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Perfecting The Past and Shaping The Future.
'Re*V. Len G. 'Broughton, D. *D., of Christ Church, London
Reported for The Golden Age by M. P. H.—Copyright Applied For.
Text. And these all, having’ obtained a good report
through faith, received not the promise: God
having provided some better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect.”—Hebrews
xi, 39, 40.
m
HE authorship of the Epistle to the He
brews is a matter that still is, and I sup
pose always will be, in doubt. Personally
I don’t believe there is a shadow of a doubt
but that the Apostle wrote this remarkable Epistle,
and I think we have only to read the 11th chapter,
especially the last verses of it, to see that there are
the earmarks of Paul. Then, as we close the Epis
tle with the 12th chapter, we see still greater sig
nificance in the phraseology, and in the style with
which he presents his theme, and brings his argu
ment to a conclusion. But it is not at all with ref
erence to the authorship of the Epistle that I want
to speak. Whoever the author was, it is not hard for
us to find out what he writes about, and it is hard
ly possible for us to appreciate any context in it,
until we have in our minds as we come to study the
text, the whole outline of the Epistle.
He was writing to a class of Hebrew Christians.
These Hebrew Christians had lately come out of the
most spectacular form of religion the race has ever
known, the religion of the Jews. If you will "just
look at it a moment you will see that is true. You
■will see the forms and ceremonies of that great reli
gion stand out before you in all their glory and
.spectacularness. It was to these that this Epistle
was written. They have come to a simple faith in
Christ. They have come through the simplest form
of service to the salvation of Christ, and at first there
is some degree of enthusiasm on their part, as is
always, true of the newborn soul, and they rejoiced
greatly in the simplicity of their new-found religion.
No doubt oft-times in those earlier days, they com
pared the galling, binding letter of the old, with
the magnificent simplicity of the new. with its graci
ous Christian liberty. But, as time passed, these
young Christians, as all Christians will have to do
sooner or later, came in contact with the fierce flames
of persecution and of trial. And as they faced it
thej began to lose somewhat of the enthusiasm,
and to long for the experiences of the past. They
were no longer satisfied with the simplicity of their
new religion, and with the glorious outlook they
had had since coming to Christ, but they are now
anxious to revert to the forms and ceremonies and
symbols; and even willing to revert to the covenants
of the law that they may escape present hardship
and criticism.
Now, it was to this class of people, I say. that the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews addressed him
self. And throughout the whole of the Epistle we
see this purpose standing out; an effort to re-assnre.
to strengthen, to hold the Hebrew Christian to the
simple religion of Jesus Christ, to the religion of a
Person rather than the religion of a system that they
formerly clung to. The method of the writer is very
clear. He starts out to show them that Jesus Christ,
simple as He is, is superior to every other person
and every other system that the world has ever known
m matters of religion. First of all, he calls their
attention to the fact that He is superior to the Proph
ets (chapter i, 1-3). Then he calls them to note
that He is superior to the Angels (chapter i, 4).
Then he calls them to note the fact that He is su
perior to Moses. It must have been very hard for
them to see that (chapter iff, 2). Then he calls them
to note that though they are at the present time in
great error, they are, nevertheless, partakers of Jesus
Christ (chapter iff, 14). Then he calls them to note
His superiority over the Aaronic Priesthood (chap
ter vii, 28). Then he calls them to note He is the
only true and acceptable sacrifice, and with Him all
sacrifices ended (chapter x, 10). Then he calls them
to note the working simplicity of faith (chapter xi).
He gives them the only definition of faith we find
in the Bible, “Faith is the substance of things hop
ed for, the evidence of things not seen.” And then
he shows them the simplicity of the operations of
faith, by taking them back to the patriarchs: Abel,
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF FEB. 5, 1914
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph,
Moses and his parents, Joshua and Israel, Rahab,
and many other heroes of faith. Then, finally, he
calls them to note their relationship to these heroes
whose names were called in that chcapter, and whose
life work he has, to an extent, epitomised, in the
calling of their names. Fie shows them, I say, their
relationship to them, and then reveals to them their
obligation to the lines of their ministry: “And these
all, having obtained a good report through faith,
received, not the promise: God, having provided
some better thing for us, that they without us should
not be made perfect.” Now, as I see it, nothing
could have served to so enthuse and rouse the feel
ing's of these early Hebrew Christians as this text.
They were hesitating. They were doubting. They
were discouraged. And they had turned their faces
toward the past. As they turned their faces toward
the past they were bound to see Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and the rest of these patriarchs in their great
system stand out before them, and they were bound
to feel some degree of alienation or separation from
them now that they had left the system in which,
and for which, they had primarily given their lives,
and had gone off after a new Person and a new re
ligion. And so the writer of this Epistle here in
this text endeavours to fix upon them a great fact,
that though they are dead, or have passed hence, yet
their works follow them. And, furthermore, their
works are depending upon them for their very per
fection. It is their inheritance. They have an
opportunity to link themselves on to the life and
teaching of the fathers of the past. I say it must
have been a means of great encouragement. From
this they were bound to have seen two things. First,
they were bound to have seen the incompleteness of
al] Ji e and labour. These died without entering up
on the things for which they struggled. Then also,
they were bound to have seen how, by faithful ser
vice on their part, they could contribute to the per
fection of these incomplete labours, and finally en
ter upon, and be partakers of, their reward.
Now, I want us if we can. to start here and get
into our minds what this text meant to them, th.at
we may see what it may mean to us if we will allow
it to do so. Let us take Abraham as one man stand
ing out conspicuously above the rest. Here these ear
ly Christians are brought to see the great fact that
they are to be the partakers of the work of Abraham,
as great a man as he was. That Abraham was com
pelled to leave an incomplete work. He started out
from Ur of the Chaldees with a promise. He be
lieved it, but never saw the realization of it. He
passed on before his work was accomplished, and
now the completion of it, to a great extent, is in
their hands, and they, by carrying out the work of.
Abraham, contribute to the completion of the work
of this great man. Now, of course we understand
this, that it does not mean they were to do their
work as Abraham did his. That is a very different
thing. But they were to do the work of Abraham in
their own way. In other words, they were not ex
pected to leave their country as Abraham was forc
ed to leave his, they were not expected to live in
tents as Abraham lived in tents. They were not ex
pected to offer sacrifices of beasts, or even to offer
their beloved son as Abraham was compelled to do
with his. The matter of doing their work as the
fathers did theirs was not the question. What is
the work. It is the work of extending the King
dom of God. Abraham was called to start out in
the planting of the Kingdom, and all through Abra
ham’s life we see the Kingdom held forth. He was
looking for a nation, a kingdom, and worked to the
end of helping to bring to pass the Kingdom of God.
And of course he died before that Kingdom was
established in all its perfectness, and it is not es
tablished yet. And all the labour of the Church,
since the day of Christ, if it has been properly done,
is for the bringing to pass the very same thing for
which Abraham looked, and for which he worked.
It is to build a kingdom, a nation, a holy nation. And
T think one reason why Abraham was not allowed to
settle in one place a long time was to keep him from
the idea that the kingdom of God was to be his com
munity. He was always on the move because the
Kingdom of God is on the move. He started out
under the call of God for a holy nation. TV hat is
that? A world under the government of God’s Son.
That is your call, and that is mine. And that is
what the writer of this Epistle is trying to impress
upon these early Christians; that though these patri
archs have gone to their reward, yet the idea upon
which they worked, and for which they gave their
lives, is still alive, and dependent upon them for
ils fr'fil"' , pnt nnd its perfection, and they should be
encouraged with the thought that they have the chance
to link themselves on to father Abraham, and to
Isaac and Jacob, and David and Daniel, and all the
fathers that had preceded, in the great scheme of
the world’s redemeption.
But it is not of these Hebrew Christians • that I
want to speak. It is with reference to ourselves
We are living in an age of spiritual relaxation. And
1 say this largely because of this one fact. I do
not believe it has ever been so hard in the history of
the Christian Church to get men and wmnen to as
sume actual, personal, individual responsibility for
the kingdom of Christ as it is to-day. They realize
somebody has got to do it, but it is always the other
fellow. Most generally when we are able to get men
and women to assume personal responsibility it is
by the bringing of the personal element into play.
And while that is good, and any man who gets it
in that way is bound to love it and appreciate it, we
are all bound to admit that is not the highest mo
tive of service, and not the strongest basis of appeal.
And that is the reason why there are so many ups
and downs, and periods of vacillation in the Church
of Christ of the present day; personality passes on
and there is a slump in the market, fresh personal
element comes in and there is a rapid lift in the mar
ket. There is a lack of real, honest, substantial rock
bottom realization of obligation to the Kingdom of
Christ. There are men ami women who want to ex
cuse themselves on the basis that things are not as
they used to be. That was the matter with these
people in the Hebrew Epistle. They missed the or
der of their former religious life, and I do not won
der that they did, for there certainly could be imag
ined no more strange relationship to a man who
had been reared under the old regime; for the rela
tionship that existed at that time, to Jesus Christ,
was remarkably simple.
Have you stopped to think of the exceeding sim
plicity of the plan of salvation through Christ? Have
you stopped to think of how little value much of
what we support in the Kingdom of Christ to-day
is toward helping on the world to salvation? It
may have its place, but when it comes to the ques
tion of salvation, how simple it is. and I for one can
not blame these Hebrew Christians for feeling the
absence of the old when they are brought face to
face with the simplicity of the new. And so we
have to-day men who are holding back their service
and their time and their money from the Kingdom
because they do not like, perhaps, the present order.
They are thinking about the order of their fathers.
Their fathers lived in tents. We live in houses.
Their fathers left home. We stay at home. Their
fathers sacrificed and had ceremonials. We don’t.
When all the time the one burning question is not
the order. The thing is THE KINGDOM. The
bringing of men and women to Jesus Christ, and
through Him into the Kingdom.
(Continued on page 14.)
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