Hebrews 12
Heb 12:1 The Visible Church an Encouragement to Faith.
I. Certainly it cannot be denied, that if we surrender our hearts to Christ and obey God, we shall be in the number of the few. So it has been in every age; so it will be to the end of time. It is hard, indeed, to find a man who gives himself up honestly to his Saviour. Nay, it would seem that as Christianity spreads, its fruit becomes less, or at least does not increase with its growth. It seems as if a certain portion of truth were in the world, a certain number of the elect in the Church, and as you increased its territory, you scattered the remnant to and fro, and made them seem fewer, and made them feel more desolate. Even when they know each other they may not form an exclusive communion together. There is no Invisible Church yet formed; it is but a name as yet, a name given to those who are hidden and known to God only, and as yet but half formed, the unripe and gradually ripening fruit which grows on the stem of the Church Invisible. As well might we attempt to foretell the blossoms which will at length turn to account and ripen for the gathering, and then, counting up all these, and joining them together in our minds, call them by the name of a tree, as attempt now to associate in one the true elect of God. They are scattered about amid the leaves of the mystical vine which is seen, and receive their nurture from its trunk and branches.
II. Do what he will, Satan cannot quench or darken the light of the Church. He may encrust it with his own evil creations, but even opaque bodies transmit rays, and Truth shines with its own heavenly lustre, though under a bushel. The scattered witnesses become, in the language of the text, "a cloud," like the Milky Way in the heavens. We have, in Scripture, the records of those who lived and died by faith in the old time, and nothing can deprive us of them. We find that we are not solitary; that others before us have been in our very condition, have had our feelings, undergone our trials, and laboured for the prize which we are seeking. This is why it is a Christian's characteristic to look back upon former times. The man of this world lives in the present, or speculates about the future; but faith rests upon the past, and is content. It makes the past the mirror of the future. What a world of sympathy and comfort is thus opened to us in the communion of saints. The heathen, who sought truth most earnestly, fainted for want of companions; every one stood by himself. But Christ has "gathered together the children of God that were scattered abroad," and brought them near to each other in every time and place. One living saint, though there be but one, is a pledge of the whole Church Invisible.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 236.
Weights and Sins.
I. There are hindrances which are not sins. A "weight" is that which, allowable in itself-legitimate, perhaps a blessing, the exercise of a power which God has given us-is, for some reason, a hindrance and impediment in our running the heavenly race. The one word describes the action or habit in its inmost essence; the other describes it by its accidental consequences. Sin is sin, in whatever degree it is done; but weights may be weights when they are in excess, and helps, not hindrances, when they are in moderation. The one is a legitimate thing, turned to a false use; the other is always, and everywhere, and by whomsoever performed, a transgression of God's law. The renunciation that is spoken of is not so much the putting away from ourselves of certain things lying round about us, that may become temptations, as the putting away of the dispositions within us which make these things temptations.
II. If we would run we must lay weights aside. The whole of the Christian's course is a fight. Because of that conflict, it follows, that if ever there is to be a positive progress in the Christian race, it must be accompanied and made possible by the negative process of casting away and losing much that interferes with it. There are two ways in which the injunction of the text may be obeyed. (1) The one is, by getting so strong that the thing shall not be a weight, though we carry it; (2) the other is, to take the prudent course of putting it entirely aside.
III. The laying aside of every weight is only possible by looking to Christ. We empty our hearts; but the empty heart is dull and cold and dark; we empty our hearts that Christ may fill them. Just as the old leaves drop naturally from the tree when the new buds of spring begin to put themselves out, so the new affections come and dwell in the heart, and expel the old.
A. Maclaren, Sermons in Manchester, vol. i., p. 259.
The Cloud of Witnesses.
I. Christian life is here compared to a race. The fitness of this comparison will appear in the following facts: (1) Christian life is not the ordinary human life. (2) In living out the Christian life exertions and endeavours are necessary. (3) For entrance upon Christian life a great change is needful. (4) The consummation of the Christian's life is singular. There is a racer's crown for the Christian.
II. These are the truths which justify the figure; but they are not the truths specially presented in the text: these are (1) that Christian life is not, as a life of faith, new; it has its witnesses from all past time. (2) The Christian life is not solitary; its witnesses are a cloud. (3) Christian life is not easy; it has its hardships and difficulties. (4) Christian life is continuous; it has its starting-point and its goal. (5) Christian life is not unaided; it has its subordinate aids and helps, besides the helper God.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 151.
Our Life a Race.
Life is of necessity a race, and we are commanded to make it a Christian race; such a race as Christianity will approve, and the Author of Christianity will reward with an imperishable crown. I notice-
I. That in order to this it must be run with a view to a proper object. (1) In judging of what ought to be the great aim and ambition of our life, it will be admitted, as an axiomatic truth, that it ought to be the very highest aim of which we are capable. (2) One consequence of this is, that anything which addresses itself only to a part of our being cannot be the proper aim of our life; we must take in the whole. Christianity proposes a prize which is worthy of all our efforts, which may well stand at the end of our life-race, and inflame the runners with a holy and boundless ambition.
II. The second thing necessary to make our life a Christian race is that we run in the right path. In every race there is a course marked out. It is not left to the runner to prescribe for himself in this matter. He must keep to the course, or he forfeits the very possibility of gaining the prize. There are two marks by which we may know the Christian's way. (1) The first is faith; (2) the second is loving obedience.
III. The third thing necessary to make our life-race a Christian race, is that we run in a right manner and spirit. The Apostle tells us that we must so run as to obtain; everything as regards comfort, progress and success will depend on the manner and spirit in which we run. (1) We must strip ourselves of every unnecessary encumbrance. (2) We must have concentration of purpose. (3) We must run in a spirit of dependence on our God. Note one or two remarks by way of encouragement. (1) It is surely a great encouragement that Divine help is promised. (2) It is a great encouragement that we are running in the view of so many onlookers, all concerned for our progress, and deeply interested in our success. This was one of the grand animating circumstances in the national contests of ancient times. The runner was conscious that the eyes of his assembled countrymen were upon him. The nation was present to behold. The consciousness of this could not fail to be the inspiration of all; it widened the glory of victory and deepened the shame of defeat. Is it not the same in the Christian race? The witnesses here are all the best and greatest in the universe. (3) The unspeakable value of the prize is another encouragement which we cannot overlook. Well might the Apostle say, "I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."
A. L. Simpson, The Upward Path, p. 81.
The Christian Race.
I. The writer has been taking his readers through the splendid battle roll of the heroes of faith. His object in doing so had been twofold: he wished to show them that in becoming Christians they had introduced no discontinuity into their religious life; had nowise forfeited their religious inheritance in the grand historic past of which, as patriots, they had a right to be so proud. But far more he desired to show, that not a few souls in this sad and wicked world had been pure and good; that there had been some, even in Sardis, who had not defiled their robes; that the views of those who would fain persuade us that apparent saintship is nothing but perfected hypocrisy are not merely cynical, but false. It is of memorable importance for us to know that the task set before us is not beyond the powers of any one of us; that any attempt to regard it as beyond our powers is a device of the justice and love of God. God has set a goal before us; He has bidden us run a race, and that race we can run, and that goal we can attain, not by our own strength, but by the strength which God gives us.
II. In order to run the race we must lay aside every weight. The word rendered "weight" is a technical, an athletic, a gymnastic word; it means, strictly speaking, superfluous flesh. We must strip off every encumbrance; yes, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. Here you have the very heart of the matter. You must retain nothing that impedes the race of God; you must make no truce with Canaan, you must plead for no Zoar of your own; you must leave the guilty city, and cast upon it no backward glance. If there be one point in which you are specially weak against the assaults of Satan; if you know that there is one sin to whose assaults you are specially prone, it is that sin which, as Dante said, will destroy your soul; that conquered, all others follow it; that victorious, all others partake of its victory.
F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 289.
References: Heb 12:1 .-G. Salmon, Sermons in Trinity College, Dublin, p. 1; Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, 1st series, p. 55; S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 151; Expositor, 1st series, vol. v., p. 149; R. L. Browne, Sussex Sermons, p. 227; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 198; Ibid., 4th series, vol. i., p. 96; T. De Witt Talmage, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 70; J. B. Brown, Ibid., vol. vii., pp. 369, 392; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. viii., p. 501; Preacher's Monthly, vol. v., p. 124; vol. x., p. 299; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. viii., p. 57; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. viii., p. 88.
Heb 12:1-2 The Exemplar of Faith.
I. The cloud of witnesses is not the object on which our heart is fixed. They testify of faith, and we cherish their memory with gratitude, and walk with a firmer step because of the music of their lives. Our eye, however, is fixed, not on them, not on many, but on One; not on the army, but the Leader; not on the servants, but the Lord. We see Jesus only, and from Him we derive our true strength, even as He is our light of life. There are many witnesses, and yet Jesus is the only true and faithful Witness. His example is the great motive of our obedience of faith. Jesus walked by faith. He, who in the eternal counsel undertook our salvation in obedience to the Father's will, entered, by His Incarnation, on the path of faith. Herein is the very power and efficacy of the obedience of Jesus; that it is the voluntary condescension and obedience of the Son of God; that it is a true and real obedience, submission, dependence, struggle, suffering; that it is the obedience of faith.
II. Jesus believed. He is the Author and Finisher of faith-the only perfect, all-sided embodiment of faith. Since without faith it is impossible to please God, and since Jesus always and perfectly pleased the Father; since faith is the very root and spirit of obedience, and Jesus was the servant of the Lord, who finished the God-given work, Jesus was perfect in faith. The whole realm of faith was traversed by Him; He ascended the whole scale, from the lowest to the highest step; He endured and He conquered all things.
III. The Christian life is a race, and hence constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, are absolutely necessary. "Lay aside useless and hurtful things; leave them behind," says the Apostle. It is easy, when we look unto Jesus; but impossible unless our thoughts and affections are centred on Christ, unless we behold Him as our Lord and Bridegroom, our Strength and Joy. This is the only method of the New Covenant.
A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 352.
The Communion of Saints.
The Christian Church has for many generations set apart a day for the observance of the Feast of All Saints; and its eve, celebrated in poetry, in games, by wild and graceful superstitions, and bearing in its practices traces of heathen faiths and legend, has been called All Hallows' Eve. The Feast was originally set up to put an end to the excessive multiplication of Saints' Days. These grew so rapidly, each nation wishing to honour its own special saints, that more than half the days in each month were turned into holidays. Work was neglected, and laziness seemed in danger of developing into a virtue. The Roman Church then threw the veneration and love of all these holy persons into one festival, instead of many, and the day was called the Feast of All Saints. The festival finally became the poetic form in which the doctrine of the communion of saints was enshrined.
I. This faith tells us that we are never alone. The very ground of it is that in the midst of this vast world of being, supporting its existence and pervading it, touching it at all points, and conscious of the life of every soul in it, is God, our Father, at once the vital principle by which each several being-to borrow an illustration from science-spins on its individual poles, and the ether in which independently it moves. He knows every thought; He feels every sorrow and joy; He supports with all the force of law every effort towards goodness, that is, towards union with the eternal, with the universe; He makes us feel, when we are in evil thought or act, our contradiction to the whole universe, our apartness from Him, till at last we yield ourselves to goodness only, and are consciously at one with Him.
II. And, secondly, it is not only God who, according to this idea, is present with us for solace and for power, but also all the noble dead-all who live in God, and through the unity of His pervading Spirit are interwoven with us in the infinite web of immortal communion. Jesus is the Lover of our soul, and so are all the holy and loving souls who live in the eternal world. He is the nearest and the most conquering in His love and in His communion. But yet there are some whom we have known and loved on earth who have to us a relationship of union, not so powerful in love, but nearer in human bonds. These are ours, and the tie between us, though they are not seen, is closer even than it was on earth. What is its ground? Where is its strength rooted? In the truth of the Communion of Saints.
III. Finally, there are two things more to say. One is, that all the joy and comfort of this doctrine depend on our becoming pure in heart, holy in word and deed. Communion with God is known through holiness. The pure in heart see God. Communion with humanity in God is known by love. And there is no other way in the world by which we can believe in God and believe in man. And, secondly, when we think of this vast assemblage, all united in a communion of gentleness, we understand that the last and highest range of human nature is not knowledge or power, but holiness held in love.
S. A. Brooke, The Unity of God and Man, p. 61.
The Christian Race.
I. The Race. It is the old race from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, from ruin to regeneracy, from sin to full salvation. Sometimes it is called a journey. Even that is a figure full of interest, as denoting a purpose, a progress, an end. But here it rises to its full strength, to its full dignity, and is called a race. A race, if it is at all worthy of the name, is a straining from beginning to end. Let no man think that the Christian life is easy. When things get so low with any one that the strenuous imagery of this passage seems to have no application, that man has no evidence, or he can have very little, and that most precarious, that he is a runner at all.
II. The runners-who are they? Two things are found in all the runners who run and strive lawfully for this great mastery, for this great prize. And they are (1) that all the runners shall begin at the Christian beginning, where all workers, all warriors, all runners, do begin, who enter upon this earnest and grand life. And where is that? They must begin with repentance; they must begin with faith; they must begin, in one word, with the Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Then the other thing is this, that, while beginning thus at the true beginning, they must also seek nothing less than the true end-the high, Christian end. And what is that? The last and noblest end of all Christian life, is the image of Christ, purity, perfection, the full perfection of our nature, conformity in all things to the Master's will; that is the end, perfect peace, perfect knowledge, perfect love, perfect obedience.
III. The Impediments. These exist in every case; no runner is without them. They are to be laid aside. All that hinders, weights or sins, whatever they may be, be they constitutional, or be they superinduced, if they hinder they are to be laid aside by us.
IV. The Witnesses. There are spectators of the race. There is a watching from the skies: there is an earnest waiting of the glorified Church. What we think of as most shadowy, is in fact most real. What we think of as most distant, is sometimes really most near. What a motive is thus derived to promote our diligence while we are here as runners, and ere we have yet won our crown! If we lose it, it will be in sight of them all. Those whom you have never seen will see you; will see you stumble, will see you fall, will see you cease from running any more, while another takes your crown.
V. The Goal. The goal is at the end of the race. The goal in this case is the person of Christ, "looking unto Jesus." This is the goal, the presence, the approbation of Christ. His presence satisfies that illustrious company. It is His light that covers them all with glory; it is His approbation that thrills them all with joy; it will be at His feet that they will cast their crowns at the last day.
A. Raleigh, Penny Pulpit, 3938.
References: Heb 12:1 , Heb 12:2 .-E. L. Hull, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 144; Fletcher, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 133; E. B. Pusey, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 130; Bishop M. Simpson, Sermons, p. 405.
Heb 12:2 I. If man is to become good, it is, above all, needful that he should learn to hate evil; and to hate it, not alone because of its uselessness or inexpediency, but because of its inherent badness. Now here a look at the Cross of Jesus supplies the need. To those who will only open their eyes to see, in the sufferings and death of the holy Jesus, the terrible result of man's sin, looking to the cross supplies a motive for loathing and forsaking sin, such as whole volumes of moral teaching could never produce. "Looking unto Jesus" supplies man with that most irresistible of all motive impulses, the motive impulse of love.
II. And this brings me to a farther influence resulting from this upward look. I mean, that process of assimilation which is brought about by intensely beholding those whom we intensely love.
III. But if thus, from feelings of gratitude, and by a process of assimilation we become like Jesus, and love to obey His example, what must follow? Why, necessarily this: we shall be ready, like Him, to deny ourselves for the sake of our fellow-men. In other words, that vital element of goodness-self-sacrifice for the sake of our fellow-men-will become daily more and more the principle of our life work.
IV. Looking to Jesus has the power to make us persevere in welldoing. He, unto whom we are looking, knew all things. He was able to reconcile discrepancies, and to solve mysteries which baffle our finite minds. The perpetuation of these difficulties may be, for the present, a part of our probation. It matters not, enough for us to have before us the example of One who, knowing the meaning of what to us is inscrutable, showed us how a Christian ought to work by working even to the death Himself.
Bishop of Meath, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, June 2nd, 1881.
Heb 12:2 Self-Contemplation.
Instead of looking off to Jesus, and thinking little of ourselves, it is at present thought necessary, among the mixed multitude of religionists, to examine the heart with the view of ascertaining whether it is in a spiritual state or no.
I. This modern system certainly does disparage the revealed doctrines of the Gospel, however its more moderate advocates may shrink from admitting it. Considering a certain state of heart to be the main thing to be aimed at, they avowedly make the "truth as it is in Jesus," the definite creed of the Church, secondary in their teaching and profession. This system tends to obliterate the great objects brought to light in the Gospel, and to darken the eye of faith.
II. On the other hand, the necessity of obedience in order to salvation does not suffer less from the upholders of this modern system than the articles of the creed. Instead of viewing works as the concomitant development and evidence, as well as the subsequent result of faith, they lay all the stress upon the direct creation in their minds of faith and spiritual-mindedness, which they consider to consist in certain emotions and desires, because they can form abstractedly no better or truer notion of these qualities.
III. Is it too much to say that, instead of attempting to harmonise Scripture with Scripture, much less referring to antiquity to enable them to do so, they either drop altogether or explain away whole portions of the Bible-and those most sacred ones? Is not the rich and varied revelation of our merciful Lord practically reduced to a few chapters of St. Paul's Epistles, whether rightly or perversely understood?
IV. The immediate tendency of these opinions is to undervalue ordinances as well as doctrines.
V. The foregoing remarks go to show the utterly unevangelical character of the system in question. Considered as the characteristic of a school, the principles in question are anti-Christian; for they destroy all positive doctrine, all ordinances, all good works; they foster pride, invite hypocrisy, discourage the weak, and deceive most fatally, while they profess to be the special antidotes to self-deception.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. ii., p. 163.
Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith.
I. Author of our faith. Faith begins often in deep, impenetrable secrecy, not within the sphere of personal observation. The soul does not observe its own faith at first, for a while; it is hardly within the sphere of personal consciousness, except fitfully. So it begins, and, like every living thing-I mean, of course, in the beginning, it is delicate, tender, frail, easily hurt and wounded, and, commonly speaking, easily destroyed. Remember that Jesus Christ is the Author of your faith, little though it seems. We should try to judge of things in ourselves and others, not as they seem, but as they are. Faith is faith, and Christ its Author, whatever accidents, hindrances, human imperfections, rolling wheels, dusty whirlwinds, and biting east winds may be about it; and faith has a power of living on, of rising up, of resisting attack, of making a channel for its own life, clarifying as it flows, the power given to it by its Author the very power of His own faith and His own life, by which He, for Himself and for us, overcame the whole world, and at last ascended up to heaven. A wonderful consummation, a wonderful encouragement, that lets in the simple truth that Christ is the Author of our faith.
II. Now, observe, Christ is also the Finisher of our faith. As soon as it is begun, His whole discipline is with a view to its perfecting. There is, of course, a sense in which our faith and religious life never can be ended; it will remain with us and in us for evermore. We shall have it in heaven, of course, if we believe the word of God, and have it on the earth, and we shall trust in the providence of heaven-for heaven will have a providence-just as we trust in the providence of God on the earth. And we shall obey His commands without the misgivings and imperfections of service that attach to our obedience below. But this earthly time is in many ways a time by itself. We sometimes have occasion to say, because it is true, looking upon life as a continued moral progress, that death is but a circumstance, and that it marks a particular stage in the grand evolution of things. That is true, but it is equally true that death is a grand crisis. The life process is then so far complete. One epoch of it has been finished: the probationary epoch. The growing of earth is all done. There are endless diversities in the spiritual experience of believers in coming along their ten thousand divers roads to the one grand meeting-place in perfect holiness in heaven. There are many emblems used in Scripture to describe the work of progressive sanctification, and we have to remember that the Finisher is working His one great work by means of all the various methods, and that it will be the worse for us if we insist upon putting the whole of the meaning into any one. The one thing we have to remember is this, that the Finisher is at work in all, if not in the actual finishing work itself, yet in the preparatory work, which is just as important.
A. Raleigh, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 327.
Heb 12:2 Christian Joy.
I. What was the cause of the Saviour's joy? (1) It was the joy of redemption. (2) It was the joy of union. It was the sense that He would be united with you and me; that was the joy of Jesus Christ. (3) It was joy supremely for the glory of God; that was His joy. It was the passion of His life; it bore Him through the desolation of His death.
II. What is the power of joy? (1) It is the power of exaltation. (2) It is a principle of expansion. Joy is an expansive power-the joy of God. Just because it is "of God," because it is a part out of that great broad life of our Creator, it expands the heart of the creature. What is one of the sorrows and degradations of life? Why, that we are so narrow-minded that we take narrow views of the great questions of human life. Was there ever a heart so big as the great heart of Jesus? That heart opened out to, and embraced the whole family of, poor, weak mankind. (3) It is a principle of strength. It prevents us from falling down into the mire and clay, into the darkness and sadness of sorrow. Joy raises us above the world, for it opens out what some men would call an imaginary, but what I dare to call a real, though spiritual, world.
III. Why may we have joy? Because we are immortal. If we were mortal, then, indeed, there would be sorrow. What we want is a deepening sense of immortality. The sense of life is blessedness. (1) I joy because my Christian life implies also a completeness of final union-final union with all that is holy, and beautiful, and good. (2) There is further reason for our joy-a reason not despicable in a life of labour-we joy because "there remaineth a rest for the people of God." (3) It is a life of joy because of the abundance of grace. He came that grace might be abundant; and so it is, and the duty of Christians is the duty of cheerfulness and thanksgiving.
J. W. Knox Little, Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life, p. 118.
Heb 12:2 Let us notice-
I. What Christ endured.
II. Why He endured it.
III. The lessons that endurance teaches.
I. The sorrows of Jesus. What Christ endured-crucifixion. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus laid down His life for His foes! Christ had endured much for mankind before He suffered on the Holy Rood. But His other pains and sorrows fade away before the agonies of His crucifixion, even as the stars turn pale and then vanish before the overpowering light of the sun. He endured for the joy of saving souls; endured, not with the dogged callousness of the Stoic who despises his fellow-creatures, but by reason of a love that triumphed over every feeling of pain, of shame, and of sorrow. For the joy that was set before Him He endured all this.
II. Why Christ suffered; why Christ endured it. It was for the joy that was set before Him, and that joy consisted in doing good to others. It was because by this suffering Jesus redeemed mankind. It was to save men from the punishment and the power of sin. Like all true heroes, Jesus was preeminently unselfish. He had nothing to gain save the love of humanity. His joy was purely unselfish. He suffered, not to gain wealth, or renown, or power, but simply and solely to redeem mankind, to carry out to the last that obedience to the Father by which the many are made righteous. He suffered because He was obedient to the voice of conscience. There was nothing of the ascetic in Jesus. An ascetic voluntarily, purposely, goes out of the way to make himself miserable. Not so Jesus. He was preeminently the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. But all His sorrows met Him in the path of duty. He heroically endured the shame and ignominy of the Crucifixion (a more degrading death than hanging with us), despising its shame, for the joy that was set before Him-the joy of redeeming the world.
III. The lessons of endurance. It teaches professing Christians to be ready to endure the cross of self-denial, and despise the shame that the world heaps on the faithful disciple of the Lord. It appeals to every sinner, with matchless eloquence, to be a follower of the self-denying Jesus. Plato and Socrates were noble leaders for Athens in the paths of virtue, but Athens perished. She could not be saved by her one or two great men, for the mass of the people were utterly corrupt. So, too, the greatness of our fatherland depends not on one or two great men, but on the masses being brought to Jesus Christ and led to take up the cross of self-denial for His sake.
F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, Dec. 21st, 1892.
References: Heb 12:2 .-A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, pp. 77, 91; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 236; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 180; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 207; Bishop Ryle, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 142; A. Raleigh, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 495; R. Tuck, Ibid., vol. v., p. 132; H. Wonnacott, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 392; W. Page, Ibid., vol. xxv., p 37:4 ; L. D. Bevan, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 200; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iv., p. 84.
Heb 12:3 I. St. Paul, in the verses of our text, gives us a plain, serious reason for frequent meditation upon Christ's sufferings. It is not that we may learn to see how far human cruelty and intolerance can go; it is not that we may pride ourselves on being at least better than the savages who nailed the Saviour to the tree; it is not that we may congratulate ourselves on living in more civilised times; it is not for any reason which might turn our eyes away from Christ as the Life and the Light of men; but it is for this: "Consider Him, lest ye be weary and faint in your minds."
II. Christ's life, then, as the pattern life, is what is set before us here. Consider Him, for as He did, so must ye strive to do. The death and passion of the Son of God is the standard by which to measure any efforts of ours. There is a voice within us which tells us that in holiness and the faithful following of Christ there is, indeed, infinite happiness; that victory over evil is a triumph that is infinitely desirable; that it is far better to strive for what is noble and good, than to succumb to what is little and vile. But when these positions are to be carried out into practice, when our convictions are to be acted on every hour, when there is a countless host of disturbing influences at work, busy in their efforts to unbalance our minds and to lead us astray, then the great danger is lest we should say the lifelong struggle is too hard, the constant watchfulness required of us is too great a strain. It is in considering Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself that we shall learn-by slow degrees, but we shall learn-not to be weary or faint in our minds.
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 119.
References: Heb 12:3 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1073; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 232; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 175; Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., p. 58; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. x., pi 8:3 .
Heb 12:3-13 I. Chastisement is sent by fatherly love. There, where we are most sensitive, God touches us. The thorn in the flesh is something which we fancy we cannot bear if it were to be lifelong. We have emerged, as it were, out of a dark tunnel, and fancy that the rest of our journey will be amid sunlit fields. We have achieved steep and rugged ascents, and imagine the period of great and exhausting exertion is over. The trial deepest and sorest seems to leave us for a while, yet it returns again.
II. "Afterwards." Does not this world search and try us? God forbid that we should forget the chastening of the Lord, that we should "get over" sorrow, or be comforted like the world. Now is our afterwards, peace and godliness today-by reason of yesterday's sorrow and trial.
III. The cross of Christ is despised and hated, not merely by self-righteous Jews and wise and worldly Greeks, but within the professing Church the Apostle weeps over many who are enemies of the cross of Christ, not of the doctrine that Christ died instead of sinners, but of the teaching that we have been crucified with Him and have been planted in the likeness of His death; that we have been saved, and are being saved, not from death, but out of death; that, dying daily the painful death by crucifixion, we live the spiritual resurrection life together with and in Christ. By affliction and the inward crucifixion we learn to seek our true life, treasure, strength, and joy, not in earthly affections, possessions, pursuits, and attainments, however good and noble, but in Him who is at the right hand of God; and the end will be glory.
A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 371.
Heb 12:4 It belongs to a good man to strive against sin. It sounds like a contradiction, indeed, for how should a good man have any sin to strive against? Nevertheless it is true; for as absolute goodness is not to be found in this fallen world, we must be willing to accept those efforts after it which seem to imply that the idea of it at least exists in the mind and the desire in the heart, while it is exemplified only in a very subordinate degree in the life. The doctrine of the text is, that all Christians are specially called and committed to a warfare with sin, a striving against it, even unto blood. Consider:
I. The nature of the striving. (1) It is really a striving; that is to say, it is really a difficult thing. It is not a mere figure of speech; it is the most difficult thing that any human being can attempt. He who addresses himself to it must lay his account with many a sharp and terrible conflict, not in the arena of the world alone, but in the more awful, even the invisible, arena of his own soul; and in view of this he must be careful to grasp the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith, and by watchfulness and prayer to "gird up the loins of his mind." (2) It is a striving against sin as sin. Men of the world sometimes strive against sin after a fashion, but their striving is very different from that referred to here. (a) It is partial; (b) it is superficial; (c) it is only occasional. Such individuals may resist today, but they indulge tomorrow. The believer's striving is universal and persistent.
II. Look next at some considerations fitted to sustain and encourage us in it. And here notice (1) That help is promised. Were it not so, it would be idle to begin it. We should speedily fail. But God sends us not on this warfare at our own charges. He has provided us with weapons. When the believer goes forth behind the shield of faith to duty and conflict, God goes forth to meet him, and joining His power to the creature's weakness, giveth him the victory over every foe. (2) The longer the striving is continued the easier it becomes. This is a law of our nature. It is embodied in the common saying that practice makes perfect. The frequent repetition of an act ultimately establishes habit, and habit is a second nature, frequently stronger than nature itself.. (3) Striving is the universal law and condition. No more is required of us than has been required of all who have reached the goal. We are only asked to walk in the footsteps and accept the experience of all who have gone before us to the celestial heights, and it will be the same with alt who come after us, to the end of time. (4) There is the certainty and glory of your reward. Look less to the way, where, indeed, there is much to discourage, and more to the end of the way, where all is calm and bright. Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.
A. L. Simpson, Sermons, p. 187.
The Witness of the Passion.
The Apostle in the text is addressing the Hebrew Christians and encouraging them to a conflict, and as he encourages them to a conflict, for its object, its method, and its degree, he refers them back to the Passion of the Lord. The reason is, that the Passion has in it the essence of a great witness for God and man. The verses immediately before the text show clearly that that is indeed the Apostle's meaning, and that on which he would fix their minds.
I. What was the mode of conflict? What was the meaning of the severe dignity of the Passion of the Lord? Now it may appear startling that in the Passion of the Lord we find what confuses at first, what is difficult to interpret, that, whilst we Christians call it a conflict, its method is purely passive. There is no spirit throughout of aggression; there is no attempt at attack. Certainly it is true that in this moral attitude of the Lord there are most consoling, most comforting, most invigorating lessons for the patience and endurance of a Christian. But remember that the moral attitude, the method, of the Passion, its purely passive phase, means a great deal more than that. Like the flash of the lightning or like the track of the glacier, it makes us feel at once that we are in the presence of a force which is unmeasured and unmeasurable, of a force in the life of God. Now what is that force? The Passion in its passive character, in the moral attitude of simple forbearance and endurance, witnesses to force in the character of God. Force can be seen in a mere passive moral attitude.
II. And in the same way as there was real force there depicted in a passive attitude, so there was completeness in that attitude as it was seen in the Lord. When Jesus stood face to face with evil, when Jesus endured the Cross, resisting, not attacking, unto blood, there came out before the mind of man, before the thought of Christendom, the gathering up of every element of moral splendour in that one great glory-the glory of the sanctity of God. The witness of the Passion to the character of God is the witness to unspeakable, unapproachable holiness.
III. The Passion also witnessed to sin. The world exhibited indifference. Jesus breasted indifference with intensity. Sin teaches us to hate God, to hate one another. Jesus in the Passion met it by love. He witnessed to the sanctity of God; He witnessed to the sin of man.
W. J. Knox Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii, p. 257.
References: Heb 12:4 .-H. Wace, The Anglican Pulpit of To-day, p. 325; D. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 212; Preacher's Monthly, vol. vii., p. 118. Heb 12:5 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 48. Heb 12:6 .-G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons in Marlborough College, p. 476. Heb 12:6-11 .-H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 241.
Heb 12:7 (Revised Version)
I. The word endure is no tame word. It means something widely different from insensibility, or proud defiance. Stoicism is no Christian virtue. Obstinate and contemptuous superiority to pain has no place here. This may possibly save a waste of passion in the sufferer; it may impress; it may win admiration. But all that kind of thing is far remote from the writer's thought. He drops very impressive hints about the afflictions of these Hebrews, and about the example of Christ. Christ endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him, counting its pain and its shame as light, trivial, in comparison with that. His holy soul had adequate solace and stay all through that immeasurable anguish; mental reasons mastered the flesh: spiritual considerations sustained Him that were far mightier to support than the cross to overthrow. The Hebrews, too, were exercised, much exercised, in their afflictions, and the exercise, like a Divine alchemy, was turning every constituent of distress into gold.
II. Questions arise here that admit of only one answer. (1) Who doubts the need of chastening? Sin in one or other of its myriad forms has aggravated all the imperfections of inexperience, so that we require far surer correction and direction than a childhood and youth of innocence had ever called for. (2) Who doubts the spirit in which this chastening is inflicted? Dictated by love, directed by wisdom, aimed at the highest ends, it has every quality to keep us alike from despising it or fainting under it. (3) Who is not driven to rigorous self-examination? There is no talismanic power in afflictions, in pains and penalties, that of itself can correct and transform. Chastening calls for thought, for reflection, for faithful survey of our life, with its temper, aims, and spirit. (4) Who does not rejoice in the advance of correction and growth? "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but since have I kept Thy word."
G. B. Johnson, The Beautiful Life of Christ, p. 166.
References: Heb 12:7 .-F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol xxvi.,p. 321. Heb 12:8 .-T. R. Stevenson, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 412. Heb 12:9 .-H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2987. Heb 12:10 .-E. de Pressensé, The Mystery of Suffering, p. 55; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 12th series, p. 92. Heb 12:11 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 528; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 139; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 1st series, p. 238; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 10.
Heb 12:12 Religious Cowardice. .
The encouragement which we derive from St. Mark's history is, that the feeblest among us may, through God's grace, become strong; and the warning to be drawn from it is to distrust ourselves, and, again, not to despise weak brethren or to despair of them, but to bear their burdens and help them forward, if so be we may restore them.
I. Observe in what St. Mark's weakness lay. There is a sudden defection, which arises from self-confidence. Such was St. Peter's. In St. Mark's history, however, we have no evidence of self-confidence; rather we may discern in it the state of multitudes at the present day who proceed through life with a certain sense of religion on their minds, who have been brought up well and know the truth, who acquit themselves respectably while danger is at a distance, but disgrace their profession when brought into any unexpected trial.
II Christians such as Mark will abound in any prosperous Church; and should trouble come, they will be unprepared for it. They have been so long accustomed to external peace that they do not like to be persuaded that danger is at hand. They settle it in their imagination that they are to live and die undisturbed. They look at the world's events, as they express it, cheerfully, and argue themselves into self-deception. Next, they make concessions to suit their own predictions and wishes, and surrender the Christian cause, that unbelievers may not commit themselves to an open attack upon it To speak plainly, a state of persecution is not (what is familiarly called) their element; they cannot breathe in it. If there be times when we have grown torpid from long security and are tempted to prefer the treasures of Egypt to the reproach of Christ, what can we do? what ought we to do but to pray God in some way or other to try the very heart of the Church and to afflict us here rather than hereafter? So may we issue evangelists for timid deserters of the cause of truth, speaking the words of Christ and showing forth His life and death, rising strong from our sufferings and building up the Church in the strictness and zeal of those who despise this life except as it leads to another.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. ii., p. 175.
References: Heb 12:12 .-Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 55. Heb 12:12 , Heb 12:13 .-J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life, 1st series, p. 323; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 243. Heb 12:12-29 .-R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, p. 264.
Heb 12:14 The Peaceful Temper.
There are many particular duties in which Christianity and worldly wisdom meet, both recommending the same course. One of these is the duty mentioned in the text, viz., that of being at peace with others. The reason which worldly prudence suggests is the quiet and happiness of life, which are interfered with by relations of enmity to others. The reason which religion gives is the duty of brotherly love, of which the peaceful disposition is a part. But the frequency of the advice, under either aspect, is remarkable, and shows that there is some strong prevailing tendency in human nature by which it is opposed. Let us examine what that tendency is.
I. When we examine the tempers of men, the first thing we observe is that people rush into quarrels from simple violence and impetuosity of temper, which prevents them from waiting a single minute to examine the merits of the case and the facts of the case, but carries them forward possessed of a blind partiality in their own favour and seeing nothing but what favours their own side. (2) Again, there is the malignant temper, which fastens vindictively upon particular persons, who have been either the real or the supposed authors of some disadvantage. (3) There are some persons who can never be neutral or support a middle state of mind. If they do not positively like others, they will see some reason for disliking them; they will be irritable if they are not pleased; they will be enemies if they are not friends.
II. Peace implies the entire absence of positive ill-will. The Apostle says this is our proper relation toward all men. More than this applies to some, but as much as this applies to all. He would have us embrace all men within our love so far as to be in concord with them, not to be separated from them. Separation is inconsistent with Christian membership. On the other hand, he knows that more than this must, by the limitations of our nature, apply to the few rather than to the mass and multitude; he fixes then upon this, nothing higher and nothing lower; he fixes upon the middle ground of peace as our proper relation towards the many. You must not, he says, be at peace only with those to whom you are partial; that is easy enough. You must be at peace with those towards whom you entertain no partiality, who do not perhaps please you or suit you. This is the rule of peace which the Gospel lays down, and it must be fulfilled by standing guard at the entrance of our hearts and keeping off intruding thoughts. It was not without design that following peace and holiness were connected by the Apostle. A life of enmities is greatly in opposition to growth in holiness. All that commotion of petty animosity in which some people live is very lowering; it dwarfs and stunts the spiritual growth of persons. Their spiritual station becomes less and less in God's sight and in man's. In a state of peace the soul lives as in a watered garden, where, under the watchful eye of the Divine source, the plant grows and strengthens. All religious habits and duties, prayer, charity, and mercy, are formed and matured when the man is in a state of peace with others.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 203.
I. Even supposing a man of unholy life were suffered to enter heaven, he would not be happy there, so that it would be no mercy to permit him to enter. We are apt to deceive ourselves, and to consider heaven a place like this earth; I mean, a place where every one may choose and take his own pleasure. But an opinion like this, though commonly acted upon, is refuted as soon as put into words. Here every one can do his own pleasure, but there he must do God's pleasure. Heaven is not like this world; it is much more like a church. For in a place of worship no language of this world is heard; there are no schemes brought forward for temporal objects, great or small, no information how to strengthen our worldly interests, extend our influence, or establish our credit. Here we hear solely and entirely of God; and therefore a church is like heaven, because both in the one and in the other there is one single sovereign subject-religion-brought before us. When, therefore, we think to take part in the joys of heaven without holiness, we are as inconsiderate as if we supposed that we could take an interest in the worship of Christians here below without possessing it in our measure.
II. If we wished to imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven. Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man. We know how unhappy we are apt to feel at present when alone in the midst of strangers or of men of different tastes and habits from ourselves. How miserable, for example, would it be to have to live in a foreign land, among a people whose faces we never saw before, and whose language we could not learn! And this is but a faint illustration of the loneliness of a man of earthly dispositions and tastes thrust into the society of saints and angels. How forlorn would he wander through the courts of heaven!
III. If a certain character of mind, a certain state of the heart and affections, be necessary for entering heaven, our actions will avail for our salvation chiefly as they tend to produce or evidence this frame of mind. Good works are required, not as if they had anything of merit in them, not as if they could of themselves turn away God's anger for our sins or purchase heaven for us, but because they are the means, under God's grace, of strengthening and showing forth that holy principle which God implants in the heart, and without which we cannot see Him. The separate acts of obedience to the will of God, good works as they are called, are of service to us as gradually severing us from the world of sense and impressing our hearts with a heavenly character.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 1.
References: Heb 12:14 .-A. K. H. B., The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 3rd series, p. 124; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 401; Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 359; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. x., p. 80. Heb 12:14 , Heb 12:15 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 940.
Heb 12:14-18 Peace and Holiness.
The two exhortations to follow peace with all men and that holiness without which none can see the Lord comprise the whole Christian life.
I. The characteristic feature of the Church ought to be the spirit of peace. Christians are faithful to God, and to His truth; their testimony is against sin and unbelief in the world, against hypocrisy and unfaithfulness in the Church; but as love is their life element, so peace is their characteristic. If God's peace is within us, we love the brethren and all men. We are able to deal with them tenderly and calmly. Humility, affection, and helpfulness characterise the son of peace; for he is always praising the boundless grace of God in which he stands.
II. Holiness. Christ is made unto us sanctification. If only holiness can admit us to the blessed vision of God, it must be Christ's; for imperfect holiness is as great a contradiction as unclean purity. The warfare is painful, for sin is still in us. It is not like a garment that we wear. It has entrenched itself in our flesh; that is, the old Adam-nature of body, soul, and spirit. Hence cleaving to Christ and our holiness in Him is crucifixion of the flesh, and that is painful. Let us study the epistles of the Apostle Paul, and learn the solemn and awful character of the Christian life, warfare, and race, the constant need of watchfulness and concentration of energy, of diligence, self-restraint, and self-denial. But let us learn from them that it is a blessed and joyous thing to follow the holiness, to abide in the light and love of God, to dwell in Him who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all, who is love, and who hath shed abroad His love in our hearts.
A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. ii., p. 388.
References: Heb 12:15 .-E. Bersier, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 322; Outline Sermons to Children, p. 267; J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 22. Heb 12:16 , Heb 12:17 .-S. A. Tipple, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 139. Heb 12:17 .-J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 85; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 317; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 172. Heb 12:18-24 .-Parker, Cavendish Pulpit, 1st series, p. 148.
Heb 12:16 Profanity in the Home.
In Scripture there are few characters more profitable for study than Esau. Whether we look at his circumstances, or his temper, or the line along which the tragedy of his life developed, we get nearer to this man, and find in him more that resembles ourselves, more that resembles the pitiful facts and solemn possibilities of our own lives, than we do in connection with almost any other character in either of the two Testaments. Here is a man who was not an insane or a monstrous sinner, a Lucifer falling from heaven, but who came to sin, who came to fatal irredeemable sin, in the common human way: by birth into it; by the sins of others as well as his own; by everyday and sordid temptations; by carelessness and the sudden surprise of neglected passions. Esau is not a repulsive, but a lovable, man; and we know that if one is to learn from any character, one's love must be awake, and take her share in the learning too. There is everything about Esau to engage us in the study of him. The mystery that haunts all human sin, the pity that we feel for so wronged and so genial a nature, only make clear to us more fully the central want and blame of his life. Perhaps we may discover it to be the central want and blame of our own.
I. Hereditary sinfulness. First, then, Esau was sinned against from his birth. The problems of heredity and of a stress of temptation for which he was not responsible appear in his case from the very first. His father and mother were responsible for much of the character of their son. It has always seemed to me a strange thing that in the otherwise beautiful marriage service of the Church of England the example of Isaac and Rebecca should be invoked for each new-wedded pair; for Isaac and Rebecca's marriage was the spoiling of one of the most beautiful idylls that ever opened on this earth of ours. It began in a romance, and it ended in the sheerest vulgarity; it began with the most honourable plighting of troth, and it ended in the most sordid querulousness, and shiftiness, and falsehood. This was just because, with all its grace and all its wonder, the fear of God was not present, because, with all the romance, there was no religion, and, with all the giving of the one heart to the other, there had been no surrender of both to God. The Nemesis of picturesqueness without truth is always sordidness; the Nemesis of romance without religion is always vulgarity; and vulgarity and sordidness are the prevailing notes of Isaac and Rebecca's wedded life.
II. Evil home influence. Our text calls Esau "a profane person," and this predominant aspect of his character he got at home. The Greek word for "profane" means literally that which is trodden, which is not closed to anything, but may be passed over, used, and trodden by who will. It is equivalent to a word in a notice we often see in our own towns: "No Thoroughfare." "Profane" means "thoroughfare," and had a Greek been wanting to put up "No Thoroughfare" upon any street, he would have expressed it probably in the original word in this text: "Not Profane." It was first applied to the ground outside sacred enclosures or temples. It meant ground that was common and public-profane. That which lay in front of the fane or temple is thus the adequate translation of the original Greek. Now such was the home Rebecca made for her sons, a home which was not walled in by reverence and truth, and the steadfast patience of father and mother. The falsehood was permitted in its most sacred relations; petulance, vulgar haste, foolishly strong language, and lies found free course across its holy of holies-the mother's lips. Profane home, indeed, when a mother's temper spoiled the air, and her ambitions trampled down her elder son's rights, her younger's honour, and her poor blind husband's weakness. The mother who thus profaned her home could not be expected to do otherwise with the heart of her son. Esau's was an open heart, as far as we can see-a naturally free and unreserved heart. You know the kind of man. He has fifty doors to the outer world, where the most of us have only two or three; and except angels be sent of God Himself to guard these, the peril and fatality of such a man are immense. Friends and foes alike get far into him; the citadel of his heart lies open to all who come near. But instead of angels poor Esau had by him only tempters-a tempter in his brother and a tempter in his mother. Unguarded by loving presences, unfilled by worthy affections, his mind became a place across which everything was allowed to rush, across which his own mother's lips poured the infection of her waywardness, and across which the commonest passions, like hunger, ran riot, unawed by the presence of any commanding principle. That is what the text means by a "profane person"-an open, common character, unfenced, unhallowed, no guardian angel at the door, no gracious company within, no heavenly music pealing through it, no fire upon the altar, but open to his dogs and his passions, to his mother's provocations, and his brothe?s fatal wiles.
III. An impregnable heart. Finally, let us get back to this word "profane," for it is the centre of the whole evil. Be on your guard, then, against the little vices. It is they that first desecrate the soul. Take the virtue of truth. It seems to many an innocent thing to tell certain kinds of lies-I am sure we have all fallen under the temptation-society lies, business lies, rhetorical lies, lies prompted by pure selfishness, lies prompted by mistaken kindness. Now that is a fatal mistake, fatal for eternity. The character whose doors lie open to these visitors is the character that is open to anything, anything except what miserable fear and selfishness will in the end keep out, namely, the more rampant forms of vice. To everything else such a character lies open. Admit them, and you can keep nothing out. You are certain some day to be betrayed by them into larger and more fatal issues.
G. A. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, August 1:7 th, 1892.
The Religious Standard of Value.
I. Esau's act was the act of one who had in him that disregard for the claims of things sacred which constitutes the essence of profaneness. Esau's temper was, like Saul's, of the earth, earthy, or, as we now say, purely secular. Both represent a type of character which may have many of the elements of popularity, many amiable or estimable qualities, but nothing of what Scripture calls faith, no real interest in the spiritual and the unseen. High spirits, good-nature, generosity, a fondness for manly exercises, a fearless gallant bearing, a frankness of speech which, at any rate, scorns all shyness-these are well enough in their way, but are, after all, a poor outfit for a child of the great covenant, in which are gathered up the hopes of the world. They are ruined and rendered useless for any high purpose by fickleness, unsteadiness, want of faith and want of principle, wayward and selfish worldliness.
II. Esau does not always wear the goatskin raiment of the skilful Eastern hunter; he passes in society often enough as a finished English gentleman. Are there not baptized persons, calling themselves Christians with a certain degree of sincerity, who habitually despise a birthright still more august and precious than Esau's? They do not, we will suppose, reject Christianity as incredible, but they never allow it to be a power in their life. Their interests are all elsewhere, perhaps in a purely material region, perhaps in a higher, but still an unspiritual, sphere. A servant of Christ will make it his rule to test all weights in the balances of the sanctuary; he will honestly endeavour to call that good which Christ calls good and call that evil which Christ calls evil, he will regard nothing as really expedient or profitable which interferes, or which is even likely some time to interfere, with loyalty to that Master in whose service alone is true liberty and happiness.
W. Bright, Morality in Religion, p. 233.
Reference: Heb 12:16 .-J. Thain Davidson, Forewarned-Forearmed, p. 3.
Heb 12:1 Repentance.
I. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is speaking in this passage of Esau-a reckless young man parting with spiritual advantages without any thought of their real value, finding that the loss of them involves the loss of temporal advantages too, and trying in vain to recover the temporal advantages which in a moment of recklessness he had parted from for ever. A man squanders his money, and he is very sorry for it, and wishes he had not done so; but he cannot get back his money, even though he seeks it earnestly and with tears. A man by dissipation ruins his health, and when he is lying on a sick-bed, he is very sorry for it, and he wishes he had never been such a fool, and that he could recover the health which he has parted from for ever. It is easier to harden the heart than to have the softness restored; it is easier to blunt our feelings than to recover for them their elasticity and acuteness. And then the man, though, for a time at least, he may be sorry, makes no great change; he finds a change very difficult, if not impossible, and he finds, therefore, no place for repentance, though he seek it for a moment "even with tears."
II. We cannot expect that every effect of sin is to be entirely done away with. God intends that we shall still feel the scourge of our sins, even when, by His mercy, we are freed from their dominion; and the gospel of Jesus Christ is this, that, though sin has made men slaves, they may be emancipated, If the mercy of God in Jesus Christ visits us, and we turn to Him with full purpose of amendment, though the temporal consequences of our sin may be beyond recall and must continue for ever, yet, by His operation on the heart, God brings deliverance to the enslaved soul. The death of Christ speaks of our justification, and removes for those who turn to God the penalty which is hanging over them for sins past; the sanctification through the gift of the Holy Spirit makes the reconciled sinner to grow in holiness, and brings him back to the state which he had lost by the sin he had committed.
Archbishop Tait, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 97.
Esau's Birthright-Irreparable Follies.
I. The writer is here speaking to Jewish Christians, pleading examples from the early history of their own race, to which they ever turned with reverence and fondness. He is warning them of the danger of forfeiting in carelessness the inheritance which belonged to them as Christians. They were in danger of undervaluing it. In the sense of present isolation from the mass of their
