unity, --
Diversities, --
A man seated on
the throne of God has given gifts to men, --
In vain to look for the
church’s prosperity, if individual saints do not grow up unto Christ, --
Our
duties flow from what we are or are made, --
God would have us imitate His
own ways, as they have shone in Christ, --
Nor is there full Christian
service, except in proportion as it is according to this pattern, --
Light
is a necessity of the new nature, --
Christ is the pattern and perfection of
grace in every relationship, --
What true Christian conflict is, --
not
with flesh and blood, or nature, but with Satan, --
The armor of God, -- Activity for others, dependence for ourselves. |
Chapter 6 -
PHILIPPIANS. |
|
Practical appeal rather than doctrine the subject of this
epistle, --
Mingling Christ with the affairs of every day, --
Joy
undimmed in the midst of the trials and sorrows of ordinary life, -- There is no
theory that first
love must
necessarily cool
down, but the
contrary, --
The power of testimony destroyed by the allowance of evil insinuations
against him who renders it, --
but Christian experience is developed in
abounding love --
Begin with Christ, go on with Christ, until the day of
Christ, --
Looking to the Lord, --
Once right about Christ, you are
right about everything while He is before you, --
The moral harmony in the
fact, that he who preached the gospel of the glory of Christ should be a
prisoner at Rome, --
“My bonds in Christ,” -- Affliction added to bonds, --
“This shall turn to my salvation,” --
“In nothing I shall be
ashamed,” --
“I” and “me” of Romans and Philippians contrasted, --
Fruit
of labor; its meaning, -- Conversation becoming to the gospel of Christ, --
Fear and trembling has no dread or doubt in it, --
Suffering for
Christ’s sake is a gift of His love, --
Energy apt to give occasion for
strife and vain--glory, --
Two chief stages of Christ’s humiliation flowing
out of His perfect love, --
All error founded on a misuse of a truth against
the truth, --
An archangel at best but a servant, and can never rise above
it. Jesus emptied Himself to become one, --
The difference between
reconciliation and subjection, --
The Apostle’s picture of the saint
resembles the Master, --
The true source of humility in service, --
Unselfish love, --
The third chapter parenthetical, to bring in the active
side of the Christian in contrast with the passive, --
The only allusion to
flesh in this epistle is in connection with its religious form, --
What it
is to win Christ, --
To be in Christ is better than to have the
righteousness of the law, --
Resurrection from the dead, --
Critical
note on τὴν ἐξανάστασιν τῶν νεκρῶν,
--
continued, --
Forgetting those
things that are behind refers to the progress that we may make, --
“Differently minded” is not agreeing to differ, --
The name of Christ is the
true center of the saints, --
The last chapter founded on the active and
passive aspects of the Christian, --
A woman shines most where she does not
appear, --
Labor or conflict in the gospel, --
Moderation, --
Requests, to whom to be made known, --
Having committed what is miserable to
God, we can go on rejoicing in His goodness, -- Independence founded on
dependence. |
Chapter 7 -
COLOSSIANS. |
|
A counterpart, but a supplement, to Ephesians,
--,) the one
presenting the Head, the other the body, -- Resemblance to Peter’s Epistles, --
The essential place of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians, --
The striking
absence of allusion to Him in Colossians, --
This epistle a recall to Christ
Himself, --
One may bow to Christ as Lord, and yet be painfully insensible
to the higher glories of His person, --
Christianity is a thing of gradual
growth in the soul, --
and not circumscribed by known limits, like
philosophy, --
The inheritance of the saints in light, --
Christianity,
instead of being helped by human philosophy, is only hindered and extinguished
by it, --
Why is Christ first--born of all creation? --
As Creator of all
things, --
How is Christ Head of the body? --
As firstborn from the
dead, --
The fullness of Godhead dwelt in Jesus, --
but man would have
none of it, and proved it above all in the cross, --
Satan allowed,
apparently, to go on as if he had won the final victory, --
“If ye continue
in the faith,” --
A minister of the gospel and of the church, two different
spheres, --
Only Paul treats of justification by faith, --
The gospel to
every creature under heaven; the church a select body, --
A gap, which Paul
was deputed specially to write about, --
altogether in contrast with ancient
or millennial glory, --
He who knows best the faithful love of Christ, is
none the less an energetic laborer, --
What God is actually doing is the
truth that needs pressing, --
The secret of true wisdom and blessing is in
going on to know more of Christ than is already possessed, --
Ritualists and
rationalists play into each other’s hands, --
The cross of Christ is the
death--knell of the world, --
Atheism and Pantheism are the ultimate results
of philosophy, -- The doctrine of baptism here is contrasted with Romans, --
One cannot be quickened with Christ without having all trespasses
forgiven, --
In what consists “not holding the head,” --
There was no Christianity before Christ rose from the dead, --
The Ritualistic system traitorous to Him who died on the cross, --
Striving to be dead to what is wrong is but the law in a new and impossible
shape, --
Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, --
Ought I not to share my Master’s shame and dishonor here? --
Corruption of inner feeling in contrast with that which goes on outside of
us, --
Put on charity, --
The peace “of Christ,” --
Continuance in prayer, --
What a spring of power is the love of Christ! --
Paul narrowed himself to no local ties, -- There are no portions of the sacred
writings lost. |
Chapter 8 -
THESSALONIANS |
|
Any truth specially
given by God is
immediately the
object of Satan’s
continual and subtle
attacks, --
“In God the Father” suggests an infantine condition rather than an advanced
stage, --
How to deal with the entrance of error and the dangers that threaten the
children of God, --
We should consider the manner God deals with saints in any special place, --
Simplicity is the
secret for enjoying
the truth as well as
for receiving it, --
Do not attempt to draw from Scripture more than it undertakes to convey, --
What the first chapter teaches in respect to the Lord’s coming, --
How the Apostle adapted his ministrations to the advancing requirements of the
Thessalonians, --
A sketch of that suffering which faith entails, --
Why
men oppose the truth, --
Christianity not dreamy nor sentimental, but most
real in its power of adapting itself to every need, --
The two prayers in
this epistle, --
Love always precedes holiness, --
which is the fruit of
the love to which the heart has surrendered, --
Why Thessalonians should be
warned of even the grossest sins, --
The Aristotles and Platos not fit for
decent company, --
Disadvantages Thessalonians labored under, and which do
not fall to our lot, --
They had no fear of being lost, but were not clear
what the Lord would do with them, --
Newly entered light gives occasion to
the perception of much which we cannot solve at once, --
The character of
the “shout,” and by whom it will be heard, --
The “day of the Lord” never
applied to any dealing with the Christian as on the earth, --
It was too
notorious a period to need fresh words about it, --
The presence of the Lord
and the day of Jehovah, if confounded, reveal a secret of the heart, --
“Wake or sleep,”—beware of verbal analogies, --
For some to be over others
in the Lord did not depend on apostolic appointment only, --
Disorderly folk
are apt to know nobody over them in the Lord, --
The object of the second
epistle, --
The terrors of “that day” used by the enemy to unsettle during a
period of persecution, --
Traceable to a lack of that “patience of hope”
which characterized an early faith, --
The two classes on whom vengeance
will fall in “that day,” --
Gentiles know not God, and Jews obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, --
Both are the guilty tools of Satan, and
shall be punished with everlasting destruction, --
Ἐνἐστηκε does not mean
“at hand,” but “actually come,” --
The trouble of “that day” will befall the
enemies, not the friends, of the Lord, --
If one is taught a truth by God,
why be troubled about what comes from any other quarter? --
Some of the most
important parts of Satan’s means for bringing about the apostasy are now
actively at work, --
Jerusalem and Rome, --
The restraint and the
restrainer, --
Every Christian waits for Christ with more or less
intelligence, --
Events following the removal of the restraint, --
With
startling rapidity events in our day are leading on to the brink of the
precipice, --
The idea that the Roman empire is the restraining power not
altogether wide of the mark, -- The patience of Christ is a keynote maintained
from first to last. |
Chapter 9 - FIRST
AND SECOND TIMOTHY. |
|
Confidential communication from the Apostle to
some of his fellow laborers, --
A Saviour God is in contrast with His
dealings under law or government, --
Mellowed tone observable in the
writings of the apostle as he drew to the close of his career, --
How the
term “commandment” is sometimes misused, -- The negative use of the law, --
The law not enacted for the Christian, --
Sound doctrine—what is
comprised in it, --
Ordinary duties of life in connection with the gospel of
the glory, --
The faith and a good conscience, --
Delivery to Satan—its
object, -- How often pre--occupation within makes us forget those without, --
Exhortation pursued in respect of that which would meet the eye even of
an unconverted person, --
The way in which a woman can contribute to a right
and godly testimony, --
Woman, and her lot here below, --
The personal
qualifications of an overseer, --
Home influence in its relation to the
house of God, --
The invalidity of present appointment to office, --
The
qualifications of deacons and their wives, --
We are called to be a
manifestation of the truth before the world, --
Faith waits till it gets a
distinct word from God, --
The mystery of godliness, --
and its
connection with the minutest affairs of work--a--day life, --
Every creature
of God is good, --
Those who seek to give out had better take care they take
in, --
The decorum that becomes everyone, especially a young man, enjoined
upon Timothy, --
There is nothing either too great or too little for the
Holy Spirit, -- The value of piety with a contented mind.
The character of the second epistle,
-- A deep sense of what can be owned in nature can only follow a due
apprehension of what God is— nature set aside, --
Timothy’s sensitive nature finds full sympathy in the Apostle’s large
heart, --
while he accustoms his mind to expect hardship instead of shirking
it, --
The disorder of the house of God in this epistle, --
In such a
state of things, do the will of God; let others say what they please, --
There are very few saints from whom we may not derive some good, though not
always in the same way, --
A single eye to Christ and His grace made Paul
consistent, --
The firm foundation of God stands, --
Why one cannot deal
as simply with people now as in apostolic times, --
It is not maintaining
the unity of the Spirit to couple with the name of the Lord that which is
fleshly and sinful, --
Isolation never desirable, though sometimes
necessary, --
“Physical Christianity” a heathenish phrase, but designating
much that finds its place in these last days, --
It is a matter of no little
importance who says this or that, --
The importance of preaching the word
when men will not endure sound doctrine, --
The coming of the Lord in no way
manifests the faithfulness of the servant; the appearing will, -- A book or a
cloak not too small a matter to bring the Spirit of God into. |
Chapter 10 - Titus.
|
|
More prominence is given to external order in writing to Titus than to
Timothy, --
To acknowledge the truth which is after godliness is always a duty, even
after the house of God has been grievously affected, --
God’s elect, --
The truth of eternal life is brought out far more fully in the decay of
Christian profession, --
There was no such thing as preaching known during the most considerable part
of the world’s history, --
The universality of the testimony of grace in contrast with the narrow limits
of law, --
Summary of the world’s history, to show that eternal life in Christ before
the world began shines out most brilliantly at its close, --
The circle of Divine life may seem narrow, but nothing can rival it in point
of large and deep affection, --
When a ministry of death and condemnation was in question, a limit was good
and wise; but with eternal life and remission of sins, how different! --
John takes up the very point at which Paul leaves off, --
The present state of Christendom renders it fitting that there should be
“things wanting” now, --
but then that makes the Word of God the more precious to those who feel the
lack, --
No one can appoint, save those who have authority so to do, --
A state of ruin always tests the heart more than when things are in primitive
order, --
Eldership is likely to be passed by, under the more attractive service of the
word in public work, --
If we see men who have the qualities, and do the work of elders, we should
respect them as such, --
Elders are a local charge, --
National character to be taken into account when dealing with souls, --
Never interpose the teacher, nor the mere letter of a duty, between the soul
and the Lord, --
Nothing more marks Christianity than its elasticity and breadth, --
The power of Christ lends dignity to the very smallest thing that occupies
the heart and mind, --
There is no relationship, not a single thing of the most ordinary kind, that
does not become a test, --
If God pays particular attention to any, it is to those that man as such
despised--slaves, --
Distinction between worldly and fleshly lusts, --
The falsehood of either ameliorating human nature or of improving the world
will soon end in worse confusion and in sorest judgment, --
The antagonist of the Son of God has prompted men to abuse His grace so as to
deny His glory, --
The difference between “the washing of regeneration” and “the renewing of the
Holy Ghost,” --
Plain everyday need goes along with the deepest truth, --
What is a heretic? --
What to do with a heretic, --
The whole root of it is self, --
Heresies in -- Corinthians --:--,
--
It is a great mistake to suppose that there may not be
such a thing as arrangement in ministry, -- Yet it is not everybody that
possesses a
competent judgment
about such a matter. |
Chapter 11 -
PHILEMON. |
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This has altogether a different character from the epistles that
have lately been occupying us, --
Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, --
What
movements of heart about a runaway slave! -- The most excellent of men have
broken down
occasionally by the
pettiest things that
entice or provoke
self, --
Would Paul the prisoner and the aged make an ineffectual claim on the
heart of Philemon? --
The delicacy of feeling and the sense of propriety
which grace forms are truly exquisite, --
It is not always a question of
doing a right thing, but of doing it in the right way, --
Christianity is
not a system of earthly righteousness, but the unfolding of the grace of Christ
and of heavenly hopes, -- The heart that could stand out against such appeals of
grace was far from
Philemon. |
Chapter 12 -
HEBREWS. |
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Reasons for
supposing Paul to be
the writer of this
epistle, --
His name suppressed because he takes the place of a teacher and not of an
apostle, --
The epistle is a consummate treatise upon the bearing of Christ
and Christianity on the law and the prophets, --
Paul would show them thus
the infinite dignity of the Messiah whom they had received, --
Who so
suitable to introduce Jesus, the rejected Messiah, at the right hand of God, as
Saul of Tarsus? --
A striking absence of allusion to the one body, --
But there was One dearer to the heart of Paul than the church itself, --
Reduce the glory of Christ, and you equally lower your judgment of the state of
man, --
Previous revelation to Israel partial and piecemeal, but in Christ
the fullness of the truth shines out, --
The place angels held in the Jewish
mind, --
used to bring into greater relief the astonishing place of man in
the person of Christ, --
God never singled out an angel, and said, “Thou art
My Son!” --
But unto the Son He saith, “Thy throne, O God,” --
Messiah
is called “Jehovah,” and that in His deepest shame, --
The perfection of
Messiah’s submission in contrast with the permanence of Jehovah, --
Then His
exaltation on high as man till the hour of judgment on His foes, --
The
glory of Christ as Son of Man, -- Man—his position in the world to come, --
Christ’s death the ground of reconciliation for the universe, --
The
doctrine of the epistle, and its suitability to the wants of the believer
traversing the wilderness, --
Common place of the Sanctifier with the
sanctified, --
Sin atoned for, persons reconciled, --
Chapters -- and -- introduce the basis of the high--priesthood; chapters -- and -- a digression,
linking themselves, however, with the first two, --a
The Apostle and high
priest of our profession is in contrast with that of the Jews, --
Difficulty
at first in reconciling the fact of a Messiah come, and gone to glory, with a
people left in shame and sorrow, --
explained by the fact, that the path of
the people of God is a path of faith now, just as it was before, --
What is
the meaning of the rest of God? --
“We which have believed do enter into
rest”—its bearing, --
God had rested from His works, but had never rested in
them, --
The rest is still beyond, --
“There remaineth therefore a
rest,” --
Mistake to apply the rest to rest of conscience, --
In chapter
-- we enter on the priesthood, --
“For every high priest taken from among
men” cannot apply to Christ, -- Such is not the Priest God has given us, --
At the same time there is no forgetfulness of the suffering obedience of
Christ’s place here below, --
Religious tradition and philosophy are the
main sources of spiritual dullness, --
Hebrews pressed as to their excessive
danger of abandoning Christ for religious traditions, --
The word of the
beginning of Christ, --
The description of a confessor with all the crowning
evidences of the gospel, but not a converted man, -- κοινωνὶ and μέτοχοι, --
Renewal to repentance an impossibility, and why, --
The promise to
Abraham, and the hope set before us, --
The weakest faith that the New
Testament acknowledges—fleeing for refuge, --
Followed by strong
consolation—even that which enters within the veil, --
The great
theme—Christ a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec—resumed, --
The
time for the proper exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is not yet
arrived, --
Meanwhile the Spirit of God directs attention, not to the
exercise, but to the order of the Melchisedec priest, --
The indisputable
superiority of the Melchisedec priesthood to that of Aaron, --
This Priest
was to be a living, undying Priest, --
Jehovah’s oath, -- A Priest always in connection with the people of God; never
as such with those
outside, --
It became God that Christ should go down to the uttermost—us that He
should be exalted to the highest, --
“On high” and “in the heavens,” --
The exercise of the functions of Christ as a Priest, --
and as a Mediator of
the new covenant, --
Remarkable how little the Holy Spirit appears in this
epistle, -- Why the tabernacle is always referred to, and not the temple, --
Why allusion to the sanctuary is made, --
The rent veil, --
διαθήκη means “testament” as well as
“covenant,” -- Why it should be “testament” in two places alone and covenant in
all others, --
ὀ διαθέμενος is
rightly rendered “the testator,” --
The contracting party had not to die, --
The death of Christ, both in the sense of a victim sacrificed and of a
testator, though a double figure, is evident to all, --
There is but one offering and one suffering of Christ once for all, --
He who was without sin in His person and all His life, had everything to do
with sin on the cross, --
Christianity comes in between the work of Christ and His coming in glory, --
“Conscience of sins”
means a dread of
God’s judging one
because of his sins,
--
A book which none ever saw but God and His Son, --
Εἰς τὸ
διηνικἐς does not express for eternity,
but “for continuance,” --
The Jew never understood his law till the light of Christ on the cross and in
glory shone on it, --
In chapter -- are warnings for those who turn from
Christianity; in chapter -- for those who turn from the one sacrifice,
--
Similarities in the two chapters, --
What faith is, --
A simple word of Scripture settles a thousand questions, --
Reason is ever drawing conclusions: God is, and reveals what is, --
Faith brings God into everything, --
Abraham and his faith, --
Moses acts in faith, not policy, --
What is the “better thing” provided for us? --
The reward of the life of faith, --
In this epistle the old and new natures are not separated, as in the other
epistles, --
Saints are here dealt with as to their walk, --
There is nothing more serious than to set grace against holiness, --
A magnificent picture of Christianity in contrast with Judaism, --
Sinai and Zion, --
The special glories of Zion, --
The heavenly city that Abraham looked for, --
The spirits of just men made perfect, --
How the most awful threat is turned into the most blessed promise, --
Practical exhortations, --
Christendom takes the middle ground of Judaism, -- Access into the holiest
involves also the
place of ashes
outside the camp, --
Are these two things true of you? --
All the effort of Christendom is first to deny the one, and then to escape
from the other, --
God’s final call, --
Two kinds of sacrifice to which we are now called, --
Closing remarks, -- No place of death to sin, the law, or the world, no
privilege of union
with Christ, will
enable a soul to
dispense with the
truths contained in
this Epistle to the
Hebrews. |
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