Hebrews 13:9

Heb_13:9

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines

Evils of a state of scepticism

It would seem hardly to be expected, where ample means of religious knowledge are enjoyed, that such a state of mind should be a common thing.

Of those who are educated under religious light, and who are led in early life to accept Christianity, a very considerable number sooner or later reach a state in which they are disposed to question almost anything pertaining to religion. More commonly this crisis arrives in advanced youth, or on the verge of manhood. Up to that time the mind has been content to take as truth, on the authority of others, and with but little question, whatever may have been taught it. It has acquiesced, without serious difficulty, in the statements of parents and teachers as to what were the claims of duty. But now there comes a change. Of the views and impressions which childhood entertained on a variety of subjects, advancing years and knowledge have shown many to be erroneous. In this state of mind the inquirer is inclined to question everything, as he once was to believe everything. He has found a few things, or, if you please, many things, to be false, and so he is afraid to believe that anything is true. He passes, by a not unnatural process, from the extreme of credulity to the extreme of scepticism. At this point one of three things must happen: either the mind must become utterly lost to truth, and settle itself on the ultimately fatal grounds of false opinion; or it must drift on unfixed, full of uncertainty, or, it must lay hold of the strong cable of sound evidence, and deliberately cast anchor on the sure foundations of the truth. There are doubtless some who do succeed in confirming themselves in falsehood beyond the chance of recovery. We are sure, also, that there are those who gain a hold on truth which nothing can relax, and which permanently sets their hearts at rest. But how large a number fall into the intermediate class, the class of perpetual doubters!--and are carried about by diverse and strange doctrines, always catching at a new absurdity to relieve the weariness of dwelling on the last. What can be more deplorable than this unnatural, this morbid bewilderment of the soul? Such a state is, of all things, to be dreaded.

1. For, in the first place, it must needs be an exceedingly unhappy state. To all minds that have received even a moderate degree of cultivation, it is a source of positive pleasure to have, on all important subjects, clear views and well-defined opinions. So, on the contrary, it is painful to the sound mind to grope about in the everlasting fog--to be threading backward and forward the mazy labyrinths of vague inquiry, which chases shadows and catches at emptiness, finding nothing solid on which it can rely. This, we say, is the constitutional law of the mind, let the subject about which it inquires be what it may. But if the matter in question be one on the right understanding of which great consequences are depending, there must be, in addition to the doubtfulness, the pain of anxious apprehension. The fear of what calamities may soon or late, result from failure to ascertain the truth, will often haunt the mind and mingle more or less with all its thoughts. Religion, it is clearly seen, if it be anything, is of the highest imaginable interest; and to miss the truth in such an affair, may, it cannot but be felt, involve irreparable loss, disaster that nothing can retrieve. Here is a most effectual cause of disquiet to the soul.

2. It is also evident, still further, that a state of chronic scepticism tends greatly to enfeeble both the character and the mind. A strong mind presses on to a decision. It is content only when getting at results, A sceptical habit--observe I do not say a season of temporary questioning, but a chronic habit of doubting--most generally indicates a want of mental energy to lay hold of evidence and to appreciate its force; a lack of the strength of mind required in order to rise above the prejudices that tend to warp the judgment. It betrays an intellectual feebleness already existing and likely to perpetuate itself. For when the mind has been allowed, and rather encouraged, to wander among the mists of doubt; to look rather after difficulties, than after proofs; it seems to become incapable of logical deduction and unsusceptible to the effect of evidence. It will also be true that in proportion to this loss of force and intellect, there will be likewise a loss of general force of character. He who is unable to decide with promptness, will not be able to execute with vigour. The habitual vacillation of the mind will be sure to exhibit itself in a feeble, time-serving, irresolute course of action. There is yet another evil result of the habit of mind in question.

3. It is very liable to impair the love of truth, and to lower the estimate set on it by the judgment. Truth has been well defined to be the reality of things. To know truth is to know things as they are. On having a right understanding especially of those things that directly relate to us, our highest welfare essentially depends. Nothing therefore, in fact, is so precious to us as truth. God has, accordingly, given the mind an instinctive love of truth, a natural desire to know things as they are. It is an important end of education to strengthen this desire, and give it a right direction: and observation and experience show that, in respect to many subjects at least, it is, on the other hand, capable of being weakened, and almost or quite destroyed. It is found, for example, especially easy to repress the instinctive desire to know, when there is occasion to apprehend that the knowledge of the truth might be for any reason painful; and this is the case invariably in respect to sinful man when he inquires about religion. While on this, as on other subjects, he feels the natural desire for knowledge, there are conscious reasons growing out of his own character which prompt him to resist this desire, and rather to shrink from full and certain knowledge, than to seek it. He is inclined to indulge himself in something. The question, Is it right? suggests itself. If he presses the inquiry, he may find himself obliged to deny his inclination; and he will be very likely for this reason not to press it. The appetite for truth may yield to the stronger appetite for self-indulgence which now has possession of the mind. In every such case, of course, the love of truth must necessarily be weakened. There will be less appreciation of its value than before; and if the oftener the love of truth is repressed for such a reason, the feebler it becomes, it must finally be destroyed. But this is what is happening all the while in the unsettled, wavering, and doubtful mind.

4. It remains only to say finally, that a state of sceptical uncertainty is attended with great danger as regards its last result. To doubt about anything is, of course, to admit the possibility that it is true. To doubt about the claims and obligations of religion is to allow that we are not sure that these are not founded in reality. But while those who are floating on the sea of doubt, confess, by their very uncertainty, that the teachings of religion may quite possibly be true, they are sure to act, in the main, as though certain they were false. It needs no words to show that if you live as though the truths of religion were mere dreams, and it shall finally turn out that they are great realities, you are undone inevitably, and that for ever. This, then, is the amazing peril of resting in a dubious, unestablished frame. Even those who do this cannot but perceive that they run the unspeakably awful hazard of a wretched, lost eternity. Religion and godliness, according to their view of things, hang trembling in equal balance. How much to be deprecated and dreaded is a position that involves continually the danger of a fall from which there is no recovery I Here, then, are weighty reasons for regarding it as a very serious evil to be in habitual doubt in regard to the truths and duties of religion--reasons which make it appear in the highest degree desirable that the heart should be established. Of course it follows that nothing should be done by any thoughtful person to favour such a state, but that, on the contrary, diligent and resolute effort should be made to avoid or escape it. Do any of you find the impressions of your childhood giving way, in some degree, so that you feel disposed to question them and to demand on what foundation they are based? You see with what seriousness you should regard the crisis. Never, in all your life, has there been a time when you so greatly needed the counsel of your kindest, most faithful, and judicious friends. Yes! Believe it, my intelligent young friend--the poor wayfaring man, who wanders homeless and friendless over the wide world, finding never a voice of greeting nor a resting-place in which he may take up his abode, is far less an object of compassion than he whose soul is driven about perpetually in the chaos of confused and dubious thought, where all is dim and shadowy, and can find nothing that is stable; who as to the highest and most vital questions of his being, has established nothing, and positively believes nothing! Rather than suffer yourselves to slide into such a state, it were wisdom to suspend all other business, to shut yourselves up in the chamber of meditation and research, and to bend the undivided energies of your minds on this one work of reaching conclusions which will satisfy; and this with humble, earnest prayer to the Father of lights for that Divine illumination without which spiritual things are never clearly seen by any of mankind. You can have satisfaction on all really vital questions if you will. You may plant yourselves, if you will do it, where, though floods come, and the tempests beat, and the refuges of error are all swept away, you can stand calmly and in serenity of soul, and feel your foundations firm. Believe it--nay rather, make the experiment for yourselves, and know it with a happiness that cannot be described. There is light--and you were made to see it. There is reality--and you were made to find it. There is religious truth--and you, you may grasp the inestimable treasure, and make it your own blessed and permanent possession. (R. Palmer, D. D.)

The true doctrinal foundation

I. THERE IS A REVELATION OF TRUTH GIVEN TO THE CHURCH IN THE WORD OF GOD, WHICH IS ITS ONLY DOCTRINAL FOUNDATION AND RULE OF FAITH.

II. THIS DOCTRINE IS COGNATE, AND EVERY WAY SUITED TO THE PROMOTION OF THE GRACE OF GOD IN BELIEVERS, AND THE ATTAINMENT OF THEIR OWN SALVATION.

III. DOCTRINES UNSUITED TO THIS FIRST REVELATION BY CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES, AS RECORDED IN THE SCRIPTURE, ALIEN AND FOREIGN FROM THEM, DID SOON SPRING UP UNTO THE TROUBLE OF THE CHURCH; they had done so in those days, and continued to do so in all ensuing ages.

IV. USUALLY SUCH DOCTRINES ARE AS EMPTY OF TRUTH AND SUBSTANCE, USELESS AND FOREIGN TO THE NATURE AND GENIUS OF EVANGELICAL GRACE AND TRUTH, ARE IMPOSED BY THEIR AUTHORS AND ABETTORS, WITH A GREAT NOISE AND VEHEMENCE ON THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED IN THE TRUTH.

V. WHERE SUCH DOCTRINES ARE ENTERTAINED, THEY MAKE MEN DOUBLE-MINDED, UNSTABLE, TURNING THEM FROM THE TRUTH, AND DRAWING THEM AT LENGTH INTO PERDITION.

VI. THE RUIN OF THE CHURCH IN AFTER AGES AROSE FROM THE NEGLECT OF THIS APOSTOLICAL CAUTION, IN GIVING HEED UNTO VARIOUS AND STRANGE DOCTRINES, which at length overthrew and excluded the fundamental doctrines of the gospel.

VII. HEREIN LIES THE SAFETY OF ALL BELIEVERS, AND OF ALL CHURCHES; NAMELY, TO KEEP THEMSELVES PRECISELY UNTO THE FIRST COMPLETE REVELATION OF DIVINE TRUTH IN THE WORD OF GOD. Let men pretend what they will, and bluster as they please, in an adherence to this principle we are safe; and if we depart from it, we shall be hurried and carried about through innumerable uncertainties unto rain.

VIII. That those who decline in anything from grace, as the only means to establish their hearts in peace with God, SHALL LABOUR AND EXERCISE THEMSELVES IN OTHER THINGS AND WAYS TO THE SAME END, WHEREBY THEY SHALL RECEIVE NO ADVANTAGE. (John Owen, D. D.)

Evils of inconstancy:

An inconstant and wavering mind, as it makes a man unfit for society (for that there can be no assurance of his words or purposes, neither can we build on them without deceit), so, besides that, it makes a man ridiculous, it hinders him from ever attaining any perfection in himself (for a rolling stone gathers no moss, and the mind, while it would be everything, proves nothing. Oft changes cannot be without loss); yea, it keeps him from enjoying that which he hath attained. For it keeps him ever in work, building, pulling down, selling, changing, buying, commanding, forbidding. So, whilst he can be no other mans friend, he is the least his own. It is the safest course for a mans profit, credit, and ease, to deliberate long, to resolve surely; hardly to alter, not to enter upon that whose end he foresees not answerable; and when he is once entered, not to surcease till he have attained the end he foresaw. (Bp. Hall.)

Fixed religious convictions helpful to growth

Stand fast in the faith. There are some men who, because they want to grow, are continually being transplanted; and they think that because they keep moving from place to place, they are gaining; but they gain nothing at all. Trees that grow fastest stand stillest. Running after every new thing that presents itself does not increase the growth of Christian graces, or anything else that is good. If a man would grow spiritually, he must have a standpoint, a fixed root-place, for his religious convictions. (H. W. Beecher.)

True doctrine

The question is not whether a doctrine is beautiful, but whether it is true. When we want to go to a place, we dont ask whether the road leads through a pretty country, but whether it is the right road, the road pointed out by authority, the turnpike-road. (J. C. Hare.)

The heart be established with grace

Confirmation in the doctrines of the gospel an effect of Divine grace

I. WHO ARE THE SUBJECTS OF GRACE? All men are naturally destitute of grace, and under the entire dominion of a depraved heart. In this state they remain until they are awakened, convinced, and converted, by the special influences of the Divine Spirit. They now become conformed to the moral image of God, reconciled to His character, to His laws, and to the terms of salvation proposed in the gospel.

II. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL?

III. Having specified the essential doctrines of the gospel, it remains to show THAT REAL CHRISTIANS, WHO ARE THE SUBJECTS OF GRACE, ARE ACTUALLY ESTABLISHED IN THEM. The apostle represents them so established, as not to be carried about by divers and strange doctrines; and this we find verified by the conduct of real saints under both the Old and New Testament. And it is well-known that since their day, multitudes have sacrificed their lives in testimony of the truth and importance of the essential doctrines of the gospel. And this leads me to say that they not only may be, but must be so established; for several reasons:

1. Because they know that the essential doctrines of the gospel are true.

2. Because they love them.

3. Because they feel the infinite importance of them.

Conclusion:

1. If the subjects of grace are established in the essential doctrines of the gospel, then it is easy to distinguish religious orthodoxy from religious heterodoxy.

2. If the subjects of grace are established in the essential doctrines of the gospel, then real Christians see the propriety and importance of forming and subscribing creeds, or confessions of faith.

3. If the subjects of grace are established in the doctrines of the gospel; then they are constrained to consider mens religious sentiments as a test of their religious character.

4. If ministers of the gospel are established in the great and fundamental doctrines of it; they will not fail to preach those doctrines to the people. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

An established heart

I. How GOOD IT IS. What else is it that communicates to the Saviour such nobility but this immovable firmness of a spirit resting in God, from which words and deeds proceed, pure, calm, and self-consistent, like rays which the sun emits? The establishment of heart of which we speak is the union of Divine freedom and Divine power. We call him free who is not dependent on anything outside himself. Are you free in this sense? Where there is this freedom, there is also Divine power. Power is the capability of executing what we have set our minds on doing. Let me determine, moved by nothing without me, and all my action is subordinate to a single aim, and this aim stands unmoved before my eyes. But that is just what gives emphasis to all action. For such power we long, we should like to reign over nature, over our body, over everything outside us. Now it is the unity of such Divine power and freedom that makes establishment of heart so precious. Do you long after it? I know you do: you who see before you a life in which are seducers and tempters on the right hand and on the left, bent on bringing about your fall, oh, I know you long for it.

II. How SUCH FIRMNESS IS BROUGHT ABOUT--with grace, says the apostle. He adds:--Not with meats, intending to say, not through dependence on any outward work. When he says, with grace, it is as if he said, through faith in the grace which is offered in Christ. Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand; if there is not this, then establishment of heart is impossible. (J. Tholuck.)

The established heart

It is a good thing to have an established heart. With too many of us the inner life is variable and fickle. Sometimes we have days of deep religious earnestness, when it seems impossible for us to spend too long a time in prayer and fellowship with God. The air is so clear that we can see across the waters of the dividing sea, to the very outlines of the heavenly coasts. But a very little will mar our peace, and bring a veil of mist over our souls, to enwrap us perhaps for long weeks. Oh, for an established heart! Now there is one thing which will not bring about this blessed state of establishment. And this is indicated by the expression, meats; which stands for the ritualism of the Jewish law. Another obstruction to an established heart arises from the curiosity which is ever running after divers and strange doctrines. A condition which is the very antipodes to the established heart. There is only one foundation which never rocks, one condition which never alters. It is good that the heart be established with grace. Primarily, of course, the established heart is the gift of God. (2Co_1:21; 1Pe_5:10; Deu_28:9). But there are certain conditions also indicated in this context with which we do well to comply.

I. WE MUST FEED ON CHRIST. Eating consists of three processes: apprehension, mastication, and assimilation; and each of these has its spiritual counterpart in that feeding upon Christ which is the very life of our life. We, too, must apprehend Him, by the careful reading of the Word of God. We, too, must fulfil the second part of the process of eating by meditating long and thoughtfully on all that is revealed to us in the word of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. We, too, must assimilate Christ, until He becomes part of our very being, and we begin to live, yet not we, because Christ lives in us, and has become our very life.

II. IF WE WOULD FEED ON CHRIST, WE MUST GO WITHOUT THE CAMP. There are plenty who argue that the wisest policy is to stop within the camp, seeking to elevate its morals. They do not realise that, if we adopt their advice, we must remain there alone, for our Lord has already gone. ]t is surely unbefitting that we should find a home where He is expelled. What is there in us which makes us so welcome, when our Master was cast out to the fate of the lowest criminals? Besides, it will not be long before we discover that, instead of our influencing the camp for good, the atmosphere of the camp will infect us with its evil. Instead of our levelling it up, it will level us down. The only principle of moving the world is to imitate Archimedes in getting a point without it. All the men who have left a mark in the elevation of their times have been compelled to join the pilgrim host which is constantly passing through the city gates, and taking up its stand by the Cross on which Jesus died. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

An established heart:

Turned into modern English the writers meaning is that the merely intellectual religion, which is always occupied with propositions instead of with Jesus Christ, Who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, is worthless, and the merely ceremonial religion, which is always occupied with casuistries about questions of meats, or external observance of any sort, is as valueless. There is no fixity; there is no rest of soul, no steadfastness of character to be found in either of these two directions. The only thing that ballasts and fills and calms the heart is what the writer here calls grace, that is to say, the living personal experience of the love of God bestowed upon me and dwelling in my heart. So, then, the main theme of these words is the possible stability of a fluctuating human life, the means of securing it, and the glory and beauty of the character which has secured it.

I. First, then, mark WHAT THIS WRITER CONCEIVES TO BE THE ONE SOURCE OF HUMAN STABILITY. What the New Testament means by this familiar and frequently reiterated word grace, which, I suspect, is oftener pronounced than it is understood by a great many people. To begin with, then, the root meaning of that word, which runs all through the New Testament, is simply favour, benignity, kindness, or, to put all into a better and simpler form, the active love of God. Now, if we look at the various uses of the expression we find, for instance, that it is contrasted with a number of other things. Sometimes it is set in opposition to sin--sin reigns to righteousness, grace reigns to life. Sometimes it is contrasted with debt, and put sometimes in opposition to works, as, for instance, by Paul when he says, If it be of works then is it no more grace. Sometimes it is opposed to law, as in the same apostles words, Ye are not under law, but under grace. Now, if we keep these various uses and contrasts in view we just come to this thought, that that active love of God is conditioned, not by any merit on our part--bubbles up from the depths of His own infinite heart, not because of what we are, but because of what He is, transcends all the rigid retributions of law, is not turned away by any sin, but continues to flood the world, simply because it wells up from the infinite and changeless fountain of love in the heart of God. And then, from this central, deepest meaning of active love manifesting itself irrespective of what we deserve, there comes a second great aspect of the word. The name of the cause is extended to all the lustrous variety of its effects. So the complex whole of the blessings and gifts which Jesus Christ brings to us, and which are sometimes designated in view of what they do for us, as salvation or eternal life, are also designated in view of that in God from which they come, as being collectively His grace. And then there is a final application of the expression which is deduced from that second one--viz., the specific excellences of character which result from the communication to men of the blessings that flow to him from the love of God. So these three: first, the fountain, the love undisturbed and unalterable; second, the stream, the manifold gifts and blessings that flow to us through Christ; and, third, the little cupfuls that each of us have, the various excellences of character which are developed under the fertilizing influences of the sunshine of that love--these three are all included in this great Christian word. There are other phases of its employment in the New Testament which I do not need to trouble you with now. But thus far we just come to this, that the one ground on which all steadfastness of nature and character can be reared is that we shall be in touch with God, shall be conscious of His love, and shall be receiving into our hearts the strength that He bestows. Man is a dependent creature; his make and his relationships to things round him render it impossible that the strength by which he is strong, and the calmness by which he is established, can be self-originated.

II. And so I come, in the second place, to LOOK AT SOME OF THE VARIOUS WAYS IN WHICH THIS ESTABLISHING GRACE CALMS AND STILLS THE LIFE. We men are like some of the islands in the Eastern Tropics, fertile and luxuriant, but subject to be swept by typhoons, to be shaken by earthquakes, to be devastated by volcanoes. Around us there gather external foes assailing our steadfastness, and within us there lie even more formidable enemies to an established and settled peace. How are such creatures ever to be established? My text tells us by drawing into themselves the love, the giving love of God. I would note, as one of the aspects of the tranquillity and establishment that comes from this conscious possession of the giving love of God, how it delivers men from all the dangers of being carried away by divers strange doctrines. I do not give much for any orthodoxy which is not vitalised by personal experiences of the indwelling love of God. I do not care much what a man believes, or what he denies, or how he may occupy himself intellectually with the philosophical and doctrinal aspect of Christian revelation. The question is, how much of it has filtered from his brain into his heart, and has become part of himself, and verified to himself by his own experience? So much as you have lived out, so much you are sure of because you have not only thought it but felt it, and cannot for a moment doubt, because your hearts have risen up and witnessed to its truth. About these parts of your belief there will be no fluctuation. Still further, this conscious possession of the grace of God will keep a man very quiet amidst all the occasions for agitation which changing circumstances bring. Such there are in every life. Nothing continues in one stay. Is it possible that amidst this continuous fluctuation, in which nothing is changeless but the fact of change, we can stand fixed and firm? Yes! There is shelter only in one spot, and that is when we have God between us and the angry blast. An empty heart is an easily agitated heart. A full heart, like a full sack, stands upright, and it is not so easy for the wind to whirl it about as if it were empty. They who are rooted in God will have a firm bole, which will be immovable, howsoever branches may sway and creak, and leaves may flutter and dance, or even fall, before the power of the storm. Further, another field of the stability communicated by that possessed love of God is in regard of the internal occasions for agitation. Passion, lust, hot desires, bitter regrets, eager clutching after uncertain and insufficient and perishable good, all these will be damped down if the love of God lives in our hearts.

III. Lastly, my text suggests HOW BEAUTIFUL A THING IS THE CHARACTER OF THE MAN THAT IS ESTABLISHED IN GRACE, The word translated good in my text would be better rendered fair, or lovely, or beautiful. Is there anything fairer than the strong, steadfast, calm, equable character, unshaken by the storms of passion, unaffected by the blasts of calamity, undevastated by the lava from the hellish, subterranean fires that are in every soul; and yet not stolidly insensible, nor obstinately conservative, but open to the inspiration of each successive moment, and gathering the blessed fruit of all mutability in a more profound and unchanging possession of the unchanging good? So do you see to it that you rectify your notions of what makes the beauty of character. Then, my brother, if we keep ourselves near Jesus Christ, and let His grace flow into our hearts, then we, too, shall be able to say, Because I set Him at my right hand I shall not be moved. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Established in grace:

The vendors of flowers in the streets of London are wont to commend them to customers by crying, All a blowing and a growing. It would be no small praise to Christians if we could say as much for them, but, alas! of too manyprofessors the cry would truthfully be, All a stunting and a withering. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

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

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb_13:10.—This and the following verses form a little episode of argument in the midst of moral exhortations. Reference is made to the feasts which followed sacrifices, in which parts of the animal sacrificed were eaten. “When the writer says, that ‘Christians have a sacrifice of which those who pay their service at the altar have no right to partake,’ he means, that the benefits procured by the atoning sacrifice of Christ do not belong, or will not be granted, to such as rest their hopes of salvation on the ritual sacrifices of the Jewish law, i.e. to such as continue to be disciples of Judaism, or turn back from Christianity to Judaism, and thus renounce the blessings procured for believers by the death of Christ” (Stuart).

Heb_13:11. Burned without the camp.—Lev_16:11; Lev_16:14-16; Lev_16:27. Notice that the writer’s figures are mostly taken from the times of the tabernacle, and of the wilderness life.

Heb_13:13. Without the camp.—A figure of speech, meaning, “Let us leave the camp, i.e. the dwellings of the Jews, or the profession of Judaism, and go over to the place where Christians dwell, although it be without the city.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_13:9-17

The Reproach of the Spiritual.—Though anxious about many things appertaining to life and godliness, the mind of the writer readily returns upon his one great anxiety. He cannot close his letter without one more earnest appeal on behalf of that spiritual dispensation which was entered on accepting Jesus as Messiah and Saviour. Recalling other old figures with which the Jewish Christians were familiar, he pleads again with them, not to be “carried away by strange doctrines”; not to be distressed because they were excommunicated and reproached; but to enter so fully into their spiritual privileges and duties, that, having their interest wholly engaged, they might cease to trouble over the loss of old relationships. This is the general idea of the passage, but it needs a more careful and detailed attention. It is a difficult passage if its language be treated apart from its connections, and from the purpose of the writer. The difficulties readily pass when we understand the anxiety of the writer, and the conditions of those who were directly addressed. It appears that the epistle was not sent to the Jewish Church in Jerusalem—that was under apostolic guidance—but to the Churches of Jewish Christians in other parts; away from Jerusalem, perhaps through persecutions, perhaps through business exigencies. Then, and through all the ages since then, the Jews had an intense, passionate love for their holy city, a love which we can but very imperfectly estimate. It was a great strain on patriotic and religious feeling to live away, so that access to Jerusalem for the feast-times was practically impossible. This feeling for the city was matched by the Jewish feeling for the Mosaic ceremonial, which was still, at least partly, represented by the Temple worship. They lived indeed in the past rather than the present; and this writer meets the cherished feeling of the more pious Jews by referring so entirely to the times of the tabernacle, when the ceremonials were observed strictly according to the Mosaic pattern. Jews, in becoming Christians, in no sense lost their patriotic love for Jerusalem, or for that old system of rites and sacrifices which had been the religion of their fathers, and their own religion until they had been called into the spiritual religion of the Son of God. We must understand their feelings in order to realise how they were affected by the persecutions under which they were brought, and how severely they felt the threatenings and enticements of their old Judaic friends. In naming the name of Christ they had been virtually, perhaps actually, put out of the synagogues, excommunicated, and no longer allowed to take part in sacrifice and feast. The Christian teachers never required them to break with their old Temple associations. Both our Lord Himself and His apostles, throughout their lives, preserved their Jewish relations, and observed their Mosaic customs. It was not the policy of early Christianity to break with Judaism. In good time, in the providence of God, the Jewish ceremonial would fall away; the system was decaying; almost all the life was already gone out of it; and soon the Romans would put the final stroke to it and bury it for ever. But the Jews—the intense, bigoted Jews—forced the separation, and compelled the Jewish Christians to take a definite attitude, and satisfy themselves, if they could, with the spiritual religion which they had chosen. Those Jewish Christians had to endure the enticements of friends, who would use all kinds of arguments to induce them to return back to the old formal religious system of their fathers. And, among other things, we may be quite sure they would sneer at the spirituality of the Christian religion, and say: “See, you have no tabernacle, no altar, no sacrifice, no feast, no day of atonement, no priest. You have nothing but a sentimental notion that Jesus of Nazareth is alive; and all that you and we really know is that He was crucified. How ridiculous such a vague and unsubstantial religion looks beside such a formal and stately system as Mosaism, which has the imprint of Divine authority, and the testimony of efficiency from saintly souls through the long ages!” The allurements and persuasions were seriously affecting the Christians, and filling the hearts of the Christian teachers with grave anxiety. This epistle throughout bears on this perilous condition of the Jewish Christian Churches. And the argument is this—the spiritual alone is the real. We do not want to spiritualise those old ceremonials. We want to bring to light the spiritual things that were in—pictured in—those old ceremonies. The time has come when men can have the spiritual realities, and may be willing to let the pictures fade away. Do not be unduly moved when they say that, because the religion of Christ is spiritual, it can have no tabernacle, no altar, no sacrifice, no priest. It has the spiritual reality of all these things that was at the heart of all the old formality. Christianity has a spiritual tabernacle, a spiritual sacrifice, a spiritual Priest. If you would enter fully into the spiritual, you would be wholly satisfied, you would find that you were lifted up to a higher plane, and could not possibly go back to the “weak and beggarly elements,” as St. Paul calls them. Danger always lies in half-heartedness. When professing Christians did not enter fully into the spiritual truth and spiritual privilege, they were exposed to the full force of temptations, which had no force at all on whole-hearted men and women. In the midst of a series of practical counsels concerning the Christian life and relationships, the writer is reminded again of the one great message he had been trying so variously to present to them. Ere he closes his letter he will state his point once again, and then end with some kindly greetings. His message all through has been, “Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings.” His plea all through is—Enter fully into the spiritual apprehension of that religion whose tabernacle is not made with hands, whose sacrifice is the surrender of an obedient will, and whose Priest is the risen, ascended, glorified Son of God.

I. The inefficiency of the merely material in religion.—Because forms and ceremonies are found useful, men easily get to say that they are essential. The truth is that, like fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters. The old Mosaic system had for a long time been a mere automaton, a machine that kept up a routine working. There was no ark, and no mercy-seat, and no Shekinah glory in the Holy Place. That is the difficulty of all ritual religion. It is good while the life is in it, but it is always in peril of losing its life, and then becoming worse than worthless. The writer has already urged that formal ceremony could “not make the comers thereunto perfect,” as pertaining to the conscience. No sacrificial or sacramental system can ever touch the conscience. He reminds of all the former teachings when he says of the “meats” and drinks and divers washings of Judaism, that they did “not profit those who were occupied therewith.” Those who stood up so valiantly for the old Mosaic system had no real ground for their over-confidence. The real value of the material system was the spiritual truth which was in it, and found temporary expression by means of it. If it be said that there must be a material element in the religion that is adapted to man, still it must be anxiously and persistently urged—Keep the material element in its place, and in strictest limitations. It has a strange power of encroaching; it can cover over, hide, and even stifle the spiritual. The material form of doctrine has often stifled spiritual truth; and the material form of services and sacraments has often stifled spiritual life. It cannot be too constantly urged that religion becomes inefficient in proportion as it becomes formal and outward, a matter of postures, and garments, and rites, and services, and self-restraints. On Christianity this sign is fixed: “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

II. The exclusiveness of spiritual religion.—To use a colloquialism, we may say that the writer “turns the tables upon” the mischievous Judaising teachers. They had pleaded that the Jewish Christians, even if they kept up association with Judaism, could have no real part or lot in it. Its altar was not for them. Its sacrifices could be of no avail for them. This writer says—Tell them that we have an altar, of which they, who serve the tabernacle, have no right to eat. They will not let you share their privileges, which lie on but a low level. You take high ground with them, and say—You cannot share our spiritual privileges. Your material-mindedness makes it impossible. The exclusiveness of spiritual religion is something which belongs to the very nature of things. The carnally, materially-minded cannot know them; they are spiritually discerned. No judicial act is necessary; he simply cannot. The spiritual man can, on all fitting occasions, and in all wise ways, use ceremonials, but the ceremonial man can do nothing with the spiritual. He is necessarily shut out, excluded. He cannot eat at this altar. Becoming spiritual-minded creates no stand-offness of the Pharisee, who says, “I am holier than thou.” But the spiritual-minded become exclusive, in the very nature of the case. They breathe another atmosphere, and move in another sphere. They are exclusive, as Christ was when He moved to and fro among men.

III. Then the writer recalls to mind a feature of the old ceremony of atonement, and, after the Rabbinical method of treating Scripture, makes it illustrate his point. Instead of being troubled by their excommunication from material Jewish privileges, they might remember something very suggestive in old covenant ceremony. Cast out were they?

1. So were the bodies of the animals who had given their life-blood as atonement for the redemption of Israel; and

2. So was Christ, who gave His blood—His life—a ransom for many, but was turned out of Jerusalem, and crucified outside the city. Cast out were they Let them take place with the burnt bodies outside the camp. They had given their life for men. They were turned out because of the work they had done; and there was high honour in their burning. Let them take place outside Jerusalem—if they were in any sense turned out of Jerusalem—with Jesus, whose body hung on the cross, outside the city wall. He had given His life for men. He was turned out because of the work He had done. And there was sublime honour resting on Him who died “without the camp.” The point of the illustration lies in the bodies of the beasts being those beasts whose blood had been taken for the sin-offering of atonement, and in the body of Jesus being the body in which He had offered to God the sacrifice of the obedient will as the spiritual atonement. The plea is full of most gracious persuasiveness: “Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” It is as if he had said: In Christ you are giving yourselves to the salvation of men; your life is the spiritual life of men. Do not hesitate then, if it comes to this; you are burned like the bodies of the beasts; you are crucified like the body of your Lord. “Go forth to Him without the camp.” Be excommunicated, if you must be. “Bear His reproach.” You are after Him, and for Him, the saviours of the world. Your spiritual life is the light and hope of men. “Bear His reproach,” the earth-strain of Him who gave His life for us, and is the Life and Light of men.

IV. The persuasion to enter fully into spiritual religion.—This teacher saw clearly enough that the mistake of the Jewish Christians, and the thing which put their Christian faith in peril, was their temporising. They were trying to keep in with Judaism, and at the same time to keep in with Christianity. Their heart was divided. Their attitude was represented by the proverbial “two stools.” And in pressing them to go forth with Christ, outside the camp, bearing His reproach, he is really pressing them to give up Judaism altogether. Let go those old ties to a formal religion; enter fully into the spiritual standing in Christ Jesus; realise fully your spiritual privileges in Christ Jesus; use freely all the spiritual agencies—tabernacle, altar, sacrifice, priest—provided in Christ Jesus. Breathe the spiritual atmosphere; feed on the spiritual food; live out the spiritual life; enjoy the spiritual fellowships. You will find them so soul-satisfying, that the reproach which may come to you will seem no more to you than it seemed to Christ, who, “for the spiritual joy, that was set before Him, endured the cross”—the highest form of reproach—“despising the shame.” Let us go forth outside all formal religion, as Christ went forth out of formal, material, continuing Jerusalem. Let us go forth into the city to come—the spiritual city, the new Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that is above—to the age which has been so long anticipated, the spiritual age. Say it out once for all, “We’ve no abiding city here”—no abiding material city, no formal ceremonial religion, centred in a tabernacle or in a city made with hands. We seek the city to come, the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God—the city that is always coming to souls spiritually quickened. An altar do we want? Christ is our altar. A priest do we want? Christ is our priest. A sacrifice do we want? Christ is our sacrifice. Do you ask, How shall we respond to the spiritual sphere into which, with the quickened and regenerate life, we enter? The answer is given us at once, “Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise”—that is, a spiritual sacrifice—“to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, which make confession to His name.” Can he be misunderstood in pleading so earnestly that they would enter into spiritual religion? Would they think that he urged them to go away from the world, and form communities like the Essenes of those times, and the hermits and monks of later times? He would correct the mistake at once by showing them—

V. The satisfying sphere of earthly activities, relations, and services which spiritual religion provides.—“But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Never let us make the mistake of thinking that spiritual religion is unearthly. Our Divine Lord taught us better than this when, interceding with God for His disciples, He said, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” What we have to affirm persistently is, that man is not man until he is spiritual man; and when he is spiritual man, he is the most truly human being, and the best fitted to sustain all earthly responsibilities. “I knew a man in Christ.” That man was most truly and most worthily a “man in the world.” The spiritual man is the Christly man, who is ever going about doing good, and prepared to do it up to measures of self-sacrifice. “Bearing His reproach.” Can we put in a word what the reproach of Christ is,—what it was in those early times; what it has been in every age since then; what it is, in appropriate forms, for us to-day? It is the reproach cast on the spiritual by the carnal. It always will be cast.

1. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist in seeking spiritual truth. (Heretics, Mystics, Quakers.)

2. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist in doing spiritual service to humanity. Jesus, the miraculous Healer and Provider, everybody wants. Jesus, the Life and Light of men, only the few “babe-souls” ever seem to want.

3. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist that life, at its best, is the culture of spiritual character. They follow Christ, who was in Himself, in His character, the Saviour of the world; Reproach of the spiritual! We do but bear it with Christ.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb_13:10; Heb_13:15. Our Altar—“We have an altar.” There is a certain militant emphasis on the words in the original, as if they were an assertion of something that had been denied. Who the deniers are is plain enough. They were the adherents of Judaism, who naturally found Christianity a strange contrast to their worship, of which altar and sacrifice were prominent features. Just as to heathen nations the ritual of Judaism, its empty shrine, and Temple without a God, were a puzzle and a scoff, so to heathen and Jew the bare, starved worship of the Church, without temple, priest, sacrifice, or altar, was a mystery and a puzzle. The writer of this letter in these words, then, in accordance with the central theme of his whole epistle, insists that Christianity has more truly than heathenism or Judaism altar and sacrifice. And he is not content with alleging its possession of the reality of the altar, but he goes further, and insists upon the superiority even in that respect of the Christian system. He points to the fact that the great sin-offering of the Jewish ritual was not partaken of by the offerers, but consumed by fire without the camp, and he implies, in the earlier words of my text, that the Christian sacrifice differs from, and is superior to, the Jewish in this particular—that on it the worshippers feasted and fed. Then, in the last words of my text, he touches upon another point of superiority, viz. that all Christian men are priests of this altar, and have to offer upon it sacrifices of thanksgiving. And so he lifts up the purely spiritual worship of Christianity as not only possessed of all which the gorgeous rituals round about it presented, but as being high above them even in regard to that which seemed their special prerogative.

I. Our Christian altar.—Two explanations are open to us. One is that the cross is the altar. But that seems to me too gross and material, and savouring too much of the very error which this whole epistle is written to destroy, viz. that the material is of moment, as measured against the spiritual. The other explanation is much to be preferred, according to which, if the altar has any special significance, it means the Divine-human personality of Jesus Christ, on and in which the sacrifice is offered. But the main thing to be laid hold of here is, as I take it, that the central fact of Christianity is an altar, on which lies a sacrifice. If we are to accept the significance that I have suggested as possible for the emblem of my text, then the altar expresses the great mystery and gospel of the Incarnation, and the sacrifice expresses the great mystery and gospel of the passion of Christ’s life and death, which is the atonement for our sins. But that possibly is too much of a refinement, and so I confine myself here to the general ideas suggested—that the very living heart of the gospel is an altar and a sacrifice. That idea saturates the whole New Testament, from the page where John the forerunner’s proclamation is, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” to the last triumphant visions in which the apocalyptic seer “beheld a Lamb as it had been slain,” the eternal Co-regnant of the universe, and the Mediator through whom the whole surrounding Church for ever worships the Father.

II. Our feast on the Sacrifice.—From this altar, says the writer, the adherents of the ancient system have no right to partake. That implies that those who have left the ancient system have the right to partake, and do partake. Now the writer is drawing a contrast, which he proceeds to elaborate, between the great sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The former was not, as many other sacrifices were, partaken of by priests and worshippers, but simply the blood was brought within the Holy Place, and the whole of the rest of the sacrifice consumed in a waste spot without the camp. And this contrast is in the writer’s mind. We have a Sacrifice on which we feast. That is to say, the Christ who died for my sins is not only my means of reconciliation with God, but His sacrifice and death are the sustenance of my spiritual life. We live upon the Christ that died for us. That this is no mere metaphor, but goes penetratingly and deep down to the very basis of the spiritual life, is attested sufficiently by many a word of Scripture on which I cannot now dwell. The life of the Christian is the indwelling Christ. For he whose heart hath not received that Christ within him is dead while he lives, and has no possession of the one true life for a human spirit, viz. the life of union with God. Christ in us is the consequence of Christ for us; and that Christianity is all imperfect which does not grasp with equal emphasis the thought of the sacrifice on the cross and of the feast on the Sacrifice.

III. Our Christian offerings on the altar.—“By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.” What are these offerings? Christ’s death stands alone, incapable of repetition, needing no repetition, the eternal, sole, “sufficient obligation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” But there be other kinds of sacrifice. There are sacrifices of thanksgiving as well as of propitiation. And we, on the footing of that great Sacrifice to which we can add nothing, and on which alone we must rest, may bring the offerings of our thankful hearts. These offerings are of a twofold sort, says the writer. There are words of praise; there are works of beneficence. The service of man is sacrifice to God. That is a deep saying and reaches far. Such praise and such beneficence are only possible on the footing of Christ’s sacrifice, for only on that footing is our praise acceptable; and only when moved by that infinite mercy and love shall we yield ourselves thank-offerings to God. And thus, brethren, the whole extent of the Christian life, in its inmost springs, and in its outward manifestations, is covered by these two thoughts—the feast on the Sacrifice once offered, and the sacrifices which we in our turn offer on the altar. There is one Christ that can thus hallow and make acceptable our living and our dying, and that is the Christ that has died for us, and lives that in Him we may be priests to God. There is only one Christianity that will do for us what we all need, and that is the Christianity whose centre is an altar on which the Son of God, our Passover, is slain for us.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Heb_13:14. No Continuing City.—The truth presented in the text is one to which we at once give our consent, taught by many a sad experience.

I. The uncertainty of all earthly things.—Most persons experience a feeling of melancholy when the principle of the text is forced on their attention. There are times when, amid the changing scenes of earth, we cast about for something solid and enduring; but the more we search the more deeply we become convinced of the uncertainty of all human relationships. In vain we seek for something that knows no change, and will abide. The earth itself teaches its inhabitants this unsatisfying truth. As it gradually took form, passing through its various eras, change, unceasing change, was its abiding characteristic. In all its history; in its seasons, and soil, and scenery, and climate; and in the story of man upon it, is the same constant change. A mother fondles you as an infant; then through a long season of anxiety and care she watches from childhood into youth, and from youth to manhood; and by-and-by, in turn, you watch her gliding down the slope of life, and presently follow in her steps. A few years pass, and it becomes evident that this very body of ours has been changing, and in manhood every element of the bodily constitution has been renewed. The same change marks the advance of the soul from the first dawn of intelligence to the full development of mental vigour. The mind never can stay long unchanged, either in the condition of its mental powers or its spiritual faculties. The history of men and the history of nations repeats for us the same fact. Simple and natural was the mode of life pursued by the patriarchs of old. The grass sprang up fresh around them, and they fed their flocks. Then pastures were bared and the wells dried up, and they struck their tents and wandered forth. They had no “continuing city.” When the nomadic life was over, they built settled habitations, and raised their families, only to see them scattered far and wide over the earth. Man lays the foundations of empires; slowly and through many conflicts the kingdom rises toward perfection in constitution and order and developed civilisation, at last to find the fires of discontent imperilling it, and leaving it a prey to some strong and aggressive neighbour. For even the empire has “no continuing city.” The language of a people is always changing forms and meanings. The wants of a nation may keep the same, but the modes of supplying them are ever changing. The earth must be tilled and her fruits gathered in; the ocean must be swept of her treasures, and land knit to land across her; but the agencies for effecting these ends are ever varying. The vesture that adorns the human figure was once slowly produced by the human hand, and now it is rushed into existence on the wings of steam. The journey, once accomplished with difficulty and exertion, is now the simple act of rest. The message once communicated at the quickest by swift runners now flashes from mind to mind as does the lightning. Here we have “no continuing city”; and when we have passed away, the marvellous discoveries of our age will excite the smile of new generations that shall have tamed yet new and mightier nature-forces to do their bidding. There is, perhaps, no truth with which we are more familiar. All around us everything is speaking of decay and change; the story is written on the wasting rock and crumbling peak, on the old tower and the ivied wall. The flowing river and the gurgling stream, the tints of autumn, and the falling leaves, all tell it out, with no uncertain sound.

II. The permanence of all Divine and heavenly things.—The previous verses give admonitions concerning a true, spiritual life, and direct us from the change, dissatisfaction, and sorrow of our earthly life to Him who is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” By the exercise of Christian love, by charity and a heart open to the sufferings of those around us, by a happy contentment and a simple trust in God, and above all by having our heart ever reposing on Christ in every circumstance of joy or sorrow, we are taught to live in this world as though we were not of it. If we are cherishing this life, our hearts will be gradually lifted up above this earth, and we shall be able so to fix our affections on things here as not to rely on them for our happiness. Even before we have left our earthly abode the foundations of our future habitation may be laid. Our lives should be pilgrimages. Footsore and weary the traveller plods homeward; the clear sky, the rich sunset, the fruits by the wayside, the cool leafy shades, tempt him to stay, but his soul is full of the thought of home, and onward, still onward, he must go. What is that city which we seek? Its walls rise high; its mansions are secure; no aching heart dwells there; no tearful eye, no bent and drooping form, no withered or suffering frame, is seeking it. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things have passed away.” It is that spiritual and eternal city, “whose builder and maker is God.” We are pilgrims and strangers here, as indeed all our fathers were. But we do not unduly heed the changes of earth, or unrestrainedly weep over its uncertainties. We are travelling through; what matters a little discomfort on the way! We are going home—home to God. He is our “city yet to come.” And He changeth never.—A. Thomson, B.A.

Remindings of our Mortality.—If any one has visited Rome, he will remember—for none who have travelled thither can forget the scene—the long street of tombs which forms one of the approaches to the Eternal City. For miles on the road these monuments erected over the departed stand on either side of the way, at brief but uncertain intervals, until the traveller reaches the gate. Exactly thus it is with us on our pilgrimage to that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God; on every hand we are reminded of our mortality, until we in our turn fall by the wayside, and swell the number of the dead.—Archbishop Trench.

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.

Hebrews

AN ESTABLISHED HEART

Heb 13:9.

This saying immediately follows the exhortation with which it is contrasted: ‘Be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines.’ Now, it is quite clear that the unsettlement and moving past some fixed point which are suggested in the word ‘carried away’ are contrasted with the fixedness which is implied in the main word of our text. They who are established, ‘rooted and grounded,’ are not apt to be swept away by the blasts of ‘divers and strange doctrines.’ But there is another contrast besides this, and that is the one which exists between doctrines and grace; and there is a still further subsequent contrast in the words that follow my text, ‘It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats.

Now I need not trouble you with the question as to what was the original reference of either of these two expressions, ‘doctrines’ and ‘meats,’ or whether they both point to some one form of teaching. What I rather want to emphasise here, in a sentence, is how, in these three principal words of three successive clauses, we get three aspects of the religious life - two of them spurious and partial, one of them sufficing and complete -’teachings’; ‘grace’; ‘meats.’ Turned into modern English, the writer’s meaning is that the merely intellectual religion, which is always occupied with propositions instead of with Jesus Christ, ‘Who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,’ is worthless, and the merely ceremonial religion, which is always occupied with casuistries about questions of meats, or external observance of any sort, is as valueless. There is no fixity; there is no rest of soul, no steadfastness of character to be found in either of these two directions. The only thing that ballasts and fills and calms the heart is what the writer here calls ‘grace,’ that is to say, the living personal experience of the love of God bestowed upon me and dwelling in my heart. You may have doctrines chattered to all eternity, and you may be so occupied about the externals of religion as that yon never come near its centre, and its centre is that great thing which is here called ‘grace,’ which alone has power to establish the man’s heart.

So, then, the main theme of these words is the possible stability of a fluctuating human life, the means of securing it, and the glory and beauty of the character which has secured it. Let us turn to then thoughts for a moment.

I. First, then, mark what this writer conceives to be the one source of human stability.

‘It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.’ Now I have a strong suspicion that a great deal of preaching goes over the heads of the hearers, because preachers have not gauged the ignorance of their auditory, and that, howsoever familiar to the ear the key-words of Christian revelation may be, it by no means follows that there is any definite and clear idea attached to these. So I do not think that it will be a waste of time for just a minute or two to try and put, as plainly as I can, what the New Testament means by this familiar and frequently reiterated word ‘grace,’ which, I suspect, is oftener pronounced than it is understood by a great many people.

To begin with, then, the root meaning of that word, which runs all through the New Testament, is simply favour, benignity, kindness, or to put all into a better and simpler form, the active love of God. Now, if we look at the various uses of the expression we find, for instance, that it is contrasted with a number of other things. Sometimes it is set in opposition to sin - sin reigns to righteousness, grace reigns to life. Sometimes it is contrasted with ‘debt,’ and sometimes put in opposition to ‘works,’ as, for instance, by Paul when he says, ‘If it be of works then is it no more grace.’ Sometimes it is opposed to law, as in the same apostle’s words, ‘Ye are not under law, but under grace.’ Now, if we keep these various uses and contrasts in view we just come to this thought, that that active love of God is conditioned, not by any merit on our part - bubbles up from the depths of His own infinite heart, not because of what we are, but because of what He is, transcends all the rigid retributions of law, is not turned away by my sin, but continues to flood the world, simply because it wells up from the infinite and changeless fountain of love in the heart of God.

And then, from this central, deepest meaning of active love manifesting itself irrespective of what we deserve, there comes a second great aspect of the word. The cause gives its name to the effect, and the communicated blessings and gifts which flow to men from the love of God are designated by this great name. You know we have the same kind of idiom in our own tongue. ‘Kindness’ is the disposition; ‘a kindness’ is a single deed which flows from that disposition. ‘Favour’ is the way in which we regard a man; ‘a favour’ is the act or gift which manifests and flows from the regard. The water in the pitchers is the same as the water in the spring. The name of the cause is extended to all the lustrous variety of its effects. So the complex whole of the blessings and gifts which Jesus Christ brings to us, and which are sometimes designated in view of what they do for us, as salvation or eternal life, are also designated in view of that in God from which they come, as being collectively His ‘grace.’

All the gifts that Christ brings are, we may say, but the love of God made visible in its bestowal upon us. The meteor that rushes through space catches fire when it passes into our atmosphere. The love of God, when it comes into our manifold necessities, is made visible in the large gifts which it bestows upon them.

And then there is a final application of the expression which is deduced from that second one - viz., the specific and individual excellences of character or conduct which result from the communication to men of the blessings that flow to Him from the love of God.

So these three: first the fountain, the love undisturbed and unalterable; second, the stream, the manifold gifts and blessings that flow to us through Christ; and third, the little cupfuls that each of us have, the various beauties and excellences of character which are developed under the fertilising influences of the sunshine of that love-these three are all included in this great Christian word.

There are other phases of its employment in the New Testament which I do not need to trouble you with now. But thus far we just come to this, that the one ground on which all steadfastness and calm tranquillity and settlement of nature and character can be reared is that we shall be in touch with God, shall be conscious of His love, and shall be receiving into our hearts the strength that He bestows. Man is a dependent creature; his make and his relationships to things round him render it impossible that the strength by which he is strong and the calmness by which he is established can be self-originated. They must come from without. There is only one way by which we can be kept from being drifted away by the currents and blown away by the tempests that run and range through every life, and that is that we shall anchor ourselves on God. His grace, His love possessed, and the sufficing gifts for all our hungry desires which come through that love possessed, these, and these alone, are the conditions of human stability.

II. And so I come, in the second place, to look at some of the various ways in which this establishing grace calms and stills the life.

We men are like some of the islands in the Eastern Tropics, fertile and luxuriant, but subject to be swept by typhoons, to be shaken by earthquakes, to be devastated by volcanoes. Around us there gather external foes assailing our steadfastness, and within us there He even more formidable enemies to an established and settled peace. We are like men carrying powder through a conflagration; bearing a whole magazine of combustibles within us, upon which at any moment a spark may alight. How are such creatures ever to be established? My text tells us by drawing into themselves the love, the giving love of God; and in the consciousness of that love, and in the rest of spirit that comes from the true possession of its gifts, there will be found the secret of tranquillity for the most storm- ridden life.

I would note, as one of the aspects of the tranquillity and establishment that comes from this conscious possession of the giving love of God, how it delivers men from all the dangers of being ‘carried away by divers strange doctrines.’ I do not give much for any orthodoxy which is not vitalised by personal experiences of the indwelling love of God. I do not care much what a man believes, or what he denies, or how he may occupy himself intellectually with the philosophical and doctrinal aspect of Christian revelation. The question is, how much of it has filtered from his brain into his heart, and has become part of himself, and verified to himself by his own experience? So much, and not one hairbreadth more, of the Christian creed is your creed. So much as you have lived out, so much you are sure of because you have not only thought it but felt it, and cannot for a moment doubt, because your hearts have risen up and witnessed to its truth. About these parts of your belief there will be no fluctuation. There is no real and permanent grasp of any parts of religious truth except such as is verified by personal experience. And that sturdy blind man in the gospels had got hold of the true principle of the most convincing Christian apologetics when he said, ‘You may talk as long as you like about the question whether this man is a sinner or not; settle it anyhow you please. One thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see.’ The ‘grace’ that had come to him in a purely external form established as a foundation axiom for his thinking, that the man who had done that for him was a messenger from God. That is the way by which you will come to a hold worth calling so of Christian truth, and unless you come to it by that hold it does not matter much whether you believe it or deny it all.

But, if there be such a living consciousness of the true possession of God’s love giving you these blessings, then with great equanimity and openness of mind you can regard the discussion that may be raging about a great many so-called ‘burning’ questions. If I know that Jesus Christ died for me, and that my soul is saved because He did, it does not matter very much to me who wrote the Pentateuch, or whether the Book of Jonah is a parable or a history. I can let all such questions-and I only refer to these as specimens - be settled by appropriate evidence, by the experts, without putting myself in a fluster, and can say, ‘I am not going to be carried away. My heart is established in grace.’

Still further, this conscious possession of the grace of God will keep a man very quiet amidst all the occasions for agitation which changing circumstances bring. Such there are in every life. Nothing continues in one stay. Thunder-claps, earthquakes, tempests, shocks of doom come to every one of us. Is it possible that amidst this continuous fluctuation, in which nothing is changeless but the fact of change, we can stand fixed and firm? Yes! As they say on the other side of the Border, there is a ‘low,’ place at the back of the wall. There is shelter only in one spot, and that is when we have God between us and the angry blast. And oh, brother, if there steal into a man’s heart, and be faithfully kept there, the quiet thought that God is with him, to bless and keep and communicate to him all that he needs, why should he be troubled? ‘He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.’ What?

In this world full of evil? Yes. ‘He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed; trusting in the Lord.’ An empty heart is an easily agitated heart. A full heart, like a full sack, stands upright, and it is not so easy for the wind to whirl it about as if it were empty. They who are rooted in God will have a firm bole, which will be immovable, howsoever branches may sway and creak, and leaves may flutter and dance, or even fall, before the power of the storm. They who have no hold upon that grace are like the chaff which the wind drives from the threshing-floor. The storms of life will sweep you away unless the heart be ‘established in grace.’

Further, another form of the stability communicated by that possessed love of God is in regard to the internal occasions for agitation. Passion, lust, hot desires, bitter regrets, eager clutching after uncertain and insufficient and perishable good, all these will be damped down if the love of God lives in our hearts. Oh, brethren, it is ourselves that disturb ourselves, and not the world that disturbs us. ‘There is no joy hut calm’; and there is no calm but in the possession of the grace which is the giving love of God.

III. Lastly, my text suggests how beautiful a thing is the character of the man that is established in grace.

The word translated ‘good’ in my text would be better rendered ‘fair,’ or ‘lovely,’ or ‘beautiful,’ or some such expression conveying the idea that the writer was thinking, not so much about the essential goodness as about the beauty, in visible appearance, of a character which was thus established by grace. Is there anything fairer than the strong, steadfast, calm, equable character, unshaken by the storms of passion, unaffected by the blasts of calamity, un-devastated by the lava from the hellish subterranean fires that are in every soul; and yet not stolidly insensible nor obstinately conservative, but open to the inspiration of each successive moment, and gathering the blessed fruit of all mutability in a more profound and unchanging possession of the unchanging good? Surely the gospel which brings to men the possibility of being thus established brings to them the highest ideal of fair human character.

So do you see to it that you rectify your notions of what makes the beauty of character. There is many a poor old woman in a garret who presents, if not to men, at any rate to angels and to God, a far fairer character than the vulgar ideals which most people have. The beauty of meek patience, of persistent endeavour, of calm, steadfast trust, is fairer than all the ‘purple patches’ which the world admires because they are gaudy, and which an eye educated by looking at Jesus turns from with disgust, And do you see to it that you cultivate that type of excellence. It is a great deal easier to cultivate other kinds. It is hard to be quiet, hard to rule one’s stormy nature, hard to stand ‘foursquare to every wind that blows.’ But it is possible - possible on one condition, that we drive our roots through all the loose shingle on the surface, ‘the things seen and temporal,’ and penetrate to the eternal substratum that lies beneath it all.

Then, my brother, if we keep ourselves near Jesus Christ, and let His grace flow into our hearts, then we, too, shall be able to say, ‘Because I set Him at my right hand I shall not be moved,’ and we may be able to carry, by His grace, even through the storms of life and amidst all the agitations of our own passions and desires, a steady light, neither blown about by tempests without, nor pulsating with alternations of brightness and dimness by reason of intermittent supplies from within, but blazing with the steadfast splendour of the morning star. ‘ He that believeth shall not make haste.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:9-10 Since Jesus does not change (13:8), it is unwise for a believer to be attracted by strange, new ideas. The false teachings in view seemed to involve rules about food. In some branches of Judaism, certain ritual meals were understood as providing God’s grace to those participating. Some in the community might have been tempted to abandon the Christian community by participating in Jewish fellowship meals. These Jewish meals at times encouraged participants to focus on the Jerusalem altar. The author reminds his hearers that we have an altar of which those under the old covenant have no part—Christ’s sacrifice (7:27-28; 8:13; 9:11-14; 10:11-14).

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

Heb 13:9. Διδαχαῖς, with doctrines) So Paul, Eph 4:14.—ποικίλαις, various) which differ from the one faith in the one and the same Jesus Christ. There was variety in the Levitical worship; ch. Heb 9:10.—ξέναις, strange) which differ from the faith of your ministers (τῶν ἡγουμένων). The Levitical rites were now also strange to their present faith, Heb 13:9-14; and the apostle was now forgetful of their oldness (The Old Testament). He does not therefore call them old, but strange.—μὴ παραφέρεσθε) be not carried away [Neben hin.—Not. Crit.] So παρὰ in composition, ch. Heb 2:1. The antithesis, βεβαιοῦσθαι, to be established, 1Sa 21:13 (14), ויתהלל, LXX. καὶ παρεφέρετο. Ecc 1:17, הללית Theodotion translates παραφοράς.—καλὸν γὰρ χάριτι βεβαιοῦσθαι τὴν καρδίαν, for it is good for the heart to be established with grace) A categorical sentence: χάριτι βεβαιούμεθα (κατὰ) τὴν καρδίαν, we have the heart established by grace; to which the antithesis corresponds, not with meats; but the modal expression, good, is added from the feeling of the apostle, to give a point to the admonition. So Paul, Rom 6:17, note. Καλὸν, good, beautiful (becoming), salutary: also pleasant, without strange variety; and profitable. The antithesis, have not profited.—χάριτι, with grace) grace, which becomes ours through Christ, who offered His body.—βεβαιοῦσθαι) to be established. Στηριχθηναι, to be supported, is a kindred word, just as the heart, according to the Hebrew phraseology, is supported by bread or the staff of bread; Jdg 19:5; Isa 3:1; Psa 104:15, etc. That is here denied of meats, and is claimed for grace.—οὐ, not) Judaism and Christianity do not agree.—βρώμασιν, with meats) An Extenuation,[91] as ch. Heb 9:10. Those meats are also denoted which were eaten in the holy place. The antithesis is, to eat, Heb 13:10. The Jews have their own meat; and we have ours, which is most healthful to us.—ἐν οἷς, in which) Construed with περιπατήσαντες.—οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν) comp. ἀνωφελὲς, ch. Heb 7:18.—οἱ περιπατήσαντες, they who have walked) long and much.

[91] See App. The same as Litotes.

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

Heb_13:9. The exhortation itself, for which preparation was made at Heb_13:8, now follows.

Διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις μὴ παραφέρεσθε] By manifold and strange doctrines do not be seduced, borne aside from the right path. As is shown by the connecting of the two halves of the verse by the γάρ, expressive of the reason or cause, the διδαχαὶ ποικίλαι καὶ ξέναι are related to the βρώματα mentioned immediately after as the genus to a species coming under particular notice; and, as is manifest from Heb_13:10 ff., both belong to the specifically Jewish domain. By διδαχαὶ ποικίλαι καὶ ξέναι, therefore, the ordinances of the Mosaic law in general are to be understood, the observance of which was proclaimed among the readers as necessary to the attainment of salvation, while then under βρώματα a special group of the same is mentioned. ποικίλαι the same are called, because they consist in commands and prohibitions of manifold kind; ξέναι, however, because they are opposed to the spirit of Christianity.

καλὸν γάρ] for it is a fair thing, i.e. praiseworthy and salutary.

χάριτι βεβαιοῦσθαι τὴν καρδίαν] that by grace the heart be made stedfast, in it seek and find its support. For no other thing than the grace of God is that which determines the character of the New Covenant, as the law that of the Old, Rom_6:14, al. Erroneously, therefore, Castellio and Böhme, χάριτι means by thanksgiving or gratitude towards God; yet more incorrectly Bisping and Maier: by the Christian sacrificial food, the Holy Communion.

οὐ βρώμασιν] not by meats. This is referred by the majority, lastly by Böhme, Stengel, Tholuck, Bloomfield, Delitzsch, Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 158), Alford, Moll, Ewald, and Hofmann, to the Levitical ordinances concerning pure and impure food. But only of the sacrificial meals can οὐ βρώμασιν be understood. For rightly have Schlichting, Bleek, and others called attention to the fact that (1) the expression, Heb_13:9, is more applicable to the enjoyment of sacred meats than to the avoiding of unclean meats. Schlichting: Cor non reficitur cibis non comestis, sed comestis. Ciborum ergo usui, non abstinentiae, opponitur hic gratia; that (2) it is said of the Christians, at Heb_13:10, in close conjunction with Heb_13:9, that they possess an altar of which the servants of the Jewish sanctuary have no right to eat; that, finally, (3) at the close of this series of thoughts, Heb_13:15, the reference to the sacrifices is retained, inasmuch as there, in opposition to the Levitical sacrifices, it is made incumbent on Christians through Christ continually to offer sacrifices of praise unto God. Tholuck, it is true, objects to this reasoning: (1) that βρώματα may denote the clean, legally permitted meats, with (the mention of) which is at the same time implied the abstinence from the unclean. But this expedient is artificial and unnatural; since, if we had in reality to think of the Levitical precepts with regard to food, in the exact converse of that which happens the avoiding of unclean meats would be the main idea brought under consideration. (2) That the connection of Heb_13:10 with Heb_13:9 would only apparently be lost, since one may warrantably assume the following line of thought: Do not suffer yourselves to be led astray by a variety of doctrines alien to the pure truthsurely it is a fairer thing to assure the conscience by grace than by meats, by means of which no true appeasement is obtained; we Christians have an altar with such glorious soul-nourishment, of which no priest may eat. But this supposed thought of Heb_13:10 would be highly illogical. For how does it follow from the fact that Christians have an altar of most glorious soul-nourishment, that no priest may partake of the same? Logically correct, certainly, would be only the thought: for we Christians possess an altar with such glorious soul-nourishment, that we have no need whatever of the Levitical ordinances regarding food. Then again, at Heb_13:10, nothing at all is written about glorious soul-nourishment; but, on the contrary, the design of this verse can only be to make good the incompatibility of the Christian altar with the Jewish. (3) That the exhortation to the spiritual sacrifices, Heb_13:15, may be more immediately referred back to Heb_13:10. But Heb_13:10 stands to Heb_13:9, in which the theme of the investigation, Heb_13:8-15, is expressed, in the relation of subordination. The following οὖν, Heb_13:15, may therefore serve for the introducing of the final result from the whole preceding investigation. (4) Finally, that it cannot be perceived how the participation in sacrificial meals could have been looked upon as a means of justification. But the participation in the sacrificial meals was certainly a public avouchment of participation in the sacrifices themselves. Comp. 1Co_10:18. Very easily, therefore, might the author be led finally to take up this preference of his readers for the Jewish sacrificial cultus in this particular form of manifestation, which had hitherto remained unnoticed in the epistle.

The supports, too, which Delitzsch has more recently sought to give to the referring of οὐ βρώμασιν to ordinances regarding clean and unclean meats, are weak. For that βρώματα is a word unheard of in the sacrificial thora, but familiar in the legislation regarding food, and that βρῶμα is used elsewhere in the N. T. of that which is prohibited or permitted for eating, does not in any way fall under consideration; because our passage claims before everything to be intelligible per se, nothing thus can be determinative of its meaning which is opposed to its expression and connection. That, however, the author cannot by διδαχαὶ ποικίλαι καὶ ξέναι have meant the ordinances of the law in general, because he has recognised their divine origin, and therefore could not have indicated them with so little reverence, is a mere prepossession. For the Apostle Paul, too, speaks of them, as is already shown by Gal_4:9 f., Heb_5:2, with no greater reverence. We are prevented from thinking, with Delitzsch, of erroneous doctrines invented in accordance with ones own will, though it may be attaching themselves to the O. T. law, by the relation in which διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις stands to βρώμασιν, Heb_13:9, and this again to ἐξ οὗ φαγεῖν οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἐξουσίαν οἱ τῇ σκηνῇ λατρεύοντες, Heb_13:10.

ἐν οἷς οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν οὑ περιπατοῦντες] from which those busied therein have derived no profit, inasmuch, namely, as by such partaking of the sacrifice they did not attain to true blessedness.

ἐν οἷς belongs to οἱ περιπατοῦντες, since these words cannot stand alone, not to ὠφελήθησαν.

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.

Which observed the difference of them superstitiously.

He toucheth them which mixed an external worship, and especially the difference of meats, with the Gospel, which doctrine he plainly condemneth as clean repugnant to the benefit of Christ.

By this one kind which concerneth the difference of clean and unclean meats, we have to understand all the ceremonial worship.

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

about--rather, as oldest manuscripts read, "carried aside"; namely, compare Eph 4:14.

divers--differing from the one faith in the one and the same Jesus Christ, as taught by them who had the rule over you (Heb 13:7).

strange--foreign to the truth.

doctrines--"teachings."

established with grace; not with meats--not with observances of Jewish distinctions between clean and unclean meats, to which ascetic Judaizers added in Christian times the rejection of some meats, and the use of others: noticed also by Paul in Co1 8:8, Co1 8:13; Co1 6:13; Rom 14:17, an exact parallel to this verse: these are some of the "divers and strange doctrines" of the previous sentence. Christ's body offered once for all for us, is our true spiritual "meat" to "eat" (Heb 13:10), "the stay and the staff of bread" (Isa 3:1), the mean of all "grace."

which have not profited--Greek, "in which they who walked were not profited"; namely, in respect to justification, perfect cleansing of the conscience, and sanctification. Compare on "walked," Act 21:21; namely, with superstitious scrupulosity, as though the worship of God in itself consisted in such legal observances.

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 9. Be not carried about] μη περιφερεσθε. Be not whirled about. But ABCD, and almost every other MS. of importance, with the Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Vulgate, and several of the Greek fathers, have μη παραφερεσθε, be not carried away, which is undoubtedly the true reading, and signifies here, do not apostatize; permit not yourselves to be carried off from Christ and his doctrine.

Divers and strange doctrines.] διδαχαις, ποικιλαις. Variegated doctrines; those that blended the law and the Gospel, and brought in the Levitical sacrifices and institutions in order to perfect the Christian system. Remember the old covenant is abolished; the new alone is in force.

Strange doctrines, διδαχαις ξεναις, foreign doctrines; such as have no apostolical authority to recommend them.

That the heart be established with grace] It is well to have the heart, the mind, and conscience, fully satisfied with the truth and efficacy of the Gospel; for so the word χαρις should be understood here, which is put in opposition to βρωμασιν, meats, signifying here the Levitical institutions, and especially its sacrifices, these being emphatically termed meats, because the offerers were permitted to feast upon them after the blood had been poured out before the Lord. See Le 7:15; De 12:6; De 12:7.

Which have not profited them] Because they neither took away guilt, cleansed the heart, nor gave power over sin.

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

9. Diverse doctrines, etc. He concludes that we ought not to fluctuate, since the truth of Christ, in which we ought to stand firm, remains fixed and unchangeable. And doubtless, variety of opinions, every kind of superstition, all monstrous errors, in a word, all corruptions in religion, arise from this, that men abide not in Christ alone; for it is not in vain that Paul teaches us, that Christ is given to us by God to be our wisdom.

The import then of this passage is that in order that the truth of God may remain firm in us, we must acquiesce in Christ alone. We hence conclude that all who are ignorant of Christ are exposed to all the delusions of Satan; for apart from him there is no stability of faith, but innumerable tossings here and there. Wonderful then is the acuteness of the Papists, who have contrived quite a contrary remedy for driving away errors, even by extinguishing or burying the knowledge of Christ! But let this warning of the Holy Spirit be fixed in our hearts, that we shall never be beyond the reach of danger except we cleave to Christ.

Now the doctrines which lead us away from Christ, he says, are divers or various, because there is no other simple and unmixed truth but the knowledge of Christ; and he calls them also strange or foreign, because whatever is apart from Christ is not regarded by God as his own; and we are hereby also reminded how we are to proceed, if we would make a due proficiency in the Scripture, for he who takes not a straight course to Christ, goes after strange doctrines. The Apostle farther intimates that the Church of God will always have to contend with strange doctrines and that there is no other means of guarding against them but by being fortified with the pure knowledge of Christ.

For it is a good thing, etc. He now comes from a general principle to a particular case. The Jews, for instance, as it is well known, were superstitious as to distinctions in meats; and hence arose many disputes and discords; and this was one of the strange doctrines which proceeded from their ignorance of Christ. Having then previously grounded our faith on Christ, he now says that the observance of meats does not conduce to our salvation and true holiness. As he sets grace in opposition to meats, I doubt not but that by grace he means the spiritual worship of God and regeneration. In saying that the heart may be established, he alludes to the word, carried about, as though he had said, “It is the spiritual grace of God, and not the observance of meats, that will really establish us.

Which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. It is uncertain to whom he here refers; for the fathers who lived under the Law had no doubt a useful training, and a part of it was the distinction as to meats. It seems then that this is to be understood rather of the superstitious, who, after the Gospel had been revealed, still perversely adhered to the old ceremonies. At the same time were we judiciously to explain the words as applied to the fathers, there would be no inconsistency; it was indeed profitable for them to undergo the yoke laid on them by the Lord, and to continue obediently under the common discipline of the godly and of the whole Church; but the Apostle means that abstinence from meats was in itself of no avail. And no doubt it is to be regarded as nothing, except as an elementary instruction at the time when God’s people were like children as to their external discipline. To be occupied in meats is to be taken as having a regard to them, so as to make a distinction between clean and unclean. But what he says of meats may be extended to the other rites of the Law.

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.

(9) Be not carried about.—The better reading of the Greek gives a meaning somewhat different, Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings. The ordinary reading may have come in from Eph_4:14. The “teachings” by which they were in danger of being led astray were various, and were all foreign to the one true word. The contrasts expressed in the second part of this verse and in Heb_13:10-11, throw light on the nature and source of the erroneous doctrine. Its subject was not “grace,” but “meats;” its promoters were connected with those who serve the Tabernacle. Hence the writer is probably speaking of doctrines and practices similar to those censured by St. Paul in Col_2:16-23. (See the introductory Note on Romans 14; also 1Ti_4:3.) In Heb_9:10 we read of “meats and drinks” in connection with the Law of Moses; here the divers and strange teachings” must include human additions to that Law and perversions of its spirit.

With grace; not with meats.—Better, by grace, not by meats. Instead of being “carried away by strange teachings,” let your hearts be made firm and sure by grace. As the whole system of ceremonial observance is alluded to under the one term “meats,” so the blessings of the Christian faith are comprised under “grace,” a word used throughout this Epistle with peculiar significance. (See especially Heb_10:29; Heb_12:15; Heb_12:28.) One human system of teaching will but lead on to another; grace will keep the heart firm in its loyal love to Jesus Christ, who is ever “the same” (Heb_13:8).

Which have not profited.—Literally, in which they that walked were not ‘profited. To the English reader the mode of expression must appear peculiar; in the Greek, however, there is little or no incongruity, for the word which we render “walk” is used most freely to denote a course or manner of life. Comp. Eph_2:10, “unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Here the meaning is, that those who have made these external observances the rule of their life have failed of the profit which they sought. (Comp. Heb_7:18-19.)

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

9. Be not carried about …] Lit. “With teachings various and strange be ye not swept away.” From the allusion to various kinds of food which immediately follows we infer that these “teachings” were not like the Gnostic speculations against which St Paul and St John had to raise a warning voice (Eph_4:14; Col_2:8; 1Jn_4:1), but the minutiae of the Jewish Halachah with its endless refinements upon, and inferences from, the letter of the Law. This is the sort of teaching of which the Talmud is full, and most of it has no real connection with true Mosaism.

it is a good] “a beautiful, or excellent thing” (kalon).

with grace] By the favour or mercy of God as a pledge of our real security.

not with meats] Not by minute and pedantic distinctions between various kinds of clean and unclean food (Heb_9:10). The word bromata, “kinds of food,” was never applied to sacrifices. On the urgency of the question of “meats” to the Early Christians see my Life of St Paul, 1. 264.

which have not profited them that have been occupied therein] These outward rules were of no real advantage to the Jews under the Law. As Christianity extended the Rabbis gave a more and more hostile elaboration and significance to the Halachoth, which decided about the degrees of uncleanness in different kinds of food, as though salvation itself depended on the scrupulosities and micrologies of Rabbinism. The reader will find some illustrations of these remarks in my Life of St Paul, i. 264. The importance of these or analogous questions to the early Jewish Christians may be estimated by the allusions of St Paul (Romans 14.; Col_2:16-23; 1Ti_4:3, &c.). No doubt these warnings were necessary because the Jewish Christians were liable to the taunt “You are breaking the law of Moses; you are living Gentile-fashion (ἐθνικῶς) not Jewish-wise (Ἰουδαικῶς); you neglect the Kashar (rules which regulate the slaughter of clean and unclean animals, which the Jews scrupulously observe to this day); you feed with those who are polluted by habitually eating swines’ flesh.’ These were appeals to “the eternal Pharisaism of the human heart,” and the intensity of Jewish feeling respecting them would have been renewed by the conversions to Christianity. The writer therefore reminds the Hebrews that these distinctions involve no real advantage (Heb_7:18-19).

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.

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines,.... The word "divers" may denote the variety and multitude of other doctrines; referring either to the various rites and ceremonies of the law, or to the traditions of the elders, or to the several doctrines of men, whether Jews or Gentiles; whereas the doctrine of the Scriptures, of Christ, and his apostles, is but one; it is uniform, and all of a piece; and so may likewise denote the disagreement of other doctrines with the perfections of God, the person and offices of Christ, the Scriptures of truth, the analogy of faith, and even with themselves: and "strange" doctrines may design such as were never taught by God, nor are agreeable to the voice of Christ, nor to be found in the word of God; and which are new, and unheard of, by the apostles and churches of Christ; and appear in a foreign dress and habit: wherefore the apostle exhorts the believing Hebrews not to be "carried about with them"; as light clouds and meteors in the air, by every wind: for so to be, is to be like children; and discovers great ignorance, credulity, levity, inconstancy, uncertainty, fluctuation, and inconsistency:

for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; with the doctrine of grace, which is food for faith, and does not leave men at uncertainties about things; but establishes the heart, with respect to the love and favour of God, and builds souls upon the foundation, Christ; so that they are not at a loss about the expiation of sin, justification, and salvation; but firmly look for, and expect eternal happiness by Christ, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God:

not with meats; referring to the distinction of meats among the Jews; or the sacrifices ate both by the priests and by the people; or the whole ceremonial law which stood in divers meats and drinks:

which have not profited them that have been occupied therein; they were only profitable to the body; and could be of no other use to the soul, when they were in force, than as they led to Christ, and were regarded by believers; for they were of no advantage to hypocrites and carnal men; they could not sanctify, nor justify, nor cheer the spirits, nor establish the heart; and are of no manner of service at all, since the death of Christ, whereby the whole ceremonial law is abolished.

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

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.

Ver. 9. Be not carried about] πεοιφερομενοι. Error is a precipice, a vortex, or whirlpool, which first turns men round, and then sucks them in. Islebius Agricola, that first Antinomian, did many times promise amendment; and yet afterwards not only fell to his error again, but turned Papist, fell into the other extreme. So hard a thing it is to get poison out when once swallowed down. {See Trapp on "Eph 4:14"}

With divers and strange doctrines] That agree neither with themselves nor with the truth.

That the heart be established] Ballasted as a ship, balanced as the bee with a little stone taken up by her, when she hath far to fly in a high wind, Ne leve alarum remigium praecipitent flabra ventorum, as Ambrose observeth, lest the bigger blast should dash her to the ground.

Not with meats] As if they were holy, or helpful to salvation. By meats understand all the legal ceremonies, opposed here to the gospel, that doctrine of grace.

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.

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines - That is, they should have settled and fixed points of belief, and not yield to every new opinion which was started. The apostle does not exhort them to adhere to an opinion merely because they had before held it, or because it was an old opinion, nor does he forbid their following the leadings of truth though they might be required to abandon what they had before held; but he cautions them against that vacillating spirit, and that easy credulity, which would lead them to yield to any novelty, and to embrace an opinion because it was new or strange. Probably the principal reference here is to the Judaizing teachers, and to their various doctrines about their ceremonial observances and traditions. But the exhortation is applicable to Christians at all times. A religious opinion, once embraced on what was regarded a good evidence, or in which we have been trained, should not be abandoned for slight causes. Truth indeed should always be followed, but it should be only after careful inquiry.

For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace - This is the proper foundation of adherence to the truth. The heart should be established with the love of God, with pure religion, and then we shall love the truth, and love it in the right manner. If it is the head merely which is convinced, the consequence is bigotry, pride, narrowmindedness. If the belief of the truth has its seat in the heart, it will be accompanied with charity, kindness, good-will to all people. In such a belief of the truth it is a good thing to have the heart established. It will produce:

(1)Firmness and stability of character;

(2)Charity and kindness to others;

(3)Consolation and support in trials and temptations.

When a man is thrown into trials and temptations, he ought to have some settled principles on which he can rely; some fixed points of belief that will sustain his soul.

Not with meats - The meaning is, that it is better to have the heart established with grace, or with the principles of pure religion, than with the most accurate knowledge of the rules of distinguishing the clean from the unclean among the various articles of food. Many such rules were found in the Law of Moses, and many more had been added by the refinements of Jewish rulers and by tradition. To distinguish and remember all these, required no small amount of knowledge, and the Jewish teachers, doubtless, prided themselves much on it. Paul says that it would be much better to have the principles of grace in the heart than all this knowledge; to have the mind settled on the great truths of religion than to be able to make the most accurate and learned distinctions in this matter. The same remark may be made about a great many other points besides the Jewish distinctions respecting meats. The principle is, that it is better to have the heart established in the grace of God than to have the most accurate knowledge of the distinctions which are made on useless or unimportant subjects of religion. This observation would extend to many of the shibboleths of party; to many of the metaphysical distinctions in a hair-splitting theology; to many of the points of controversy which divide the Christian world.

Which have not profited ... - Which have been of no real benefit to their souls; see the notes on 1Co 8:8.

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

With various and strange doctrines. Such as the disciples of Simon Magus had begun to teach; nor with the false doctrine of those among you, who would make you subject to the ceremonies and sacrifices of the former law, which never of themselves profit those who walk in them, so as to give true sanctification, and which now are no longer obligatory. (Witham) --- The grace of Jesus Christ is the true support of our hearts, and this grace is conveyed to us by means of the sacraments, especially the holy Eucharist. Hence St. Ignatius addresses the Ephesians as follows: "Brethren, stand fast in the faith of Jesus Christ; in his passion and resurrection; breaking that one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, and the means of living in God by Christ Jesus; the medicament that expels all evil."

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).

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines: the doctrine of Christ being immutable, it is but necessary to dehort his subjects from deserting it, which the apostle doth here; that they should not be wheeling or whirling about with an unstable and inconstant motion of judgment, faith, and practice, about such human doctrines which are vain rules to lead to God, such as are different in nature from Christ, one and the same rule, and those very numerous and various, strange and untrue, taught by false apostles and teachers, taken out of Gentilism and Judaism, and added to the Gospel by them, as necessary, together with Christ, to justification and salvation, Mat 15:9; 2Co 11:3; Eph 4:14; 2Th 2:10,12; 1Ti 4:1-3; 2Ti 4:3,4; 2Pe 2:1,18,19; Jude 1:12.

For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; for the goodness of heart establishment unto God is no less than full and complete salvation of the soul, 1Co 15:58; 2Pe 3:17,18. And this is only wrought by grace, the free love of God put out in Christ, for regeneration and preservation of souls unto life eternal, carried in the simple doctrine of Christ, which is always the same, 2Th 2:16,17; 1Pe 5:10.

Not with meats; doctrines of meats and ceremonies, which are divers, and strange from Christ’s, cannot make the heart agreeable to God, but only distract and divide it from him; for whatsoever is not in and from Christ, is strange to God, and abhorred by him, Gal 5:2; Col 2:18,19,23; 2Ti 2:16; Jam 1:8.

Which have not profited them that have been occupied therein: those who did converse in these various and strange doctrines, professing and constantly practising them, observed times, and meats, and ceremonies, have not been profited by them; for being carnal and eartidy, they could not justify them as to their state God-ward, nor could they renew or sanctify their souls, nor yield any advantage to their spiritual life; and being perishing, could not profit to the attaining of eternal life, Rom 14:17,18; compare 1Co 6:13.

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

9. Fixed on Christ, the immutable, be not carried about like a wind-whirled ship. The winds by which, as coming from different quarters, the ship is whirled and hurled about, are divers and strange doctrines. Probably the true reading is, Be not carried away; and then it suggests a being driven to an unknown destiny. Divers refers to their number and variety, strange to their unnatural and unchristian character.

Established—Firmly based on the ever same Jesus Christ. With, or, rather, by grace, and not by meats. It is debated whether reference is here made to sacrificial meats eaten in idol temples or to meats ascetically avoided by religious vegetarians. But the altar of Heb_13:10 is undoubtedly suggested by the word meats in this verse, and so indicates a reference to sacrificial meats. And, as Lunemann well argues, profited seems to refer not to abstaining, but to the eating of meats.

An altar—We Christians discard all Jewish controversy touching sacrificial meats, for we have a sacrificial altar apart from all Jews. To the question, What is it that our author designates by the term altar? an obvious answer is, “The table of the Lord,” whereon the emblem of the Victim is partaken, and from which all but the believing Christian are excluded. And, knowing as we do that the “table” existed in the full knowledge of our author, we cannot imagine that there should not have been in his mind some reference to it. Others have understood by altar the cross on which the real sacrifice was offered. But the real altar, or the deep reality symbolized by the word altar, has no material shape or nature. The “table,” the cross, and the altar, are all but terms and images by which the saving power of the atonement is represented, the participation of which is limited to living faith. The propitiatory merits of Christ are at once the table, the altar, and the food by which the sinner lives.

No right to eat—For they possess not the faith by which that aliment is received.

Serve the tabernacle—The tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness, which was the scene and emblem of Hebrew sacrifices; and was succeeded, when Jerusalem became the capital, by the temple built by Solomon, and rebuilt by Zerubbabel, and re-rebuilt by Herod. The tabernacle was in the desert in the centre of the camp of the hosts of Israel, and our author, as matter of doctrine, refers to it as the primitive institution rather than to the later temple. Yet, while he uses the primitive words tabernacle and camp, he uses the word city in Heb_13:14, both being the same thing so far as the symbol was concerned.

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

Be not carried away (so, according to the best authorities, rather than carried about) by divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, in which they that were occupied (literally, that walked) were not profited. From the exhortation to imitate the faith of the departed leaders, the transition is natural to warnings against being carried away from it by new teachings. The faith, which was their faith, remains unchanged, as Jesus Christ remains unchanged; why, then, these doctrines, new and strange? (of 1Co_3:11 Gal_1:6-10) What these doctrines were is not shown, except so far as is intimated by the word brwmasin ("meats"), which reminds us at once of similar warnings in St. Paul"s Epistles. (of Rom_14:2, Rom_14:14, 21Col_2:8, 16-23 1Ti_4:3) These passages seem to refer in the first place to purely Jewish distinctions, still held to by Jewish Christians, between dean and unclean or polluted meats; and further to a new kind of asceticism, not found in the Old Testament, but based probably on notions of the impurity of matter, which led to entire abstention from flesh or wine, and also in some (1Ti_4:3) from marriage; also, as appears from the passage in Colossians, a false philosophy about angels and the spiritual world. We may perceive in these allusions the germs at least of later Gnostic heresies, such as found (as that of the Ebionites) their first congenial soil in Jewish circles; Oriental theosophy, or neo-Platonic philosophy, being supposed to have been engrafted on Jewish modes of thought. Some, misled by what is said in ver. 10, see in the word brwmasin an allusion to those sacrifices of the Law which were eaten by the worshippers, against any fancied obligation to partake in which the readers are supposed to be warned. But the word is never so applied in the Old Testament or the New; (see above, Lev_11:34 RAPC 1Ma 1:16 Rom_14:15, 20 1Co_6:13, 1Co_8:8, 1Co_8:13) nor would such error be likely to be classed among "strange doctrines." The drift of the warning is that the religion of the gospel does not consist in any of these notions or observances, the supposed importance of meats being specially noted, and that to make them its essence is a misconception of its whole meaning, and a departure from the faith: "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost". (Rom_14:17)

Vers. 9-16. "Without the comp. These words occur repeatedly in this passage; and, used as a motto, they express appropriately the nerve-thought which pervades it. Indeed, the entire Epistle may be described as an urgent and affectionate exhortation to the Hebrews to "go forth unto Jesus without the camp, bearing his reproach." We are required to withdraw from the polity and life of Judaism

I AS REGARDS DOCTRINE. (Ver. 9) The reference here seems to be to the Levitical distinctions between clean and unclean "meats," and perhaps also to the traditional customs on the same subject which had been elevated to equal authority with those. The apostle reminds his readers that all such precepts are only "carnal ordinances," which the coming of Jesus Christ has rendered no longer necessary, and the observance of which can now have no influence upon a man"s spiritual life. Christ has "made all meats clean". (Mar_7:19) The principle and power of his religion consists in grace," and not in fanciful distinctions connected with food. "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking". (Rom_14:17) No consciousness of external observances can ever "profit" a man spiritually. Only the "grace" of God, given by his Spirit, can regenerate and ennoble the human soul. We must therefore forsake the materialistic "teachings" of Judaism for the spiritual doctrines of Christianity.

II AS REGARDS OUR SIN OFFERING. (Vers. 10-13) Our "Altar" is Christ (ver. 10), and he is also our Sacrifice "for sin" (ver. 12). He is at once High Priest, Altar, and. Victim. Under the Levitical law, while the priests were allowed to partake of many of the sacrifices, there were certain sin offerings of which they were expressly forbidden to eat. (Le 6) Those, e.g. which were presented on the great annual Day of Atonement were wholly consumed by fire "without the comp." This ordinance typified the fact that Christ, the true Sin Offering, was to suffer for us without the gate" of Jerusalem; and that, if we would participate in the atonement which he has made, we must voluntarily renounce the Jewish Church from which he was expelled. The law of the tabernacle forbade those who remained in connection with the camp of Judaism to eat of the flesh of any sin offering the blood of which had been presented within the tabernacle; but every one who worships before the true altar which has been set up on Calvary is encouraged freely to partake of the flesh of Christ, which he has "given for the life of the world." To cleave to the Law, therefore, is to reject the gospel. If we would eat of the real sin offering which has been provided under the new covenanti.e., obtain the blessings of pardon and peace, of access and sanctification, which the atonement of Jesus has purchased we must "go forth unto him without the comp.

III AS REGARDS OUR THANK OFFERINGS. (Vers. 15, 16) These are not to be presented any longer through the medium of the Aaronical priesthood and of the Levitical oblations. Christ"s people are to offer them "through him" as Mediator, and depending for their acceptance upon his atonement and intercession. So soon as we partake of the New Testament sin offering, we are ourselves constituted a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ". (1Pe_2:5) The great substantive thank offering which the believer presents is himself. (Rom_12:1 2Co_8:5) But the man who has given himself to the Lord will also offer:

1. Words of praise. (Ver. 15) The most direct means by which we can honor God is publicly to "make confession to his Name" in words of faith and songs of adoration. When the spirit of praise takes root within the soil of the heart, it will spread its buds and blossoms over all the soul, and adorn the "lips" with its "fruit.

2. Works of piety. (Ver. 16) These are spiritual sacrifices also. Christianity is eminently a practical religion, and regards every deed of charity done for Jesus" sake as a sweet and holy psalm. The truly grateful heart is always generous, and "willing to communicate" for the relief of brethren who are in need. And "God is well pleased" with every act of beneficence done out of gratitude for his grace. He accepts such as a "sacrifice" offered to himself.

IV AS REGARDS OUR SPIRITUAL CITIZENSHIP. (Ver. 14) Very soon, now, Jerusalem and its temple were to be razed to their foundations; and the entire Jewish polity, both civil and ecclesiastical, thus to be brought to a perpetual end. But that event would entail but small loss upon the Christian Hebrews, if only they remained steadfast in the faith. For, in embracing the gospel, they had transferred their affections from the earthly Jerusalem to the heavenly. Not only so, but all believers Jew and Gentile alike must "go forth unto Jesus without the camp," in the sense of living a life of separation from the prevailing spirit of the world. The believer is to cultivate habits of reserve in reference to earthly pursuits and interests. His "citizenship is in heaven". (Php_3:20) He looks beyond even the kingdom of grace to that of glory.

He knows that the whole visible order of things in this world shall pass away, and just as completely as the Jewish polity has already done. And he anticipates for himself a permanent home in the New Jerusalem that shall "come down out of heaven from God.

CONCLUSION. Seeing we possess such transcendent privileges "outside the camp," let us bear patiently the "reproach" of Christ. We must be content to appear "singular" for his sake. We must be willing to be ostracized by the world on account of our love for him. The spirit of devotion to Jesus will be always diametrically opposed to the prevailing spirit of the ungodly. But what an honor to be permitted to suffer with him! And "if we endure, we shall also reign with him."

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

Be not carried about with various doctrines - Which differ from that one faith in our one unchangeable Lord. Strange - To the ears and hearts of all that abide in him. For it is good - It is both honourable before God and pleasant and profitable That the heart be stablished with grace - Springing from faith in Christ. Not with meats - Jewish ceremonies, which indeed can never stablish the heart.

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

with grace

Grace (imparted). Jas 4:6; Rom 6:1; 2Pe 3:18.

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

There is an inference in these words from what was asserted in the former, concerning the immutability of Christ and his doctrine; namely, thus; Seeing that the doctrine of Christ taught by the apostles is as Christ himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever, there the apostle dehorts them from being carried about with divers and strange doctrines; that is, in short, the doctrines of those that mingled judaism and christianity together by cleaving to the legal observation.

Note here, The nature of the false doctrines, and what efficacy they have upon the minds of men; in themselves they are light and vain like the wind, tossing men up and down as the wind and the waves do the ship that wants ballast, turning them out of their course, and endangering their destruction; therefore, says the apostle, Take heed that ye be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.

By meals here, understand disputes and controversies about the differences of meats; by grace, understand the doctrine of the gospel, and the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, which fixes and establishes the heart, and keeps the christian steady and steadfast.

Learn hence, That it is far better to have the heart filled with divine grace, than the head with disputes and controversies in religion; It is good that the heart be stablished with grace, and not with meats. The reason is added, They have not profited them that are occupied therein; that is, to observe the doctrine concerning a religious distinction of meats, since the gospel has been entertained, is altogether unprofitable and unavailable: yea, meats of themselves profited not thse who observed them, even whilst the institutions concerning them were in force.

Learn hence, That those who decline from the grace of God, as the only mean to establish their hearts in peace with him, do labour in that whereby they shall receive no advantage.

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

9. Be not carried about, etc. Suffer no false teachers to delude you. It is a good thing, etc. Though more than thirty years had passed since the church was founded the temple service still continued, though the apostle has shown that it was done away in Christ. No doubt some of the Hebrew Christians had continued to observe its ceremonials. There were even teachers who taught “divers strange doctrines” concerning the need of keeping the law. The apostle, however, enjoins that the heart be established with grace, instead of resorting to sacrificial meats which had proved profitless to make the conscience perfect.

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.

General Information:

This section refers to animal sacrifices made by believers in God in Old Testament times, which covered their sins temporarily until the death of Christ came about.

Do not be carried away by various strange teachings

Being persuaded by various teachings is spoken of as if a person were being carried away by a force. This can be stated in active form. AT: "Do not let others persuade you to believe their various strange teachings" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)

various strange teachings

"many, different teachings that are not the good news we told you"

it is good that the heart should be strengthened by grace, not by foods that do not help those who walk by them

This can be stated in active form. AT: "we become stronger when we think of how God has been kind to us, but we do not become stronger by obeying rules about food" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)

the heart should be strengthened

Here "heart" is a metonym for the "inner being." AT: "we should be strengthened inwardly" (See: Metonymy)

foods

Here "foods" stands for rules about food. (See: Metonymy)

those who walk by them

Living is spoken of as if it were walking. AT: "those who live by them" or "those who regulate their lives by them" (See: Metaphor)

We have an altar

Here "altar" stands for "place of worship." It also stands for the animals that the priests in the old covenant sacrificed, from which they took meat for themselves and their families. (See: Metonymy)

the blood of the animals killed for sins is brought by the high priest into the holy place

This can be stated in active form. AT: "the high priest brings into the holy place the blood of the animals that the priests killed for sins" (See: Active or Passive)

while their bodies are burned

This can be stated in active form. AT: "while the priests burn the animals' bodies" (See: Active or Passive)

outside the camp

"away from where the people lived"

translationWords

heart

grace

walk

altar

servant

tabernacle

sin

high priest

holy place

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

9. παραφέρεσθε אACDM. The περιφέρεσθε of the rec. (KL) comes from Eph 4:14.

9. διδαχαῖς κ.τ.λ. Lit., “With teachings various and strange be ye not swept away.” From the allusion to various kinds of food which immediately follows we infer that these “teachings” were not like the incipient Gnostic speculations against which St Paul and St John had to raise a warning voice (Eph 4:14; Col 2:8; 1Jn 4:1), but the minutiae of the Jewish Halachah with its endless refinements upon, and inferences from, the letter of the Law; possibly doctrines akin to those of the Essenes. This is the sort of teaching of which the Talmud is full, and most of it has no real connexion with true Mosaism.

καλόν. “A beautiful or excellent thing.”

χάριτι. By the favour or mercy of God as a pledge of our real security.

οὐ βρώμασιν. Not by minute and pedantic distinctions between various kinds of clean and unclean food (Heb 9:10). The word βρώματα, “kinds of food,” was never applied to sacrifices. On the urgency of the question of “meats” to the early Christians see my Life of St Paul, I. 264.

οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν. These outward rules were of no real advantage to the Jews under the Law. As Christianity extended, the Rabbis gave a more and more hostile elaboration and significance to the Halachoth, which decided about the degrees of uncleanness in different kinds of food, as though salvation itself depended on the scrupulosities and micrologies of Rabbinism. The reader will find some illustrations of these remarks in my Life of St Paul, I. 264. The importance of these or analogous questions to the early Jewish Christians may be estimated by the allusions of St Paul (Romans 14; Col 2:16-23; 1Ti 4:3, &c.). No doubt these warnings were necessary because the Jewish Christians were liable to the taunt, “You are breaking the law of Moses; you are living Gentile-fashion (ἐθνικῶς) not Jewish-wise (Ἰουδαϊκῶς); you neglect the Kashar (rules which regulate the slaughter of clean and unclean animals, which the Jews scrupulously observe to this day); you feed with those who are polluted by habitually eating swine’s flesh.” These were appeals to “the eternal Pharisaism of the human heart,” and the intensity of Jewish feeling respecting them would have been renewed by the conversions to Christianity. The writer therefore reminds the Hebrews that these distinctions involve no real advantage (Heb 7:18-19).

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.

9.] Be not carried away (the rec. περιφ. is probably from Eph 4:14. παραφέρεσθαι, as the prep. indicates, is to be carried out of the right course. So Plato, Phædr. p. 265 b, ἴσως μὲν ἀληθοῦς τινος ἐφαπτόμενοι, τάχα δʼ ἂν καὶ ἄλλοσε παραφερόμενοι: Plut. Timoleon 6, αἱ κρίσεις.… σείονται καὶ παραφέρονται ῥᾳδίως ὑπὸ τῶν τυχόντων ἐπαίνων καὶ ψόγων, ἐκκρουόμενοι τῶν οἰκείων λογισμῶν. Ælian has ὑπὸ τοῦ οἴνου παραφερόμενος. Œc. says, τὸ δὲ παραφ. ἀπὸ μεταφορᾶς τῶν μαινομένων τῶν τῇδε κἀκεῖσε παραφερομένων εἴρηται. The fixed point from which they are not to be carried away, is clearly that given in the last verse, viz. Jesus Christ) by various (ποικίλαις, παντοδαπαῖς· αἱ τοιαῦται γὰρ οὐδὲν βέβαιον ἔχουσιν, ἀλλʼ εἰσὶ διάφοροι· μάλιστα δὲ τὸ τῶν βρωμάτων διάφορον. Chrys. Thl. says, τουτέστιν παρὰ τοῦδε τόδε.… ἡ γὰρ ἀλήθεια μονοειδής, καὶ πρὸς ἓν ἀφορῶσα. The reference, from what follows, is to teachings about various meats) and strange (τουτέστιν, ἀλλότριαι τῆς ἀληθείας, Thl. The use of ἕτερος is similar, from which ἑτεροδοξία has its technical sense) doctrines (teachings: so διδασκαλίαι, Mat 15:9: Col 2:22: 1Ti 4:1): for it is good that the heart be confirmed (reff.) with grace (God’s grace, working on us by faith: δείκνυσιν ὅτι τὸ πᾶν πίστις ἐστίν· ἂν αὐτῇ βεβαιώσῃ, ἡ καρδία ἐν ἀσφαλείᾳ ἕστηκεν, Chrys.), not with meats (it is a question whether βρώμασιν be meant of meat eaten after sacrifices, or of “meats” as spoken of so much by St. Paul, meats partaken of or abstained from as a matter of conscience: cf. 1Co 8:8, βρῶμα ἡμᾶς οὐ παρίστησιν τῷ θεῷ: ib. ver. 13; ib. 6:13: Rom 14:15, Rom 14:20, μὴ ἕνεκεν βρώματος κατάλυε τὸ ἔργον τοῦ θεοῦ. The former view is taken by Schlichting, Bleek, Lünemann, al., on the grounds, 1. that the expression will not suit meats abstained from, only those partaken of: “Cor non reficitur cibis non comestis, sed comestis. Ciborum ergo usui, non abstinentiæ, opponitur hic gratia,” Schlicht.; 2. that ver. 10, which is in close connexion with this, speaks of an altar and of partaking of meats sacrificed: and, 3. that this same reference, to meats offered in sacrifice, is retained throughout, to ver. 15. The other view is taken by Chrys., Thdrt., Œc., Thl., Primas., Faber Stap., Erasm., Calv., Beza, the great body of later Commentators, and recently by Böhme, Tholuck, and Delitzsch. It is defended against the above objections, 1. by remembering that in the other passages where βρώματα occurs with this reference, it is used not merely in the concrete, for meats absolutely partaken of, but in the abstract, for the whole department or subject of βρώματα, to be partaken of or abstained from: 2. see below on the verse: (3) stands or falls with (2). And besides, it is supported by the following considerations: 4. that βρώματα is a word not found in the law where offerings are spoken of (in Lev 19:6 and 22:30, we have βρωθήσεται of peace-offerings and thank-offerings): but in the distinction of clean and unclean, Lev 11:34: 1 Macc. 1:63: 5. that in all N. T. places, where βρῶμα is used in a similar connexion, it applies to clean and unclean meats: 6. that διδαχαῖς ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις μὴ παραφέρεσθε must refer, not to meats eaten after sacrifices, but to some doctrines in which there was variety and perplexity, as to those concerning clean and unclean. And I own these reasons incline me strongly to this view, to the exclusion of the other. Two ‘monstra interpretationis’ need only be mentioned: that of the R.-Cath. Bisping, who interprets χάριτι “by the eucharist:” and that of Ebrard, who renders βεβαιοῦσθαι, “cling fast to,” and χάριτι and βρώμασιν as datives), in which (the observance of which, βρώματα, as above, being used for the observance of rules concerning meats and drinks &c.) they who walked were not profited (the ἐν belongs, not to ὠφελήθησαν, but to περιπατήσαντες, according to the very usual construction, περιπατεῖν ἔν τινι, for to observe, to live in the practice of any thing: see reff. and Act 21:21. So Chrys., τουτέστιν, οἱ διὰ παντὸς φυλάξαντες αὐτά. These, who walked in such observances, are the whole people of God under the O. T. dispensation (notice the historic aorists), to whom they were of themselves useless and profitless, though ordained for a preparatory purpose: so that Calvin’s objection is answered, “Certe patribus qui sub lege vixerunt utilis fuit pædagogia cujus pars erat ciborum discrimen.” Yes, and so was the shedding of the blood of bulls and goats part of the pædagogia: but it was useless to take away sin. Cf. Thl., οἱ τῇ τῶν βρωμάτων τηρήσει στοιχήσαντες διὰ παντὸς οὐδὲν εἰς τὴν ψυχὴν ὠφελήθησαν, ὡς τῆς πίστεως ἔξω ὄντες καὶ τῷ νόμῳ τῷ ἀνωφελεῖ δουλεύοντες. But he understands it of τοὺς τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν παρατήρησιν τῶν βρωμάτων εἰσάγοντες).

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

Be not carried about [μη παραφερεσθε] . A. V. follows T. R. periferesqe. Rend. "carried away." The present tense indicates a present and active danger.

With divers and strange doctrines [διδαχαις ποικιλαις και ξεναις] . For "doctrines" rend. "teachings." These teachings represent various phases of one radical error - the denial of Jesus 's messiahship and of his messianic economy as superseding Judaism and all other means of salvation. Among them the writer's mind would naturally turn to the prescriptions concerning clean and unclean meats and sacrificial festivals. See next clause. These teachings were various as contrasted with the one teaching of the gospel; they were strange as they differed from that teaching. Comp. Gal 1:6 - 9. For poikilaiv see on 2Ti 3:16. That the heart be established [βεβαιουσθαι την καρδιαν] . There is an emphasis on heart as well as on grace. These strange teachings all emphasized externalism, in contrast with Christianity, which insisted upon the purification of the heart and conscience. The contrast is strongly stated in ch. 9 9, 14, and the Epistle constantly directs the readers to the heart as the true point of contact with God, and the source of all departures from him. See ch. Heb 3:8, 10, 12, 15; Heb 4:7, 12; Heb 8:10; especially Heb 10:22. Hence, the writer says, "it is good that the solid basis of your assurance before God be in the heart, purged from an evil conscience, so that you can draw near to God with a firmly - established confidence, with a true heart, in full assurance of faith" : ch. 10 22; comp. 1Th 3:13; 2Ti 2:22.

With grace, not with meats [χαριτι ου βρωμασιν] . The heart is the proper seat of the work of grace. Free grace is the motive - power of Christ 's sacrifice (2Co 8:9; Gal 1:15); it is behind the blood of the new covenant, and is the energetic principle of its saving operation. See Rom 5:2, 15; 1Co 14:10; Eph 2:5, 7, 8; 2Th 2:16; Heb 2:9; Heb 4:16; Heb 10:29. With meats stands for the whole system of ceremonial observances, in contrast with grace, working on the heart. See ch. Heb 9:10. This ceremonial system yielded no permanent benefit to those who lived under it. See ch. Heb 7:25; Heb 9:9, 13, 14; Heb 10:1, 2, 4. Which have not profited them that have been occupied therein [εν οις ουκ ωφεληθησαν οι περιπατουντες] . Lit. in the which they who walked were not profited. Peripatein to walk about is often used to express habitual practice or general conduct of life. See Rom 6:4; 2Co 10:3; Eph 2:10; Col 3:7; Col 4:5.

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