NEW TESTAMENT BIBLE STORY
The Epistle to Hebrews - Introduction #5
Epistle to Hebrews - Introduction #5 The following is taken from Albert Barnes' "Notes On The New Testament" THE DESIGN AND GENERAL ARGUMENT OF THE EPISTLE The general purpose of this epistle is, to preserve those to whom it was sent from the danger of apostasy. Their danger on this subject did not arise so much from persecution, as from the circumstances that were fitted to attract them again to the Jewish religion. The temple, it is supposed, and indeed it is evident, was still standing. The morning and evening sacrifice was still offered. The splendid rites of that imposing religion were still observed. The authority of the law was undisputed. Moses was a lawgiver, sent from God; and no one doubted that the Jewish form of religion had been instituted by their forbear, conformity with the direction of God. Their religion had been founded amidst remarkable manifestations of the Deity - in flames, and smoke, and thunder; it had been communicated by the ministration of angels; it had on its side, and in its favour, all the venerableness and sanction of a remote antiquity; and it commended itself by the pomp of its ritual, and by the splendour of its ceremonies. On the other hand, the new form of religion had little or nothing of this to commend it. It was of recent origin. It was founded by the Man of Nazareth, who had been trained up in their own land, and who had been a carpenter, and who had had an extraordinary advantages of education. Its rites were few and simple. It had no splendid temple-service were none of the pomp and pageantry, the music and the magnificence, of the ancient religion. It had no splendid array of priest, in magnificent vestments, and it had not been imparted by the ministry of angels. Fishermen were its ministers; and, by the body of the nation, it was regarded as a schism, or heresy, that enlisted in its favour only the most humble and lowly of the people. In these circumstances, how natural was it for the enemies of the gospel in Judea to contrast the two forms of religion, and how keenly would Christians there feel it! All that was said of the antiquity and the Divine origin of the Jewish religion, they knew and admitted; all that was said of its splendour and magnificence, they saw; and all that was said of the humble origin of their own religion, they were constrained to admit also. Their danger was not that arising from persecution. It was that of being affected by considerations like these, and of relapsing again into the religion of their fathers, and of apostatizing from the gospel; and it was a danger which beset another part of the Christian world. To meet and counteract this danger was the design of this epistle. Accordingly, the writer contrasts the two religions in all the great points on which the mind of Christians in Judea would be likely to be effected, and show. the superiority of the Christian religion over the Jewish in every respect, and especially in the points that had so much attracted their attention, and affected their hearts. He begins by showing that the Author of the Christian religion was superior in rank to any, and all, who had ever delivered the word of God to man. He was superior to the prophets, and even to the angels. He was over all things, and all things were subject to him. There was, therefor, a special reason why they should listen to him, and obey his commands. Ch.i.,ii. He was superior to Moses, the great Jewish lawgiver, whom they venerated so much, and on whom they so much prided themselves. Ch.iii. Having shown that the Great Founder of the Christian religion was superior to the prophets, to Moses, and to the angels, the writer proceeds to show, that the Christian religion was characterized by having a High Priest superior to that of the Jews, and of whom the Jewish high priest was but a type and emblem. He shows, that all the rites of the ancient religion, splendid as they were, were also but types, and were to vanish away - for they had had their fulfilment in the realities, of the Christian faith. He shows, that the Christian's High Priest derived his origin, and his rank, from a more venerable antiquity than the Jewish high priest did; for he went back to Melchizedek, who lived long before Aaron; and that he had far superior dignity from the fact, that he had entered into the most Holy place - into heaven. The Jewish high priest entered once a year into the most holy place in the temple; the Great High Priest of the Christian faith had entered into the most holy place - of which that was but the type and emblem - into heaven. In short, whatever there was of dignity and honour in the Jewish faith, had more than its counterpart in the Christian religion; and, while the Christian religion was permanent, that was fading. The rites of the Jewish system, magnificent as they were, were designed to be temporary. They were more types and shadows of things to come. They had their fulfilment in Christianity. That had an Author more exalted in rank, by far, than the author of the Jewish system; it bad a High Priest more elevated and enduring; it had rites, which brought men nearer to God; it was the substance of what in the temple-service was type and shadow. By considerations such we these, the author of this epistle endeavours to preserve them from apostasy. Why should they go back? Why should they return to a less perfect system? Why go back from the substance to the shadow? Why turn away from the true Sacrifice to the type and emblem? Why linger around the earthly tabernacle, and contemplate the high priest there, while they had a more perfect and glorious High Priest, who had entered into the heavens? And why should they turn away from the only perfect sacrifice - the great offering made for transgression - and go back to the bloody rites, which were to be renewed every day? And why forsake the perfect system - the system that was to endure for ever - for that which was to vanish away? The author of this epistle is very careful to assure them, that if they thus apostatized, there could be no hope for them. If they now rejected the sacrifice of the Son of God, there was no other sacrifice for sin. That was the last great sacrifice for the sins of men. It was designed to close all bloody offerings. It was not to be repeated. If that was rejected, there was no other. The Jewish rites were soon to pass away; and even if they were not, they could not cleanse the conscience from sin. Persecuted, then, though they might be - reviled, ridiculed, opposed, yet they would not abandon their Christian hope, for it was their all; they should not neglect Him who spoke to them from heaven, for, in dignity, rank, and authority, he far surpassed all who, in former times, had made known the will of God to men. This epistle, therefore, occupies a most important place in the book of revelation, and without it that book would be incomplete. It is the most full explanation, which we have, of the meaning of the Jewish institutions. In the epistle to the Romans we have a system of religious doctrine, end particularly a defence of the great doctrine of justification by faith. Important doctrines are discussed the other epistles; but there was something wanted, that would show the meaning of the Jewish rites and ceremonies, and their connexion with the Christian scheme; thing which would show us how the thing was paratory to the other; and, I may add, something that would restrain the imagination, in endeavoring to show how the one was desired to introduce the other. The one was a system of type, and shadows. But on nothing is the human mind more prone to wander, then on the subject of emblems and analogies. This has been shown in the experience of the Christian church, from the time of origin to the present. Systems of divinity, commentaries, and sermons, have shown everywhere how prone men of ardent imaginations have been, to find types in every thing pertaining to the ancient economy; to discover hidden meanings in every ceremony, and to regard every pin, and hook, and instrument of the tabernacle, as designed to some truth, and to shadow forth some tale or doctrine of the Christian revelation. It was desirable to have one book that should tell how that is; to fetter down the imagination, and bind it by severe rules, and to restrain the vagaries of honest but credulous devotion. Such a book we have in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The ancient system is there explained by one who had been brought up in the midst of it, and who understood it thoroughly; by one who had a clear insight into the relation on which it bore to the Christian economy; by one who was under the influence of Divine inspiration, and who could not err. The Bible would have been incomplete without this book: and when I think of the relation between the Jewish end the Christian systems - when I look an the splendid rites of the ancient economy, and ask their meaning - when I wish a full guide to heaven, and ask for that which gives completeness to the whole - I turn instinctively to the Epistle to the Hebrew. When I wish, also, that which shall give me the most elevated view of the Great Author of Christianity, and of his work, and the most clear conceptions of the sacrifice which he made for sin; and when I look for considerations that shall be most effectual in restraining the soul from apostasy, and for considerations to enable it to bear trials with patience and with hope, my mind recurs to this book; and I feel, that the book of revelation, and the hope of man would be incomplete without it. ...................... In part 6, I will reproduce from the KJV Study Bible, the outline of the book of Hebrews (Keith Hunt) November 2006 |
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