Books by T. Austin-Sparks

[Shammu]

I want to say that especially to young Christians. I have been reading and studying my Bible all through the years, and I tell you quite honestly that today this book is altogether beyond me. I would never come back to this Letter to the Hebrews if that were not true. I have preached and lectured on this Letter for years, but today it is far beyond me. Should I say 'the Letter to the Hebrews'? I would be more correct in saying 'the Lord Jesus who is revealed in this Letter'.

Yes, we have far more of God's speaking in His Son than we have yet come to understand. We have nothing apart from Jesus Christ, and we need nothing apart from Him.

We said that this letter presents God as a God of purpose, and it goes on to show that His purpose is centred and summed up in His Son. That is set before us at the beginning of the Letter in three ways.

Firstly, in the person of His Son. Just look at this: "At the end of these days (He hath) spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance..." You notice that the whole of the first chapter is occupied with presenting God's Son. God is speaking concerning His Son, as to who He is. What a great Son this is!

Then it presents the Son in terms of redemption. "He made purification of sins''. That is just one phrase, but many chapters follow to explain what that redemption is. All these chapters on priesthood and sacrifice have to do with that one clause. God is speaking in His Son concerning redemption.

In the third place He is speaking in His Son concerning glory. The Son is "the effulgence of his glory", and He is going to bring "many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10), because "when he had made purification of sins, (He) sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high". God speaks in a Son whom He has now glorified and sat at His own right hand.

But God does not speak in His Son and leave it there. You will notice that in chapter two He brings man into this, and this Letter has a wonderful message for man: that all that God has put in His Son is for man. God speaks in this Letter of the finished work of Christ, the work which is made complete for man.

Here is something that you and I must dwell upon. Personally, I am constantly brought to this: I have not yet learnt thoroughly to believe what I believe in! I believe in the finished work of Christ, yet sometimes I am just as miserable about myself as any man could be. I am often almost at the point of giving up because of what a wretched kind of thing I am. If there is anything in this world that would cause me to give up the Christian ministry, it is myself. Do you understand what I mean? Oh, how we are discouraged by what we find in ourselves! And so, we don't believe what we believe in. We believe in the finished work of Christ, and that God puts all that finished work to our account. God does not see us in ourselves - He sees us in Christ. He does not see us, He sees Christ in us. We don't believe that! If we really did we would be delivered from ourselves and would indeed be triumphant Christians.

Of course, that does not mean that we can just behave anyhow. We may speak and act wrongly, but for every Christian there is a refuge - a mercy-seat. It has not to be made; it is there with the precious Blood. That has not to be shed; it is shed. There is a High Priest making intercession for us. There is everything that we need. The work is finished, completed. Oh, we Christians must believe our beliefs! We must take hold, with both hands, of the things which are of our Christian faith.

But I know you have problems when I say that: 'What about this old man?' Perhaps you are one of those people who believe that sin has been absolutely rooted out of you and that it is quite impossible for you to sin - well , if you believe that, the Lord bless you! I think you may be tripped up one day and find that there is an old man there after all. But leaving that aside, most of us do know that there are two things in us - there is the new and there is the old, there is the spiritual man and there is the natural man, and this natural man is a very troublesome fellow! What about him over against the finished work? This Letter tells you all about that when it says: "God dealeth with you as with sons" (12:7), and God loves sons. Are you a child of God? Has there been in your history that deep action of new birth? Have you received the Lord Jesus? The Word of God says: "As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God" (John 1:12). If you have received the Lord Jesus you are a child of God. The spirit of sonship has come in and dwells in you.

This Letter says that God loves His sons, and therefore He chastens them: He child-trains them, and 'no child-training', says the Letter, 'for the present is pleasant'. God's dealings with His own family are not always pleasant, and when they are unpleasant there is a little demon sitting on our shoulder who will whisper in our ear: 'You see, God does not love you. He would not deal with you like this if He loved you.' The devil is always out to turn the loving works of God into evil things.

Yes, God is dealing with us as with sons. It is discipline, and it goes against the flesh. The Letter says: 'It is not for the present pleasant.' Indeed, it might have said: 'It is very unpleasant!' 'What father is he', says this Letter, 'who does not chasten his son?'

What I am saying is not easy to say, because I may be exposing myself to the rod. We have enough experience to know that we have to say some things very carefully, because we are often tested on the things that we say. But here is the statement that it is a totally unkind father who never chastens his child. Have you seen children who are never chastened or corrected? Those children are going to have a bad time in this world, as people are not going to like them, and they will discover that. Their parents have spoilt them.

This Letter says that God's love is expressed in His using the rod to His children. He does not always put His good things, His best things, into a nice form. I heard the other day of a little boy who had to take some medicine, and it was not very nice. His father said: 'There are many vitamins in this medicine.' The little boy said: 'Daddy, why must all the good things be put into nasty things? Why can't they be put into ice-cream?' The Lord does not always put the good things into ice-cream. Sometimes the vitamins are in the nasty medicine.

Now that is exactly what this Letter says. God is not condemning us when He deals with us like that. He is working to deliver us. If you think that these talks here are going to save you, you are making a mistake! They are only to explain what God is doing. God never saves by theory. You can read everything that has ever been written on Christian doctrine and still be the same man or woman. God's ways are very practical, and He teaches us by experience. That experience is sometimes very difficult and is called here 'the training of sons'.

May the Lord Jesus just impress our hearts again with these things! God is still speaking in His Son, and His speaking is in order to get companions of His Son. Companions of this heavenly calling and of Christ will go into the hard school and have to learn many hard lessons, but in learning them they will come to understand how great is their inheritance in the Lord Jesus.

I may add this: My experience is that no one really has spiritual knowledge without suffering. I am not speaking about head knowledge. I am speaking about real knowledge of the Lord in the inner life. I do not know of anyone who has come into that knowledge apart from suffering. Perhaps that is a depressing thing to say, but there it is - it is a law in God's Word. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (II Corinthians 4:7), and how poor this vessel is we learn through trial and affliction, but then we learn how wonderful the Lord is. The Letter to the Hebrews says: "Afterward" (that is, after the chastening) "the peaceable fruit of righteousness" (12:11). What a wonderful phrase! Those fruits come along the line of chastening and by way of suffering.

So let us ask for that grace which the Apostle had to rejoice in suffering.

[Shammu]

Chapter 6 - Some Titles as Evidence of the Change

The point at which we have now arrived is that, in the constituting of the spiritual Israel, God is following the same line as He took with the earthly Israel, but with one great difference - with the earthly He followed temporal lines, but with the heavenly He is following spiritual lines. However, they are both one in principle. We have seen something of this and are now going to see a little more.

Surely it must be perfectly true that this is what God is doing. The Letter to the Hebrews is the great document of the transition from one Israel to another, and in it there are many evidences of this truth. If anyone has any doubt at all, there is one fragment which should settle all such questions:
"For ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that no word should be spoken unto them: for they could not endure that which was enjoined. If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake" (Hebrews 12:18-21).

That is the old Israel being constituted at the mount. However, the word to us is: 'Ye are not come to that. That is not God's way of constituting His new Israel.'

"But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:22-24).

That surely settles all argument! If we had only that paragraph in the New Testament we should know the difference between the old dispensation and the new, between Judaism and Christianity, and between what they were in and what we are in.

But that is not all: it is only a part of the whole argument. I would have you note some of the titles in this Letter which are evidences of this truth:

(1) God's family
We all know that God looked upon Israel as His family. He said to Pharaoh: "Let my son go" (Exodus 4:22). The evidence is too much for us to follow through, but it is quite clear that Israel of old was, in a certain sense, looked upon by God as His family. They were His children, and, in that sense, He spoke of Himself as their Father.

Here, in this Letter of transition from the old Israel to the new, that idea is carried over into the spiritual realm:
"For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,
"I will declare thy name unto my brethren,
"In the midst of the congregation will I sing thy praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold, I and the children which God hath given me." (Hebrews 2:10-13).

You will notice a whole list of quotations from the Old Testament in that connection. Formerly it related to the old Israel. That Israel has now been set aside and God is taking up in a new way this principle of family life in relation to Himself. His Son is "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29) and we are "sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:26).

You have probably noticed that the very first idea of God was a family - the idea was born in His heart. This is not some official society or institution. The deepest thing in God's heart about us is to have us as His children, and you, who know the Bible, will be able to quote to yourself many passages, such as: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him" (Psalm 103:13). We could build up a tremendous mountain of references to God as Father and to His people as His children. He could have made an organization of people into a kind of society. He could have called some from one place and some from another, given them the title of some denomination and said: 'Now you are members of this denomination. You are formed into this organization.' But God never had any such idea. His idea is a family, and the Lord Jesus said that He came into this world especially to reveal God as Father - "I kept them in thy name which thou hast given me... I made known unto them thy name" (John 17:12,26). The name of God which was most on the lips of the Lord Jesus was 'Father', and God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts whereby we say the same thing - "Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6).

That is very elementary, but there is a very great battle for this family conception. We do not worry very much if some organization gets broken up, not even if it is the 'United Nations', but we are always filled with grief and shame when a family breaks up. We feel that there is something about a family which carries a very sacred idea. What a bad thing it is when a family becomes divided! When children are against one another or against their parents, and the husband is against the wife and the wife against the husband. That is a special mark of the devil's work at the end of the dispensation! There is nothing more terrible in our time than the break-up of family life. The lists of divorces are most distressing, and poor children are left really without father or mother because of the break-up of the family. This is a blow at the deepest thing in the heart of God, but it does not stay there.

The most distressing aspect of this whole thing is in the family of God. There is nothing more terrible in this universe than the break-up of God's family. The devil does not mind our denominations and organizations, but he does object to this family matter! It is God's most cherished idea.

I think that is one of the most precious things about a time together like this. Here we are, representing quite a number of different nationalities. Many of us have never met before on this earth and have not yet had time to shake hands with one another, but we are all rejoicing here together as a family. The family spirit is the most precious thing, and it is the very hallmark of the heavenly Israel.

[Shammu]

I have often said, in speaking about the heavenly Jerusalem as it is presented symbolically at the end of the Bible, that it has only one street. Our hymn-writers have led us astray over this, for they talk about the streets  of gold. The Bible says there is only one street of gold. So we have to live in one street for all eternity! What do you say about that? How are you going to get on with your neighbours? Don't worry, it will be a very happy thing to live on one street, for, you see, it will just be a holy family. When the whole family is one it is not a bad thing to live next door to one another!

Well, that is just a symbolic way of speaking about this, but you know what it means. This is a spiritual relationship: Father, big Elder Brother, the all-uniting Holy Spirit... "holy brethren, companions in a heavenly calling". It is a glorious thing to have companionship!

Thus this very first idea of God in the old Israel is carried over spiritually to the new Israel.

(2) The house of God
"Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken; but Christ as a son, over God's house; whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3:5,6).

Did you notice what that said? "Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken." When is the afterward? It is now. "Whose house are we." The house of God is something which is carried over in principle by God from the old to the new. Peter says that we are a spiritual house - but there is one thing which needs to be made quite clear here. When we use this word 'house', we usually think of a place in which people live, but that is not the meaning of the word here. I do not know whether you can understand the change that I am going to make, but do you know the difference between a 'house' and a 'household'? A household is quite a different thing from a house. A household is two things: the people who dwell there and the order that exists. It is a house with a certain kind of order.

This is God's house, composed of His people who are under His order. He is a God of order. He is not only concerned to have things done, but to have them done in His way. It matters just as much to Him how things are done as to whether they are done at all. God's house is a house which is ordered by God. Everyone in it has to be in subjection to the Spirit of God and has to come under the headship of Jesus Christ.

We could spend very much time on the house of God! However, if you look into God's ordering of the life of Israel in the old dispensation, you will see how particular He was as to what was done and how it was done. God's spiritual and heavenly house was brought in on the Day of Pentecost, and He had His own new order. You will see how in those first days of the life of the Church two things were happening. God was demanding that His new order should be observed. Even the apostles had not come fully to recognize that new order. They were holding on to something of the old order, and when the Lord was moving toward the Gentiles in the case of Cornelius, the Gentile, Peter said: 'Not so, Lord. This is not according to the old order. I was not brought up in this way. The old system says I must not do that. Not so, Lord.' But the Lord is Lord of His own house, and He made it perfectly clear to Peter that He had brought in a new order. This was a new Israel. The Cross had made a great change: "What God hath cleansed, make not thou common" (Acts 10:15). The Cross has dealt with all uncleanness and we are moving on to a new basis.

Peter came to see that. Of course, this incident was not the end of the difficulty even for him, but I think that when we come to his Letters we get to a Peter who has fully accepted the new order. "A spiritual house", says he, "to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (I Peter 2:5).

But we were noting that in the Book of the Acts we have two things: there is the movement of the Spirit of God concerning the new order, but there is also the movement of the evil spirit against this new order. There is that terrible episode of Ananias and Sapphira who violated the new order of God's house. They brought in their own personal interests, and Peter summed it up in this way: "Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" (Acts 5:3). On that terrible day the new order was upset. Satan struck a blow at this new Israel, but to show how jealous God was for His heavenly order, see what happened to those two! God has therefore laid down the principle very clearly, and He is very jealous for His heavenly order.

Nothing but trouble can follow if we get out of God's order. While that is suspended everything is in confusion.

That is enough about the house of God for the time being - "Whose house are we".

[Shammu]

(3) The heirs of God
This matter is introduced with the Lord Jesus Himself.
"Whom He appointed heir of all things" (Hebrews 1:1).

In verse fourteen of the first chapter we are spoken of as the heirs of salvation ("...for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation").

In chapter six, verse seventeen, we are spoken of as "the heirs of the promise", and in the eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, verse seventeen, Paul says that we are, "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ".

In the earthly sense, Israel were to be God's heirs. The promise was made to Abraham that his seed would inherit the earth: God covenanted with him that his seed should be the possessors. Israel were to be God's heirs and they ought to have become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. But they killed God's heir. They said, as in the parable spoken by the Lord Jesus, "This is the heir: come, let us kill him" (Matthew 21:38). They killed Him whom God had "appointed heir of all things", and in so doing they robbed themselves of the inheritance.

Then the Church comes in - "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ". The Church is now the heir to the promise made to Abraham, and this whole Letter to the Hebrews has to do with the inheritance, the great inheritance to which we are called as companions of the heavenly calling. The appeal to us in this Letter is: 'See that you do not miss the inheritance! The old Israel lost it through unbelief. You can lose the inheritance.' So the Letter uses Israel by way of illustrating the terrible possibility of Christians losing the inheritance.

Do you notice the little word 'if ' which occurs so often? "We are become companions of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3:14): "Whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness" (Hebrews 3:6). That little word is a very big word! A lot hangs on it. We are not talking about the loss of eternal life, but of the purpose of salvation, which is a very much larger thing than just being saved. Paul says that there will be a lot of people who get into heaven having lost everything. All their life work will go up in smoke: "He himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire'' (I Corinthians 3:15). Everything but their salvation will be lost. Do you want to get into heaven "yet so as through fire"? No, this Letter says there is something more than being saved. There is a great inheritance, but we can miss it. Read the Letter again in the light of that.

However, our point here is that this principle of being heirs of God is carried over into the heavenly Israel.

(4) The city of God
If you look into this Letter, you will find that the city is referred to on several occasions, such as: "Ye are come ... unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22).

The life of Israel was, of course, centred in the earthly Jerusalem. It was the centre of their unity. They were all united because of that city. That is why their males had to go up to Jerusalem so many times every year, and as they came, from the north, the south, the east and the west, a wonderful caravan, they sang the songs of Zion. Those Psalms about Zion are wonderful Psalms, and these men were glorying in their city, finding the expression of their national life there. It was the centre of their government. Their whole national life came out from the government in Jerusalem. Yes, Jerusalem was everything to them.

The writer of this Letter to the Hebrews is speaking about the approaching day, when that will have gone forever, or for a whole dispensation. Jerusalem today is the very symbol of division. The Jews have one bit and the Arabs have another, and they cannot live in peace together. It is the symbol of disunion, and with God it does not stand. It has been passed over and God has brought in His heavenly Jerusalem - "Ye are come... unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem".

We have been made "to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). All our unity, as the new Israel, is centred in Him above. There will only be a true expression of unity amongst the Lord's people when they have a heavenly position. Our unity is in heaven, not on earth. Our government is from heaven, not from earth. Paul says we are "fellow-citizens with the saints" (Ephesians 2:19), and that our "life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

Yes, the city exists. God's thought concerning it has been carried over to the spiritual Israel.

(5) The flock of God
These are all wonderful conceptions of the old Israel! If that Israel was God's family, the house of God, the heir of God, the city of God, so it was thought of as God's flock, God's sheep: "Thou leddest thy people like a flock" (Psalm 77:20). That idea, of course, lay behind the cry of the prophet Isaiah: "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6). Israel was God's flock and He was their shepherd. We will dwell more fully upon that later (See Volume II) - it is indeed a very large matter in this new relationship to the Lord.

God has carried this over and it is a very precious thought of His concerning the heavenly Israel. We are "the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand" (Psalm 95:7), and when we come to the end of this Letter to the Hebrews we have this beautiful word: "Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep... even our Lord Jesus" (Hebrews 13:20).

There is a sense in which that spreads itself back over the whole Letter. The companions of Christ are His sheep: "I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine own know me.... My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life" (John 10:14,27,28). That is a grand idea for sheep!

(6) The Kingdom of God
We all know that Israel of old was God's kingdom, over which He was king. Do you remember that when they chose Saul to be the king, Samuel was very distressed and went to the Lord about it? The Lord said to him: "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not be king over them" (I Samuel 7:7). The Old Testament has a great deal to say about Israel being God's kingdom.

Then we come into this new Israel: "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" (Hebrews 12:28). In the Greek the tense is: "Being in process of receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken". We are God's kingdom, and people under His kingship and government.

We will have much more to say about this matter later, but I think I have said enough now to show that this is a very real thing. We have come in a spiritual way into all that which was foreshadowed in the Israel of old. The Lord Jesus said to that Israel: "The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). Peter said that we are "a holy nation" (I Peter 2:9). We are the inheritors of all that God ever meant for His people. In us, that is, in His true Church of this dispensation, God is in process of realizing all that which He had foreshadowed through many centuries.

We are a very privileged people. The great need of our time is for Christians to know what God has called them unto. Many do not know. You can go over this world and find Christians in the majority who have no idea of these things. They know that the Lord Jesus came into the world as the Son of God and lived His wonderful life, did His works, gave His teaching, died an atoning death and rose again, has gone to heaven and is coming again; but they do not know one bit of what it all means, that is, what it is all unto, the great eternal purpose of God in it all. They are mostly quite ignorant of the things about which we have just been speaking, and that is why Christianity is in such a poor state today. They have not been given true instruction and have not a true understanding of God's great purpose in His Church through Christ Jesus. It is a very wonderful thing that we have come into in this dispensation.

[Shammu]

Chapter 7 - The Two Beginnings

It would be a very wonderful thing if we could spend some time in seeing God's line right from the beginning up to Christ. There were many generations which came to an end, and in one place there is a large summary of what came and what finished. It says 'So-and-so lived, for so long, and he died.' That is said about a long list of people - they lived and then they died. However, right through there is one line that is the living line, continuing straight through history up to Christ. You can follow that line quite clearly, although, at times, it seemed to go underground.

At a certain point in that movement of God, we find ourselves in the presence of His beginning with Israel. It has moved from individuals to the point where the nation comes into view. Up to then the movement had been with individuals - Abel, Enoch, Noah. Then, when it reached Abraham the nation came on the horizon, that is, the Israel of history, of this earth.

We are going to note how God began with Israel, and how the principle of that beginning is transferred to the new, heavenly Israel in Christ. It is very impressive to find that the beginning of the first Israel is in the New Testament, in the Book of the Acts. Note that, for it is a significant thing. The Book of the Acts is the link between the old and the new: the focal point of the transition from the one to the other is there. Interestingly enough, it is in the discourse of the martyr, Stephen. The new Israel received a great impetus by his death.

The first thing that Stephen said to the old Israel was: "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia" (Acts 7:2).... "The God of glory appeared." That was the first movement toward the old Israel, and that is exactly the first movement toward the new Israel: and we find that beginning in the New Testament.

We turn again to the Gospel by John: "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us": now note! "and we beheld his glory" (John 1:1-14 - R.V. margin). Then turn again to the Letter to the Hebrews: "God... hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son... the effulgence of his glory" (Hebrews 1:1-3)... "The God of glory appeared... and hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son... the effulgence of his glory."

First of all, then, God is breaking into human history. That is how it was with the first Israel. Away there, in Ur of the Chaldees, a pagan country with two thousand other gods, the God of glory broke in and changed the course of history. Thus He took His first step toward the securing of Israel.

The first chapter of John shows the God of glory breaking into human history in a new way.

That, of course, is in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, and you may have taken it in mentally, viewing it in an objective way. But you must just take hold of that and let it apply to you personally, because it relates to you and to me. You and I are called by God to be the companions of Christ in a heavenly calling and this belongs to all of us. The very beginning of our history as God's heavenly Israel is His intervention in our lives. Perhaps it was just as unexpected to some of us as it was to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. We were living our lives in this world, were mixed up in the course of things here and were ruled by the god of this world. We were just there, one in a great crowd... and then God broke in. When God breaks into a life there is no doubt about it. It is a turning-point in our history, and the nature of the change is that we no longer belong to this world. We have become members of a new Israel, of a heavenly people with a new spiritual nature. It may not have been with us just as it was with Abraham, but it is essential for every one of us to know that God has entered into our human history. In the first place it was not something from our side, but it was from God's side. He took the initiative, perhaps in a wonderful way, or in a very simple way. It may belong to a moment in time, or it may belong to days, weeks or months. However, the fact is that God came in where we were. How did God come in? How should we put it, if we wanted to put it into words? Well, it says here about the old Israel: "The God of glory appeared". Could you put it like that in your experience?

These words in the New Testament explain that. God came in Jesus Christ, and in Him is the glory of God. And as we have seen Jesus Christ, so we have come into touch with the God of glory. In the words of the Letter to the Hebrews: "God... hath... spoken unto us in his son". All those who know that Jesus Christ has come into their lives really do know that the God of glory has come in. And so John, after saying that "the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us", says, "and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father".

And what is the glory? John goes on to say "full of grace and truth". You will notice that in the New Testament grace and glory always go together. If you want to know what is the glory of God, well, it is the grace of God, and if you want to know what is the grace of God, it is the glory of God. It is the glory of God to be gracious. He glories in being gracious, and when you know the grace of God, then you know the glory of God. The glory of God will always come to us along the line of grace, and so, because of grace, we shall be able to say: "We beheld his glory".

Perhaps you know that that word 'glory' is one of the big words in John's Gospel. If you have never done so, I advise you to go through the Gospel and underline that word.

(Now, just a little word to the young Christians who have not yet done a lot of Bible study. I had not thought of saying this, but perhaps it will be helpful. I do not profess to know a great deal about the Bible, indeed, I know very little of it, but I will tell you how I started to study it. I bought a box of coloured pencils and a new Bible. I started first with John's Gospel and I gave a certain colour to the same word through the Gospel. Of course, I always put green where the word 'life' is found! You see it all around - green speaks of life. Wherever the word 'glory' appears I put blue - that is the colour for heaven. I put red whenever anything to do with the blood or the Cross appeared - and so I went on. I had a wonderful result in the Gospel of John when I had finished! That is only a suggestion, but I hope that you may find it a helpful one. There are a lot more colours than those three!)

We are saying that 'glory' is one of John's great words, and all the references in his Gospel to Christ's glory are related to His super-natural person and His super-natural power. When John wrote "We beheld his glory" it was many years after the Lord Jesus had come and gone. John's Gospel is one of the last books of the New Testament. All the other Apostles had probably gone to the Lord when John wrote it. So he was looking back over all that history and putting his impressions into words, and as he thought of the Lord Jesus, His life, His work, His teaching and everything else about Him, he summed it all up in this: "We beheld his glory".

How did John behold the glory of the Lord Jesus? He did so on many occasions and by a whole series of humanly impossible situations.

(That is another line of study for you! Go to the Gospel by John and see how many impossible situations you can find.)

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The Gospel is just full of impossible situations. There is the marriage in Cana, when the wine failed. Humanly, that is an impossible situation. Then there is Nicodemus and what is it that he is saying? "How can a man be born when he is old?" (John 3:4). An impossible situation! Think of the woman of Samaria. She had tried everything to find satisfaction. An impossible situation! And you can go right on like that. In all these situations Jesus came in and turned the impossible into actuality. Thus it says at the end of the account of the marriage in Cana: "This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory" (John 2:11). That was the principle which governed everything. It does not always say so in those words, but if you went back with that woman of Samaria into the city and heard her shouting to all the people: "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ?" (John 4:29), you would conclude that she had beheld His glory.

So you go right on to Lazarus. Jesus said: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby" (John 11:4). And in the difficulty being faced by the sisters, when they could not altogether accept the fact that their problem was going to be solved at once, and they said: "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24), Jesus replied: "Said I not unto thee, that if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" (John 11:40). You see, the glory of God in Jesus Christ related to what God could do that no one else could do. It was the supernatural person and power of the Son of God.

That is the glory of God: and that is why we sometimes have such a difficulty in getting through. Perhaps you have often been troubled because of the difficulty some soul has in getting through to the Lord? It almost seems as though the Lord does not want to save them. They go through difficulties, sometimes for days, weeks or months, and all the time they are arguing and bringing up their problems, but nothing seems to happen. Then, at last, it does happen and they come through. Why is that? God is emphatically saying: 'This is going to be of Me, and not of yourself,' No man or woman can save himself or herself, even with all the goodwill of other people to help. The salvation of a soul is an impossible thing but for God, and He sees to it that it is put upon the supernatural basis. He very often does not come in until we have come to the point of despair - but He does come in then.

And what is true about salvation is so often true about our spiritual history. Again and again we are brought to the point where situations are quite impossible where man is concerned. We find we cannot solve that problem ourselves, or change that situation. If we were people of this world we might be able to do it, but somehow or other, because we are the Lord's people, it just does not work. All our cleverness fails. Naturally there is no reason why we should not get on, but the fact is that we just do not. We try everything and are greatly perplexed. We are being brought more and more to despair, and finally to the point where we say: 'Well, only the Lord can do this!' - and that is exactly what the Lord has been working for. When the God of glory appears, He appears as the God of glory. Do you see the point? Well, I said that the word 'glory' in John's Gospel is connected with the supernatural power of Jesus Christ, and we can only learn who Jesus is by coming up against situations in which He is the only one who can help us. The more we go on to learn about the Lord Jesus the more impossible will life be, and situations become, on this earth.

That is the beginning of the God of glory.

Note the next thing: God's glory in Abraham reached its climax in sonship. There were many things in the life of Abraham when the God of glory needed to come in and so we read that in different situations 'the Lord appeared unto Abraham'. However, the peak of all God's appearances to Abraham was in connection with Isaac - that is, it was bound up with this matter of sonship. The covenant of God with Abraham was going to be realized along the line of sonship, and all God's purposes in him were bound up with Isaac. Of course, at the beginning Isaac was an impossibility, but at the end he was a still greater impossibility - "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, ... and offer him there for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:2). All the promise and covenant are wrapped up in Isaac, who is to be slain with a knife. This is an impossible situation! Isaac to die? There is no possibility of another Isaac, indeed, I doubt whether Abraham would have wanted another. It was a matter of life or death to him and is a quite impossible situation if Isaac lies dead on the altar. But you know what happened! And you know what the New Testament says about that: "Accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a parable receive him back" (Hebrews 11:19).

Has anyone but God ever raised someone from the dead? Man can do a great deal in prolonging life, and he thinks he will reach the time when he will raise the dead. Well, we have not reached that time yet, and we shall see whether God will surrender His own one prerogative - that is, to bring back a departed spirit into a dead body. That is God's act and is resurrection and not resuscitation.

I was saying that the glory of God reached its climax in Abraham's case along the line of sonship. Later on we shall have to look at this more closely in connection with Lazarus, but let us come back to our beginning.

We turn to John again - "We beheld his glory". How do we behold His glory? "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of God" (John 1:12 - A.V.) - He gave them the authority to be sons. That is our history. We are able to say: 'By God's intervention I am a child of God.' Then you notice how John analyzes this: "which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). We are children of God by His intervention and by a direct act on His part. We are born from above and are made children of God. The glory of God is revealed in Jesus Christ in sonship.

Are you glorying in the fact that you are a born again child of God?

This same John, many years later, wrote these words, with a very full heart: "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" (I John 3:2). And connected with that, John said: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God" (I John 3:1).

It is a wonderful thing to be a child of God! John said so, and he knew what he was talking about.

The glory, then, is in sonship. And it is at that point that Israel comes into view: Abraham's seed through Isaac. It is the nation that is coming into view and, as we have said, God said to Pharaoh: 'Let my son go.' That word 'son' was a comprehensive word, meaning the whole nation. God saw that nation as one son and would not surrender one fragment, because sonship is such a complete thing. Pharaoh said 'Well, let the men go. Leave the women and children and the flocks and herds'. but Moses said: 'Not one single hoof of one single animal shall be left behind.' God had said 'My son', and that included the nation.

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Chapter 8 - The Abiding Vocation

Before going further with our main point there are two things that I want to say in parenthesis.

First, I want to correct a possible misunderstanding. The heavenly and spiritual Israel, which is the Church of Jesus Christ, is not an afterthought of God. It was not brought in because Israel failed. Please be very clear about that. There are those who teach that that is so. They say that the Lord offered it to Israel, who refused it. He had to do something and so He got the idea of a Church. It was quite an afterthought, a kind of emergency movement of God. That is entirely false to the whole of the Bible, and it is one thing we are seeking to show in these days. We have said that everything in the Old Testament, including Israel, had Christ and the Church in view. It was all leading on to Christ and the Church, and they take up all the divine thoughts of the past and embody them in themselves. The Church is the eternal thing. It was in the heart of God before time was and was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The Church is no afterthought of God: it is a before-thought. God's Son is no emergency matter. He may have come in at a time of emergency, but He was in view for this particular work from all eternity. The Church was eternally intended to be the Body of Christ.

Now I want you to keep that in mind in all that we are saying. We believe that if Adam had not been disobedient in unbelief he would have been 'conformed to God's Son'; but his sin meant that he forfeited the divine intention. In the same way Israel would have become incorporated into the corporate expression of Christ, but in unbelief and disobedience Israel forfeited that 'inheritance'. The Church universal stood eternally over Israel. This is a very important matter.

The other thing that I want to emphasize is this: that this new Israel, the Church, is essentially a spiritual thing, as truly as Christ, here, now, is a spiritual matter. And Christ is here in this world by the Spirit. As truly as Christ is here - though no longer in physical presence and on a temporal basis (we can only know Him and have fellowship with Him spiritually) - so it is as to the Church.

There has to be a revolution in the minds of many Christians about this matter. That word 'Church' is taken up and put on to almost anything. Forgive me! I mean no offence, but we are dealing with very vital matters. We hear of, speak of, this church and that church - the Lutheran church, the Methodist church, the Baptist church, the Anglican church - and how many more? We speak of all these as the church. From heaven's standpoint that is a lot of nonsense. From heaven's standpoint those are not the Church. They may represent one or other aspect of truth, but not one of them has the whole of the truth, and when you put them all together they have not all of the truth. All the truth is in Jesus alone.

The Church is a spiritual thing. You cannot look upon anything material, or on people in the flesh, and say: 'That is the church.' You are only in the Church in so far as there is something of Christ in you. It is Christ in us that makes the Church. You see, the Church is a unity in Christ.

The Lord Jesus never looks upon so many loaves of bread all over the world when there is a gathering to His Table. I suppose that on the Lord's Day there may be thousands of loaves of bread being broken, and I do not know how many cups - but heaven never sees more than one loaf or more than one cup. The loaf is Christ, the cup is Christ, and by partaking we are united in Christ.

It is not quite certain whether the translators were correct - though there may be something in it - when they translated the words of the Lord Jesus at the supper. In the old version it says: "This is my body, which is broken for you" (I Corinthians 11:24 - A.V.) There may be very real truth in using that word 'broken'. Indeed, the Lord's body was broken, but the later translators have left that word out and have put: "This is my body, which is for you" (I Corinthians 11:24 - R.V.). Perhaps that later translation dismisses a false idea, for that word 'broken' has so often been taken to mean - 'Here is one piece, there is another, and there is another'; pieces all over the world. Christ is not divided. Paul said: "Is Christ divided?" (I Corinthians 1:13). No, Christ is not divided. There may be a thousand pieces of the earthly loaf, but the heavenly loaf is one, and that is how heaven sees the Church.

The church is a broken thing on the earth. It is broken into many pieces down here, but in heaven it is seen as one, and the sooner you and I see from heaven's standpoint the better. If this man or this woman is "in Christ", it does not matter whether he or she is in our denomination or not, whether he or she is in our sect or not. If they are "in Christ" they are part with all others in Christ.

Understand that the Church is a spiritual thing, not an earthly, temporal thing, and that is a very important thing for us to recognize; it is comprised of all who are born of the Spirit.

We have taken a lot of time before we come on to our particular point. We are doing this: Along one side we are tracing God's ways with the old Israel, and along the other side we are seeing that He takes the spiritual laws of that old Israel and perpetuates them in the new Israel. What He did in a temporal way with the first Israel, He is now doing in a spiritual way with the new Israel.

Our last word was that God's glory in Abraham reached its climax in sonship. Sonship in death and resurrection as represented by Isaac. Sonship is the climax of God's glory.

We are back in the Letter to the Hebrews now. What is the climax of that Letter and of all God's movement as contained in it? It is found in one fragment: "Bringing many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10). That is the climax of the glory of God. As it was in a temporal way with Abraham, so it is in a spiritual way with the new Israel.

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But the idea of sonship did not begin with Abraham and Isaac. It only came out in them. It went right back before them - it was God's cherished secret from before times eternal. That secret has been lost in Abraham's seed after the flesh, but is taken up in Abraham's Seed after the Spirit.

You probably know that the Letters to the Romans and the Galatians are concerned with this very thing. The Apostle is saying just this in the Letter to the Romans, chapters nine, ten and eleven (all one section really). "They are not all Israel, which are of Israel" (Romans 9:6) - 'All the natural children of Abraham are not Israel. Israel is only the spiritual children of Abraham.'

When you go into the Letter to the Galatians that is explained very carefully, and Paul reduces it to this one thing. He refers to the promise made to Abraham: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 22:18).

This is the thing that got Paul into a lot of trouble. He said: "(God) saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). It is not the many natural children of Abraham, but the spiritual children - and that is Christ and the companions of Christ.

Isaiah cried: "He shall see his seed... he shall see of the travail of his soul" (Isaiah 53:10,11), and this heavenly Jerusalem is the spiritual seed of Abraham, which is Christ and the 'born from above' ones.

The Letter to the Galatians teaches that the rest have gone. Even all the other children of Abraham are now set aside, and God recognizes only His spiritual children. This is taken up in this phrase which has governed our whole time: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling... we are become companions of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning... firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3:1,14).

This spiritual and heavenly Israel is called "companions of a heavenly calling", and we will dwell upon that heavenly calling for a few minutes.

What was God's intention in this world concerning the first Israel? It was that they should mediate light and life to the nations. That was their divine calling - that the nations should receive life through their light; that they should be the channel of divine light and life to the nations of this world. We could take quite a lot of the Old Testament to show this, but we are going to use only one illustration.

You notice that all the sons of Israel were focused in one son. (Of course, when we speak of Israel now, we mean Jacob.) That son was Joseph. If it had not been for him that whole nation would have perished, and not only the sons and families of Jacob, but all Egypt. In a sense that world would have perished. God's strange, sovereign dealings with Joseph brought him, through death and resurrection, to the throne. Then his brothers came to Egypt and he made himself known to them. They went down before him in utter shame, began to apologize and try to excuse themselves. Poor, miserable, wretched fellows they were! But what did Joseph say? "Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5). Life and light came not only to all the families of Jacob, but to Egypt, the world, through Joseph. He was the inclusive representative of all his brethren. God made him like that, and he sets forth this truth that God intended all Israel of old to be a minister of life and light to the whole world. That was Israel's calling and what they were intended for in the old dispensation. They were just down here by God's appointment, right at the centre of the nations, in a position of ascendancy, in order to mediate light and life to the nations. Abraham's seed was intended to do that, but that seed failed God, and instead of fulfilling their calling, they contradicted it.

We need not dwell upon their failure. It is a dark and terrible story. And for the last nearly two thousand years they have been where the Lord Jesus said they would be: "The sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12). That is the story of the earthly Israel, as a nation, through all these past centuries. Thank God for all those who have escaped from the outer darkness, who are not weeping and gnashing their teeth, but are rejoicing in Christ Jesus! But that is where the nation went, and the last stroke of that was in A.D. 70.

That is the dark side. But God had not finished with an Israel. He still had in view a 'Prince with God', for that is the meaning of the name 'Israel'. This heavenly, spiritual Israel to which you and I belong is called into the vocation of Joseph. God has transferred that in a spiritual way to us. We are here in this heavenly calling, this spiritual vocation to minister light and life to the world. That is to be our heavenly calling now, and that is why the Lord Jesus said to His new Israel: "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19) ... 'Begin at Jerusalem... Samaria... all Judaea... and unto the uttermost parts of the earth... and wherever you are your heavenly calling is to bring light and life from above.'

At the beginning the Church almost settled down in the earthly Jerusalem. They were very slow to move away from there, so the Lord took a big hammer and brought it down on the Church in that city. Then they were all scattered abroad; and the Lord said: 'I have finished with this earthly city. The new Jerusalem is above, and the new, heavenly calling is to all the nations.'

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That is the heavenly calling of the spiritual Israel now, but that has to come to fullness afterward. That fullness is represented at the end of the Bible - "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Revelation 21:2). No, this is not a material and political world-center. This is the Church. These are the companions of Christ represented in the symbolism of a city, and the last word about that city is this: "And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof... and on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life... and the leaves of the tree were for the health  of the nations" (Revelation 21:2,4,  22:2). Did you notice that I changed a word? Our translation says "for the healing of the nations", but that is not correct. The nations will not need healing in eternity, thank God! But they will need their spiritual health ministered to.

Most of us here do not need saving. Remember, by the way, that the word 'salvation' in the original is the word 'health'. It is being in a state of good health. That is the meaning of the word 'salvation' - being in spiritually good health.

The nations then will be those that have had the Gospel and have responded: "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14), but right at the centre of the nations will be the Church, and through the Church light and life will go out to maintain the health of the nations.

So, when everything has been said and done, and you have gone right through the long, long story, at last you come to the end in the last chapter of history in the Book of the Revelation: and the last picture is of a heavenly Israel ministering light and life to the nations.

Perhaps some of you Bible students and you people who are interested in doctrine are troubled now with a question, in view of what I have said. 'Does he mean that the Church is one thing and that there are a lot of people who are not of the Church? In other words, is the city one thing and are the nations another?'

I am not going to enter on any argument over that, but I am going to bring you back to this Letter to the Hebrews for your answer. It is one little word of two letters: 'IF'! "We are become companions of Christ if..." : "Whose house are we if...". In one sense the whole Letter circles round that little word. It is not now a matter of salvation and getting into heaven. It is now a matter of that instrument of eternal vocation for all the rest. This is the height of the heavenly calling. I leave you to answer the question by studying this Letter again. It does seem to say that everyone will not be the city. If everyone is the city, where is the country? No, the city is the center, the seat of administration, of government and of light. The whole country derives its values through the city. It does seem that that is the truth that is here. It is possible to get into heaven but not be of the city.

If you have trouble with that and you disagree with me - I can only say to you: 'Go back to the Word.' I cannot understand this Letter on any other ground, unless we admit that the warnings relate to salvation and not to inheritance. Why is it shot through and through with this urgency to go on? I do not believe that if you do not go on you forfeit your eternal life or sacrifice your salvation, but I do believe that if you do not go on you will forfeit your inheritance, and that is the teaching of this Letter as I see it. Why, the whole of the New Testament, after the Gospels, has this one object: to get Christians to go on, and to go on to full growth.

God put something into the very constitution of Abraham which had two effects. It made him a very discontented man. He was possessed of a holy discontent. He saw the land and God gave him flocks and herds in abundance, but all the time he was going up and down the land saying: 'This is not it. There is something more than this. I can never be satisfied with this.' In a right sense Abraham was a most discontented man.

On the other side, he had a vision of what ought to be. The New Testament calls it a heavenly country. (See Hebrews 11:16.) He was looking for a city "whose builder and maker is God", and no city on this earth answered to what was in the heart of Abraham. Do you think I am exaggerating? Do you think I am making that up? What did Jesus say to the old Israel? "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad" (John 12:56). Abraham saw right down the ages. He had a vision and nothing in this world could satisfy that vision. His heart was ever hungry and so he was a man who never settled down on this earth.

"Let us go on", says this Letter to the Hebrews. 'Let us not settle down, and let us never be satisfied with anything less than God's fullness.' That is its message.

In the end it is represented as a race. We are running a race and the goal and prize lie ahead. Let us not stop in the race and turn aside! "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus..." (Hebrews 12:1,2). "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day;" "Looking unto Jesus". Let us never settle down with anything less than God's fullness. "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling."

Where the Holy Spirit really has His place in a heart, that heart will be a 'going on' heart. It will never settle down to anything less than God's fullness.

There are two different kinds of dissatisfaction. There are those poor, miserable people who are never satisfied with anything. They are always discontented, and in a wrong way. We are not appealing for such people! But this spiritual discontent, this that says: "Not that I have obtained, or am already made perfect... but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind... I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14), is the nature of a truly Holy Spirit-governed life. It will always be pressing on to something more of the Lord. Such are the true heavenly seed of Abraham, the companions of a heavenly calling.

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Chapter 9 - The Superiority of the New Position

We are now going to concentrate upon one aspect of the great transition: the superiority of the heavenly Israel to the earthly.

The writer of this Letter, whoever he was, was giving himself wholly to the immense superiority of what had come in with this dispensation. It was as though he said to himself. 'The time has come for someone to let these people know how superior is that which has come in with this dispensation. This final movement of God in the history of this world is greater than anything before.' So that is what he set himself to show to the people of his day. But God meant it for more than that: He meant it for His people for all time.

No one knows who wrote this Letter. Many names have been mentioned. Some have been very certain about who it was, and then someone else has come along and upset that certainty. Some have been sure that Paul wrote it, while others have very nearly proved that he did not. Some have thought that Apollos wrote it, and others have said that it was Barnabas. Apollos, it was said, was a man "mighty in the Scriptures" (Acts 8:24), and it certainly did require such a man to write this document! Barnabas was a Levite, and he knew all about the Levitical system of the Old Testament, so he would be a good one to write the book. As for Paul, well, of course, he was the perfect master both of Judaism and of Christianity, and it needed a man like that to write this book. If Stephen had not been martyred I would have chosen him, because I think that in his last great discourse you have all the substance of the Letter to the Hebrews.

Well, we cannot say. Perhaps the Lord has never thought it to be very important to settle a human name upon it, but rather to make everything of "God... hath spoken."

We are touching very old and well-worn ground when we remind you of the place that the word 'better' has in this Letter. It occurs more often here than in all the rest of the New Testament put together.

(Here is a study for the beginners in Bible Study. Get out your box of coloured pencils, choose a colour that you think is suitable to 'better', and underline that word through this Letter.)

This word occurs thirteen times in the Letter and always in a very instructive connection. I wilI just mention the references:
Chapter 1:4 - "Better than the angels". (That is a high place at which to begin!)
Chapter 6:9 - "We are persuaded better things of you''.
Chapter 7:19 - "A better hope".
Chapter 7:22 - "A better covenant".
Chapter 8:6 - "A better covenant" and "better promises".
Chapter 9:23 - "Better sacrifices".
Chapter 10:34 - "A better possession".
Chapter 11:16 - "A better country".
Chapter 11:35 - "A better resurrection".
Chapter 11:40 - "Some better thing".

Then, alongside of that, you can put:
Chapter 12:24 - "The blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel".

In chapter 1:4 and 8:6 there are the words "more excellent", and in chapter 1:4, chapter 3:3 and chapter 10:25 there is the phrase "by so much... more".

So that word is a key to the Letter. Everything here is better than it has ever been before. And we can come back with that to our own key words: "Holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling" - called to something so much better than has ever been in the history of this world.

Let us remind ourselves of why this Letter was written.

In the first place, it was written to save these Christians from spiritual declension or spiritual arrest. For various reasons they were being tempted to draw back. You will remember that those words occur in a warning: "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him" (Hebrews 10:38 - A.V.). It is a terrible thing to get into a place where the Lord has no pleasure in you, to lose the pleasure of the Lord! And it was to prevent these Christians from getting into such a position that this Letter was written.

Some of these Christians were inclined just to stand still and not go on any further, so that their spiritual life would be arrested and they would no longer go on and grow. They would become "stand-still" Christians - 'As it was, so it is now'. Nothing of the future was governing them. So this Letter was written to save them from going back or from standing still.

However, we have already pointed out that there was another reason: It was to carry these Christians through a time of great trouble which was coming. Evidently this Letter was written very shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem. Perhaps the writer already saw the signs of that, but, whether he did or not, the Holy Spirit saw what was coming. He knew that a time of great testing was coming to these Christians, when all that in which they had trusted on this earth was going to be shaken, so He led this writer to write this Letter. It was intended to be a strength to them and salvation in a time of trouble. And the method of so ministering help to them was to show again the greatness of the Lord Jesus, the greatness of the heavenly calling, and how great a thing it is to be companions of Christ and of the heavenly calling. So the writer sets out to bring into view the Lord Jesus in His superiority to all who had gone before. But in doing so, he does another thing, and this is a very interesting matter. He says: 'Down through the past ages there have been men who have had great difficulties, many discouragements and trials,' and he mentions Abraham.

Now Abraham had indeed a difficult life. There was the difficulty of the postponed promise - God's promises did not seem to be in the way of fulfilment. He was taking such a long time to fulfil His word. We all know something about that difficulty! We are in a hurry and God is not - He seems to have all time at His disposal. Our trouble is: 'Oh, if only the Lord would hurry up!', and I suppose our prayers are so often marked by one word: 'Lord, hasten it!'

[Shammu]

If any man knew about having to be patient, it was Abraham! There was this difficulty of God taking so much time to fulfil His promises, and Abraham sometimes broke down under that. On one occasion he left the land of promise and went to Egypt - and there he found himself in still greater trouble. He had to tell a lie to get out of it.

This matter was a very real test to Abraham. I think there are signs that his wife was not always in sympathy with him. When they were both old and the Lord said that they would have a son, Sarah, who was in her tent, heard and "laughed within herself'' (Genesis 18:12). The Lord was angry, and Abraham had to rebuke Sarah. Well, we must have full sympathy with Sarah. She was being hard put to it by the way the Lord was taking her husband and she was not always able to see as he saw, or feel as he felt. Perhaps, for that reason, Abraham had a certain measure of spiritual loneliness in his life.

Then what about that young man Lot? He was just a lot of trouble! He certainly did not share Abraham's vision! His vision was all on this earth, his ambitions all for the present, and you know well his story and what a thorn he was in the side of Abraham.

We could add other things to the painful story. Abraham's was not an easy life. But, do you know, the New Testament says that Abraham rejoiced! Why did he do so? Why did he rejoice in tribulation? Jesus Himself tells us the answer to that: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). In some way Abraham had seen the Lord Jesus, had seen the day of the Lord Jesus, and that had got him through all his troubles.

You know, there is more in this Letter to the Hebrews about what Abraham saw. He had seen in the spirit a heavenly country, and was looking for it. He had seen "the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). Abraham had seen the day of Jesus Christ. You will remember that this writer said: Ye are come unto... the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). Abraham had seen that, and, having seen the Lord Jesus, he was able to go on and rejoice in a long life of trial.

What about Moses? Did he have any troubles? Well, we can make a long story about the troubles of Moses! He had to carry a very heavy burden, and there was a time when he nearly lost heart. He said to the Lord: "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me" (Numbers 11:14). Moses often had to go back to the Lord like that and say: 'You have asked me to do something which is more than I can do.' He had very many trials through forty long, weary years. But we have this word here: "He endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). Who was the "him" that Moses was seeing? Notice what this Letter to the Hebrews says! When Moses was in Pharaoh's palace and saw his own brethren being persecuted, he decided that he was going to take sides with them, and this Letter says: "Choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God" - and now comes a wonderful thing - "accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt" (Hebrews 11:25, 26). The reproach of Christ! What did Moses know about Christ? Somehow he had seen Him and seen that these Hebrew people were called in relation to Him, so "He endured, as seeing him who is invisible".

This is a point at which our minds have to get adjusted. Perhaps we have the idea that when Jesus came into this world, that was the beginning of Him, but the Word of God makes it perfectly clear that Jesus Christ was present in the days of Abraham and Moses. Indeed, the Word says that He was present in the creation of the world: "All things were made by him" (John 1:3). He was there all the time. He was the One who appeared again and again and they did not recognize Him. He appeared to Abraham, to Moses, to Joshua, to Gideon... yes, this same Christ was there, active all the time. He did not just begin when He was born in Bethlehem. It was then that He came into this world in human form.

Do you think that is exaggerating? Well, let us come to our Letter to the Hebrews: "Jesus Christ... the same yesterday, and today, yea and for ever" (13:. I have left out one little word - "Jesus Christ IS the same...": He IS yesterday, He IS today and He IS tomorrow. There is no yesterday, today or tomorrow with Jesus. Yesterday was the day of the old dispensation. When this writer wrote this Letter it was 'today' in which he lived, the new dispensation that had just begun. 'Today' is the period between Christ going back to heaven and His coming again. We have seen already how one phrase is quoted three times in this Letter, and it is brought over from yesterday to today: "Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Hebrews 3:7, . That is a message for this dispensation. 'Tomorrow' is forever, and it is going to be the same Jesus Christ.

So the writer of this Letter is saying: 'Jesus Christ was back there in yesterday. He was in the past dispensation. And it is the same Jesus Christ that we know today. And He will be the same Jesus Christ forever.'

Do you notice how many quotations from the Old Testament there are in the first chapter of this Letter? We cannot stay to look at them, but the Old Testament is used here a very great deal, and the quotations are concerning Christ, so that, in the first place, it is quite clear that He was in the Old Testament. He was being spoken about then and was present in the minds of Old Testament writers. There are quotations from David. Jesus Christ was very much in the mind of David. The words "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" were first written by him (Psalm 2:7), and there is much more like that.

There are very many quotations from the Old Testament at the beginning of this Letter, which simply shows that Jesus Christ was present then. And that Jesus Christ is brought over from yesterday to today. This writer is just saying: 'That Jesus Christ of the prophets and the men of old is this One of whom I am writing today.' The first chapter of the Letter just takes up all that about Christ and brings it here into the present - and it is the same Jesus Christ.

[Shammu]

We have hardly begun to see the superiority of this today over yesterday. We have only sought to do one thing, and that is what this writer set out to do: to show that to get through trouble and testing you need to have a large conception of the Lord Jesus. To get through to the end in victory will depend upon what kind of Christ our Christ is to us.

The writer realized that these Christians were finding the 'race' rather long and difficult, and their need was the most testing thing in spiritual life - patience. "Ye have need of patience", says the writer, "that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise" (Hebrews 10:36). Later he says: "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1). What is the real strength of patience? Oh, it is so easy to say to people: 'Now, be patient. Don't be in a hurry. Things will turn out all right.' But this writer did not just say to these Christians: 'Now be patient!' He said: "Let us run with patience the race..." It will test our patience, will call for a lot of patience, but the thing that will keep our patience strong is this - "Looking off unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2). If we look at ourselves we will give up the race, and we shall do so if we look at other people. There are a lot of people who will make us give up the race. If we look around us on the world we shall lose patience. And so we like the true translation of this phrase. Some versions just have "Looking unto Jesus". Well, that is all right, but the real version is: "Looking off unto Jesus". You must take your eyes off yourself. You must positively refuse to look at yourself. You must train yourself in the habit of refusing to look at yourself. Every time you are tempted to do so you have to say: 'No! I shut my eyes to that.' You must not have your eyes on those Christians who are disappointing. You must remember that the very best Christians are only human, after all. It is a very dangerous thing to think of any man or woman as being infallible.

Perhaps Paul was very near to doing that once. You know, he owed a very great deal to Barnabas. It was Barnabas who went off to find Paul and brought him back. I think that when even some of the Apostles saw Saul of Tarsus come in through the door they drew back. They were all suspicious of this man and they drew back from him. But Barnabas took him by the hand and brought him in, saying: 'Don't be afraid, brothers. He has met our Lord Jesus. He is now a companion of Jesus Christ. He is one with us.' And so they received him.

It was Barnabas who brought Paul to Antioch, a church that was in great need at that time. They needed a very strong minister, and off went Barnabas, saying: 'I know the man.' He brought Saul to Antioch and introduced him to his life ministry.

Paul owed a lot to Barnabas. of whom it was said: "He was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 11:24). Perhaps Paul put Barnabas on a high pedestal! And then came that terrible day when Barnabas fell off that pedestal. You know of the division between the Jewish and Gentile Christians and that the new order of Christ demanded that they should be all one, eating and drinking together. Peter had learnt that lesson at the house of Cornelius, but then that day came when this whole question of Jews and Gentiles eating and drinking at the same table arose. It was a very strong dispute and a very critical day. James and some of the others from Jerusalem went down - and Peter withdrew from the table. He was afraid of James and of those others from Jerusalem! He said: 'I must not let these senior brothers see me eating with Gentiles.' And Paul says: "And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation" (Galatians 2:13). 'Just think of it - Barnabas! I never thought Barnabas would do a thing like that! I thought he was far above anything of that sort.' I am sure it was a very great blow to Paul's confidence in men, but if he had continued to keep his eyes on Barnabas no one knows what would have happened. He had to look off from Barnabas to Jesus.

Paul was always having to do that. In many ways and situations he had to take his eyes off and look unto Jesus. There is a real touch of Paul in this Letter to the Hebrews - "Looking off unto Jesus". Whoever actually wrote this Letter, the shadow of Paul is over it. His influence is everywhere. And certainly he was called upon to look off unto Jesus.

Now that is a very vital lesson for us to learn. We have to do that again and again in our Christian life. If we get our eyes upon anything but the Lord Jesus we just go to pieces. Have all respect for God's saints. I am not saying that you have to eye every servant of God with suspicion and be saying all the time: 'Well, of course, he is not perfect, you know.' Give honour to whom honour is due, but never build your faith upon any man, however good he may be.

And as for ourselves - well, I think perhaps we are more tempted to look at ourselves than anything else! This is one of our real Christian exercises. We have continually to remove our eyes from ourselves and everything to do with ourselves. There is nothing more discouraging than this self of ours, and nothing more misleading. Our own judgments are all wrong, and so are our thoughts and ideas. They are not God's thoughts.

We must take our eyes off ourselves, but not look out into space and be vacant. "Look off unto Jesus", and you know how that sentence is finished - "Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith". Did you start this thing? Are you a Christian because you decided to be a Christian? Well, the Lord help you if that is so! No, He started this thing. Are you not glad that you can say: 'It was the Lord who found me. It was the Lord who put His hand on me.'? What He said is very true: "Ye did not choose me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). He was the author of our faith, and it says that He is the finisher - He will finish it.

When we get to heaven we will be full of wonder that we ever did get there! We will just look at one another and say: 'Well, we are here! It is a wonderful story! How we got here we do not know. We have thought a thousand times that we never would get here. We had given up all hope - but we are here!' And it will be because Jesus is the finisher. Believe that, dear friend! In the day of your despair and difficulty, look off unto Jesus. He has said: "Where I am, there shall also my servant be" (John 12:26). Though it takes a thousand miracles, He will work them to get us there. Do believe it! Take hold of it with both hands and trust Him to see you right through to glory, for that is one of the great things in this Letter: "Bringing many sons unto glory" (Hebrews 2:10). That means you and it means me.

[Shammu]

Chapter 10 - The Superiority of the New Position (continued)

In our last message we only made a beginning with this matter - and when we say 'we made a beginning' as we come almost to the end of the Conference, it is quite evident that we are going to have twelve basketfuls over when we have finished! We really have not sounded the full depth of this Letter to the Hebrews, and there is so much more that could extend us for a long time. Perhaps that is how it ought to be. We do not want to come to an end. We want to feel that the land is a land of far distances, and that the Lord can lead us into it, even without a Conference.

Well, we are now going on a little way further into that land - the land of the superiority of this dispensation over all past dispensations.

We are now at the supreme matter in the Letter, and, therefore, the supreme matter in the dispensation: that is, how much higher and fuller is that which has come in with the Lord Jesus than ever came in in old time.

You will see, right at the beginning of the Letter, that this is the dispensation of God's Son, and the dispensation of Him in a new personal manifestation. We believe that He was present in the old dispensation and appeared to men in other forms, but this Letter says that He has come in a new form. So it begins with the manifested presence of God's Son. The first verse says that in the old dispensation men met God in "divers portions and in divers manners", and God met men and men met God in the prophets. Now the prophets were the servants of God, and men met God through His servants. In this dispensation they meet Him in His Son personally. There is a statement that "God was in Christ" (II Corinthians 5:19), so the 'Son' implies the 'Father', and the 'Son of God' implies God. So we meet God in the Son and not now in servants.

This reaches absolute fullness in the matter of divine revelation. "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him (the Son) should all fullness dwell" (Colossians 1:19). There is nothing more to be added.

Do not take these as just words. Do understand that in every fragment there is this truth: In the dispensation in which you and I are now living God has come to us in all His fullness. There is no more to be added. In His Son we have the absolute fullness of God, and it is out of that fullness that He speaks to us in His Son. God has only one Son in that sense - His only-begotten Son, which means that there is no one to come after Him. Therefore, God's last word is in His Son. The Son brings both the fullness and the finality of God. It is that which gives the solemnity to this whole Letter. It says: 'If you fail to hear the voice of the Son there will never be another voice for you. God is never going to speak by another voice. God hath spoken in His Son, and He is never going to speak by any other means.' Hence this Letter contains this word of warning and of exhortation: 'Because this is the fullness and this is the end, be sure that you give heed.'

But it is not only God speaking in His Son. That is a way of speaking, but God's speaking is always His acting. In this dispensation God is active in and through His Son. To come into touch with the Lord Jesus is more than coming into touch with a teaching: it is coming into touch with a living, active Person. 'It is God with whom we have to do.' It is a glorious thing to come into touch with God in Christ - but it says here that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). No, it is not a book, a teaching, a philosophy: it is a living, positive, powerful Person. It is no other than God in action.

If you have any doubt about that, just remember the Book of the Acts. It is called the Acts of the Apostles, but everyone knows that name is wrong, for only three or four Apostles are in view after the first chapter. The others are spoken of at the beginning and then you hear no more about them. It is not the book of the Acts of the Apostles, but the book of the Acts of God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit - and it is indeed a book of acts! Whatever teaching there is comes out of the acts.

So, in Hebrews, the Son is introduced, presented, and then described. And it is a wonderful description! But we ask: 'Who is this Son?', for His name is not mentioned until we come to chapter two, verse nine. Until then it is the God without a name. Who is this Son? Well, it tells us for the first time in that verse: "We behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus". Perhaps it seems a very simple thing to say that Jesus is this Son, and this Son is Jesus, but possibly you do not recognize a certain thing about this: it is very rarely, after His resurrection and ascension, that He is called Jesus. After He has gone back to heaven He is usually 'the Lord Jesus', 'Jesus Christ our Lord', or 'our Lord Jesus Christ'. He is given His full title when He is enthroned in heaven, so if someone comes right back from that and just uses the title 'Jesus', you know that His humiliation and the purpose of that humiliation are being referred to. It has to do with His work on earth for our redemption.

So look at this verse again: "We behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death". Jesus was the name of the one who suffered death, tasted death for every man - and it was the Son of God who did that. He it was who as Jesus tasted death for every man, and that is the Son who is introduced here. He is identified by His name - Jesus... "Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for it is he that shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

Then the next thing is the position and function of the Son. In the second verse of the first chapter of this Letter you have this: "(God) hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds". This Son, known to us as Jesus, is by God's appointment the heir of all things. All things are to come to Him by right of God's appointment.

Please do not be weary with me. This is one of the first things said about the dispensation in which you and I live. It does not look very much like it now, for "we see not yet all things subjected to him" (Hebrews 2:, but it says here emphatically that He is the "heir of all things", so everything has to come to Him in the end. God is going "to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth" (Ephesians 1:10).

If we were speaking in human language we would put it like this: there was somewhere in the past eternity an occasion when the Godhead had a conference, to discuss the future of everything that was going to be made. There the Father said: 'I make My Son the heir of all things. I appoint Him My heir, and I decree that all things shall in the end come into His possession.'

Now we are dealing with the all-mighty and eternal God, and when He decides a thing like that nothing can prevent it. "Whom he appointed heir of all things" - but He did not leave it there. He turned to the Son (of course, this is only our way of speaking) and said: 'Now I am going to use You as the agent in making all things' - "through whom also he made the worlds". This Son, whom we know as our Saviour and Lord, was God's agent in the creation of the worlds.

Then it says a third thing, and this is something so difficult to understand: This Son upholds "all things by the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3). Things do not collapse because He is "upholding all things by the word of his power". And things will not collapse until He says they should do so.

[Shammu]

If that is true then it is something very wonderful for us. We are hearing so much about the disintegration of the universe and the blowing to pieces of this world. A lot of people are getting very frightened about this. If what is here is true, the universe and the world can never go to pieces until Jesus says so! Men may get very near to doing it, and then it recedes. It just does not happen. It has been like that several times, but the word of His power has stopped it, and until He says 'Now - go!' it will not go. He upholds "all things by the word of his power".

May we go as far as to say that this should be of personal comfort to us? Sometimes it seems that our own little world is going to pieces, and that we have come to the end. Well, it applies there. He will hold things together until He wants them to go to pieces.

This is the Son identified and described.

And then we move on into the larger body of the Letter: the Son's greatness by comparison with other great things and people. In verse four of the first chapter it says: "Having become by so much better than the angels". The angels are the next highest to God and the Son. Oh, there is so much said about angels in the Bible! Peter says that they are great in might and power (II Peter 2:11). In the book of the Judges an angel is said to have had a very striking appearance, and the person who saw him was afraid she was going to die. She said: "A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very terrible" (Judges 13:6).

The angels have a very vast knowledge. Jesus said: "Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven" (Matthew 24:36). If anyone ought to know, the angels should, for their knowledge is so full and so great, but even the angels do not know this. The angels have a vast knowledge.

There is an overwhelming number of angels: "The number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands" (Revelation 5:11). They are a vast number.

The angels are very near to the throne of God, and have access to His Presence. That comes out in one of the most beautiful things that Jesus said about little children - "See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 18:10). Of course, we do not understand that, for it is something very mysterious. But Jesus says that the angels have access to the throne of God, and are very near to God Himself. There is only One who is nearer.

The work of the angels is very varied. Look again at this Letter to the Hebrews, because we are keeping very close to it: "But of which of the angels hath he said at any time, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?" (Hebrews 1:13,14). And what a lot of work they have to do! Think of all the heirs of salvation, all over the world, in every generation - and this says that the angels have to look after them and their interests! "To do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation." Of course, we do not see them, but if the Bible is true the angels are there and are very busy people. They have very much and very valued service. All the various needs of these heirs of salvation are their concern.

So the angels are a very high order - but in this Letter the Lord is saying: 'The Son is far greater than the angels.' It says here, in verse four of the first chapter: "Having become by so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they."

If you read all there is about angels in the Bible you will have a very wonderful revelation - and then you come to this fragment about the Son, who is Jesus, "having become by so much better than the angels". That is where the superiority begins.

We have come into the dispensation of that: the superiority of Jesus to all the angels. Perhaps we have not made enough of the ministry of the angels, but they are evidently very busy for us. Possibly we have been saved from many things because they were very watchful.

[Shammu]

We begin with the angels - and then we go on with Moses. You will notice what it says in chapter three: "Wherefore, holy brethren, companions of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus: who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house. For he hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses" - (Get hold of that phrase - more honour than Moses!) - "For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken; but Christ as a son over God's house" (Hebrews 3:1-6 - R.V. margin). The writer is saying: 'We are not going to take anything away from Moses. We give him honour as a great servant of God, but Christ is greater. The Son is greater than Moses.'

Abraham was the father of the nation, but Moses was its builder and constitutor. What a large place Moses had in history! He not only had a very large place in Israel, but he has had a large place in the world. Many of the best legal systems are based upon his economy. Because through Moses it was said "Thou shalt not steal" we have all the police forces in the world, and also because he said "Thou shalt not kill". It would be good if we had a few more forces in relation to some other things that Moses said! But the point is: Moses has come to have a very large place in history. The Jews in Christ's day always appealed to Moses as the final authority in anything. Their charge against Jesus was that He made Himself greater than Moses. They believed, therefore, that there was no one greater than Moses: and the writer of this Letter to the Hebrews says, with great boldness, 'There is One greater than Moses. Give Moses all the honour due to him, but the Son is greater than he.'

Then the writer goes on to speak of Aaron, who was the first high priest and thus the representative of the whole priestly system. He was over all the other priests and Levites, over all the sacrifices and over the whole sanctuary. On the Day of Atonement he went alone into the place of the Most Holy. No one but Aaron was allowed then to go into the Holy of holies - and the writer here is saying that the Son is greater than Aaron, far greater. And he tells us why: Aaron died. And anyone who dies can never make anything perfect. When he dies he has to leave something unfinished. So the writer is saying: 'Aaron died. Therefore his work was not perfect. Death cut across it. It was never finished. There had to be a succession of high priests to carry on the work.' There were many more priests and many more sacrifices - all being added to try and make this thing perfect, and chapter nine of this Letter says that they never did make anything perfect. There were many high priests, millions of sacrifices and rivers of blood, yet never bringing anything to perfection.

And then the Son came - one High Priest for ever, who "ever liveth" (Hebrews 7:2,5). Therefore His work will never be cut short. "Thou art a priest forever" (Hebrews 7:17) - and there, in that wonderful paragraph, Melchizedek comes in, and everyone is wondering who he was. Who was Melchizedek? You can go to the Bible and you will never find the answer, and you certainly will not find it outside the Bible. This mysterious man came in, as it were, from nowhere, and where he went to no one knows. He has not beginning nor end, so far as the record is concerned, and that is taken up as illustrating the Lord Jesus as the High Priest - neither beginning of life nor end of days. He is the eternal High Priest. This High Priest, this greater than Aaron, "ever liveth (lives forever) to make intercession".

Then He offered one sacrifice forever. The high priests had used millions of sacrifices but had never made anything perfect. He, with only one sacrifice, did it. It is done forever, and He was the sacrifice as well as the priest. As priest He offered Himself without blemish unto God.

If we go on like this you will really begin to believe that there is something better here - better than Moses and better than Aaron. Do you know why God put these two men together? They were brothers, but they were very different. Yet they had to live together and work together? Why was that, and what was the difference? Moses was the governor, representing government and authority. What came through him was 'Thou shalt and thou shalt not'. Moses governed and exercised authority in Israel. But God is not only like that. Aaron was the man of love and of sympathy. Priesthood means just that - love and sympathy: love for the poor sinner, for the poor sinning world, and sympathy with men. God puts these two things together. It would not do to have all of one. It would never do to have only an autocrat. You must unite with the governor, the authority, a heart of compassion. If you have those two things put together you have a very good Israel.

Here in this letter it is saying that Jesus, the Son, is better than Moses and Aaron. On the one side He can say: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). The Father said: "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet" (Hebrews 1:13).

There are two wonderful pictures in this Letter. The one is of Jesus "crowned with glory and honour", having "sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" waiting, until His enemies are made 'the footstool of His feet', with all authority in His Power. He is in the place of government. And alongside of that is this other beautiful picture: "For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15).... "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." Not only authority and government, but love and sympathy - and so much greater than Moses and Aaron. His authority is a greater authority than that of Moses, and His government is a greater one than ever Moses exercised, but His love and sympathy are far greater than that of Aaron.

I am afraid that this is where we have to stop, though I have not finished with the superiority of the Son. We have not touched upon His work - the work of making purification for sin, but you can read it. Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!