Hebrews 13:7

Heb_13:7

Remember them which have the rule.

The duty of imitating the primitive teachers and patterns of Christianity

I. THE DUTY ENJOINED. If we would preserve that purity of faith and manners, which our religion requires, we should have frequent recourse to the primitive teachers and patterns of Christianity, and endeavour to bring our belief and lives to as near a conformity with theirs as is possible. Who so likely to deliver the faith and doctrine of Christ pure, as the primitive teachers of it, who received it from our Lord Himself; and were, by an extraordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit, secured from error and mistake in the delivery of it? And who so likely to bring their lives and conversations to an exact conformity with His holy doctrine, as they, who were so thoroughly instructed in it by the best Master, and shown the practice of it in the most perfect example of holiness and virtue?

II. WHEREIN WE SHOULD IMITATE THESE PATTERNS.

1. We are to imitate these primitive patterns, in the sincerity and purity of their faith; I mean, that the faith which we profess be the sincere doctrine of Christianity, and the pure word of God, free from all mixture of human additions and inventions.

2. We are to imitate them, in the stability and firmness of our faith, and not suffer ourselves to be shaken, and removed from it, by every wind of new doctrine; the faith of Christ being unchangeable as Christ Himself.

3. We are to imitate them, in the constancy and perseverance of their faith; and that, notwithstanding all the discountenance and opposition, persecution and suffering, which attend the profession of this faith.

4. We should imitate them in the efficacy and fruitfulness of their faith, in the practice and virtues of a good life; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation, that is, their perseverance in a holy course to the end. And these must never be separated; a sound faith and a good life.

III. THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO THIS, from the consideration of the happy state of those persons, who are proposed to us for patterns, and the glorious reward which they are made partakers of in another world. Considering the end of their conversation, τὴν ἔκβασιν, their egress or departure out of this life into a blessed and glorious state, where they have received the reward of their faith and patience, and pious conversation in this world; or else (which comes much to one)considering the conclusion of their lives, with what patience and comfort they left the world, and with what joyful assurance of the happy condition they were going to, and were to continue in for ever. (Archbp. Tillotson.)

The remembrance of past teachers

I. THIS IS OUR BEST, THIS IS OUR ONLY WAY OF REMEMBERING THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN OUR GUIDES, LEADERS, AND RULERS IN THE CHURCH, WHETHER THEY HAVE BEEN APOSTLES, OR EVANGELISTS, OR ORDINARY PASTORS; NAMELY, TO FOLLOW THEM IN THEIR FAITH AND CONVERSATION.

II. THIS OUGHT TO BE THE CARE OF THE GUIDES OF THE CHURCH; NAMELY, TO LEAVE SUCH AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH AND HOLINESS, AS THAT IT MAY BE THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH TO REMEMBER THEM, AND FOLLOW THEIR EXAMPLE. Alas! how many have we had, how many have we, who have left, or are likely to leave, nothing to be remembered by, but what it is the duty of the Church to abhor! how many, whose uselessness leads them into everlasting oblivion!

III. THIS WORD OF GOD IS THE SOLE OBJECT OF THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH, THE ONLY OUTWARD MEANS OF COMMUNICATING THE MIND AND GRACE OF

GOD UNTO IT. Wherefore upon it, the being, life, and blessedness of the Church doth depend.

IV. A DUE CONSIDERATION OF THE TRUTH OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BEFORE US, ESPECIALLY OF SUCH WHO WERE CONSTANT IN SUFFERINGS; ABOVE ALL, OF THOSE WHO WERE CONSTANT UNTO DEATH, AS THE HOLY MARTYRS IN FORMER AND LATTER AGES, IS AN EFFECTUAL MEANS TO STIR US UP UNTO THE SAME EXERCISE OF FAITH WHEN WE ARE CALLED UNTO IT. (John Owen, D. D.)

The Church in relation to her past:

The feeling which underlies these words of reverential admiration for the saintly dead, the founders and confessors of the Church gone to their rest, is one which at a later age wrought to Christianity much mischief. Yet it is in itself an eminently natural and proper sentiment. It was surely becoming in the early Church to keep green the names of her noble apostles; to guard with pious care the dust of her martyrs; to connect with each local congregation the memory of those missionaries who had planted, of those pastors who had nourished it. Customs in their origin so inoffensive and beautiful as these led speedily to serious abuse. Out of beginnings the most harmless there grew up all over Christendom, as pure religion degenerated, a mighty system of holy places, holy days, and holy relics; a system of saint-worship, sustained by lying miracles and discredited by acts of the grossest superstition; a system the vastness and persistency of which must still provoke the astonishment of a Christian historian. Yet our text reminds us that at the root of such abuses there really lay, after all, a valuable truth. It is this: The Church of Christ is the heir of her own past. That inheritance she ought never to disown. Her successive periods, like the stages of human existence, have a link of natural piety to bind them together. The present grows out of that which has been; and the generation which is now alive has lessons to learn from the dead generations that are gone before. God has written Himself and His truth upon the lives of our godly fathers, and on their triumphant witnessing deaths, in such wise that we their children shall lose much if we fling away the memory of it. Inspiration we shall lose; for what kindles imitation like the examples of the beloved and revered dead? Continuity we shall lose; for in the children there ought to live anew the spirit of their fathers. Experience we shall lose; of which the lessons are for our warning as well as guidance; experience that is the child of history and the parent of wisdom. Steadfastness we shall lose; when, lightly forsaking the devotion and the beliefs that made our forerunners strong, we suffer our religion to vary with the passing moods of every age, and are carried about with divers and strange doctrines. Let it be asked, first of all, why should it be worth our while to review with close attention the career of dead saints, and reflect in what their course of Christian living issued at the last? For this reason, that He who was the object of their faith, and the source of their life, and the prize of their fidelity, He in whose truth and fellowship lay all the glory and hope of their career, is to us exactly what He was to them--the same unaltered, undiminished object of trust and source of power! Christ Jesus is the same yesterday and to-day; for ever. But yesterday your eyes beheld your leaders. The names you venerate as you recall them were living names. He it was in whom their life was lived, and their words uttered, and their deeds of witness-bearing done. If the issue of their career was memorable for its fearless martyr-devotion or its unshaken trust in death, who but He was the Lord in whom and for whom they died? To-day we are in their place; and we miss them, and the times are evil, and timid hearts are quaking. But today, as yesterday, Jesus, for His part, abides the same; passed into the heavens, able to save to the uttermost, ruling a kingdom which cannot be moved. Thus the lives and deaths of departed believers become instinct with lessons of encouragement so soon as you perceive how they were but the temporary organs through whom an enduring Saviour discovered to the world His truth and grace. Christ is Himself the sum of His own faith, as well as the Head of His whole Church. In a sense in which no other founder of a religion ever was identified with the faith He founded, He is Christianity. Therefore in His unchangeableness there lies a permanent factor, an element of perennial life and youth, for Christian history. If the dead fathers spoke to us the Word of God, it was because they found it in the person of Christ. If the end of their conversation, the last exit scene of their earthly walk, was edifying and saintly, He who gave them steadfast endurance and grace for dying need has not bade us farewell, but is as able to hold us in His peace and keep us from falling and conduct us across the sullen river to the shining shores beyond! Courage, then, for the desponding Christian heart! Hope for every generation that mourns its vanished leaders! New times bring new perils and impose new labours; but no time can rob us of Him in whose strength all past saints grew strong, or quench or dim the deathless presence which burns on through all the ages. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)

Duty to spiritual rulers

I. THE SPECIAL DUTY TO WHICH WE ARE SUMMONED. It is very instructive to observe, that when the apostle fastens our attention on those servants of God who have gone to their rest, he does not call up before our minds the gifts with which they were endowed, or the attainments by which they were distinguished; he says nothing of the learning of which they were possessed, or the eloquence with which they were adorned. Nay, it is not on that which was official or personal that he fastens; not on aught that was distinctive or peculiar to them, as the commissioned ambassadors of Christ, but on that which they professed in common with all saints. Now when the apostle here singles out the faith by which they were distinguished, and bids us be followers of that, it is not because that was the one solitary feature of Christian character by which they were distinguished. Nay, faith never stands alone; but it is singled out just because it is the one great fundamental principle which ministered to the vitality of all the other graces of the Christian character. It is faith that unites the soul to Christ; and so it is the spring of their spiritual life. It is faith that keeps the soul leaning upon Christ, and thereby secures their safety. It is faith that keeps the soul ever near to Christ, and so it promotes their holiness and conformity to Christ. It is faith that draws out of the fulness that is treasured up in Christ, and supplies the believer with the nourishment needed for the ripening of his Christian character, that he may reach the measure of a perfect man.

II. THE CONTEMPLATION THAT IS TO ANIMATE US TO THE IMITATION OF THEIR FAITH.

1. The word rendered considering signifies looking at, or beholding with attention. It is a metaphor from the art of painting. When a pupil is learning his art, he is set to copy a picture of his master--to imitate that picture, and reproduce it if he can; and in order to do this he must keep carefully looking to it, keeping it ever before him. In like manner, the apostle summons us, while engaged in this work of imitating the faith of departed believers, to keep steadfastly before us the end of their faith.

2. The word rendered the end signifies not only termination, but also exit. It means an end accompanied with, and consisting in, an escape or deliverance from the trials and temptations to which they were exposed.

(1) It conveys the idea that they are not lost, but gone before; not dead, but living. Their place here is empty, but their place in heaven is filled. What to us was an end, to them was only a beginning--not the sunset, but the dawn--not the blotting out and extinguishing of their life, but the rising of new stars on yon glorious firmament.

(2) There is more than mere survival; there is escape from all the toil and weariness of this earthly scene. No note of sadness in their song; no drop of bitterness in their cup. (Thos. Main, D. D.)

The remembering of departed Christian ministers:

When we have followed the remains of our departed pious friends to the house appointed for all living, we are apt to conclude that our connection with them has, for the present, entirely ceased. But it is not so. They are gone; but we have not done with them. We are to embalm their memory in our heart, to recollect the instructions which we have received from them--to consider their life, and especially how they died; that we may be taught, both how we are to live, and how to be prepared to die.

I. THE NATURE OF THE PASTORAL OFFICE.

1. A Christian minister must be a guide to his flock. It is true that it is God alone who efficiently leads His people like a flock through this wilderness to the heavenly Canaan. But it is also true that Christian ministers are undershepherds of the great Bishop of souls. In the exercise of these important functions, however, they have no dominion over the faith of the flock; no authority to constrain the conscience, except by the presentation of the truth and the influence of love.

2. A Christian minister must preach the Word of God. He is to beware of preaching himself, or of teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

3. Such being the nature of the pastoral office, and the duty of those who hold it, what ought to be their character? They should be like those described in the text. These were, in the first place, men who were strong in faith, giving glory to God; and, in this point of view, were worthy of the imitation of all believers. But, further, they were men whose conversation was worthy of their profession. They lived as Christians; they glorified that Saviour who is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. To promote His cause was the object of their existence. In Him they placed their confidence; in Him their affections centred. And they consecrated their time, their talents, their property, and life itself, to the promotion of his cause in the world; and their end was like their life.

II. THE DUTY WHICH WE OWE TO FAITHFUL DEPARTED MINISTERS.

1. We ought to remember pious ministers. Remember what they were--the ministers of God to you--the messengers of the King of kings, invested with the high commission of proclaiming to you those glad tidings of great joy which bring glory to God and salvation to men.

2. We ought to follow their faith, that is, imitate them in their steadfastness in the profession of the faith which they preached, and, like them, be faithful unto the death,

3. We ought to consider the end of their conversation--we should attentively, and with a view to our own profit, consider their deportment its object, and its issue. (G. Johnston.)

How to honour the saintly dead

Men naturally desire to be remembered, though dead and gone, to have their names perpetuated to after ages; nor has there been wanting among the heathen such, who, though not inspired with the hopes of a future reward, yet have taken care to have their memories conveyed to posterity. Witness the Egyptian pyramids, as also certain statues among the Greeks, with the names of their founders inscribed On them. And indeed so it is; for otherwise God would never have assured it to righteous men that they should be had in everlasting remembrance, that their righteousness should remain for ever, and their memories never perish. Whereas God hath threatened the wicked with excision, even of their very names, that their memory should perish; or, if it did out-live them, it should rot. How very exact too were the primitive Christians in honouring the memories of their martyrs and deceased bishops? For this were the diptychs read in the church, which were two leaves or tables, on the one whereof were written the names of those pious men and confessors who were yet alive; and on the other those who had died in the Lord and were at rest. For this were altars erected over their graves; for this were their pictures hung up in their private shops and houses; for this were churches, though dedicated to God, made to boar the names of saints to preserve their memories; for this were their feast days celebrated, panegyrics made on them, and their lives written. St. Basil wrote the life of Barlaam, who was but a poor shepherd; Nazianzen, of Basil and others, which, he saith, he left to posterity as a common table of virtue for all the world to look on. We do not read of any worship in those times addressed to them; we do not read of any prayers for them to be delivered out of purgatory; nor of adoring their relics; nor of making vows or oblations unto them. But the greatest honour which they did them was to follow or imitate them, which is the second duty inculcated in the text. The very remembrance of good men is an approach to holiness, otherwise St. Paul would not have required it. By virtue of this imitation it is that we become influenced, nay, ecstasied with the spirits of those who are gone before us; that we become meek with Moses, patient with Job, chaste with Joseph, devout with David. Would they have unworthily betrayed their holy faith? With what courage, with what patience were they endowed! And indeed, as I intimated even now, this is the highest honour we can do them, to propound them to ourselves as our patterns, and to follow them in their constant love to God, to religion, and to all mankind, whatsoever we suffer for it. By this we raise them as it were from the dead to life again, we revive their memories, we personate them in this world, and act their parts. Our actions are the resultances of theirs, our praises the echoes of their songs, and our selves the living images of them. And those who do thus honour Gods saints and friends, God Himself will honour everlastingly. Here are two graces expressed in the text in which especially we are obliged to follow them.

1. Their faith.

2. Their perseverance and constancy even unto the end of their conversation.

As to faith, we here understand by it the grace rather than the rule of faith, and by it we mean a constant dependence upon God for the performance of His promises; a being convinced of the truth of those things of which we have no ocular or sensible demonstration. Intuentes, looking upon seriously, and diligently, again and again, their exit, their going out of the world. Revolve with yourselves how holily they adorned their faith, how constantly they persevered in the profession of it, how gloriously they attested and signed it with their blood! Faithful they were unto death, or, as Clemens Alexandrinus expresseth it, to the very last gasp, as they did run the race set before them, so they did it with patience and perseverance. (Edward Lake, D. D.)

Ministers to be remembered after they are dead

I. WHAT A TRUE MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST LEAVES TO BE REMEMBERED BY HIS PEOPLE AFTER HIS DECEASE.

1. And the first thing which offers itself to our observation herein, is, his doctrine--sound and true; perfectly agreeable to the oracles of God with which he is entrusted, and which he has taken in charge to deliver to the souls of men.

2. The next thing which a true minister of Christ leaves to be remembered is--his example as a true follower of Jesus Christ.

3. Another particular which a faithful minister leaves to be remembered, is his injunctions and admonitions.

4. The last thing which I shall mention, that a true minister of Jesus Christ leaves to be remembered by his people after his decease, is his love to their souls.

II. THE DUTY WHICH IS INCUMBENT ON THE PEOPLE, TO FOLLOW THE SOUND FAITH OF SUCH A TRUE AND FAITHFUL MINISTER. Whose faith follow.

III. THE REASON WHY THE PEOPLE SHOULD THUS REMEMBER AND FOLLOW THE FAITH OF SUCH A MINISTER, FROM THE CONSIDERATION OF THE GOOD END WHICH HE HAD IN VIEW IN ALL HIS LABOURS, AND THE CHRISTIAN MANNER IN WHICH HE IS ENABLED TO FINISH HIS COURSE. Considering the end of their conversion, I shall use these words in two senses.

1. As respecting the end of their conversation in life, or that end which the ministers of Jesus Christ have in view, in the things which they preach and recommend. This end is--the good of your souls.

2. This expression may more particularly mean the end by which the Christian minister finishes his course. And this, I apprehend, is the sense in which it is more generally understood. Now, if here, in the finishing part, he be able to bear a good testimony to the truth of that which he has delivered, it is the fullest human confirmation which we can expect of its truth. For death is a trying hour. However any may be able in the day of health and strength, firmly to hold to their deceits, yet, unless the mind be overwhelmed with ignorance, or the conscience seared, that hour will tear all such webs asunder; it will try every mans work of what sort it is. But now, the delusions of fancy or the pretensions of the hypocrite are detected by this awful test; if, on the other hand, in this hour of severe trial, the Christian ministers hope stands firm, and instead of retracting anything from the doctrines which he has delivered, he testifies of them as more precious than ever; surely such evidence recommends itself to our fullest attention, and carries with it the greatest force for the conviction of every candid mind. (James Stillingfleet, M. A.)

Preachers speak after death:

There are strange legends extant of churches which have been swallowed by earthquakes, or buried beneath fallen mountains. The rustics declare that they have heard the bells still ringing, far down in the bowels of the earth, just as they did when they hung aloft in the tower. Take the bells to be preachers and the legend is true, for being dead they yet speak, and from their graves they sound forth lessons not less powerful than those with which they made their pulpits resound while they were yet with us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Honour Gods ministers:

Take heed of that; for then God is dishonoured, when anything is the more despised by how much it relates nearer unto God. No religion ever did despise their chiefest ministers; and the Christian religion gives them the greatest honour. For honourable priesthood is like a shower from heaven, it causes blessings everywhere; but a pitiful, a disheartened, a discouraged clergy waters the ground like a waterpot--here and there a little good, and for a little while; but every evil man can destroy all that work whenever he pleases. Take heed; in the world there is not a greater misery can happen to any man than to be an enemy to Gods Church. All histories of Christendom, and the whole Book of God, have sad records, and sad threatenings, and sad stories of Korah, and Doeg, and Balaam, and Jeroboam, and Uzzah, and Ananias, and Sapphira, and Julian, and of heretics and schismatics, and sacrilegious; and after all, these men could not prevail finally, but paid for the mischief they did, and ended their days in dishonour, and left nothing behind them but the memory of their sin, and the record of their curse. (Bp. Taylor.)

Jesus Christ the same.

The immutability of Christ:

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has just been recalling memories of the first apostles of the gospel. Many of them were dead. Those who had seen Christ, and who had listened to Him, became day by day fewer in number. The flux of time, and the ravages of persecution, had done their work in thinning out the illustrious band. More than one soul had been dismayed and discouraged, and therefore it was necessary to recall to the minds of all that, though men may come and men may go, the cause of Christ is immortal. It is just this thought which the sacred writer expresses in glowing words of lofty exultation, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. To be immovable, unchangeable, immortal, is the greatest end men can think of. It is the supreme dream of earthly vanity. In this world nothing remains long. Man is carried to and fro by the sweeping and the swirling of the tide. The very molecules of which his body is composed are changed from time to time with a rapidity which defies the calculating powers of science. Generations come and generations go as rapidly and as transiently as the forest leaves swept by the autumn breeze, and it is precisely this mutability, this feebleness, which man most resents. Was there ever a man--an educated man, at any rate--who did not passionately desire to leave a name which would survive him? There is the dream of literary ambition. There is the dream of military glory for which men face, with cool composure, the cannons mouth. Well-a-day! Of all those whom the thirst for glory has seized, how many ever attained it? Many were called. How many were chosen? How small, after all, is the number of those who leave behind them an undestroyable memory or fame that no man will dispute! To some it has been vouchsafed to serve with distinction their country on the field of battle, or in Parliament; others have opened up new tracts to civilisation, and have acquired a fame purer than that of arms, or they have guided the consciences, and have made themselves the teachers of humanity. Is it not certain that, in the treasure-house of history, there are reputations which are imperishable, against which time and the changes of this mortal life are powerless to corrode? Now is this an idea similar to that of the text, where we are told that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Is it merely a question of saying that, among the sons of men, nobody has left on earth a pro-founder trace or a more indestructible fame? That of itself would be an imperishable glory, but the text has more to say than this. It speaks to you of a truth believed under every sky by the Churchs children, that Christ is living, and that He reigns for ever. Christ is in the midst of us by His Eternal Presence. Others have acquired immortality by their work, but it is an immortality limited by questions, whether their work is more durable, more true, more striking, more useful, than that of possible rivals. Jesus Christ is working to-day as He worked yesterday, and as He will work to-morrow. The better to understand this immutability, consider--

I. THE IMMUTABILITY OF HIS TEACHING. He told us that it would be so. Standing one day in view of the Temple, He said, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. It is remarkable that, when He pronounced these words, not one of them was written down. They were confided to the memory of a few poor, ignorant men, who hardly understood them. In the sanctuaries of Thebes, of Delphi, and of Nineveh, the religious thought of millions of worshippers have been engraved on marble and on metal, in the desire to hand down to coming generations the names and the exploits of their gods. What is there left of it all? The memorials of the proud religions of the masters of the world, and those remembrances which one might have expected to be imperishable, have vanished into the sombre depths of the great ocean of oblivion but, like the ark of old, the words of Christ preserved in four little books have become the heritage, and the treasure, not only of all the successive generations of all the superior races on the face of the earth, but also of the humblest and the poorest among the children of men. You will tell me, perhaps, that in this perpetual duration of the teaching of Jesus Christ, there is nothing very extraordinary and nothing peculiar to Himself. I may be told of many thinkers and poets since Homer and Plato whose works have become the property of humanity. But there is; in the teaching of Jesus Christ, another feature. It is unchanging, not only in its duration, but in the nature of the authority it possesses. Here is a gospel which, in every age and in every clime, subjugates and makes captive the human conscience. Hundreds of millions of souls live and die under the same spell which, in the days of our Lord, captivated disciples as they listened to Him for the first time. Ask yourself why this should be so. The object of true religion is to establish and strengthen the double tie existing between God and man, and between man and his fellow man. What is the root of all our knowledge of Jesus Christ if it is not just this? The tie which linked us to God has been broken by sin. It can be re-established by pardon from God and faith from man, and when it has been formed anew it should show itself in the justice and the charity of our lives. That is the substance of all Christs teaching. Let us take another step. The teaching of Christ is remarkable, not only for what He said, but for what He did not say. His extraordinary sobriety of thought and of language is the best proof that His was not the supreme effort of the human soul aspiring towards the infinite. It is the revelation of God who tells man just as much as it is necessary for him to know and no more. This sobriety is the most striking proof of His immutability. Let us suppose that, like every other religious teacher, He had touched upon political and social questions, that He had pronounced some views on scientific questions, and we found in the pages of the Gospel a system of caste, as in Brahminism, or a code of legal enactments, as in Mahommedanism, or even a religious philosophy, such as that of the schoolmen. Is it not plain that on all sides He would have exposed Himself to unnecessary attacks from the progressive thought of the ages? He might have impressed men by His brilliancy, but in His teaching there would have been the seeds of decay. What do we find it: them? Why, we find that marvellous, that indefinable, thing which we call life. Just in that way, life is always found in the words of Christ, immutable in its essence, infinitely diverse in its applications. They are words which can never grow old. They are as immutable as Justice, fruitful as Love, eternal as Truth.

II. Look, again, at the immutability of Jesus Christ as exemplified in His PERSON. Jesus Christ is not only a Master, a Revealer, but He is also a Revelation. He did not merely say, Listen to Me; He said, too, Look at Me. Not only did He say, Believe My words, He said, Believe in Me. In the person of Jesus Christ there are two Beings in unity, the Son of God and the Son of Man, the visible image of the invisible God, and the ideal type of humanity. I am not going to attempt to explain the Mystery. I simply place myself in the presence of Jesus Christ. There I see the Ideal Type of moral perfection. I say that this Type is immutable, and that the words of the text are true of that Type, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Just think of it for a moment--an immutable Ideal! Is there not something bold and even presumptuous in the very phrase? Nothing in the history of the human imagination is so difficult as to create an ideal of perfection which will last. The greatest geniuses have failed in the endeavour. Dante and Milton described with wonderful power the sufferings of hell; they failed, utterly, when they tried to paint the harmonies of heaven. Novelists who have depicted with bitter truth the anguish of remorse, and the consuming tortures of guilty passion, have never yet succeeded in creating an ideal hero. The ideal of one race is not the ideal of another. But in Christs Person I behold a strange fact. Here is a Being who came forth from the East. Here is a Descendant of Shem who will bend the sons of Japhet. Here is a Representative of the House of Israel in whom representatives of all earths races have found and adored the absolute Moral Ideal. He has bent before His Throne the art-loving children of Greece, who in His Cross of shame have discovered a creation of beauty which none of their most gifted artists could imitate. Before His sceptre have bowed low the chiefs and the soldiers of Imperial Rome, and when in the ruin of that Empire young and barbarous races streamed forth from the far-off lands of the East, like troubled waves of the ocean tossing and heaving beneath the anger of God, those restless souls bowed down in the dust before a Majesty simpler and purer than any they had ever seen, in fact, or in dream. He restrained the brutality of men in the Middle Ages, when, in the Renaissance, the antiquity which men had rediscovered intoxicated their minds with subtle fancies, He took possession of the strong souls, like Luther and like Calvin, who, by their very faults, checked the shortcomings of their age. So it was in the seventeenth century, the century of positive science, the age which saw masters like Copernicus, like Euler, like Newton, like Pascal, great souls whose glory it was to devote themselves and all their genius to the service of their fellow men. And so it is to-day. After criticism the most pitiless, after scrutiny the most rigid, after all His acts, His works, His life have been dissected, that sublime Figure still remains as sublime and as holy as ever, towering above human ideas of grandeur, above human idols and human follies.

III. Immutable, too, is He in His WORK. For three years He worked on earth. By the Spirit He works throughout the centuries, and in all time you will see in His work three great characteristics.

1. He saves. For that purpose He came here. He is nothing unless He is the Redeemer.

2. He sanctified. Through the ages He gives humanity new life, transforming mans hearts, changing mens wills and mens lives, working a work in mans souls analogous to that which here below He wrought in their bodies when He healed mens leprosies, delivered men possessed of devils, raised men who had passed into the grasp of death. I know well to what you are going to object. Where, you will ask me, was this sanctifying influence in the days of Constantine, and of Clovis, or, later on, in Christian Gaul when the Merovingian kings illustrated all the infamies of life? Where, we have often asked, has it been in many of our modern churches, which have become worldly and insipid like salt that has lost its flavour? It was there. It may have lain mysterious and hidden in the souls of the faithful, so that the world knew it not--in faithful souls who, mingling with sinners of the most flagrant type, yet preserved to their last breath the Treasure of the Faith and the Eternal Hope. It was there in the narrow cell of a convent, and in the caverns of the Cevennes, in those humble men, those little ones of earths passing show, who would not bend the knee to Baal. And that is why the Church has lived. That is why she still lives, saved by her Divine Chief, who watches over her, and preserves her.

3. I have said, too, that Christ consoles. It is here that men may see, if they choose, the immutable nature of His work. It is attested beyond all doubt, not by the happiest of men, but by the most afflicted--Jesus Christ consoles. He has shown us an object in grief which makes it endurable. He lightens death with an eternal hope. He tells us of a sympathy profound, immense, infinite. And this is not an hypothesis. It is a reality we experience every hour, every minute. The blind only can deny that this consolation exists. That Christ is unchangeable--let us take, then, this thought as a great power in our faith, a great consolation for our hearts, a great encouragement for our active and militant Christianity. Christ is always the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He was here yesterday, He will be here to-morrow. His wealth of tenderness and of sympathy is always the same. He will be here in all possible troubles. He will be with us in the last moments of weakness, in the last sigh of agony. He will be with us to the very end. We are under the protection of an unchanging Power. When Charlemagne had reconstructed the political edifice of the Caesars, when he had gathered together under his victorious sceptre Germany and Helvetia, Italy and Gaul, the astonished world gazed upon this empire, which extended from the banks of the Baltic to the Pyrenees, and from the Alps to the Ocean. It happened that one day the old Emperor, satiated with glory, sat at a window in his palace on the banks of the Seine, and suddenly his eyes filled with tears. Being asked why he was sad, he pointed to the fields and the vines which the Norman pirates had devastated as they went up the river, and he said: If they will do this while I live, what will they do when I am dead? All! what will they do after me? It is the last cry of the great ones of the earth, whether they be called Alexander or Caesar, Charlemagne or Napoleon. It is the last cry of great thinker: like Plato and Spinoza, Leibnitz and Hegel: What will they do when I am dead? Imminent change, like a constant menace--heirs to succeed us who may destroy what we have gathered. But we serve an unchanging Master. It has pleased God, says the prophet, that Eternal Empire should rest on His shoulders. Those shoulders will not bend, and that empire will subsist for ever. In this hope, in this faith, in this rest, in this communion of the Universal Church, let us sing the Te Deum of the Christians of old, Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ. (E. Bersier, D. D.)

Sameness without monotony:

When these words were written they meant: Jesus Christ of to-day (the Gospel day) is the same as Jehovah of yesterday (the Old Testament day). Does not this enlarge our views, ennobling not the Master Himself, but our conception of Him? Now we know who walked with Enoch, who wrestled with Jacob, who walked with Abraham, who revealed Himself to Moses, who led His people like a shepherd--Jesus, the same yesterday and to-day. Always the same. The only (real) difference is the atmosphere through which He is viewed. I used to stay in Cumberland, and right away in line with the street, twenty miles distant, was a grand and venerable mountain-Skiddaw--always there, always the same, and yet different every day, every hour. Some days, however, it could not be seen. Clouds rolled between, but it was there, all the same. Other days it seemed close at hand, seen through the atmosphere that precedes rain, when distant objects grow near--a peculiar sombre atmosphere; then the mountain almost overshadowed one with its solemn grandeur. And some days, when the earth was deluged with golden light, and as sunbeams fell athwart the mountain, it seemed further away and yet much nearer, its details startling in their far-away distinctness. Always there, always the same; and yet, how different! Thus we are reminded not only of the sameness of Christ, but the infinite variety--may I reverently say?--the infinite novelty in Him. In Him there is sameness without monotony. How different from ourselves I We weary one another with our sameness. We repeat the same commonplaces in our conversation; we write the same things in our letters; we utter the same platitudes in our religious exercises--and God has more patience with us than we have with each other. Yet now and then we meet with a man about whom there is continually something new; who is always the same, and yet never twice alike; who always seems to have a chapter in reserve; whose life, as we know it better, ever unfolds in a way that charms the senses, enlightens the understanding, and warms the heart. Think of such a man, superior to all you know, and for whose engaging friendship you sometimes think you would give all you have. Yet even he would weary many. And at best he is a cipher, when contrasted with Him in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead and all the perfection of humanity. Even His enemies never grow tired of Him. And that for ever: who shall say what it will reveal to us? Yesterday and to-day are ample guarantee of what to-morrow will be. Yesterday--Old Testament day and imperfect dispensation- what variety! Many a dreary life would be charmed by a study of the Old Testament alone, with its infinite variety of light and shadow. To-day--Gospel day--who can read the books, who can see all the pictures, who can hear allthe music; who can measure all the good inspired by Him, who maketh all things new?

I. THE SAME COMPANION. What beautiful glimpses we have of the companionship of yesterday, almost tempting us to wish that we had lived then instead of to-day. But yesterday is so vividly pictured in the Gospels that we may know what to expect to-day. Yesterday Jesus began His mission at a homely gathering--a wedding party--changing water into wine and disappointment into gladness. And even when He did not speak or work, how eloquent and comforting would be that silent presence and companionship. Christ in the house, Christ in the home, the same to-day as yesterday. Think what he must have been in His mothers home for thirty years. And, lest we should be discouraged at the thought, we have the assurance that our association with Him may be real and close and beautiful (Mat_12:49-50). Yesterday He took the little one up in arms laid his hands upon them, and blessed them. And, no doubt, this is given as a sample of what He often did. Is He the same to-day? What means the band of 500,000 Sunday-school teachers (in our own country alone) every Sunday afternoon gathering around them some 5,000,000 scholars, and, without pay, telling those children the old, old story? What is meant by all the entrancing books and papers published for children to-day?--Jesus Christ, the same Friend of childhood to-day as yesterday; no longer embracing two or three children in the Temple cloister, but a great multitude that no man can number.

II. THE SAME TEACHER. Lo! I am with you alway. Is He not ascended up on high? Yet to an eminence where all can see Him. When on earth, He said, The Son of man which is in heaven. If in heaven when on earth, surely on earth when in heaven.

III. THE SAME SAVIOUR. Yesterday the blind received their sight, the deaf were made to hear, the lame to walk, the leper to rejoice as he escaped a living death. All this free, without money, without price, and never one case refused. Jesus--Saviour--is the same to-day, and none dare point to a case and say it is too desperate for Him. Yesterday He recalled the maiden scarcely cold in death, the young man some time longer dead, and Lazarus far within the portals of death. Even concerning the body alone, when the Christian considers the marvels of surgery to-day, the progress of nursing, and matters pertaining to health and food, he is bound to ascribe them all to Him who went about doing good to body and soul alike. We feel that the miracles of to-day would not be experienced had not the Saviour come down to this poor, sin-stricken world--if He did not abide in it still. Philosophy and civilisation had their chance for ages to show what the world could do without a Divine Saviour. Last, but not least--in some way we cannot understand--Christ is the same to-day in His dying love. His sympathy is the same. When the heavens were opened to the seer of Patmos, he beheld that which made him think of a Lamb newly slain, yet slain from the foundation of the world. (M. Eastwood.)

The unchangeableness of Christ

I. HE MUST BE ESSENTIALLY DIVINE.

1. The history of all creature existences shows that they are essentially mutable.

2. The nature of things shows that the uncreated alone can be immutable.

II. His GOSPEL MUST STAND FOR EVER AS THE LIVING EXPRESSION OF HIMSELF.

III. HIS FRIENDS ARE ETERNALLY BLESSED. (Homilist.)

Instructions and consolations from the unchangeableness of Christ

I. CONSIDER THE OCCASION OF THESE WORDS.

1. The Hebrews had been blessed with public instructors, who had spoken to them the word of God, and who believed and lived what they taught.

2. They had spoken, bat now they ceased to speak the word of God. Their exemplary edifying conversation was now at an end.

3. Ministers, who have thus spoken the word of God, should be remembered, their faith followed, and the end of their conversation considered.

4. From the caution after our text, Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, it would appear that there were some who endeavoured to turn the Hebrews aside from that purity and simplicity of the gospel which their deceased pastors had inculcated. Even in the primitive Church, tares were sown soon after the wheat, and sprung up in abundance.

II. CONSIDER THE MEANING of my text, and the practical instructions it suggests.

1. The religion of Jesus is ever the same. The doctrines and laws, taught by Christ and His inspired apostles, have been, are, and ever shall be, the only rule of faith and manners.

2. The kind and benevolent affections of Jesus are the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Dispensations of Providence may wear a frowning aspect; clouds and darkness may be round about the Saviour, and hide from His ransomed ones the pleasant light of His countenance; still, however, the love of His heart never expires, never diminishes.

3. The power of Christ is the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (J. Erskine, D. D.)

The uniformity of God in His government:

St. Paul gives us a very beautiful idea of God, when he says, The wisdom of God is manifold. The first great cause, the Supreme Being, hath designs infinitely diversified. This appears by the various beings which He hath created, and by the different ways in which He governs them. But, although there be a diversity in the conduct of God, it is always a diversity of wisdom. Whether He creates a material or an intelligent world; whether He forms celestial or terrestial bodies, men, angels, seraphims, or cherubims; whether He governs the universe by the same, or by different laws; in all cases, and at all times, He acts like a God: He hath only one principle, and that is order. There is a harmony in His perfections, which He never disconcerts.

I. We see in THE ECONOMY OF TIME four remarkable varieties.

1. We see in Gods government of His Church various degrees of light communicated. Compare the time of Moses with that of the prophets, and that of the prophets with that of the evangelists and apostles. In these various degrees of knowledge, communicated by God to men, I see that uniformity which is the distinguishing character of His actions, and the inviolable rule of His government. The same principle that inclined Him to grant a little light to the age of Moses, inclined Him to afford more to the time of the prophets, and the greatest of all to the age in which the evangelists and apostles lived. What is this principle? It is a principle of order, which requires that the object proposed to a faculty be proportioned to this faculty; that a truth proposed to an intelligence be proportioned to this intelligence.

2. What justifies the government of God on one of these articles, on the various degrees of light bestowed on His Church, will fully justify Him in regard to the worship required by Him. Conceive of the Jews, enveloped in matter, loving to see the objects of their worship before their eyes, and, as they said themselves, to have gods going before them. Imagine these gross creatures coming into our assemblies, how could they, being all sense and imagination (so to speak), exercise the better powers of their souls without objects operating on fancy and sense? How could they have made reflection, meditation, and thought, supply the place of hands and eyes, they who hardly knew what it was to meditate? How could they, who had hardly any idea of spirituality, have studied the nature of God abstractly, which yet is the only way of conducting us to a clear knowledge of a spiritual being?

3. The same may be said of the evidences, on which God hath founded the faith of His Church. What a striking difference! Formerly the Church saw sensible miracles, level to the weakest capacities; at present our faith is founded on a chain of principles and consequences which find exercise for the most penetrating geniuses. How many times have infidels reproached us on account of this difference! Represent to yourselves the whole world let loose against Christians; imagine the primitive disciples required to believe the heavenly origin of a religion, which called them first to be baptized in water, then in blood. How necessary were miracles in these adverse times, and how hard, with all the encouragement given by them, must the practice of duty be then! Weigh these circumstances against yours, and the balance will appear more equal than ye have imagined.

4. In like manner we observe a similar uniformity in the various laws prescribed to the Church. At all times, and in all places, God required His Church to love Him with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind: but He did not inform His people at all times and in all places the manner in which He required love to express itself. Expressions of love must be regulated by ideas of Deity;. Ideas of Deity are more or less pure as God reveals Himself more or less clearly.

5. Our fifth article is intended to justify the various conditions in which it hath pleased God to place His Church. At one time the Church enjoys temporal pomp and felicity, at another it is exposed to whatever the world can invent of misery and ignominy. Let us reason in regard to the Church in general, as we reason in regard to each private member of it. Do you think (I speak now to each individual) there is a dungeon so deep, a chain so heavy, a misery so great, a malady so desperate, that God cannot deliver you, were your deliverance suitable to the eminence of His perfections? Why, then, doth He at any time reduce us to these dismal extremities? Order requires God, who intends to save you, to employ those means, which are most likely to conduct you to salvation, or, if you refuse to profit by them, to harden you under them. He wills your salvation, and therefore He removes all your obstacles to salvation. Let us reason in regard to the Church in general, as we do in regard to the individuals who compose it. A change in the condition of the Church doth not argue any change in the attributes of God. The same eminence of perfections which engageth Him sometimes to make all concur to the prosperity of His Church, engageth Him at other times to unite all adversities against it.

II. We have considered Jesus Christ in the economy of time, now let us consider Him in THE ECONOMY OF ETERNITY. We shall see in this, as in the former, that harmony of perfections, that uniformity of government, which made our apostle say, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. The same principle that formed His plan of human government in the economy of time, will form a plan altogether different in that of eternity. The same principle of proportion which inclines Him to confine our faculties within a narrow circle during this life, will incline Him infinitely to extend the sphere of them in a future state. The same principle which induces Him now to communicate Himself to us in a small degree, will then induce Him to communicate Himself to us in a far more eminent degree. The same principle that inclines Him now to assemble us in material buildings, to cherish our devotion by exercises savouring of the frailty of our state, by the singing of psalms, and by the participation of sacraments, will incline Him hereafter to cherish it by means more noble, more sublime, better suited to the dignity of our origin and to the price Of our redemption. The same principle which inclines Him to involve us now in indigence, misery, contempt, sickness, and death, will then induce Him to free us from all these ills, and to introduce us into that happy state where there will be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, and where all tears shall be wiped away from our eyes. Proportion requires that intelligent creatures should be some time in a state of probation, and this is the nature of the present dispensation: but the same law of proportion requires also, that after intelligent creatures have been some time in a state of trial, and have answered the end of their being placed in such a state, there should be a state of retribution in an eternal economy. By this truth let us regulate our faith, our morality, and our ideas of our future destiny.

1. Our faith. Let us adore only one God, and let us acknowledge in Him only one perfection, that is to say, a harmony, which results from all His perfections. If this idea be impressed on our minds, our faith will never be shaken, at least it will never be destroyed by the vicissitudes of the world, or by those of the Church. Why? Because we shall be fully convinced, that the vicissitudes of both proceed from the same cause, I mean the immutability of that God who saith by the mouth of one of His prophets, I, the Lord, change not.

2. God hath only one principle of His actions, that is proportion, order, fitness of things. Let love of order be the principle of all your actions; it is the character of a Christian, and would to God it were the character of all my hearers. A Christian hath only one principle of action. In Scripture-style this disposition of mind is called walking with God, setting the Lord always before us. Glorious character of a Christian, always uniform and like himself! He does nothing, if I may be allowed to speak so, but arrange his actions differently, as his circumstances vary.

3. Finally, this idea of God is very proper to regulate that of your future destiny. Do we wish for a full assurance of a claim to eternal happiness? Let us then by our conduct form an inseparable relation between our eternal felicity and the invariable perfections of that God who changeth not; let us spare no pains to arrive at that happy state, let us address to God our most fervent prayers to engage Him to bless the efforts which we make to enjoy it; and, after we have seriously engaged in this great work, let us fear nothing. (J. Saurin.)

The unchanging Saviour

I. WHAT IS DENIED. It is denied that either time, or mood, or circumstances, or provocation, or death, can alter Jesus Christ our Lord.

1. Time changes us. Your portrait, taken years ago, when you were in your prime, hangs on the walls of your home. You sometimes sadly contrast it with your present self. Then the face was unseamed by care, unscarred by conflict; but now how weary and furrowed! The upright form is bent, the step has lost its spring. But there is a greater difference between two mental than physical portraitures. Opinions alter. And sometimes the question arises, Can time alter Him whose portrait hangs on the walls of our hearts, painted in undying colours by the hands of the four Evangelists? Of course, time takes no effect on God, who is the I AM, eternal and changeless. But Jesus is man as well as God. He has tenses in His being: the yesterday of the past, the to-day of the present, the to-morrow of the future. It is at least a question whether His human nature, keyed to the experiences of man, may not carry with it, even to influence His royal heart, that sensitiveness to the touch of time which is characteristic of our race. But the question tarries only for a second. Time is foiled in Jesus. He has passed out of its sphere, and is impervious to its spell.

2. Moods change us. We know people who are oranges one day, and lemons the next; now a summers day, and, again, a nipping frost; rock and reed alternately. You have to suit yourself to their varying mood, asking to-day what you would not dare to mention to-morrow; and thus there is a continual unrest and scheming in the hearts of their friends. But it is not so with Jesus. Never tired, or put out, or variable.

3. Circumstances change us. Men who in poverty and obscurity have been accessible and genial, become haughty when idolised for their genius and fawned on for their wealth. New friends, new spheres, new surroundings alter men marvellously. What a change has passed over Jesus Christ, since mortal eyes beheld Him. Crowned with glory and honour; seated at the right hand of the Father. Can this be He who was despised, an outcast, and a sufferer? R is indeed He. But surely it were too much to expect that He should be quite the same? Nay, but He is. And one proof of it is that the graces which He shed on the first age of the Church were of exactly the same quality as those which we now enjoy. We know that the texture of light is unaltered, because the analysis of a ray, which has just reached us from some distant star, whence it started as Adam stepped across the threshold of Eden, is of precisely the same nature as the analysis of the ray of light now striking on this page. And we know that Jesus Christ is the same as He was, because the life which throbbed in the first believers, resulted in those very fruits which are evident in our hearts and lives, all having emanated from Himself.

4. Sin and provocation change us. Our souls close up to those who have deceived our confidence. But sin cannot change Christs heart, though it may affect His behaviour. If it could do so, it must have changed His feelings to Peter. But the only apparent alteration made by that sad denial was an increased tenderness.

II. WHAT IS AFFIRMED.

1. He is the same in His person (Heb_1:12). His vesture alters. He has exchanged the gaberdine Of the peasant for the robes of which He stripped Himself on the eve of His incarnation; but beneath those robes beats the same heart as heaved with anguish at the grave where His friend lay dead.

2. He is also the same in His office (Heb_7:24). Unweariedly He pursues His chosen work as the Mediator, Priest, and Intercessor of men.

III. WHAT IT IMPLIES. It implies that He is God. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

Jesus Christ immutable

I. First, the personal names of our Lord here mentioned--JESUS CHRIST. Jesus stands first. That is our Lords Hebrew name, Jesus, or, Joshua. The word signifies, a Saviour, for He shall save His people from their sins. It was given to Him in His cradle. Jesus in the manger deserves to be called the Saviour, for when it can be said that the tabernacle of God is with men, and He doth dwell among them, there is hope that all good things will be given to the fallen race. He was called Jesus in His childhood--The Holy Child Jesus. He was Jesus, too, and is commonly called so both by His foes and by His friends in His active life. It is as Jesus the Saviour that He heals the sick. But He comes out most clearly as Jesus when dying on the cross; named so in a writing, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. There preeminently was He the Saviour, being made a curse for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Still bearing the name of Jesus, our Lord rose from the dead. He is a Saviour for us since He vanquished the last enemy that shall be destroyed, that we, having been saved from sin by His death, should be saved from death through His resurrection. Jesus is the title under which He is called in glory, for Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. As Jesus He shall shortly come, and we are Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. There are two words in the name Jesus. The one is a contraction of the word Jehovah, the other is the word which I have just now explained to you as ultimately coming to mean salvation. Taken to pieces, the word Jesus means Jehovah salvation. You have the glorious essence and nature of Christ revealed to you as Jehovah, I am that I am, and then you have in the second part of His name His great work for you in setting you at large and delivering you from all distress. Now reverently consider the second title--Christ. That is a Greek name, a Gentile name--Anointed. So that you see you have the Hebrew Joshua, Jesus, then theGreek Christos, Christ; so that we may see that no longer is there either Jew or Gentile, but all are one in Jesus Christ. The word Christ, as you all know, signifies anointed, and as such our Lord is sometimes called the Christ, the very Christ; at other times the Lords Christ, and sometimes the Christ of God. He is the Lords Anointed, our King, and our Shield. This word Christ teaches us three great truths.

1. It indicates His offices. He exercises offices in which anointing is necessary, and these are three: the office of the King, of the Priest, and of the Prophet. But it means more than that.

2. The name Christ declares His right to those offices. He is not King because He sets Himself up as such. God has set Him as King upon His holy hill of Zion, and anointed Him to rule. He is also Priest, but He has not taken the priesthood upon Himself, for He is the propitiation whom God has set forth for human sin. He comes not as a prophet who assumes office, but God hath anointed Him to preach glad tidings to the poor, and to come among His people with the welcome news of eternal love.

3. Moreover, this anointing signifies that as He has the office, and as it is His by right, so He has the qualifications for the work.

II. His MEMORABLE ATTRIBUTES. Looking at the Greek, one notices that it might be read thus, Jesus Christ Himself yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. The anointed Saviour is always Himself. He is always Jesus Christ; and the word same seems to me to bear the most intimate relation to the two titles of the text, and does as good as say that Jesus Christ is always Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. If the goodly fellowship of the prophets could be here to-day, they would all testify to you that He was the same in every office in their times as He is in these our days.

1. Jesus Christ is the same now as He was in times gone by, for the text saith, The same yesterday, and to-day. He is the same to-day as He was from old eternity. Before all worlds He planned our salvation; He entered into covenant with His Father to undertake it. Whatever was in the heart of Christ before the stars began to shine, that same infinite love is there to-day. Jesus is the same to-day as He was when He was here on earth. When He tabernacled among men, He was most willing to save. Blessed be His name, Jesus Christ is the same to-day as in apostolic days. Then, He gave the fulness of the Spirit. We have had great enjoyments of Gods presence; we do remember the love of our espousals, and if we have not the same joys to-day, it is no fault of His. There is the same water in the well still, and if we have not drawn it, it is our fault.

2. Now, further, Christ shall be to-morrow what He has been yesterday and is to-day. Our Lord Jesus Christ will be changed in no respect throughout the whole of our life.

III. OUR LORDS EVIDENT CLAIMS.

1. If our Lord be the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, then, according to the connection of our text, He is to be followed to the end. If the Lord is still the same, follow Him till you reach Him. Your exit out of this life shall bring you where He is, and you will find Him then what He always was.

2. The next evident claim of Christ upon us is that we should be steadfast in the faith. Notice the ninth verse: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.

3. If Jesus Christ be thus immutable, He has an evident claim to our most solemn worship. Immutability can be the attribute of none but God.

4. He claims also of us next, that we should trust Him. If He be always the same, here is a rock that cannot be moved; build on it.

5. And, lastly, if He is always the same, rejoice in Him, and rejoice always. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The unchanging Saviour:

Changing circumstances have great power to work changes in character. There are few things more admirable than the spectacle of a good man passing through many chequered experiences, and keeping himself unchanged, excepting that his piety shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. This, like all other moral beauty and glory, was found in the Son of man, as it has been found in none besides.

I. HIS EARTHLY LIFE LEFT HIS LOVE UNCHANGED. His course was one long trial, from the manger to the cross. What His love was when it went into that furnace, that it was when it came out; not so much as the smell of fire upon it.

II. DEATH WROUGHT CHANGE IN HIS LOVE. His subjection to its power was real and complete. It would be easy to take up the history of the great forty days, and show that in word and deed Christ proved that His character was in every respect what it had been before He passed through the mysteries of death,

III. EXALTATION TO HEAVENLY POWER AND GLORY WROUGHT NO CHANGE IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST. Since He has been at the right hand of God, He has four times visibly revealed Himself to men on the earth, and each revelation has been for a merciful purpose. To Stephen, to Paul, to John, to the Seven Churches. (C. Vince.)

Jesus Christ ever the same:

I. IN RESPECT OF THE TRUTH OF WHICH HE IS THE TEACHER. In this respect Divine truth differs materially from human science. Science is tentative and experimental. In the light of the nineteenth century the scientists and philosophers of bygone ages seem little better than jugglers. And though some of the axioms of scientific teaching maintain their hold, yet the most accomplished students of the phenomena of life are ever hesitant and reserved. Nothing more vividly illustrates the unchangeableness of Divine truth than the ever changing phases of unbelief, and the ever varying tactics of its opponents. Theological development does not involve new truths. A deeper experience, a profounder study, a growth of intelligence, may invest a well-worn truth with fresh significance and beauty, just as the practised hand of the lapidary can develop the latent brilliance of a gem--each fresh operation discovering new tints, new possibilities of lustre. Biblical criticism may illumine an obscure passage; single words here and there may be touched with new life; but the cardinal verities remain changeless and unalterable. The unchanging truth, while it is our safety, is our confidence. Whatever changes, the doctrines to which we have yielded our faith will never change. Whatever fails, the truth shall not fail.

II. IN RESPECT OF THE METHODS OF HIS ADMINISTRATION.

III. IN RESPECT OF THE RESOURCES AT HIS COMMAND (Mat_28:18-20). Anticipating this glorious investment, the Psalmist sang long before of gifts for men, which were to be the prerogative of the ascended Lord. There is nothing to warrant the theory that these gifts were temporary, that they were limited to any particular age or crisis, or that they were distinctive of certain aspects only of the Messianic reign. It was of Himself, as thus endowed with all power, that the Lord said, in charging His followers with their great commission: Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. It is impossible now to indicate the many-sided aspects of His mediatorial power. The word all defies exhaustion. He can shape the course of history and open doors which prejudice and enmity have closed. By the viewless ministrations of His Spirit He can prepare the minds of men for the reception of saving truth. He can endow the holy life with wealth, and inspire a generosity which will rise to every emergency. He can raise up and qualify men for every branch of Christian service: the heroes of the mission-field, the inventors and administrators of Church economy, the mighty preachers of all ages have been just what He made them. (R. N. Young, D. D.)

The immutable mercy of Jesus Christ

I. THE CENTRE IS JESUS CHRIST. Jesus was His proper name, Christ His appellative. Jesus a name of His nature, Christ of His office and dignity. Jesus, a name of all sweetness. A Reconciler, a Redeemer, a Saviour. When the conscience wrestles with law, sin, death, there is nothing but horror and despair without Jesus. The Word of God, the Son of God, the Christ of God, are titles of glory; Jesus, a Saviour, is a title of grace, mercy, redemption. This Jesus Christ is the centre of this text; and not only of this, but of the whole Scripture. The sum of Divinity is the Scripture; the sum of the Scripture is the gospel; the sum of the gospel is Jesus Christ.

II. THE REFERRING LINE, PROPER TO THIS CENTRE, IS THE SAME. There is no mutability in Christ; no variableness, nor shadow of turning Jam_1:17). All lower lights have their inconstancy; but in the Father of lights there is no changeableness.

1. This dissuades our confidence in worldly things because they are inconstant. All vanities are but butterflies, which wanton children greedily catch for; and sometimes they fly beside them, sometimes before them, sometimes behind them, sometimes close by them; yea, through their fingers, and yet they miss them; and when they have them, they are but butterflies; they have painted wings, but are crude and squalid worms.

2. This persuades us to an imitation of Christs constancy. Let the stableness of His mercy to us work a stableness of our love to Him. And howsoever, like the lower orbs, we have a natural motion of our own from good to evil, yet let us suffer the higher power to move us supernaturally from evil to good.

III. THE CIRCUMFERENCE.

1. Objectively. Jesus Christ is the same in His word; and that

(1) Yesterday in pre-ordiuation;

(2) To-day in incarnation;

(3) For ever in application.

2. Subjectively, in His power the same; and that

(1) Yesterday, for He made the world;

(2) To-day, for He governs the world;

(3) For ever, for He shall judge the world.

3. Effectually in His grace and mercy. So He is the same,

(1) Yesterday to our fathers;

(2) To-day to ourselves;

(3) For ever to our children. (T. Adams.)

The changelessness of Christ:

Sameness is not a quality of things much loved for its own sake. In common things we soon grow wearied of sameness, and the whole earthly system of things is founded on the principle of variety and change. In what department of this universe shall we find immobility? Take your stand on the quietest day in the stillest place you can find--change is going on around you with every moment of time, so restless is nature down to its very heart. The same law holds in providence. Indeed, there could be no providence without change; no providing and no rule would be possible if no new circumstances arose. The same constitution of things holds in the higher sphere of mans moral progress and religious life. We make progress only in change--we put off the old and put on the new--we learn and unlearn--we fall and rise again; and as nature and providence are never the same on two successive days, so our souls are never in exactly the same moral state on one day as they were on the day before. The prayer of every Christian heart is: Oh! unchanging One, let me change from day to day, until I gain Thine image and reach Thy presence! And may we not believe this to be the prayer of angels too? Are they not thirsting for change from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord? And yet many hearts thrill with a sacred joy on hearing the words, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. How comes it that when we are pleased and profited by variety everywhere else, we are conscious of a sublime satisfaction in finding fixedness here? Is it not because we are created to find rest and portion only in God? Behind all changes in nature we press to unchanging power and law, and feel that these can reside only in an unchanging God. The text is a declaration of the immutability of Jesus Christ, and so takes for granted His divinity. It can be said of no creature that he is the same yesterday and to-day. That language can only have reference to a Divine Being, and it can only he with regard to His Divine qualities that Jesus Christ can be said to be immutable. In fact, He is not the same yesterday and to-day in the forms and aspects of His existence. In these there has been great change. He was with God, then with man, now with God again. In regard to these visible, sensible manifestations, Jesus Christ is different to-day from what He was yesterday, and (we speak with reverence), for anything said in the Scriptures, He may be different to-morrow from what He is to-day. Some such change may be suggested in 1Co_15:24; 1Co_15:28. But these mortal, formal changes, whatever they are, do not affect the substantial meaning of the text. Jesus Christ, in all that constitutes His personality and in all that pertains to His character, is the same, and cannot change. In His will, in His purposes, in His principles, in His affections, He is for ever the same. These things constitute being and character, and these in Him are without change. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

The unchanging Christ

I. I apply these words as a New Years motto, in two or three different directions, and ask you to consider, first, THE UNCHANGING CHRIST IN HIS RELATION TO OUR CHANGEFUL LIVES. The one thing of which anticipation may be sure is that nothing continues in one stay. Blessed are they who, in a world of passing phenomena, penetrate to the still centre of rest, and looking over all the vacillations of the things that can be shaken, can turn to the Christ and say, Thou who movest all things art Thyself unmoved; Thou who changest all things, Thyself changest not. Let the fleeting proclaim to you the permanent; let the world with its revolutions lead you up to the thought of Him that is the same for ever. For that is the only thought on which a man can build, and, building, be at rest. The yesterday of my text may either be applied to the generations that have passed, and then the to-day is our little life; or it may be applied to my own yesterday, and then the to-day is this narrow present. In either application the words of my text are full of hope and of joy. Jesus Christ is the same to-day. We are always tempted to think that this moment is commonplace and insignificant. Yesterday lies consecrated in memory; to-morrow, radiant in hope; but to-day is poverty-stricken and prose. The sky is furthest away from us right over our heads; behind and in front it seems to touch the earth. But if we will only realise that all that sparkling lustre and all that more than mortal tenderness of pity and of love with which Jesus Christ has irradiated and sweetened any past is verily here with us amidst the commonplaces and insignificant duties of the dusty to-day, then we need look back to no purple distance, nor forward to any horizon where sky and earth kiss, but feel that here or nowhere, now or never, is Christ the all-sufficient and unchanging Friend. He is faithful. He cannot deny Himself.

II. So, secondly, I apply these words in another direction. I ask you to think of THE RELATION BETWEEN THE UNCHANGING CHRIST AND THE DYING HELPERS. Gods changeful providence comes into all our lives, and parts dear ones, making their places empty that Christ Himself may fill the empty places, and, striking away other props, though the tendrils that twine round them bleed with the wrench, in order that the plant may no longer trail along the ground, but twine itself round the Cross and climb to the Christ upon the throne. He lives, and in Him all loves and companionships live unchanged.

III. So, further, we apply, in the third place, this thought to THE RELATION BETWEEN THE UNCHANGING CHRIST AND DECAYING INSTITUTIONS AND OPINIONS. Mans systems are the shadows on the hillside. Christ is the everlasting solemn mountain itself. Much in the popular conception of Christianity is in the act of passing. Let it go; Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. We need not fear change within the limits of His Church or of His world. For change there means progress, and the more the human embodiments of Christian truth disintegrate, the more distinctly does the solemn unique figure of Christ the same rise before us. His sameness is consistent with an infinite unfolding of new preciousness and new powers, as new generations with new questions arise, and the world seeks for fresh guidance. I write no new commandment unto you; I preach no new Christ unto you. Again a new commandment I write unto you, and every generation will find new impulse, new teaching, new shaping energies, social and individual, ecclesiastical, theological, intellectual, in the old Christ who was crucified for our offences and raised again for our justification, and remains the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

IV. Lastly, look at these words in their application to THE RELATION BETWEEN THE UNCHANGING CHRIST AND THE ETERNAL LOVE OF HEAVEN. The for ever of my text is not to be limited to this present life, but it runs on into the remotest future and boundless prospect of an eternal unfolding and reception of new beauties in the old earthly Christ. For Him the change between the to-day of His earthly life and the for ever of His ascended glory made no change in the tenderness of His heart, the sweetness of His smile, the nearness of His helping hand. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Yesterday and to-day:

Employing the word yesterday to represent past time in general, we ask, who beside Jesus Christ is the same to-day as yesterday? Yesterday our fathers and our mothers were young, and hale, and strong--to-day they lean towards the earth like half-felled trees, or they lie prostrate as trees wholly cut down. Yesterday the hair of the husband was black as a raven--to-day it is white as wool. Yesterday the children were like olive plants round about the table--to-day one is not, another withers in the place that still knows him, and others are transplanted to a foreign soil. Yesterday kindred and friends were a wide social circle--to-day but a poor segment of that circle is left. And these changes will continue--not absolutely, and for ever, but to-morrow, and for days in succession, until the last man, and the last day. And with the changes to which men are subject is associated mutation, which, like waves flowing over sand, affects the condition and appearance of all things. Yet here, where nothing is abiding but change--here where we should imagine that we should get accustomed to change--we are always sighing for that which is the same to-day as yesterday, and which will be the same for ever. The Divine in Jesus Christ is ever the same, His power in heaven, in earth, and in hell--His knowledge--all that hath been, all that is, and all that will be--His wisdom for device and design, for ruling and over-ruling, for ordering all beings and things--His presence in all places--His spotless purity, and undeviating righteousness--His unbounded love--are all the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. The humanity ofJesus Christ is in all its essential features the same. Eighteen centuries ago it was said of Him that He manifested forth His glory. This glory--the fulness of grace and truth--is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. And is He the same in His devotedness to the work of redemption? Yesterday that work was His. He gave Himself to it in the beginning; undertook it when man fell; made ready for His advent during four thousand years; came in the fulness of time. He came to live as a man--He did live as a man. He came to suffer as a substitute. He came here, not to stay, but to return. Yesterday Jesus Christ did all this--and what of to-day? To-day I This is the favourable time--this is the day of Jesus Christs salvation. And for ever will Jesus Christ be our Redeemer. Of His kingdom there shall be no end. He continueth ever. He hath an unchangeable priesthood. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. He shall reign for ever and ever. He has made great promises to His disciples. He has said that they shall never hunger and shall never thirst, they shall never die, they shall do great works, they shall not abide in darkness, they shall have peace, they shall join Christ in His glory. Will He fulfil these words? Can He? In disposition to fulfil them, and in power, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. He is the revealer of what the apostle Paul calls present truth--and in His exhibition of that which it is essential for us to know, and essential for us to believe, He changeth not. Still, too, He assures His disciples, I will come again. He said this yesterday. And to-day many of you are found among those who wait for His appearing, and who love His appearing--and as the vision seems to tarry, and as the time appears to be delayed, often do you hear Him say, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Jesus Christ is the same in His influence upon those who believe in Him. Yesterday it was testified, The love of Christ constraineth us -it carries us out of the course of the world. To-day, moved by His love, multitudes are acting and suffering as those only can work and endure who live, not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again. And what say you of His love? His eye is the same--bright as a flame of fire, and strong enough to view all things, whether great or small. His ear is the same--quick and sensitive; embracing the harmonies of creation, and receiving at the same time the whisper of a little ones prayer. His hand is the same--strong even to almightiness. And His heart is the same--sympathetic, patient, generous, tender as a womans, strong in its personal attachment, and filled with a love which surpasseth knowledge. In all respects, and in all aspects, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. To-day, brethren, Jesus Christ is the same as when Peter and Johu rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name--not counted worthy to wear some crown for His name, unless the crown be a crown of thorns, but that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. Then to-day let us boldly confess Him. To-day Jesus Christ is the same as when Paul said, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day. Then let us with all our heart confide in Him to-day. Let us renew our confidence. Let us give everything up to Him, ourselves and our all. To-day Jesus Christ is the same as when He said, I am the vine; ye are the branches. Then let us abide in Him to-day. To-day Jesus Christ is the same as when it was said, We are all one in Christ Jesus. Then let us to-day promote the manifestation of the true unity of all believers. (S. Martin.)

The unchanging Christ

I. Follow for a moment THE SUGGESTIONS OF TRUE CONTEXT; remember those who exercised a blessed, loving, wise rule over you, who spake to you the Word of God, pastors, parents, friends; those who first interpreted to you your souls yearning and restlessness, and pointed you to Christ for rest; the true and trusty ones who warned you against your dangers, and helped you in your temptations, and solaced you in your griefs; who seemed to read your life, and could speak the very words you needed. Death, or separation, or mutual alienation and distrust put an end to their guidance. Alas that association so blessed should have had an end.

II. The longing for rest, the desire for what is stable and unchanging--THIS IS OUR DEEPEST WANT; IT STRENGTHENS IN US AS WE GROW OLDER, WISER, BETTER MEN. When our impatience has been tamed, and our impetuosity has become subdued; when we have learned to distrust ourselves, and wish for an immutable goodness on which to stay; when we have learned to distrust the world, to look away from things and circumstances; after we have felt weariness and disappointment, we grow to value quiet. Youth will wander and explore; but manhood asks a home wherein to dwell. But a coming rest is not all we ask; is life all to be weary and changing? must we ever be restless? Our text speaks of One who is even now unchanging. All is not fleeting, Christ is the same. What changes need we now fear? We may be troubled, but we cannot be daunted; surprised, but not unmanned. The deep reality of life abides the same; Jesus Christ the same to-day as yesterday.

III. THE WORDS FOR EVER FALL STRANGELY ON OUR EARS; THE SOLEMN FUTURE IS UNKNOWN AND UNIMAGINABLE. Here I can work, here I can feel, here I am somewhat at home; but that world will be so unutterably strange. Again the thought of the immutable One bears up out of the confusion of changing things. There will be more familiarity than strangeness there, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. He will not be unknown; He will be recognised who quickened, and guided, and sustained us, who was the steadfastness and identity of our passing earthly life. To those Christians who would read the words translated for ever in their original form, unto the ages, they would have a further suggestion. They were accustomed to look on Gods purpose in the universe as unfolding itself in a series of aeons or dispensations. It had been so in the history of this world; they themselves were living in the end of one dispensation, the old world passing away; a new world, another age, was immediately commencing. Words had come to them from the heavens of old, obscurely referring to at least one other dispensation that had accomplished itself before man was created. Paul speaks of worlds and epochs, of which we now know nothing, that are all to be gathered together, and seen fulfilled in Christ. In the world to come there may be further dispensations, each fulfilling a thought, and all illustrating the mighty being, of God. Here are changes, grand, stupendous, unimaginable. But in the midst of all is seen one unchanging Christ. Let dispensation succeed dispensation, and age follow age, Jesus Christ is the same unto the ages. New they will be, but they will not be strange; the changes will but illustrate the unchangeable.

IV. You will observe that it is not of a thing that is the same, nor even of a truth conceived to be the same, that our text speaks, BUT OF A PERSON WHO IS THE SAME. It is in our personal relations that we feel the identity or the changes of life. Our life continues the same in many vicissitudes, so long as the persons we have to do with are unchanged. Amidst the flux of things, the flow of events, the heart rests on one unchanging friend. We may stand solitary, where once we stood circled with affection, alone but not alone, for He is with us. Truest companion, trustiest guide; He who laid down His life for His friends; Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

V. LET ME SPEAK TO YOU PERSONALLY OF THE UNCHANGING SAVIOUR. Well is it for you who trust in Christ. Sorrow cannot long dim your eyes, for He is the unchanging Comforter. Disappointment cannot quench your hopefulness, for He is the unchanging Hope. Difficulties will not daunt you, for He is the unchanging Helper. You will not sink in weakness, for He is the unchanging Strength. You need not fear temptation, for His is an unchanging succour. Sin will not overmaster you, nor guilt drive you to despair; for He whose blood first cleansed you will cleanse you still, and the ear into which you breathed your first penitence is listening still for your repentant prayer. Death has no terror for you, and the endless ages will not see you shaken; for He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. And you to whom all your life long He has stretched out His hands; you who have still rejected Him, you to whom a Christian life has long seemed only a dream in memory, a possibility left far behind; to you too He is still the same. Your conscience may be sluggish, His voice is powerful to arrest; your heart may have grown hard, His love is strong to melt; your will may have become obdurate, His grace is mighty to subdue. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)

The immutability of God:

The unchangeableness of God was taught originally as contrasted with the ever changing views entertained when poets, and mythists, and theologists of antiquity were accustomed to weave just such fancies as they pleased, and twine them about an imaginary God, changing to-day the imaginings of yesterday, as one twines every day fresh flowers about some statue. Without revelation, without even the fixed data which science affords, men formed ideal images and called them God. There was perpetual change. As opposed to such a view of God, a creature of fancy, that changed with all the moods of the imagination, God was declared to be unchangeable. His unchangeableness was also taught as opposed to any change of dynasties. The gods of heathen nations made war with each ether, maintaining themselves by the exertion of force against other gods, so that there were revulsions in high and heavenly places, and reigning dynasties were overthrown. As opposed to such a conception as this, the Bible teaches God to be one, from eternity to eternity, sovereign and immutable. Gods unchangeableness was taught, also, as opposed to the caprice of heathen divinities. The gods of antiquity were shameful, subject to fits of wrath, and to the most fitful changes of the most desperate feelings. The Bible revealed Jehovah, the unchangeable; who, being once known, was for ever to be obeyed, because His commands were equitable and right, and from whom such as learned His will, and followed the path of obedience, had nothing to fear, but everything to hope. What then, are the respects in which God is to be supposed to be immutable?

1. In the first place, no change is to be imputed to Him such as comes to us by reason of age and the wearing of the body. He is not, as men are, changed by time. It is blessed to think of being eternally young; but the thought that, while men are wrinkled, and bent, and scarred by disease, and toil, and suffering, and are subject to all manner of infirmities, there is One that is unchanged by time, and is for ever in the bloom of youth--this thought comes home with sweetness and comfort to every heart.

2. Nor is there any such change possible to God as belongs to men by reason of their external circumstances.

3. Nor is there any change in the great moral attributes which form the basis of the Divine character--justice, and truth, and love. That which was love in the beginning, is love now, and will be love for evermore. Truth and justice are the same now that they were in the beginning, and that they ever will be. The applications of them vary, but the essential moral qualities themselves never change. God is immutable in the fundamental elements of His being.

4. Nor is there any change in the essential purposes of Gods moral government. God saw the end from the beginning; He follows a plan eternally ordained, and the whole vast administration of creation is carried on in pursuance of certain great fixed ideas. In view of these statements, I remark, first, that it is such a view of God as this that inspires confidence and trust in Him. We want to feel that though there are endless variations in goodness and justice, and endless degrees of these things in the Divine mind, yet there is nothing there that traverses justice or good, or that changes these qualities, making that which is evil and unjust in this age just and good in the next age. It has been supposed that the doctrine of Gods decrees would repel men, and drive them into infidelity. On the contrary, it draws men. Gods decrees may be taught so as to make men feel that they are oppressive; but the thought that the decrees of God run through time and eternity, and that He is true to them, so far from being repulsive, is exceedingly attractive. You might as well say that the laws of nature are repulsive, as to say that Gods decrees are so. It is constancy that is the foundation of hope, and civilisation, and everything that is blessed in the world. (H. W. Beecher.)

Jesus always the same:

Ah! the time comes when the actor must leave the public stage; when the reins drop from the leaders grasp; and the orators tongue falters; and the workmans stout arm grows feeble; and the fire of wit is quenched; and the man of genius turns into a drivelling idiot; and men of understanding, without any second birth, pass into a second childhood. But the time shall never come when it can be said of Jesus, His hand is shortened that it cannot save. No; the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, there is nothing He ever did, in saving, blessing, sanctifying, that He cannot do again. This gives undying value to all the offers, invitations, and promises of the gospel. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Christ does not change:

Earthly friends are apt to change, and if they do not change they die. When a visitor comes from a foreign land where you once sojourned, you ask eagerly about the different acquaintances you once had there. And did you see such a one? Yes; but you would not know him, he is so greatly altered. Did he remember me? Well, I rather think he was asking for you, but I cannot be very sure. He has got other things to occupy his thoughts since you and he were wont to meet. And what of such another? All, times are sadly changed with him. You would be sorry to see him now. I believe he has the same kind heart as ever; but he has not in his power to show it as he was used to do. And our old neighbour, who lived next door? Your old neighbour? dear good man, he is safe in Abrahams bosom. I found his house shut up, and all his family gone away. And it is very seldom, after years of absence, that you hear of one whose outward circumstances are nowise different from what they were, and rarer still to hear of one whose dispositions are quite unchanged. However, One there is who wears our nature, but is not liable to the variations of mortality. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)

Experiences may change, but not Christ:

It is a beautiful moonlight night. The moon is at full, and shining in more than ordinary silver brightness. A man is gazing intently down a deep, still well, where he sees the moon reflected, and thus remarks to a friendly bystander: How beautifully fair and round she is to-night! how quietly and majestically she rides along 1 He has just finished speaking, when suddenly his friend drops a small pebble into the well, and he now exclaims, Why the moon is all broken to shivers, and the fragments are shaking together in the greatest disorder! What gross absurdity! is the astonished rejoinder of his companion. Look up man! the moon hasnt changed one jot or tittle. It is the condition of the well that reflects her that has changed. Now, believer, apply the simple figure. Your heart is the well. When there is no allowance of evil the blessed Spirit of God takes of the glories and preciousness of Christ, and reveals them to you for your comfort and joy. But the moment a wrong motive is cherished in the heart, or an idle word escapes the lips unjudged, your happy experiences are smashed to pieces, and you are all restless and disturbed within, until in brokenness of spirit before God you confess your sin (the disturbing thing), and thus get restored once more to the calm, sweet joy of communion. But when your heart is thus all unrest, need I ask, Has Christs work changed? No, no. (G. Cutting.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 13:7. Remember them who have the rule over you — Των ηγουμενων υμων, or, who are, or rather, were, the guides of you, namely, formerly; who have spoken — Or, who spake; unto you the word of God — Remember who they were, and your obligations to them; and though all your intercourse with them is for the present cut off, do not, however, forget their instructions and their examples. Bishop Lloyd (see his funeral sermon for Bishop Wilkins) thinks this may refer to James the brother of John, and to James, commonly called the first bishop of Jerusalem, both of whom had been put to death there before this epistle was written; whose faith follow — Embrace by faith the same doctrines, precepts, and promises of the gospel which they embraced; and let your faith be assured, lively, and operative as theirs was, purifying your hearts, and rendering your lives fruitful to the glory of God; considering the end — Την εκβασιν, the issue, of their conversation — The happy end they made; the blessed manner in which they quitted life; the ground of that support which they experienced in their latest moments from the truths they had taught you; the heroic resolution with which they were animated to meet even martyrdom itself in that sacred cause; and let the remembrance of these things engage you to retain their faith, and courageously to follow their steps.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb_13:8.—Read “Jesus Christ is the same.” “The unchangeableness of Christ is a reason for not being swept about by winds of strange teaching. But a suggestion has been made that “Jesus Christ” is spoken of as the “end of the conversation” of those whose faith we are to follow. The order of the Greek is “yesterday and to-day the same, and to the ages.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_13:7-8

The Example of Christian Leaders.—There is evident reference here to some well-known persons—well-known then, but wholly unknown to us—who had, in a remarkable way, borne their testimony to Christ, and endured a great fight of afflictions for His name’s sake. It would perhaps be helpful to us if we did know something of them, but the story of Stephen will help us; the missionary life of St. Paul will help us; the martyrology of the early Church will help us. We need not unduly force meaning into the expression, “them that had the rule over you.” Order in Christian communities is secured as order is secured in other communities—by the appointment of officers, and the voluntary submission to authority voluntarily entrusted to individuals. St. Paul says, “Not that we have dominion over your faith.” The dominion was entirely in the range of outward order. The writer refers to some elder, or bishop, or apostle, or teacher—perhaps to more than one—who had gained the love and confidence of the Jewish Churches, and had recently been taken from them, probably to gain the martyr’s crown. He makes but a passing allusion to the obedience which such leaders may claim; he fixes attention on the character—the spiritual character which they had borne; upon their faith, and upon the inspiration which Jesus Christ was to them. The “issue of their life,” their supreme aim, had been the glory of Jesus Christ; yes, of Jesus Christ, who is worth glorying in, and whom we also should be glorying in, and glorifying, seeing that He is “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” The subject suggested is the regard in which we should hold the Christian teachers, who, having nobly served us, have passed to their reward. The A.V. has, “whose faith follow.” The R.V. has, “imitate their faith.”

I. We should regard our teachers for their work’s sake.—This may be difficult while the work is being done. It is not often that a man’s work can be fairly estimated until all personal elements are withdrawn, and it can be calmly and dispassionately judged, fitted into its surroundings, and seen in its adaptations. But just such estimates we ought to form in order to the correction and improvement of our own service to Christ and our generation. What others have done is guidance and suggestion for us; it need not be the crushing of our individuality; it should be a direction of our individuality. The

(1) method, and

(2) sphere, of their work may be imitable;

(3) the spirit of their work certainly is. In what an earnest worker has done, and the way in which he has done it, “he, being dead, yet speaketh.”

II. We should regard our teachers for their life’s sake.—“Imitate their faith.” It was the motive-power of their lives, and it ennobled those lives. We say that what Christ was—“holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners”—was even more important to His redemptive work than what He formally did. And the same is true of our Christian leaders. What they were, in gracious character, in spiritual power, in holy life, does more for us than any things they actually accomplished. If we endeavour to realise who the persons are that have most influenced us, we shall soon find that the list is composed almost entirely of saintly charactered men and women. We are reminded that we too are gaining our best power on our fellows, not by what we do, but by what we are in the spirit of the doing.

III. We should regard our teachers for their aim’s sake.—“Considering the issue of their life”—“the end of their conversation; Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” You can never read a Christian teacher or leader’s work aright, save as you estimate the measure in which Christ was the inspiration of it. Did Christ lead to noble endeavour? Did Christ guide to wise methods? Did Christ help to endure? Did Christ touch all doing and all relation with heavenly, Divine charity? Was it that one aim—the honour of Christ—that ennobled their lives? Then we know what can also ennoble ours.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb_13:7. Christian Fasts and Festivals.—The Church contemplates the observance of a number of special days, not Sundays. The weekly festival does indeed stand out from among all the others as the most important and most imperative upon the Church. It is the Divine institution of the Mosaic law carried into Christianity, and changed from the seventh day of the week to the first by apostolic usage. But it does not follow that our meeting together to worship God should be confined and limited to this weekly festival. Taking our stand on the recognised principle of commemorating the Resurrection, and therein the blessings and the glories of the gospel promises, does it not seem, at the first glance, reasonable, that if we can, with due judgment, light upon any other great leading events connected with the life of our Redeemer, or with those holy men whom He associated with Himself, and with each other, to be the pillars upon which His Church was to rest, we should appoint subsidiary days for their commemoration also? The Church has appointed thirty-six especial days throughout the year. Three sorts of days are mentioned by the Church as holy days.

1. Those which relate to some leading events connected with the life of our blessed Lord Himself.

2. The commemoration of the apostles and other saints of the Church. 3. The days of fasting and humiliation. Doddridge paraphrases the text thus: “Remember those dear and venerable persons who, having formerly presided over you in holy things, have spoken unto you the word of God, whose course is now finished. Though all your intercourse with them is for the present cut off, do not, however, forget their instructions and their examples, but be mindful of that faith which they taught and exercised, and let it be your great care to imitate them, considering the end of their conversation: reflect on the happy manner in which they quitted life, on that support which they found in their latest moments, from the truths which they had taught you, and on that heroic resolution with which some of them were animated to meet even martyrdom itself in that sacred cause; and let the remembrance of these things engage you steadfastly to retain their faith, and courageously to follow their steps.” This is just the spirit of the apostle’s meaning. He refers more particularly to his predecessors, James the apostle, and probably James the bishop of Jerusalem, both of whom had suffered martyrdom shortly before; and he exhorts them, and through them the Christian community for ever, to be mindful of those benefactors under God, who had laboured in the teaching of the word, and had sealed their labours with their blood. He bids them, though their intercourse in the flesh had been cut off, still to remember their instruction and example in “the communion of saints.” Old divines are not backward in their opinions on this duty of the Church. Jeremy Taylor says: “The memories of the saints are precious to God, and therefore they ought also to be to us; and such persons who serve God by holy living, industrious preaching, and religious dying, ought to have their names preserved in honour, and God be glorified in them, and their holy lives and doctrines published and imitated; and we by so doing give testimony to the article of the communion of saints.” The learned Hooker says: “Touching those festival days, which we now observe, their number being noway felt discommodious to the commonwealth, and their grounds such as hitherto have been showed, what remaineth but to keep them throughout all generations holy, severed by manifest notes of difference from other times, and adorned with that which most may betoken true, virtuous, and celestial joy?” “They are the splendour and outward dignity of our religion, forcible witnesses of ancient truth, provocations to the exercises of all piety, shadows of our endless felicity in heaven, on earth everlasting records and memorials, wherein they which cannot be drawn to hearken unto that we teach, may only by looking on that we do, in a manner read whatsoever we believe.”—William J. E. Bennett, M.A.

Preachers and Hearers.—Here are given three tests of a spiritual leader:

1. He speaks God’s message;

2. He lives for heaven;

3. He has faith in a personal Saviour. And there are three duties of the hearer:

1. To remember the messenger for his message’s sake;

2. To observe the testimony of his holy life; and—

3. To imitate his personal faith. God’s heaven-sent leaders deliver a heaven-given message. It is according to the written word (Isa_8:20; Jer_23:28). Again, they speak the language of positive conviction, not negations, but affirmations (2Co_1:17-20); and, again, they are attended by spiritual power (1Co_2:1-4). The word is God’s, the conviction of a believer is behind it, and the Spirit’s demonstration attends it. Moreover, it is with solemn earnestness, not frivolity (see Jer_23:32). The declaration of the message is experimental, for it is backed by a personal faith in a personal Saviour. No unconverted man is fit to preach or teach the gospel. The master of Israel must know these things heart-wise. The centre of his message is Christ, and He must be the centre of his heart’s faith and love and hope. If the truth is the ball, and the mouth the cannon, the explosive force behind the ball is the heart’s passion for Jesus. Such faith will be further confirmed and exhibited in a life which is under the power of eternal realities and whose end is Christ, heaven, and the glory of God. The thought is progressive. God’s leader speaks the word for God; convinced of its truth, he is led by it to a personal Saviour whom that word enshrines, and that faith remoulds and remodels his life.—Anon.

Considering their End.—“Attentively considering the end of their manner of life, imitate their faith.” That is, calling to mind the peaceful and happy, possibly even the triumphant, death of those religious teachers among you, who gave you instruction respecting the word of life, imitate their faith, persevere in your Christian profession, as they did, to the very end of life. There may be a glance at the martyr-death of St. Stephen.

The Duty of imitating Departed Worth.

I. The exhortation itself.—“Whose faith follow.”

1. Holding fast as they had done, to the end of life, the word of the Divine testimony.

2. Cleaving with the same steadfastness of faith to the Divine promises.

3. Imitating their faith in all its practical effects.

II. The motive by which compliance with it is recommended.—“Considering the end of their conversation.”

1. Contemplating their state in dying.

2. Considering their death as the final close of their earthly service.

3. Looking on their departure from this life as the commencement of a better.—R. Wardlaw, D.D.

Heb_13:8. The Unchanging Christ.—The writer of this epistle has been speaking of change. The old covenant was no more. The “many priests” had not continued by reason of death. The eleventh chapter is the record of the multitudes who had gone without seeing that for which they waited. This perpetual change was continuing itself in the Church. The Jewish Christians had seen their leaders taken away It is as with a sigh of weariness that the writer closes his admonition to remember these, to call to mind their fidelity in death. Then the ejaculation is uttered by him, broken and fragmentary, but the breathing of a name: “Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day the same, and for ever.” All is not changeful; He abides. The teachers go; Jesus Christ remains. You have other leaders, we have other fellow-labourers; but not another Lord. So He rests, so they may rest; Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

1. A change in our own lives makes all things seem unstable. Change, ceaseless, wearisome change, seems to be written on everything. When this is specially brought home to us, we feel the comfort of this text.

2. There comes on men sometimes a terrible fear of change. Those who know how terrible the changes of life can be are startled by little things, e.g. the unknown handwriting on a letter. There is no cure for such a terror of changes, there is no security, no hope, for man, save in Him who is unchanging. The longing for rest, the desire for what is stable and unchanging—this is our deepest want; it grows and strengthens in us as we grow older, wiser, better men. Is life to be all weary and changing? Till we enter on our final rest, is there no continuance? The text speaks of One who is even now unchanging. All is not fleeting; Christ is the same. Before we go to Him, He has come to us, and with us He remains, the longed-for changeless One. The words of the text are intended to give us just this assurance. The secret of our confidence in a changing world is the unchangeable Christ. Let time bring with it what it may, we are assured of His fidelity. “Yesterday” we found Him precious; He is the same “to-day,” solacing our newest grief. “Yesterday” we heard His voice; His name was on the lips of those who spoke to us the word of God. The teachers are gone, or we have outgrown them. But He is still the same; the Truth is with us. The deep reality of life abides the same. The words “for ever” fall strangely on our ears; the solemn future is unknown and unimaginable. We often fall back baffled in our endeavours to grasp the mystery of the world to come. But again the thought of the immutable One bears us up out of the confusion of changing things. There will be more familiarity than strangeness there, for “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” He will not be unknown; He will be recognised who quickened, guided, sustained us, who was the steadfastness and identity of our passing earthly life. To those Christians who would read the words translated “for ever” in their original form, “unto the ages,” they would have a further suggestion. They were accustomed to look on God’s purpose in the universe as unfolding itself in a series of æons or dispensations. In the world to come there may be further dispensations, each fulfilling a thought, and all illustrating the mighty being of God. Here are changes, grand, stupendous, unimaginable. But in the midst of all is seen one unchanging Christ. Let dispensation follow dispensation, and the æons of the æons still open up, and broaden out, and deepen on, and lengthen themselves, immeasurable, inconceivable; Jesus Christ is “the same unto the ages.” The text does not speak of a thing that is the same, or even of a truth conceived to be the same, but of a Person who is the same. It is in our personal relations that we feel the identity or the changes of life. It is a Person, abiding ever, unchanging ever. He who is most of all to us, the life of our soul, whose love awoke us to life’s true value, whose care gave us first to know how deep and real friendship may be. Amidst the flux of things, the flow of events, the heart rests on one unchanging Friend.—A. Mackennal, B.A., D.D.

Christ ever the Same.—It is difficult to trace the connection of this verse. It seems to be inserted abruptly. The expression in Heb_13:7, “the end of their conversation,” is suggestive of the persecutions and martyrdoms of God’s saints; and then we may regard the text as a comforting assurance of the all-sufficiency of the living Christ, and we may recall how the sight of Him strengthened Stephen, the first Christian martyr. This view is quite in harmony with the spirit and the general subject of this epistle. The text is not so much suggestive of the doctrine of the person of Christ, as comforting to those who were almost overborne by temptation and trial. What a present, personal God was to David, that the present, personal God, in Christ, was to the apostles. If the element of the “ever-living Christ” were subtracted from the gospel, we should have only a dead mass of doctrines which could but corrupt as all earthly things corrupt. The text involves three things, and puts Christ in two contrasts.

I. It involves the Deity of Christ.—For it is the assertion of His immutability, His unchangeableness. The Deity of Christ is the key-stone of the gospel-arch. We say “Deity” because the term “Divinity” is used by some to indicate subordination and inferiority. (Illustrate by Socrates’ daimon.) The proof of the Deity of Christ which comes from the more incidental references is found by the devout reader to be more satisfying and impressive than the proof from formal texts. This we cannot but feel as readers of the New Testament. The attributes which exclusively belong to Deity are applied to Him. Eternal: “I am the first and the last … am alive for evermore.” Omniscient: “And Jesus knowing their thoughts”; “He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” Omnipotent: “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” The meaning of the sublime name of God, the “I am,” is given to us in this text.

II. It involves the sufficiency of Christ’s work for us. Unchangeable involves sufficiency and completeness. If the work of Christ were imperfect, it would need the change of alteration and completion. But it is declared that “by one offering He hath perfected for ever them who are sanctified.” There never can be another way of salvation. You make Christ to be a changeable one if you indulge the hope that He will save in any other than the gospel-way.

III. It involves Christ’s living and saving relations with us.—As our “Prophet, Priest, and King.” The unchangeableness of Christ is our title-deed to all the preciousness that the saints of all ages have found in Christ. What He was to them yesterday, He is to us to-day, and He will be to our children to-morrow. Then what has Christ been to the early Church, to the persecuted, to the martyr, to the sufferer? Nay, what has He been to us, in the experience of our own past?

IV. The text puts Christ in contrast with our associations.—It sets over against each other the changing world and the unchanging Christ. Moore’s verse, “I never sought a wild gazelle,” etc., expresses the feeling of men in every human pursuit. The changeableness comes out of the presence of sin, the consciousness of sin, and the struggling for immortality. The hold on anything earthly must be a shifting and uncertain hold. They only hold firm, and find what they hold to be firm, who hold Christ.

V. The text puts Christ in even stronger contrast with ourselves.—If He is ever the same, certainly we are not, either in circumstance or in feeling. “Though we believe not, yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Himself.” Man can no more be satisfied with himself than with the world. The unchangeable One offers Himself as the ground of confidence to the changeable: “Let him stay upon his God.”

Conclusion.—Let meditation take form that may prepare hearts for partaking of the Holy Sacrament. Fill up thoughts with the preciousness of Christ. Try the claimants to our love by this test—Will they keep ever the same? Ours will. The same, ever the same, even through the last water-floods.

The Sameness of Jesus Christ through all Ages.—In every sense of the word Jesus was and is the same, both in the sense that His character was the same all through, and that it is unchanged and unchangeable. His aim was one; His character was always the same. The character of Jesus stands up unabashed under that inconceivably great trial of the question, Is it suitable to the idea of God manifest in the flesh? It is. There is no break where weakness appears—no pride, no vanity, no rashness, no violence, no sentimental weakness, no levity, no presumption, though “thinking it not robbery to be equal with God.” By an easy transition we rise from this sameness of Jesus to the sameness of His unchangeableness in glory. Other men change in the different periods of their life, and often within short spaces of time. But Jesus is the same everywhere and always. And this same Jesus was taken up from us into heaven unchanged and unchangeable. It is the same Jesus who is “within the veil.” And He is there, what He was below, the soul of comfort.—Edward White.

The Everlasting Name.—Ages are to roll by; nations are to die, and nations are to rise and to take their places; laws are to grow old, and from new germs laws are to unfold; old civilisations are to crumble, and new eras are to dawn with higher culture; but to the end of time it will be seen that this Figure stands high above every other in the history of man! “A name which is above every name” was given to Him—not for the sake of fame, but in a wholly different sense; a name of power; a name of moral influence; a name that shall teach men how to live, and what it is to be men in Christ Jesus.—H. Ward Beecher.

The Ground of our Confidence.—A sublime contrast with things, with others, and with ourselves. Two things man yearns for—unity and constancy. This unity is the inspiration of knowledge, which is trying to find the One. This constancy is the secret of man’s interest in the reign of law. Can man ever get unity save in God, or constancy save outside his own sphere? Text an illustration of the abrupt construction, the bursting in of an exclamation in the course of an argument, which is characteristic of St. Paul; or rather, of all composition rhetorically constructed. “Jesus is the same,” etc.; therefore you who are followers of these “witnesses” may have abundant consolation and strength, in the assurance of the living presence of Christ. He is the same

(1) in His work yesterday;

(2) in His grace today;

(3) in His glory for ever. The same essential purpose has moved Him, and moves Him ever. How this central truth comes to us:

1. Freshening the story of our fathers. See what Christ was to them.

2. Lifting the load of the present. See what Christ is, and can be, to us.

3. Filling us with peace in view of the future. See what that future must have in it. No loneliness for us anywhere in that mysterious future; for the Christ whom we love, and now have in dear fellowship, is ever the same.

Ever the Same.—Such a proclamation of the personality, uniqueness, eternity, immutability, of the great object of faith, appropriately follows the mention of “faith,” and precedes the exhortation to simplicity and stability of belief and profession.

I. The essential attributes of the Saviour’s person, as the eternal and unchangeable Son of God.

II. The Lord Jesus, as unalterably the same in the office He sustains as the only and all-sufficient Saviour of believers.

III. The Lord Jesus is ever the same in His kind and compassionate dispositions towards His people.

IV. The Lord Jesus is unchangeably the same in His adherence to the declarations and requirements of His word.

Learn—

1. To anticipate the progressive advancement and final triumph of the Christian cause.

2. To rely on the fixed terms and settled arrangements of the gospel.

3. How great the encouragement which believers may draw from the grace of their Redeemer, amid all the trials and difficulties of the Christian course.

4. Whence come the strongest consolations and supports amid all the losses and vicissitudes of this mortal state.—Prof. Crawfurd.

The Unchanging Friend.—Two views have been taken of this passage. In our English Version “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,” is the end or aim of the conversation of those teachers and martyrs whose example of constancy and sacrifice is so earnestly commended. They toiled and suffered, inspired by the hope that thus they should honour Christ. Many, however, think that our text is better treated as a separate sentence—the words “end of their conversation” completing the writer’s reference to the martyrs, and poetically indicating the heroic deaths by which they sealed their faith. Then our text is seen to be an instance of abruptness, of thrusting in a sudden thought which comes to him, which we know was characteristic of the apostle Paul, and which is freely illustrated in the writings admitted as written by him. We will take the verse as standing alone, and specially suitable as a motto. It is the utterance of a thought flashing suddenly through the writer’s mind, and breaking in on the subject with which he is dealing. Turning for a moment from the example of the teachers whose faith we are to follow, this writer reminds us that Jesus Christ is all to us that He has ever been to others, nor need we fear the future, for He will be to us all that we have ever found He is. In this way the sentence stands fully out before us, distinct and clear, as a motto on which to base the sacramental meditations for a new year. Jesus Christ is ever the same; therefore all you who are followers of the holy witnesses may have their consolation. No one has any need to envy the apostles their fellowship with a Redeemer in the flesh, since to him that Redeemer both is and will be all that He ever was. He ever liveth. His offices as Prophet, Priest, and King are continuous, reaching right up to the for ever of our necessity. I am very often speaking to you on the subject which is, of all others, of intensest interest to me, about which I am always wanting to learn something more, and which I want to see from every possible point of view—the veritable humanity of our Lord, the mystery of the “Man Christ Jesus.” This much we can plainly see—that taking upon Himself our nature makes the Divine redemption to be a moral force on moral beings. It operates in sublimer degrees, but in the same ways as those in which men influence their fellow-men. Jesus Christ became a man that He might exert a man’s power on men. That is one side of truth; but we must see the other side. The full redemption—including both the justification and the sanctification—of fallen, sinful, morally helpless man must be an immediate and continuous operation of Divine power. This is true—He who saves the moral being man must be man. But this also is true—He who saves the morally ruined moral being man must be God; and therefore the essential attributes of Deity are shown to belong to Jesus Christ, who “is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” That which this sentence asserts concerning Christ is the familiar Bible declaration concerning God. “His years have no end.” The very striking expression in the ninetieth Psalm comes at once to mind: “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” But this unchangeableness is an assertion which we dare not make concerning any things. “The fashion of this world is ever passing away.” “The moth or the rust” are corrupting everything; and the constant change of form and place has become so familiar to us that something of its exceeding painfulness has gone, and we only feel it oppressively when the changes take unusual or severer forms. The whirl of time brings ever-changing day and night, wintry bareness, spring buddings, summer fulness, and autumn droppings. Grand cities fall to ruins; abbey and cathedral and castle stand roofless, all covered over with the creeping ivy. Nations pass away. The mighty, gallant warships presently rot idly away in the harbours. All round the circle of life our thought goes, and it can find nothing of which it may say, “The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” “Dew, like liquid crystal, often bespangles the garment in which the young day presents himself rejoicing before us. But what so transient, so visionary, as the dew of the morning? It is the very type of instability. It greets us silently, with soft glances from its myriad of myriads of eyes. We hail it, admire it—we feel young in its presence; but it is gone, exhaled in an hour.” It is an assertion that we dare not make concerning other persons. Of all the unutterably painful things of human life, one stands out as supreme. It is the changeableness of the friends in whom we have trusted, thinking them to be true, and constant, and faithful. The psalmist finds words which many of us have wanted in the bitter hours of life: “For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it … but it was thou, a man mine equal, my companion, and my familiar friend.” Who among us has failed to learn, in life’s stern hours, that it is hopeless work putting our trust in princes or in the sons of men? Who does not feel that he must lift his eyes away from his fellow-men, since of none of them can it ever be said they are the “same yesterday, to-day, and for ever”? We cannot even use such expressions concerning ourselves. We are not what we were yesterday. Probably not one particle of our body of to-day, from head to foot, inside or out, is the same as our body of twenty years ago. We do not think to-day as we thought twenty years ago. Our experiences are as changing as the varieties of the daily atmosphere in our most changeable climate. Sunny days of glowing pass to wintry days of chill. Spring breathings that waken life give place to wild winds that bruise the flowers and strip the branches, and to biting frosts that nip off the budding life, and drive the sap back again to the shelter of the roots. We may find the image of the world, of men, and of ourselves as we lie on the smiling river-bank and watch the ships go by. They are ever passing, passing, some to their “harbour under the hill,” some out to the ocean sailing. A line against the sky as we watch them coming. Beautiful with their “bellied sails” as we watch them go by. A line on the far horizon as they reach away out to the open west. On, on! the voice sounds day by day. Here is no rest, is no rest. “We’ve no abiding city here.” Nothing stays the same. For earthly things there is no enduring. And yet the writer of this epistle, fearless of contradiction, claims this unchangeableness for the Lord Jesus Christ. The text is almost the closing word of an epistle which has presented with unusual fulness and vigour the Divine claims of Christ, who is declared to be greater than man, higher than angels, “brightness [outshining] of the Father’s glory, and express image of His person.” Our text is really an efficient summary of the teaching of the epistle concerning our Lord. In no more vigorous language could he set our Lord forth as distinct from things, distinct from men, crowned with the attributes and bright with the glories that belong alone unto God. “Yesterday, to-day, and for ever” is a Hebrew form of expression; and the addition of “the same” to it makes it denote immortality, and proclaim the personality, uniqueness, eternity, Divinity, of the sole Object of our faith. The doctrine of the person of Christ is the prominent doctrine of our times. About it all the battle rages. Think for a moment how that doctrine gradually unfolded in the first century. At first Jesus was evidently a man, and apprehended by everybody as a man. He was the Nazareth carpenter’s son; and what Joseph and His mother knew about the mystery of His birth nobody else knew. He grew up at Nazareth a man among men. Not until He was thirty years of age was there any open ground for suspecting the deep mystery that surrounded Him. Even when He stood forth as a teacher most people could see only a man. Even when He did mighty works as a physician most people could only see an endowed man. All through His life the highest view the majority could take of Him was that He was a gifted prophet. If we realise the kind of thought which the people had of their anticipated Messiah, conceiving that He would prove a grander Judas Maccabæus, a second and more glorious soldier-hero for the nation, we shall feel that nothing more than a Divinely endowed man was expected by them. Moreover, the Jews were possessed with a profound passion for the conservation of one truth—the truth of the unity of God. They were not in the least likely to entertain the idea that Jesus was God. They would not believe that the Divine rights could be shared with any one. They were offended, and accused him of blasphemy, when our Lord claimed the Divine authority to pronounce forgiveness of sins. At the present day our Christian setting of the Trinity, and our claim of Deity for Christ, are the grave stumbling-blocks in the way of the conversion of the Jews, who denounce us Christians as worshippers of many gods (polytheists), on account of these doctrines. It does not appear that it was a part of our Lord’s mission to state in so many words what He claimed to be. It was His duty to live, and to be. The due impression of these would certainly be made. Privately and incidentally He did say who He was; but even in these instances He used ambiguous terms. He left our world, having started mighty wonderings and questionings in the minds of His disciples. They had a general impression of His life and relations which, at the time, they could not translate. They were prepared for the apprehension of the higher truth in the illumination of the Holy Ghost. The impression produced by Christ’s completed life, death and resurrection, and ascension may be put into a single word. All who had to do with Him felt that there was about Him a “beyondness,” an inexplicable something, a strange separateness. He was with them, but He was above them, beyond them, otherwise than they. It is a question whether any of those who knew Christ in the flesh ever put it to themselves while He lived—“Why, this is God.” The impression was on their hearts, but it had not gained shape or words. Olivet, Pentecost, and after Pentecost, were the revealers of the meaning which they had failed to find. Two men more particularly formulated this truth for the disciples. Just as the spirit, the truth, the principles of the Reformation, were in the deep heart of Germany long before Luther arose, and he only found for that Reformation a voice, so the unuttered feeling of the Deity of Christ was in the deep heart of the early Church, and the apostles Paul and John did but find for it a voice. The truth itself was the impression left by our Lord’s life: the shaping of the truth was given by the inspired genius of two apostles. Paul’s representation differs from John’s, because Paul had to deal with idolatry and superstition, the belief in inferior and attendant divinities, and it was necessary for him to assert the absolute uniqueness and sole authority over all things which Christ claimed. John had to deal with a specious philosophy, which said that Jesus the man received a Divine Spirit at His baptism, and this Spirit left Him a mere man again before His crucifixion. It was necessary therefore for him to defend the reality of the Incarnation. Evangelical Christianity then has one distinct foundation-truth on which it rests. And it is an everlasting rock. They are other truths which we hold to be essential to the faith. But the one characteristic foundation of evangelic Christianity is the proper Deity of the Lord Jesus, “God manifest in the flesh.” First recognised as Jewish Messiah, then declared to be the Son of God with power, by His resurrection from the dead; at last, the fullest and deepest in Him is discerned, and we ascribe the Divine attribute of unchangeableness to Him who “is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” It is a fact, but it should be much more; it should be an experience, something which we find out and feel for ourselves, something which we can only get by the study of the historical Christ, and the communion of the living Christ.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

B

Special admonitions regarding their inclination to apostasy

Heb_13:7—17

7Remember them which have the rule over you [your leaders], who [as those who] have spoken [spoke] unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the 8end of their conversation [contemplating the issue of their walk]. Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, to-day, and foreHebrews Heb_13:9 Be not carried about [aside, παραφέρεσθε]2 with divers [various] and strange doctrines [teachings]; for it is a good thing [is good] that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied3 therein. 10We have an altar, whereof [wherefrom] they have no right to eat which [who] serve the tabernacle. 11For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin,4 are burned without the camp. 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth, therefore, unto him without 14the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city [have not here 15an abiding city], but we seek one to come [are seeking that which is to come]. By [Through] him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our [om. our] lips giving thanks [making acknowledgment] to his name. 16But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. 17Obey them that have the rule over you [them that lead you, Heb_13:7], and submit yourselves: for they watch for [are watching on behalf of] your souls,5 as they that must give [render] account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief [sighing, στενάζοντες]; for that is unprofitable for [unto] you.

[Heb_13:7.—τῶν ἡγουμένων, those who are (or in this case, were) leading you, who, it appears from what follows, were now dead, and are to be remembered and followed in their Christian example. “Them that have the rule over you,” of the E. V., therefore, is not strictly warrantable.—οἵτινες, characteristic, of the kind who (the which, Alf.).—ἐλὰλησαν, not have spoken, but, spoke, historically—it is now over.—ἀναθεωροῦντες, surveying back, going backward in your contemplations over the entire series. Difficult to express by one word in English. “Considering,” however, which does duty here as for so many other words, is needlessly inadequate. Better with Alf, “surveying.” “Considering” which, marks a purely intellectual act, loses entirely the external imagery of ἀναθεωροῦντες. This is retained in “surveying,” partially also in “contemplating.” Moll, “hinschauend.”—πῆς ἀναστροφῆς , their conduct, walk (E. V., conversation).

Heb_13:8.—Ἰησοῦς χριστὸς, “not common with our writer; only elsewhere at Heb_13:21,” (Alf.).—understand εστὶν, is—εἰςτοὺς αἰῶνας, stands emphatic, “is yesterday and to-day the same—and forever.”

Heb_13:9.—μὴ παραφέρεσθε, be not carried aside, not περιφ., “carried about”—the παραφ., much more forcible and pertinent to the author’s purpose, as not referring to Christian instability in general, but to being borne away from Christianity itself.

Heb_13:9.—ἐν οἵς, “in which they who walked, were not profited.”

Heb_13:10.—ἐξ οὔ, from, which, wherefrom.—ἐξουσίαν, right, authority, privilege—rarely well rendered by power, as by E. V., as at Joh_1:13—τῆ σκηνῆ, Beng. (cited by Alf.), “est aculeus quod dicil, τῆ σκηνῆ non ἐν τῆ σκηνῆ.”

Heb_13:11.—ω̇͂ν ζώων, of what animals=of those animals of which.—περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτἰας, for sin; Moll, though marking it doubtful in his critical note, retains it in his version. Alford rejects it.—διὰ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως, through, by means of the high, priest, regarded as acting for the people, or for God.—κατακαίεται, are burned up, consumed; E. V., are burned, not quite adequately.—τῆς παρεμβολῆς, the encampment in the wilderness; the old tabernacle imagery carried through to the last.

Heb_13:14.—μένουσαν πόλιν, an abiding city.—τὴν μέλλουσαν ἐπιζητοῦμεν, we are seeking after (ἐπί, direction toward hence implies yearning after, Heb_9:14), that which is to be—the future abiding city.

Heb_13:15.—ἀναφέρωμεν, let us be offering up.—καρπὸν χειλ., the fruit of lips (fruit or offering rendered by lips) making acknowledgment to his name.

Heb_13:17.—τοῖς ἡγουμ., them that lead you, your leaders.—αὐτοὶ γάρ, for themselves they in turn, or on their part.—ἀγρυπνοῦσι, are sleepless, keep vigilant watch, the meaning stronger than is suggested by the simple English term watch.—ὑπὲρ, on behalf of.—ὡς ἐπιδωσ., having, being destined, to render an account.—ἵνα τοῦτο ποιῶσιν, that they may be doing this, viz., watching.—στενάζοντες, sighing, groaning. Moll, seufzend; Alf., lamenting, viz., “over your disobedience.”—K.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Heb_13:7. Your leaders.—The term ἡγούμενος which is found Act_15:22, with the Rom. Clem. (ad Cor. 1 and 37), and in the martyr St. Ignat. § 4 points to no other than the ordinary form of church government (Dav. Schultz). Chrys. explains the word, although at this time, it already had the special signification of abbot, by ἐπίσκοποι. Of kindred nature is the designation of the heads of the Church, 1Th_5:12, by προιστάμενοι.

Issue of their walk.—Ἔκβασις τῆς ἀναστροφῆς expresses not the development, (Œc., De Dieu), and not the result of the walk, in respect to others, (Braun, Cramer) or, in respect to the perfected ones themselves, in heaven (Storr, etc.), but, in the connection, their death by martyrdom.

Heb_13:8. Jesus Christ, yesterday.—Inasmuch as the subject is the God-man, we need not extend the ἐχθές. (so read in Sin. A. C*. D*.) to the time before the appearance of Christ (Beng., etc.), and thus neither to the entire time of the Old Covenant, (Calv., etc.), nor at all to the preëxistence of Christ, (Ambrose, Seb. Schmidt, etc.). Luther, following the Vulg. And Œc., falsely puts a stop after σήμερον. It is not the eternity (Ambrose, Cyrill. Alex., Calov., etc.), but the eternal unchangeableness of Christ on which emphasis is laid. Hence, ὁ αὐτός is the predicate applicable to all the three divisions of time. The sentence thus abruptly introduced, (without the usual connection) serves undoubtedly to assign a reason for the following warning, yet nothing authorizes the supposition that it stands in an intended antithesis to the Jewish expectation of a still future Messiah (Œc.). It is possible that it, at the same time, furnishes the ground for the preceding exhortation, (Bl. Ebr., etc.), or encourages to its fullfilment (Theoph., Grot., etc.). Nothing in the passage requires us to take it as explaining the substance of the faith of the ἡγούμενοι (Calov., Carpz.).

Heb_13:9. By various and strange teachings.—The ordinances of the Old Testament itself (Wieseler, Lün., etc.), the author would hardly have thus designated, for they are regarded by him as divinely ordained shadows and types of essential and eternal objects and relations. We must refer the term to human doctrines, which attach themselves to these ordinances, and, as shown by the connecting particle γάρ, to such as referred specially to βρώματα. These are not sacrificial meals, as after Schlichting, Bl., Lün., and others suppose; but food, meats, (the old interpp., Böhme, Thol., Ebr., Del., Riehm, Alf.) in which were sought ritual means of justification, Heb_9:10. [For the reasons (1) “that βρώματα is a word not found in the law when offerings are spoken of, but in the distinction of clean and unclean, Lev_11:34; 1Ma_1:63; (2) that in all New Testament places where βρω̈μα is used in a similar connection, it applies to clean and unclean meats: (3) that διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις—παραφερ., must refer not to meats eaten after sacrifice, but to such doctrines in which there was variety and perplexity, as to those concerning clean and unclean.”—(Alf.)]. In the classics, also, ξένος does not always indicate something foreign, but sometimes, something strange and surprising. The antithesis in the two clauses is overlooked by Böhme, who, following Castalio, understands χάρις of gratitude to God, and by Bisping, who refers it to the Lord’s Supper, as the Christian sacrificial meal [a “monstrous interpretation,” Alf.].

Heb_13:10. We have an altar, etc. θυμιαστήριον is not Christ Himself, (Bugenhagen, Biesenthal, etc.) nor the table of the Lord’s Supper (Böhm., Ebr. Bisp., etc.), nor an expiatory arrangement in general, (Michael., Stier, Thol., Hofm., etc.), but the cross upon Golgotha (Thom. Aquin., Este, Beng., Bl., De W., Lün., etc.), of which Christians eat, in that the atoning victim that was offered upon it, is the food of their souls (Riehm), comp. Joh_6:51 ff. The question is not merely of the enjoyment of the spiritual blessings resulting to believers from the sacrificial death of Christ (Bl., Lün.), but communion with the personal Christ crucified on our behalf. The τῇ σκηνῇ λατρεύοντες are not Christians (Schlicht., Schultz, Hofm., etc.), but either as Heb_9:9; Heb_10:2 the Israelites (Lün., Kluge), or, as Heb_8:5, the Jewish priests (Bl., De W., Del., Riehm), who, above others, had access to the typical dwelling-place of God, and had a right to partake of the food that had been consecrated to God.

Heb_13:11. For the bodies of those animals whose blood, etc.—Of many sacrifices, the priests obtained either the entire flesh, Lev_5:9; Lev_23:20; or the breast, and shoulder, Num_7:34; or the whole with the exception of the fat pieces, Num_4:26 ff.; comp. Num_6:19; Num_6:22; Num_7:7. But of the sin-offerings whose blood was brought into the inner tabernacle, Lev_4:5-7; Lev_4:16-18; Lev_4:16. the fat pieces were brought to the altar, and all the rest was consumed by fire without the camp. This burning was only a means of getting rid of the things burned, and was called שָׂרַף, a word never used to denote burning on the altar. The emphasis lies, therefore, not upon the burning, but on the fact that this mode of dealing with the flesh of the victims, from which the priests derived no enjoyment, took place without the camp. This is regarded by the author as typical. Lün., following Bähr, (Stud, und Krit., 1849, i 13:936, ff.) regards the capital point of the argument of Heb_13:10 as appearing in Heb_13:12, and regards Heb_13:11 as containing a preliminary idea that is merely auxiliary to the proof. But it is more natural to take Heb_13:11 as containing the proof of Heb_13:10, while again, the idea of Heb_13:12 is suggested by Heb_13:11, and corresponds, therefore, in substance to Heb_13:10 (Riehm). [The typical image is simple and forcible. Christ as a sin-offering, suffered without the gate whither the bodies of the animals that were slain as sin-offerings under the Old Covenant were carried to be burnt. As then the priests of the Old Covenant, and also the people, had no right to partake of that sacrifice, so they who now adhere to that Covenant, who minister to that tabernacle, have no right to partake of that great victim that is slain and disposed of outside of the encampment, and which is the antitype of the Old Testament sin-offering. In order to eat of this sacrifice, as Christ Himself requires, they must break away from their adherence to the system which forbade them to eat of the type, and can, therefore, of itself, give no authority to eat the antitype.—K.].

Heb_13:13. Wherefore let us go forth to Him, etc.—This is an exhortation based on the preceding passage. It is not, however, an exhortation to refrain from sacrificial meats (Retschl.), or from worldly pleasures (Chrys., Primas., etc.); nor to a voluntary following into the sufferings of Christ (Œc., Limb., etc.);nor to a withdrawal from Jerusalem on account of its impending destruction (Clericus); but to a complete separation from Judaism, (Theod., Beng., Bl., Thol., Lün., etc.). To a willing endurance of exclusion from the Jewish Theocracy (Schlicht., Grot., etc., and recently, Thiersch), there is not the slightest allusion; and the passage contradicts in the most decisive manner Schwegler’s position, that to our Author Christianity is still in a transition state from Judaism.—It is only, [or rarely,] except in later writers and sometimes in the Sept., that τοίνυν stands, as here, at the beginning of the sentence. Does ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς involve a reference to the speedily following destruction of Jerusalem? At all events, the following verse could not but suggest to the mind of the readers, the city whose foundations are not moved, Heb_11:10.

[It seems, by no means, improbable that this passage does have a double reference; that while its external and obvious import is to warn its readers to a complete withdrawal from the entanglements and bondage of Judaism, another import may have lain beneath its guarded language, viz., a record by the Holy Spirit, through the inspired writer, of the warning and injunction formerly given by him to the Christians of Palestine, and especially of Jerusalem through the lips of the Lord. So interpreted, the terms have special significance. The τῆς παρεμβολῆς persistently kept up, still harmonizes with the primary and figurative import of the passage, while the οὐ μένουσαν πόλιν, in contrast with the τὴν ἐπιμέλλουσαν shows that the writer has clearly in mind the earthly Jerusalem.—K.].

Heb_13:15. The sacrifice of praise.—θυσια αἰνέσεως means, in the Old Testament, the voluntary, whether promised or freely undertaken offering of praise (thank-offering), זֶבַח תּוֹדָה Num_7:12-15, which, however, even at Psa_50:14; Psa_50:23; Psa_116:17, is a symbol of the thanksgiving of the heart and mouth, and is here explained according to Hos_14:3; yet after the LXX., that, instead of פָּרִים reads פְּרִי. Wetstein adduces the Rabbinical saying: “In the future all sufferings will cease; but the thank-offering ceases not;” and Philo (ed. Mangey, II. 253) styles this the best offering. According to a favorite Old Testament representation, thoughts are branches, and the words blossoms and fruits, which, taking root in the Spirit, and by him impelled through mouth and lips, sprout forth and ripen (Del., Bibl. Psychologie, p. 142). The last αὐτοῦ is not to be referred to Christ (Sykes), but to God.

Heb_13:16. But to do good and to communicate, etc.—The Subst. εὐποιΐα is found in the New Testament only here. The verb, Mar_14:7. Κοινωνία in the same sense as here, Rom_15:26; 2Co_9:13; Php_1:5, of evincing our fellowship in communicating of our temporal possessions. Εὐαρεστοῦμαί=to be satisfied with any thing, is entirely classical. Theophyl., Schlicht., Beng., etc., erroneously refer ταιαύταις γάρ to Heb_13:15, also.

Heb_13:17. Unprofitable.—Either as hindering the influence of the readers (Bl.), or as rendering them dispirited and inactive (Calv., Grot.), or best, per μείωσιν (Gerh., Thol., Lün.). The leaders must have been esteemed by the author as reliable men, and been known by him in their most favorable aspects. The first τοῦτο in Heb_13:17 refers to ἀγρυπνεῖν, the second to στενάζειν.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Examples worthy of imitation are furnished specially by those leaders in the churches, and publishers of the Gospel, who, by the grace of God in Christ, were able to give such an expression to the faith which they have professed and taught, that their dying corresponded with their life, and their death proved a living voucher of their faith. The memory of these should be held in honor, and exercises a blessed influence on all who behold it.

2. Exalted above all change in fortune and in feeling, as above all personal vicissitudes, is Jesus Christ, the unchangeable and abiding Head of the Church, whether its members are already in heaven, or are still living upon the earth; and by virtue of His relation to God, He intercedes for, protects, blesses, and rules it eternally.

3. With the pure word, and the all-sufficient grace of God is given to us all that we need. To this there need, and should be added nothing drawn from other religions. Instead of producing steadfastness and satisfaction of heart, such a mixture of foreign elements, would rather disturb and weaken the purity, certainty, joy, and power of faith, and would bring with it the danger of a turning away, to unfruitful and perplexing ordinances, usages, and strifes.

4. Inasmuch as we have the only valid and efficient expiatory offering in Christ, who outside of the city of legal worship, was crucified for us, and have in him at the same time, the true Passover (1Co_6:3), we are enabled to partake of an atoning banquet which to the Levitical priests was made legally impossible. It becomes therefore the duty of Christian churches that are still entangled in Judaism, entirely to abandon the Jewish camp.

6. On the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which admits no repetition, and sets aside the whole system of sacrificial worship, we are alike laid under the obligation, and endowed with the capacity of offering acceptable and permanent sacrifices of thanksgiving and of well doing, with which we praise God, who, rich in grace, glorifies himself in sinners, and we serve one another according to the will of God as good stewards of the manifold gifts of God.

7. The prosperity of the church is best promoted when its leaders, mindful of their great responsibility before God, watch on behalf of souls, and the members of the church facilitate the fulfilment of this duty by docility and obedience, and render it fruitful of benefit to themselves.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The blessing of faithful teachers before and after their departure.—We owe to pious ancestors a grateful remembrance and faithful imitation.—How our departure from the world becomes an entrance into heaven, and a precedent for a following and imitation that is acceptable to God.—A firm heart is a precious thing and a rare treasure; but it is a work of grace and an abiding good.—What comfort lies in the fact that Jesus Christ is always the same; and in like manner, what warning and what encouragement! How the cross which separates us from the world, unites us with God and with one another.—The offerings of Christians are, 1. prayer; 2. well doing; 3. obedience.—What we have to bring to the altar, and what we have to take from it.

Starke:—The teachers of the church, are leaders, conductors, guides; they must therefore so point the way to blessedness, as themselves to lead the way therein, and conduct their hearers to blessedness, not only with their doctrine, but also by their life and example (Php_3:17; 1Pe_5:3).—It is one of the hidden ways of God that upright teachers of whom there are so few, and to whose preparation so much belongs, are removed by an early death. Disciples who have such teachers should follow them faithfully be times, and hold them as all the dearer and more worthy (1Th_5:12-13; Isa_57:1-2).—Righteous, faithful teachers shine in life and in death. Happy they who dwell in memory, upon their holy walk, and edifying death, and thus secure their own preparation for a future blessed departure (Mat_5:14 ff.). The world frequently forms erroneous judgments of this or that man; but his death testifies of his faith and life; so that many are obliged to wonder and acknowledge that he was a pious man (Luk_23:4; Luk_23:7).—Doctrine and grace belong together; pure doctrine, and the grace, causing by means of it, that the heart become established.—We eat Christ spiritually in faith (Joh_6:35), and sacramentally in the Holy Supper (Mat_26:26).—Would we have part in Christ and be sanctified by Him, we must renounce this world and bear His reproach.—The confession and the Reproach of Christ are fellow-travellers.—Reproach is a proof whereby God tests the softness and humility of the heart.—For the sake of the truth of the gospel, we must give up land, city, house, goods, and all (Mat_19:29).—If thy praise is to please God He must Himself produce it within thee (Php_1:11).—Christians also are under obligations to sacrifice, yet not a Mass, but a sacrifice of praise, and themselves (Rom_12:1). With this God in His grace, allows Himself to be well pleased.—No hour of the morning is too early, no noon too high, no evening too late, no day too hot, no night too dark, no place too solitary—thou canst always praise God (Ps. 4:2, 9; Psa_119:55). The praise of God belongs properly to the heart; yet must at certain times, also employ the body with its members, particularly the mouth (Psa_34:2).—Faith makes us willingly and readily serve and suffer, for the love and praise of God.—It is the mark of a righteous teacher, when he best satisfies himself in reaping the fruits of his office in the heart of his hearers.

Rieger:—Jesus Christ has an honor and glory which He can share with no other. The Cross of Jesus ever frees us more and more from all that is upon earth, from all that would establish itself in the love of our hearts, and would weigh down the upward tendency of our spirit; and draws us with our love, regard and hope, away thither where Jesus has entered on our behalf.—Let no hour pass without praise and love.—One of the two things must weigh upon us, either duty now, or conscience hereafter.

Heubner:—If the world were our eternal dwelling-place, and to remain among the people of the world were our everlasting destiny, it would be hard to bear reproach; but we have here but a brief sojourn.—God, Himself, must work in us, through Christ, the fruits which shall please Him.—To load ourselves with the sighs of the pious, robs us of bliss.

Ahlfeld:—Confirmation is a sacred act, by which the child is to be established in its baptismal covenant. The obligations which it imposes 1. on the servants of the church, 2. on those to be confirmed, 3. on the church, in particular, the parents and god-parents of the child.

Molenaar:—(New-Year’s Sermon, Ohly, 1863, III. 1). Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and the same also forever. We ponder this, 1, for our consolation, and for our quiet, since also in this year Jesus is the same, a. in His Word, as our Teacher and Prophet; b. in His grace, as our Mediator and High-Priest; c. in His power, as our King and Lord; 2. for instruction and warning; a. for unbelievers; b. for believers.

Hedinger;—Grace must confirm the wavering reed.—To waver is already to have half fallen; but to fall from grace is worse than never to have been therein.

Footnotes:

[2]Heb_13:9.—Instead of περιφέρεσθε read παραφέρεσθε, after Sin. A. C. D., and the majority of minusc.

[3]Heb_13:9.—Instead of περιπατήσαντες, Sin. A. D*., read περιπατοῦντες. The former has been introduced into Sin. by a later hand.

[4]Heb_13:11.—The words περὶ ἁμαρτίας, are wanting in A.; they stand in Sin. D. K., before εἰς τὰ ἅγια.; in C*., after these words; and in 14, 47, they become περὶ ἁμαρτιων, for which reason they are regarded by some as an interpolated gloss.

[5]Heb_13:17.—The authority of A. and Vulg., is not sufficient to warrant the removal of the words ὑτὲρ τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν, and placing them after ἀποδώσοντες, where D*. again adds ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Section 2. (Heb 13:7-25.)

Separation from Judaism to be absolute.

Now we have the final word which is to separate the Christian from Judaism absolutely. Isaac’s weaning time is at an end, and the bond-woman and her son are to be cast out of the house. He begins by speaking to them of the leaders now passed away who had spoken to them the word of God, and, considering the issue of their conversation, they were to imitate their faith. Leaders there always will be, and all right when it is their faith, that carries them ahead of others. But faith must be in the word of God, and have this to justify itself to others. Thus true guidance is always by the Word, and this is what preserves following from being a mere following of men. Apart from this, we may go easily astray in the path of very good men. Peter led Barnabas astray after this fashion. Paul says: "Follow me," but he adds, "as I follow Christ."

Christ is the fulness of this Word; and the effect of true ministry is always, necessarily, to exalt Him. Christ it is, also, who, as we saw at the beginning of the epistle, has brought us the full revelation of God in contrast with all former, fragmentary communications. Thus there can be nothing to come afterwards -no addition to Him. He is Israel’s Jehovah, the unchangeable God, always at one with Himself, "the same yesterday, today and forever." Christ is thus the measure of all that is true riches for His people, the test of all true doctrine, the object of all real faith; but this being so, He is the object of Satan’s constant enmity, whose unwearied labor it, is to weave those diverse and strange doctrines which, however contradictory of one another they may be, present to the natural taste a variety of roads by which men may wander from the one true Way; and, of all these ways, undoubtedly the most successful are those which would reintroduce, now that it has been authoritatively set aside forever, what has been man’s way from the beginning. Judaism was the trial of that way. Thus indeed it might seem to receive sanction from God Himself; but the true issue was always plainly indicated in it, and the finger pointed unmistakably beyond itself to Christ, to the new covenant replacing the old and the time of reconstruction of all things at His hands. What a triumph of Satanic skill to take out of Judaism just that mere human element which had been on trial and condemned, ignoring the condemnation, and make the finger point in fact to this as the God-commended way of blessing; making the shadow to be the substance and stamping the name of Christ upon the woof of antichrist!

This bastard Judaism, as we see it in Romanism and kindred systems today, is evidence of the need of such decisive separation from the Jewish camp as the apostle presses here. In his warning against diverse and strange doctrines it is plain that he has this almost wholly in his mind, as it is, indeed, in some of its forms, the one religious scheme that men naturally accept and approve. "For it is good," he says, "that the heart be established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited those that have been occupied therewith." The adoption of the legal system means the substitution of law for grace, the earthly for the heavenly, the carnal for the spiritual, the degradation of an assembly called out of the world into a mere heterogeneous gathering together, the "synagogue of Satan." For the believer entangled in it, it means uncertainty for certainty, doubt for peace, bondage for liberty; instead of communion with God the hiss of the serpent. Grace is the only thing that can dismiss fear, conquer sin, and establish the sovereignty of God over the human heart. No wonder, then, that every kind of travesty should be made of it, every form of opposition exhausted against it. But the appeal which the apostle makes here to experience will be justified by every honest and exercised soul.

The apostle at once proceeds to his point. "We have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle." He is opposing now the substance to the shadow, and he naturally uses the language of the tabernacle in his insistence that the reality is not in the shadow. "We have an altar," he says, which the tabernacle cannot furnish; and an offering, of which they who serve it have no right to partake. It is the peace-offering of which he is speaking, as that was the only offering in which all Israel could have communion with the altar; but the peace-offering at once suggests all the difference for which he has been contending. Peace! was it ever made by these continual sacrifices? Communion with God, how far could it be enjoyed by those for whom God was behind an unrent veil, dwelling in thick darkness? The altar itself, the altar that sanctifieth the gift, was the figure of Christ in Person. What else could sanctify His gift but what He was who offered it? Where, then, had the men of the tabernacle put Christ? and how could they have communion with the altar, who had refused the very Altar itself?

True, they had done what their types had indicated. For every sin-offering whose blood was carried into the holy places by the high priest for sin was burned without the camp; and so "Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate" of the holy city. It was one of those signs of a deeper reality which united to proclaim the true character of the Cross. Outside the gate, in the mysterious darkness, hanging upon a tree, here was proclaimed the true Sin-Offering, forsaken of God as under the curse for sin; and this was the deepest necessity for atonement. But if this were needed for the sanctification of the people, the failure of the legal system, with all its elaborate provision for that sanctification, was manifest. The law was weak through the flesh. Nothing could improve the man in the flesh so as to make him acceptable with God. Put him under the most favorable conditions, "the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be;" nay, more, it is "enmity against God." For this nothing but judgment can avail with Him. That judgment is what the Cross expresses; but with this, therefore, the whole legal system is of necessity set aside. The "camp" is just the people upon that legal footing, and it is given up. All the grace of God for man is found in the Cross, and so outside it; and all the glory of God is found there also.

The glory of God had been outside before. After the golden calf, when the legal covenant, in its first form of pure law, had come to an end with the first tables, Moses had taken the tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, afar of from the camp, and there the cloud of ministrant glory descended and the Lord talked with Moses.

When, after far longer trial, the legal covenant, in its form of mingled law and mercy, had only manifested man to be "without strength" as well as "ungodly," at the time of the Babylonish captivity, the glory was seen by the prophet Ezekiel again to take its departure from the midst of the people, and city and temple were given up to destruction.

Now for the third time, to one who has seen it in the face of Jesus, the glory is outside, and now under reproach. "Let us go forth therefore to Him without the camp," says the apostle, "bearing His reproach: for we have not here an abiding city, but we seek one to come." Our faces are not even towards the Zion of the future, but towards "Jerusalem which is above, which is our mother."

We are priests of the sanctuary, but it is the heavenly one; and the brazen altar is for us done away. Offerings have ceased there, for the virtue of the true Sacrifice abides once for all. Our only altar is now the golden altar of the sanctuary, which is still Christ, and by Him we are to "offer the sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of the lips, confessing His name." There is another form of this sacrifice -"to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." How beautiful is this as the expression of a Christian life! How perfectly does it show the value of Christ’s one work for us, while giving to our practical life its highest character! Our work is nothing else but praise -a thank-offering; and thus the praise of our whole life is the sacrifice with which God is pleased.

"Inside the veil" and "outside the camp" go necessarily together; -necessarily, for the true heavenly tabernacle has been always outside. While Judaism in the strict sense is what is here, yet every legal system comes under this in principle. Properly, there is indeed no real going back to Judaism; no one can reinstate it or go back where prophets and holy men of old once were. That is impossible. To bring it back into Christianity was, as the Lord Himself has taught us, only to make a "synagogue of Satan." Of course, we have to remember that people are now brought up in systems of such a character, and that many of the Lord’s people are entangled in them. They are like those who in Thyatira, suffered the woman Jezebel, while they were not Jezebel’s children; and we must make the same distinction that the Lord does there. The system is, of course, no less evil for the lapse of centuries, rather the reverse.

The apostle closes now with some brief exhortations mingled with prayer, and to which are added a few words of salutation.

Their guides or leaders are again referred to, now the living ones; and they are exhorted to obey them as those watching for their souls. This is plainly not official, but something to which love would prompt, and which ought to be found among us if the true-heartedness of a remnant characterizes us, whatever the broken condition of things may be. "As those that shall give account" means, of course, for themselves -their own conduct as caring for the souls of others; but that involves the condition of those for whom they watch; so that the unprofitableness there might be in it for these is easily to be understood. How many of us recognize such responsibility as to the souls of others?

The apostle then seeks their prayers as one having a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honestly -words of wonderful lowliness, considering the man who speaks. And then he breaks out into a prayer for them quite in the line of his thoughts in this epistle -that they may be perfected in every good work to do the will of God." It is the blood of the covenant which he speaks of in it as the foundation of everything. By this we have, brought again from the dead for us, a "Great Shepherd of the sheep;" and it is "the God of peace," of whose counsel of peace this is the fruit, who has raised Him up. Peace is the fruit wrought out for us by Him upon the cross -a peace of conscience the moral effect of which is peace in heart and life -a peace which is a true reconciliation of man to God, a taking of Christ’s gentle yoke and learning of Him who was meek and lowly of heart, so as to find rest to the soul. For this the God of peace has been working -the glorious harmony in which He is in that relation to His creatures which alone can satisfy Him. It is a peace in which the heart and life go up in worship, and thus the natural completion of Hebrews itself is found in such a prayer. He beseeches them to suffer the word of exhortation (which the whole epistle is), which, if it smite upon Jewish prejudice, has in it such compensation of blessing.

The epistle closes with the usual salutations.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:7-19 This middle section of Ch 13 is bracketed by references to the community’s leaders (13:7, 17-19). Rabbis often used this technique, called inclusio, in which similar words or phrases were used to mark the beginning and ending of a unit, much as we would use a subheading in a book today. This section hints at several difficulties in the church to which Hebrews was originally addressed.

13:7 Remember your leaders: The word leaders was used for military, political, and religious leaders. These leaders, evidently founders of this community, taught . . . the word of God to them—a basic responsibility of those who lead (see 1 Tim 3:2; 2 Tim 2:15; Titus 1:9). Their lives and faith were an example to follow.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb 13:7. Ἡγουμένων) them who have the rule, Heb 13:17; Heb 13:24. The use of this word is very extensive; it is applied to a prince, to a teacher, etc.; it is presently explained in this passage, who have spoken to you the world of GOD. He therefore intends teachers, who were among the first witnesses and apostles of Christ, or their disciples and companions, who had died a little before, or were now almost at the point of death.—ἀναθεώρουντες, looking to, considering) i.e. when you look to with remembrance. The same grand expression occurs at Act 17:23. “Magnam ἀναθεώρησιν res habet,” Cic. ep. to Atticus, lib. xiv. ep. 15; and again, “Quanta est ἀναθεώρησις,” ep. xvi.—τὴν ἔκβασιν, the end) blessed, wished for.—τῆς ἀναστροφῆς, of their conversation) in the faith, consistent.—μιμεῖσθε, imitate) The imperative. We more easily contemplate and admire the happy death of godly men, than imitate the faith by which they have attained to it.—τὴν πίστιν, the faith) chiefly shown at the end.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb_13:7. Exhortation to a remembrance of the former teachers, and an emulation of their faith.

οἱ ἡγούμενοι] the presidents and leaders of the congregation. Comp. Heb_13:17; Heb_13:24; where, however, those still living are indicated, while here we have to think of those already fallen asleep. By virtue of the characteristic οἵτινες ἐλάλησαν ὑμῖν τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ they appear as identical with the persons mentioned Heb_2:3, the immediate disciples of Christ, from whom the readers had received the gospel.

ὧν] has reference equally to τὴν ἔκβσαιν τῆς ἀναστροφῆς and τὴν πίστιν.

ἀναθεωρεῖν] the prolonged, closely observing contemplation. Comp. Act_17:23.

τὴν ἔκβασιν τῆς ἀναστροφῆς] not: the course or path of development of their walk (Oecumenius, but without deciding, and Lud. de Dieu)which is opposed to linguistic usage; nor yet: the result for others of their believing walk, inasmuch as many were thereby converted to Christianity (Braun, Cramer)which must have been more precisely defined by means of additions; just as little: the result of their believing walk for the ἡγούμενοι themselves, as regards their rewarding in heaven (Storr, Bloomfield, and others), for an ἀναθεωρεῖν of the latter, to which the author is supposed to exhort, would not have been possible; but: the outlet or end of their walk on earth [1Co_10:13]. Comp. τὴν ἔξοδον, Luk_9:31, 2Pe_1:15, and τὴν ἄφιξιν, Act_20:29. That which is intended, seeing that in combination with the ἀναθεωρεῖν τὴν ἔκβασιν τῆς ἀναστροφῆς a μιμεῖσθαι τὴν πίστιν is spoken of, is beyond doubt the martyrs death, endured by the earlier leaders and presidents of the Palestinian congregations, Stephen, James the elder, James the brother of the Lord, and Peter, whereby they had manifested the strength and immovable stedfastness of their faith.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 13:7-16 . The Hebrews are exhorted to keep in remembrance their former leaders, to abide steadfastly by their teaching, to rid themselves of the ideas of Judaism, to bear the shame attaching to the faith of Christ, to persevere in good works. Μνημονεύετε τῶν ἡγουμένων ὑμῶν … “Have in remembrance them who had the rule over you, especially as they are those who spoke to you the word of God”. μνημον . might be used, as in Heb 11:22 and Gal 2:10 , τῶν πτωχῶν μνημ ., of keeping living persons in mind (and so Rendall) but what follows makes it more likely that it here refers to the past. These deceased leading men were the persons alluded to in Heb 2:3 and Heb 4:2 , who first “spoke” the word of the gospel to the Hebrews and who were now no longer present. The word ἡγούμενοι , occurring also in Heb 13:17 ; Heb 13:24 and in Act 15:22 (and cf. Sir 30:18 , οἱ ἡγούμενοι ἐκκλησίας ) is a general term for leading and influential men in whom some undefined authority was vested. Official status was not yet defined and official titles were not yet universal. The chief reason why they are to be held in remembrance is given in the clause under οἵτινες , “for they are they who”. But an additional reason is suggested in the following clause, ὧν ἀναθεωροῦντες … “whose faith imitate as you closely consider the issue of their manner of life”. ὧν follows ἀναστροφῆς . ἀναθεωρέω in Theophrastus and Diodorus Siculus is explicitly contrasted with the simple verb to denote a keener and more careful observation. We cannot therefore render, as naturally we might, “look back upon”. ἔκβασιν , in 1Co 10:18 has the meaning “escape”; but in Wis 2:17 , as here, it denotes the end of life with a distinct reference to the manner of it, as illustrating the man’s relation to God. The leading men among the Hebrew Christians had, whether by martyrdom (as Weiss, etc.) or not, sealed their teaching and exhibited a faith worthy of imitation. Heb 13:8 gives force both to Heb 13:7 and to Heb 13:9 . Imitate their faith, for the object of faith has not changed nor passed away. Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐχθὲς .… “Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day is the same, yea and for ever.” ὁ αὐτὸς exactly as in Plutarch’s Pericles , xv. 2, where in describing the influence of success upon Pericles it is said οὐκέθʼ ὁ αὐτὸς ἧν , he was no longer the same. ἐχθὲς is the proper Attic form, χθές the old Ionic, see Rutherford’s New Phryn. , 370. “Yesterday and to-day,” in the past and in the present Jesus Christ is the same, and He will never be different. Therefore, διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις μὴ παραφέρεσθε . “Be not carried away by teachings various and unheard of, and foreign.” παραφερ . is used in Diodorus and Plutarch of being swept away by a river in flood; cf. παραρυῶμεν of Heb 2:1 . The teachings against which the Hebrews are here warned are such constructions of Old Testament institutions and practises as tended to loosen their attachment to Christ as the sole mediator of the New Covenant. These teachings were “various,” inasmuch as they laid stress now on one aspect, now on another of the old economy [“bald in der Schriftgelehrsamkeit, bald in peinlicher Gesetzseserfüllung, bald im Opferkult, bald in den Opfermahlzeiten” (Weiss)]. They were ξέναι both as being novel and as being irreconcileable with pure Christian truth. καλὸν γὰρ χάριτι .… “For it is good that by grace the heart be confirmed, not by meats.” The present wavering unsatisfactory condition of the Hebrews is to be exchanged for one of confidence and steadfastness not by listening to teachings about meats which after all cannot nourish the heart, but by approaching the throne where grace reigns and from which it is dispensed, Heb 4:16 . From the following verse (Heb 13:10 ) in which sacrificial food is expressly mentioned, it would appear that the reference in οὐ βρώμασιν is not to asceticism nor to the distinction of clean and unclean meats, but to sacrificial meals. These are condemned by experiment as useless, ἐν οἷς οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν … “which were of no avail to those who had recourse to them” (Moffatt). Cf. the ἀσθενὲς καὶ ἀνωφελές of Heb 7:18 . Sacrificial meals are also shown to be irreconcileable ( ξέναι ) with the Christian approach to God, for our (the Christian) altar is one from which neither worshippers nor priests have any right to eat. The point he wishes to make is, that in connection with the Christian sacrifice there is no sacrificial meal. As in the case of the great sacrifice of the Day of Atonement the High Priest carried the blood into the Holy of Holies, while the carcase was not eaten but burned outside the camp; so the Christian altar is not one from which food is dispensed to priest and worshipper. οἱ τῇ σκηνῇ λατρεύοντες refers to the Christian worshippers. The figure introduced in θυσιαστήριον is continued in these words. To refer them to the O.T. priests is to shatter the argument. Literally the words mean “they who serve the tabernacle,” that is, the priests, cf. Heb 8:5 . The peculiarity, he says, of our Christian sacrifice is that it is not eaten. Then follows in support of this statement an analogy from the O.T. ritual, ὧν γὰρ εἰσφέρεται ζώων .… “For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the High Priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.” Cf. Lev 4:12 ; Lev 4:21 . In conformity with this type ( διὸ καὶ Ἰησοῦς ) Jesus, that He by His own blood might purify the people from their sin, suffered outside the gate. “The burning of the victim was not intended to sublimate but to get rid of it. The body plays no part in the atoning act, and has in fact no significance after the blood has been drained from it. The life, and therefore the atoning energy, resides in the blood and in the blood alone. On the writer’s scheme, then, no function is left for the body of Jesus. It is ‘through his own blood,’ that he must ‘sanctify the people’. It is thus inevitable that while the writer fully recognises the fact of the Resurrection of Christ (Heb 13:20 ), he can assign no place to it in his argument or attach to it any theological significance” (Peake). The suffering ἔξω τῆς πύλης is equivalent to the αἰσχύνη of Heb 12:2 ; the ignominy of the malefactor’s death was an essential element in the suffering. The utmost that man inflicts upon criminals he bore. He was made to feel that he was outcast and condemned. But it is this which wins all men to Him. τοίνυν ἐξερχώμεθα πρὸς αὐτὸν … “let us therefore go out to him outside the camp bearing his reproach”. Cf. Heb 11:26 . Do not shrink from abandoning your old associations and being branded as outcasts and traitors and robbed of your privileges as Jews. This is the reproach of Christ, in bearing which you come nearer to Him. And the surrender of your privileges need not cost you too much regret, “for we have not here (on earth) an abiding city, but seek for that which is to be,” that which has the foundations, Heb 11:10 , the heavenly Jerusalem, Heb 12:22 . That which is spiritual and eternal satisfies the ambition and fills the heart. Cf. Mar 3:35 ; Phi 3:20 . The want of recognition and settlement on earth may therefore well be borne.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He setteth man against God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Remember--so as to imitate: not to invoke in prayer, as Rome teaches.

have the rule--rather, "who have had the rule over you": your spiritual leaders.

who--Greek, "the which": such persons as.

have spoken unto you--"spake" (so the Greek aorist means) during their lifetime. This Epistle was among those written later, when many of the heads of the Jerusalem Church had passed away.

whose faith--even unto death: probably death by martyrdom, as in the case of the instances of faith in Heb 11:35. Stephen, James the brother of our Lord and bishop of Jerusalem, as well as James the brother of John (Act 12:2), in the Palestinian Church, which Paul addresses, suffered martyrdom.

considering--Greek, "looking up to," "diligently contemplating all over," as an artist would a model.

the end--the termination, at death. The Greek, is used of decease (Luk 9:31; Pe2 1:15).

of their conversation--"manner of life": "religious walk" (Gal 1:13; Eph 4:22; Ti1 4:12; Jam 3:13). Considering how they manifested the soundness of their faith by their holy walk, which they maintained even to the end of that walk (their death by martyrdom).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Remember them which have the rule over you] This clause should be translated, Remember your guides, των ηγουμενων, who have spoken unto you the doctrine of God. Theodoret's note on this verse is very judicious: "He intends the saints who were dead, Stephen the first martyr, James the brother of John, and James called the Just. And there were many others who were taken off by the Jewish rage. 'Consider these, (said he,) and, observing their example, imitate their faith.'" This remembrance of the dead saints, with admiration of their virtues, and a desire to imitate them, is, says Dr. Macknight, the only worship which is due to them from the living.

Considering the end of their conversation] Ὡν αναθεωρουντες την εκβασιν της αναστροφης· "The issue of whose course of life most carefully consider." They lived to get good and do good; they were faithful to their God and his cause; they suffered persecution; and for the testimony of Jesus died a violent death. God never left them; no, he never forsook them; so that they were happy in their afflictions, and glorious in their death. Carefully consider this; act as they did; keep the faith, and God will keep you.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Remember, etc. What follows refers not so much to morals as to doctrine. He first sets before the Jews the example of those by whom they had been taught; and he seems especially to speak of those who had sealed the doctrine delivered by them by their own blood; for he points out something memorable when he says, considering the end of their conversation; though still there is no reason why we should not understand this generally of those who had persevered in the true faith to the end, and had rendered a faithful testimony to sound doctrine through their whole life as well as in death. But it was a matter of no small importance, that he set before them their teachers for imitation; for they who have begotten us in Christ ought to be to us in the place as it were of fathers. Since then they had seen them continuing firm and unmoved in the midst of much persecutions and of various other conflicts, they ought in all reason to have been deeply moved and affected.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(7) Which have the rule.—Rather, which were your leaders (Heb_13:17; Heb_13:24; Act_15:22), who spake unto you the word of God. These spiritual guides had been removed from them by death.

Whose faith follow.—Better, and, contemplating: the end (or, issue) of their life, imitate their faith. Their Christian life and course (Jas_3:13; 1Pe_1:15, et al.), had been known by the Church; they, too, have obtained a good report “by faith” (Heb_11:2), and all who contemplate the blessed issue of such a life will be strengthened to imitate their faith. We may well suppose that some had died a martyr’s death, but the writer seems carefully to avoid any direct expression of this thought; his words apply to all who have ended their course in the triumph of faith. This verse recalls a striking passage in the Book of Wisdom, Heb_2:17-18; especially Heb_13:17, where the ungodly say of the righteous man, “Let us see if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. them which have the rule over you, who have spoken] Rather, “your leaders, who spoke to you;” for, as the next clause shews, these spiritual leaders were dead. At this time the ecclesiastical organisation was still unfixed. The vague term “leaders” (found also in Act_15:22), like the phrase “those set over you” (proistamenoi, 1Th_5:12) means “bishops” and “presbyters,” the two terms being, in the Apostolic age, practically identical. In later ecclesiastical Greek this word (ἡγούμενοι) was used for “Abbots.”

whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation] In the emphatic order of the original, “and earnestly contemplating the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith.”

the end] Not the ordinary word for “end” (telos) but the very unusual word ekbasin, “outcome.” This word in the N.T. is found only in 1Co_10:13, where it is rendered “escape.” In Wis_2:17 we find, “Let us see if his words be true, and let us see what shall happen at his end” (ἐν ἐκβάσει). It here seems to mean death, but not necessarily a death by martyrdom. It merely means “imitate them, by being faithful unto death.” The words exodos, “departure” (Luk_9:31; 2Pe_1:15) and aphixis (Act_20:29) are similar euphemisms for death.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Remember them which have the rule over you,.... Christ's church is a kingdom, and he is King in it; pastors of churches are subordinate governors; who rule well when they rule not in an arbitrary way, according to their own wills, but according to the laws of Christ, with all faithfulness, prudence, and diligence. The word may be rendered "guides" or "leaders"; for such point out the way of peace, life, and salvation to men, and direct them to Christ; and guide them into the understanding of the Scriptures, and the truths of the Gospel; and lead them in the paths of faith and holiness, and are examples to them. The Greek word, here used, is what the Jews call Christian bishops by; and is, by Maimonides (w), said to be the same as "a bishopric": to "remember" them is to know, own, acknowledge, and respect them as their governors; to obey them, and submit to them; to treasure up in memory their doctrines and exhortations; to be mindful of them at the throne of grace, to pray for them; and to take care of their maintenance and outward supply of life:

who have spoken unto you the word of God; of which God is the author, being agreeably to the Scriptures, given by inspiration of God; the subject of which is the love and grace of God in Christ; and which God makes useful for conversion and comfort; and which, when spoken aright, is spoken freely, boldly, and faithfully:

whose faith follow; or "imitate"; meaning either their faithfulness, by owning the truths and ordinances of the Gospel before men; by reproving fellow Christians in love; by discharging the several duties of their place in the church; and by performing the private duties of life: or the grace of faith, their strong exercise of it, together with its fruits and effects, love, and good works; also the profession of their faith, which they hold fast unto the end; and the doctrine of faith, by embracing the same, as it appears agreeably to the word; by abiding by it, standing fast in it, striving for it, and persevering in it to the end.

Considering the end of their conversation; which may intend the whole of their conduct in the discharge of the several duties of their office; the end of which designs either the manner of it, as De Dieu explains it, agreeably to the sense of the Hebrew word, in Psa 68:20 or the drift and scope of it, which was Christ, his honour and glory, as in connection with the following verse; or the event of it in life, being for the glory of God, and the good of men; or rather the issue of it in death, or what a comfortable end they made; and so the Ethiopic version renders it, "considering" their "last manner of living, in their exit out of the world"; and this is to be considered for imitation and encouragement.

(w) In Misn. Gittin, c. 1. sect. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

Ver. 7. Them which have the rule] Gr. ηγουμενοι, your captains, your guides (so ministers are called), your chieftains and champions, that bear the brunt of the battle, the heat of the day, and upon whom, as upon his white horses, the Lord Christ rideth about conquering and to conquer, Rev 6:2.

Considering the end] Gr. αναθεωρουντες, reconsidering, perusing it over and over, and passing into the likeness of so holy a pattern.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Remember them which have the rule over you - Margin, “are the guides.” The word used here means properly “leaders, guides, directors.” It is often applied to military commanders. Here it means teachers - appointed to lead or guide them to eternal life. It does not refer to them so much as rulers or governors, as teachers, or guides. In Heb 13:17, however, it is used in the former sense. The duty here enjoined is that of remembering them; that is, remembering their counsel; their instructions; their example.

Who have spoken to you the word of God - Preachers; either apostles or others. Respect is to be shown to the ministerial office, by whomsoever it is borne.

Whose faith follow - That is, imitate; see the notes on Heb 6:12.

Considering the end of their conversation - Of their conduct; of their manner of life. The word rendered here “the end” - ἔκβασις ekbasis - occurs only here and in 1Co 10:13, where it is rendered “a way of escape.” It properly means, “a going out, an egress,” and is hence spoken of as a going out from life, or of an exit from the world - “death.” This is probably the meaning here. It does not mean, as our translation would seem to imply, that Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever, was the aim or end for which they lived - for the Greek will not bear that construction; but it means that they were attentively to contemplate the end or the issue of the conduct of those holy teachers - the close or going out of all that they did; to wit, in a peaceful death. Their faith sustained them. They were enabled to persevere in a Christian course, and did not faint or fail. There is allusion, doubtless, to those who had been their religious instructors, and who had died in the faith of the gospel, either by persecution or by an ordinary death, and the apostle points to them as examples of that to which he would exhort those whom he addressed - of perseverance in the faith until death. Thus explained, this verse does not refer to the duty of Christians toward living teachers, but toward those who are dead. Their duty toward living teachers is enforced in Heb 13:17. The sentiment here is, that the proper remembrance of those now deceased who were once our spiritual instructors and guides, should be allowed to have an important influence in inducing us to lead a holy life. We should remember them with affection and gratitude; we should recall the truths which they taught, and the exhortations which they addressed to us; we should cherish with kind affection the memory of all that they did for our welfare, and we should not forget the effect of the truths which they taught in sustaining their own souls when they died.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Remember your prelates, &c. who have been placed over you to be your guides and directors in what belongs to the service of God; he seems to mean the two Sts. James, the apostles, who perhaps had already suffered martyrdom for the gospel. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Imitation of their godly ministers, is another duty that Christ’s law chargeth on his subjects, both here and Heb 13:17.

Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God; be mindful of your spiritual guides and rulers, firmly and constantly to retain their excellencies in memory, esteeming of them, and thanking God for them, which were sent to them and set over them by the Holy Ghost, who were guiding of them by Christ to God, and enjoyment of eternal life with him, which they did by preaching to them, and writing the gospel of Christ for their edification, by the inspiration of the Spirit. Some of which guides were removed by death, slain and martyred for the truth of Jesus, and ascended unto heaven, and others were alive among them; they were to remember all of them, but especially their spiritual fathers that had begotten them to God by the gospel, 1Co 4:15; 2Co 2:17; 1Ti 5:17; 2Ti 3:14-17; 1Pe 4:11; 5:2,3.

Whose faith follow; the best way of remembering such is by imitating them, to believe the doctrine which they taught and practised, and to be as stedfast in the faith as were they, and holding of it out to others, how eminent believers they were, 1Ti 4:12; 6:11; 2Ti 2:22.

Considering the end of their conversation; such as their doctrine was, such was their life, conformable to Christ’s, 1Co 11:1. It was honest, upright, and blameless, much in heaven, 2Co 10:3; Phi 3:20. All their turnings and motions in the world, their very life, was hid with Christ in God; all agreeable to, as ordered by, his will. And such was the issue and egress of this life, which it is their concernment to review, they having by it an outlet from the remainders of sin and misery, which did defile and oppress them, Rev 14:13, and a victory over the world and all its oppositions to them, sealing the truth with their blood which they had preached and practised among them, and were more than conquerors over all by death, having an inlet into life, and peace, and eternal glory, in the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, reserved for them in heaven, Rom 8:37; 2Ti 4:8; 1Pe 1:4; 3:4.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Remember—As of the departed.

Have the rule—Rather, the leaders of you.

End of their conversation—The close and outcome of their life and career. The phrase suggests, but does not express, the martyrdom of at least some of their leaders. Long ago, nearly thirty years, Stephen was martyred, this our Paul having then consented. James, brother of John, was slain by Herod about twenty years previous; and James, bishop of Jerusalem, perhaps about two years before this epistle was received. Of course, during the thirty years since Stephen many a Church official had deceased, leaving a memory to which Paul could refer as exemplar.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 7, 8. Remember your leaders (twn hgoumenwn umwn , wrongly rendered in the A.V, them that have the rule over you;" for the reference is to departed chiefs. The word is similarly used by St. Luke, (see Luke Act_15:22; also below, ver. 17 and ver. 24). St. Paul, with a like meaning, calls the rulers of the Church oi proistamenoi : see Rom_12:8 1Th_5:12 1Ti_5:17) who spake to you the Word of God; of whose conversation (i.e. course of life, anastrofhv), considering the end (or issue, ekbasin), imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is yesterday and today the same, and forever. This allusion to departed leaders shows the comparatively late date of the Epistle. Those who had died as martyrs, and hence, having a peculiar halo round them in the issue of their lives, may be supposed to be especially referred to; such as Stephen the proto-martyr at Jerusalem, James the son of Zebedee, and possibly James the Just, the acknowledged leader of the Jewish Christians. It may be that Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, had also suffered before the writing of the Epistle. This supposition, however, which would involve a date for the Epistle after St. Paul"s death also, is by no means necessary. Others, too, may be alluded to of whom we have no record, but whose memory would be fresh in the minds of the readers. But it does not follow that martyrs only are intended. Others also who had died in peace, and whose end had been blessed, might be pointed to as models for the imitation of survivors. Ver. 8 must be taken as a distinct appended sentence, the watchword on which the preceding exhortation is based. Its drift is that, though successive generations pass away, Jesus Christ remains the same the Savior of the living as well as of the departed, and the Savior of all to the end of time. It may be here observed that, though his eternal Deity is not distinctly expressed for "yesterday" does not of necessity reach back to past eternity yet the sentence can hardly be taken as not implying it. For his unchangeableness is contrasted with the changing generations of men, as is that of Jehovah in the Old Testament, (e.g. in Psa_90:2-4) and surely such language would not have been used of any but a Divine Being.

Vers. 7, 8. Deceased pastors. Passing from admonitions bearing upon the individual Christian life, the writer now proceeds to exhort the brethren about matters arising out of their Church relations. He charges them to cherish the memory of their departed Christian teachers.

I THE WORK OF THE PASTORATE. The duties of the gospel ministry, when these are faithfully discharged, may be said to be threefold.

1. To bear rule over the Church. Christ has given to his Church the "power of the keys," vesting it in her pastors and presbyters. This power, however, is simply ministerial. The rulers of the Church merely administer the laws given by the Lord Jesus Christ, her King and Head. While at liberty to frame by laws which may promote the edifying celebration of the ordinances which be has founded, they dare not prescribe new laws or appoint new ordinances. They are to admit to Church communion and exclude from it; but only upon the lines laid down in the New Testament.

2. To speak the Word of God. The main function of the ministry is to preach the gospel, and to teach Christian truth. The gospel is a definite "word;" and it is enshrined in a Book which is called The Word." The preacher"s text-book is not the newspaper, or the current literature of the day, but "the oracles of God." The great design of the Christian pulpit is to promote the intellectual and experimental knowledge of the Bible. And no minister "shall have lived in vain if it can be written over his grave, "He made the people understand the Scriptures (Dr. John Hall).

3. To live a consistent Christian life. When a pastor is, like Barnabas, "a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith," it is to be expected that "much people will be added unto the Lord". (Act_11:24) A holy example lends incalculable momentum to Christian teaching. "The life of a pious minister is visible rhetoric" (Hooker). To draw mankind to heaven by gentleness And good example, was his business... And Jesus" love, which owns no pride or pelf, He taught; but first he followed it himself. (Chaucer.)

II THE DUTY OF BELIEVERS TOWARDS THEIR DECEASED PASTORS. Although these are removed from us, we still have duties towards them. Indeed, the relationship of pastor and people, being spiritual in its nature, may be said to be prolonged into eternity. We must:

1. Remember their official work. We should recall the strain of their Christian teaching, and think with gratitude of their spiritual supervision. If we continue to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work"s sake," they "being dead, shall yet speak" to us. Many a believer tools that he has had one spiritual guide in particular whose influence over his heart and life must continue unaffected by change or time; viz. the pastor under whose ministry he was converted, or whose teaching helped most powerfully to mould his Christian thought and give direction to his spiritual energies.

2. Consider their consistent Christian life. When a man"s career is finished, it can be surveyed as a whole, and its moral worth appraised. So the character of a godly minister comes to be appreciated at its full value only when we are in a position to "consider the issue of his life." The early spiritual guides of the Hebrews had all died in faith; and some of them, it may be (e.g. Stephen, James the son of Zebedee, and James the Little), had obtained the crown of martyrdom. And what an evidence still of the truth of Christianity is the blameless, unselfish, beneficent career, continued through perhaps two generations, of a faithful Christian minister! What a magnificent sunset the close of the life of the pastor who can say upon his death-bed, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith". (2Ti_4:7)

3. Imitate their holy fidelity. These primitive pastors had been sorely tried; yet they had never swerved from their loyalty to Christ and to his truth. Like the heroes of the old dispensation, whose exploits are recounted in Hebrews 11., they had "lived by faith." Why, then, should any of the members of the Church, whom they had taught, be guilty of apostasy? Those doctrines of grace which the teachers had held fast were surely worthy of the adherence of the disciples. Let us also continue steadfastly in the pure gospel truth which our departed spiritual guides adorned in their lives, and let us copy their holy and persevering fidelity to the Redeemer.

III A BLESSED ENCOURAGEMENT TO DISCHARGE THIS DUTY. Ver. 8 is to be read as an affirmation: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday," etc. It expresses the glorious thought of the changelessness of the Redeemer. He is ever the same in his Divine nature, in his true humanity, in his mediatorial power, in his love and tenderness, in his gospel and its promises. More particularly here he is immutable:

1. As the theme of the pulpit. The preacher of the gospel dies, but "the Word of God" which he spoke is immortal. That Word has its focus in the person and work of the Savior. Its central fact is the death of Christ. The backbone of evangelical preaching is the scheme of redemption by him. And the singular vitality of the pulpit, as compared with other institutions as, e.g. schools of philosophy, scientific societies, commercial guilds is due to this undying theme; undying, because coeval with the deepest needs of men in all time. We should, then, remember those who "spake the Word of God," because the Word which they spoke is indestructible.

2. As the confidence of the sailors. The apostolic missionaries who had first preached to the Hebrews had made Jesus Christ their own Stay during life, and their "Guide even unto death." It was he who had succored them under all their afflictions and persecutions as ministers of the Word. And, although they were now dead, the same Savior still lived. It was fitted to be a powerful stimulus to the Hebrews to imitate the faithfulness of their ministers, that the immutable Redeemer remains forever with his people; and that they, too, could link their souls with him, and share in his immutability.

3. As the perpetual Pastor of the Church. The under-shepherds are taken away, but the chief Shepherd abides. Each of them was one of his "gifts for men," lent only for a season. But the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ himself is perennial and inexhaustible. During the "yesterday" of the Jewish dispensation he made his sheep "to lie down in green pastures". (Psa_23:2) During the today of the Christian dispensation he presides over his flock by his Spirit, that they may have life, and may have it abundantly". (Joh_10:10) And, during the blessed "forever" which shall begin with the second coming, when all his sheep shall have been gathered from their various folds into the infinite meadows of heaven," the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life". (Rev_7:17)

Treatment of the leaders. In properly treating all Christian leaders and rulers four acts are enjoined, coming in a regular and appropriate sequence.

I. LISTENING. These men lead and rule because they speak the Word of God. If they spoke their own word then it would not be right to follow them. And because they speak the Word of God we have no choice but to listen. The writer has just been quoting a word of God intended to guard against a great spiritual peril the love of money. All who really speak the Word of God are to be reckoned as our leaders, Jesus himself in the very front, giving in his own words a sure test whereby every other word is to be tried.

II REMEMBERING. All instructions and promises must be at hand in the mind when they are wanted. Spoken before being wanted, they were ready when the want came. Hence the value of regularly and penetratively reading the New Testament. We cannot go far anywhere in it without coming across the most profitable directions for our daily life.

III STUDYING THE EXPERIENCE OF THE LEADERS. As they spoke they acted. The Word of God they pressed on others they first of all believed themselves. There was no inculcated duty in which they did not lead by practice as well as by precept. Some of these leaders, at least, had now passed beyond the vicissitudes of earth. Their whole Christian life was open to observation. Results could be seen. Take a life, for instance, like that of Stephen, consummated by a revelation of glory and reward such as might well inspire any follower. And especially the faith of the leaders is to be studied. Examine the true riches that have come to men by trusting in God.

IV IMITATING THEM, or rather imitating one particular thing in them their faith. We are no real followers of any Christian leader unless we do this. It is not peculiarities in a man"s teaching, commanding influence of a personality, that should make him a leader. It is the reality of his faith in God. Such a leader we follow most and honor most when his example makes us as true believers as himself. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Remember them - Who are now with God, considering the happy end of their conversation on earth.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

whose faith

Lit. considering the issue of the conversation of whom, imitate the faith.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An admonition to stand firm:

v. 7. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

v. 8. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever.

v. 9. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

v. 10. we have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

v. 11. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp.

v. 12. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.

The first point which the sacred author brings out in this paragraph is that of keeping in remembrance the former teachers of the Gospel: Keep in remembrance them that had the rule over you, who spoke to you the Word of God, upon the close of whose life look closely, and copy their faith. The Christian’s should remember their spiritual guides, or leaders, keep them in kind and honoring remembrance. This feeling should be intensified by the fact that it was they that proclaimed to them the glorious Gospel of their salvation, God’s Word of Love, These leaders, these early guides of the Hebrew Christians, had now passed away, but they were still acting as examples through their conduct. These men had sealed their teaching with their lives; they had remained steadfast in their belief in the Gospel to the end, and had thus exhibited a faith worthy of imitation. The believers should carefully consider this; they should keep the same faith, and God would keep them.

This may be set forth all the more emphatically, since the object of faith has not changed or passed away: Jesus Christ, always the same, yesterday and today and forever. That is the inscription which the Christians may at all times place upon their banner. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, is the basis of our faith. There was and is and will be only this one Redeemer; but in Him we have all that we need for this life and for the world to come, Act 4:12; Act 15:11; Rev 13:5; 1Co 3:11. "Yesterday is the time before His incarnation, today is the time of His revelation in the flesh. Thus it is now and in eternity the same Christ, through whom, and through whom alone, all believers in the past, in the present, and in the future time are delivered from the Law, justified, and saved."

With this basis of faith, it follows: With various teachings, and strange, be not carried away; for it is a fine thing for the heart to be confirmed by grace, not by meats, which were of no avail to them that had recourse to them. This was the great danger which was menacing the Jewish Christians. There were many men that sought admission to the Christian congregations in those days who construed the Old Testament doctrine in such a way and insisted upon the former institutions and practices with such emphasis as to loosen the attachment of the believers to Christ as the only Mediator. Many a Christian who was not firmly grounded in the liberty of Christ was swept away by the flood of specious arguments brought forward by these Judaizing teachers. It was necessary, therefore, that the hearts of the Christians be strengthened and confirmed, a fact which only the grace of God in the Gospel could bring about. A fine and laudable thing it would certainly be if all Christians would stand firm in the knowledge of the efficacy of this grace, for it is all that we need for this life and the next. The writer, in this connection and for the sake of his readers, purposely rejects the idea that this aim might be reached by the se of certain foods of the sacrificial meals, of which some Jewish Christians still believed that they had the power to give spiritual strength. All the people that had ever placed their trust in these sacrificial meals, in the eating of the meat and other food that was connected with the offering of certain sacrifices, had had no benefit of their work, having thereby not become justified before God, Gal 4:9-10; Gal 5:1-4.

It is in contrast to this ceremonial eating of the Old Testament that the author says: We have an altar, from which to eat they have no authority that serve the tabernacle. The contrast is between those that cling to the Levitical sacrificial cult and those that place their trust in the mercy and grace of God alone. Those that still serve the tabernacle, whose heart is bound up with the form of worship of the Old Testament, who insist that the observance of the Ceremonial Law is necessary also in the New Testament, have no authority, no right and power to take part in the blessings which come to us from our altar, from the Cross of Christ, on which the Lamb of God was offered for the sins of the world. For to eat of this altar means to become a partaker of the benefits which the great Sacrifice brought to the world, it means to accept in faith the true righteousness before God and eternal salvation. See Joh 6:51-58.

This is emphasized by another comparison between the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the one great offering of the New: For of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, their bodies are burned outside the camp; therefore also Jesus, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside of the gate. According to the Ceremonial Law of the Jews, the carcasses of those animals whose blood, on the great Day of Atonement, was taken into the Most Holy Place and sprinkled against the mercy-seat, chap. 9:8-25; 10:19, had to be burned outside of the camp of the Jews, and later outside of the city of Jerusalem, Lev 16:27. Of the flesh of these sacrifices, therefore, no one was permitted to eat, as was the case with many other offerings. But now the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement is the principal type of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, chap. 9:7-12. It was for this reason, then, that Christ, in consecrating the sinners to Himself, in working salvation for all mankind through His own blood, suffered and died outside of the gates of the city of Jerusalem. Like a malefactor He was taken outside of the city and put to death, Lev 24:14; Num 15:35-36; Deu 17:5; Mar 15:20-28. The very fact that Christ was cast out and condemned and put to death won salvation for all men. Those, then, that still insist upon keeping all the precepts of the Ceremonial Law are obliged to look upon Christ as an unclean criminal; whereas we, who know ourselves to be free from the demands of the old church law of the Jews, rejoice that Christ was made to be sin and a curse, because we know that it was done for us, 2Co 5:21; Gal 3:13.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The next duty recommended to them, is respect to the spiritual guides and ecclesiastical governors, whom God by death or persecution at any time removes from them, and that is, to preserve their memory fresh amongst them as a precious treasure: Remember them that have the rule over you.

Secondly, To propound their holy conversation to their daily view, in a Christian imitation of those evangelical graces and moral virtues which were so orient and exemplary in their rulers’ lives.

Learn hence, 1. That it ought to be the care of the church’s guides to set before their people, and leave behind them, such an example of faith and holiness, as that it may be the duty of the church to remember them, and follow their example.

Learn, 2. That it is the standing duty of that people whom God hath honoured with the enjoyment of a spiritual guide and ruler, perseveringly to follow their faith in the soundness of it, and in the stead fastness of faith; and to imitate their conversation, by exemplifying those evangelical graces and Christian virtues, which did so oriently shine forth in the lives of their ministers.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7–15. Remember them that had the rule over you. As the past tense is used, the rulers named, it is thought, were dead. At the date of this epistle, James the brother of John, and “James the brother of our Lord,” both so closely connected with the Jerusalem church, had suffered martyrdom. The last named, whose martyrdom is recorded by Josephus, was put to death in a.d. 63. Whose faith follow. Imitate it.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

God's word

"what God has said"

the result of their conduct

"the outcome of the way they behave"

Imitate their faith

Here the trust in God and the way of life led by these leaders are spoken of as "their faith." AT: "Trust and obey God in the same way they do" (See: Metonymy)

is the same yesterday, today, and forever

Here "yesterday" means all times in the past. AT: "is the same in the past, the present, and in the future forever" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

word of God

imitate

faith

Jesus

eternity

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

7. τῶν ἡγουμένων … οἵτινες. “Your leaders, who spoke to you”; for, as the next clause shews, these spiritual leaders were dead. At this time the ecclesiastical organisation was still unfixed. The vague term “leaders” (found also in Act 15:22), like the phrase “those set over you” (προϊστάμενοι, 1Th 5:12) means “bishops” and “presbyters,” the two terms being, in the Apostolic age, practically identical. In later ecclesiastical Greek this word (ἡγούμενοι) was used for “abbots.”

ὧν ἀναθεωροῦντες κ.τ.λ. In the emphatic order of the original, “and earnestly contemplating the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith.”

τὴν ἔκβασιν. Not the ordinary word for “end” (τέλος) but the very unusual word ἔκβασιν, “outcome.” This word in the N.T. is found only in 1Co 10:13, where it is rendered “escape.” In Wis 2:17 we find, “Let us see if his words be true, and let us see what shall happen at his end” (ἐν ἐκβάσει). It here seems to mean death, but not necessarily a death by martyrdom. It merely means “imitate them, by being faithful unto death.” The words ἔξοδος “departure” (Luk 9:31; 2Pe 1:15) and ἄφιξις (Act 20:29) are similar euphemisms for death.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7.] Remember (may be taken in two ways, as Thl., βοηθεῖν αὐτοῖς ἐν ταῖς σωματικαῖς χρείαις, … ἢ καὶ πρὸς μίμησιν αὐτῶν ἐπαλείφει τούτους. The former meaning would agree with μιμνήσκεσθε in ver. 3: but it is plain from what follows here (e. g. ἐλάλησαν and ἔκβασιν) that the course of these ἡγούμενοι is past, and it is remembering with a view to imitation that is enjoined) your leaders (ἡγούμενοι, vv. 17, 24, are their leaders in the faith: cf. also προηγούμενοι, in Clem.-rom. ad Cor. i. c. 21, p. 256. It is a word of St. Luke’s, cf. reff., answering to the προϊστάμενοι of St. Paul, 1Th 5:12. It is found in later Greek,—in Polyb., Herodian, Diod. Sic. al.,—in this same sense. See also Sir. 9:17; 10:2 al.), the which (of that kind, who) spoke to you the word of God (the aor, shews that this speaking was over, and numbers these leaders among those in ch. 2:3: as those who heard the Lord, ὑφʼ ὧν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐβεβαιώθη (ἡ σωτηρία). The phrase λαλεῖν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, is the usual one with St. Luke, cf. reff.), of whom surveying (ἀνα-θεωρεῖν, like ἀνα-ζητεῖν, to contemplate, or search from one end to the other. Bl. quotes from Winer de Verborum cum Prepp. compos. in N. T. Usu, p. iii, “aliquam rerum seriem ita oculis perlustrare, ut ab imo ad summum, ab extremo ad principium pergas.” Similarly Chrys., συνεχῶς στρέφοντες παρʼ ἑαυτοῖς. The word occurs elsewhere in St. Luke only (ref.)) the termination (by death: not as Œc., but without deciding, πῶς διεξέρχονται καλῶς τὴν ἐν τῷ βίῳ ἀναστροφήν: nor, as Braun and Cramer, the result for others of their Christian walk, viz. their conversion: nor as Storr, al., the result for themselves, viz. their heavenly reward, which their followers could not in any sense ἀναθεωρεῖν. We have ἔξοδος in the sense of death Luk 9:31: 2Pe 1:15: and ἄφιξις Act 20:29. It is perhaps to be inferred that these died by martyrdom, as Stephen, James the brother of John, and possibly (but see the matter discussed in Prolegg. to James, and in Delitzsch’s note here) James the brother of the Lord: and possibly too, St. Peter (see Prolegg. to 1 Pet.). So the ancient Commentators: so Thdor.-mops., Θεόδωρός φησιν ἡγουμένους τοὺς παρʼ αὐτοῖς καταγγείλαντας τὸν λόγον τῆς εὐσεβείας καὶ τελειωθέντας ὑπὸ Ἰουδαίων αὐτόθι· πολλοὶ δὲ ἦσαν, οὔτε Στέφανος μόνον καὶ Ἰάκωβος ὁ μαχαίρᾳ ἀναιρεθείς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ τοῦ κυρίου ἀδελφὸς Ἰάκωβος, ἕτεροι δὲ πλεῖστοι σιωπῇ παραδεδομένοι. Similarly Thdrt., al.) of their conversation (i. e. their Christian ἀναστρέφεσθαι, behaviour, walk, course. No English word completely gives it. For usage, see reff.), imitate the faith.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Remember them which have the rule over you [μνημονευετε των ηγουμενων υμων] . Remember, with a view to observing their admonitions. For twn hJgoumenwn those who lead or rule, see on 1Th 5:13. Used of both civil and ecclesiastical rulers. Clement of Rome, among a great variety of names for church functionaries, has both hJgoumenoi and prohgoumenoi (see Ad Corinth. 1, 21). Comp. Act 14:22. In LXX frequently, of various forms of authority, and in later Greek of bishops and abbots. For "which have the rule," rend. "which had," etc.

Who have spoken [οιτινες ελαλησαν] . Rend. "spake," and comp. ch. Heb 2:3, 4.

Follow [μιμεισθε] . Rend. "imitate." See on ch. Heb 6:12.

Considering [αναθεωρουντες] . Only here and Act 17:23, see note. The compound verb means to observe attentively. The simple verb qewrein implies a spiritual or mental interest in the object. See on Joh 1:18. The end of their conversation [την εκβασιν της αναστροφης] . Ekbasiv only here and 1Co 10:13 (note). It means outcome or issue. See Wisd. 8 8. In 1Co 10:13, way out. Comp. Wisd. 2

Heb 13:17Anastrofh is life in intercourse with men. See on 1Pe 1:15. Conversation, in the older sense of that word, is a good rendering, as it is also a nearly literal rendering of the Greek word. The reference is to the end of their life; what kind of an end they made; possibly, but not necessarily, with an allusion to cases of martyrdom. What, now, was the subject of these teachers ' faith which is commended to imitation? It is stated in the next verse.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. μνημονεύετε τῶν yy.) Remember, though they have now passed away, them that had the rule over you. Scripture everywhere recognises the living power of a great example. Comp. ὁ. vi. 12, The word μνημονεύειν is used of our rolation to Ohrist 2 Tim. ii. 8 (μνημ. “I. Χ. ρμένον).

The term οἱ ἡγούμενοι (Vulg. praposttt) occurs again ve. 17, 24; Clem. 1 ad Cor. τ (ine. 7 of civit rulers); 21 τοὺς προηγουμένους ἡμῶν. Oompare Acts xv. 22 (ἄνδρας ἡγουμένους ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς). The word occurs frequently in the Lxx. of various forms of authority; and in later Greek of bishops and abbota. Compare pp. 384 f.

οἵτινες ἔλάλ....] men that spake to you.... Comp. ii. 3 note. The phrase ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ is used from Luke v. 1 throughout the N. T. both of the revelation in the O. T. and of the revelation through Christ.

For the thought compare 1 Thess.

dvabewpolvres: -phoarres O.

λαλοῦντός σοι τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ μνησθήσῃ νυκτὸς καὶ ἡμέρας, τιμήσεις δὲ αὐτὸν ὡς κύριον....

Barn. Ep. xix. 9 ἀγαπήσεις ὡς κύρην ὀφθαλμοῦ gov πάντα τὸν λαλοῦντά σοι τὸν λόγον κυρίου. |

dy ἀναθ, τὴν ἔκβ. τῆς dvacrp.) and

dering with attentive survey again and again the issue af their life... Vulg. quorum intuentes exitum conversationis. This last scene revealed the character of their ‘conversation' before. Perhaps the writer had in his mind the words of the tors of the righteous man: Wiad. ii. 17, ἴδωμεν εἰ ol λόγοι αὐτοῦ ἀληθεῖς, καὶ πειράσωμεν τὰ ἐν ἐκβάσει αὐτοῦ. The word ἔκβασις occurs in a differont connoxion 1 Cor. x. 13; com᾿Αναστροφή describes life under its moral aspect (comp. Ὁ. 18; x. 33) wrought out in intercourse with men. The image occurs in St Paul, St James, St Peter; compare περιπατεῖν in St John: 1 John i. 7 note.

For ἀναθεωρεῖν see Acts xvii. 23

The reference here seems to be to some scene of martyrdom in which the triumph of faith was plainly shown. Theodoret refers to St Stephen, St James the son of Zebedee, and St James the Just.

μιμεῖσθε τ΄ w.} imitate their faith, The spirit and not the form of thoir lives is proposed for imitation: the faith by which they were supported and not the special actions which the faith inspired in their circumstances.

Δείκνυσιν ὅτι πιστεύσαντες βεβαίως τοῖς μέλλονσι τὴν ἀρίστην πολιτείαν κατώρθωσαν' οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐπεδείξαντο βίον καθαρὸν εἶ γε ἠμφισβήτουν περὶ τῶν μελλόντων, εἴ γε ἀμφέβαλλον (Chrys.).

(Ὁ The τοῖο and strongth of Christian devotion (8—16).

Having glanced at the former leaders of the Hebrew Church the Apostle goes on to show that

(a) Christ Himself is the sum of our religion : which is eternal, spiritual (8, 9); and that

(8) He who is our sin-offering is also our continuous support (10-- 12); and that

(y) He claims our devotion and our service (13—16).

(a) 8, 9. The thought of the triumph of faith leads to the thought of Him in whom faith triumphs. He is unchangeable, and therefore the victory of the believer is at all times assured.

The absence of a connecting particle placos the thought as a roflection following tho last sontonco aftor a panao,

Ad suporiora portinent ista, ubi testatus est dixisse Dominum Non te deseram neque derelinquam : poterant illi respondere Hoc non pertinet ad nostrum auxilium, quia non nobis est promissum, sed potius Josue promisit hoc Dens. Ad hoc Apostolus Nolite deficere...Nolite putare quasi qui tunc fait non sit modo: idem enim qui fait ποτὶ, idem erit et in sseculum (Primas.).

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.