No. 1
It has often been remarked that the Epistle to the Hebrews is a book of contrasts, and it is no doubt because this chapter deals with a similar subject that there are so many striking contrasts brought before us. The subject matter is the glory of the New Covenant, the spirit of which was ministered in the Gospel by Paul and his companions. How excellent is the grace of God made known in the Gospel: it dims the lustre of the glory that belonged to the Old Covenant made with Israel at Sinai.
Paul’s Letter and Christ’s Epistle
There was no need for Paul to be commended to or by the Corinthian saints, even although it was customary to send such letters where one was unknown to the saints in any locality. Yet the apostle does say in chapter 6, “Commending ourselves as God’s ministers, in much endurance . . . as having nothing, and possessing all things” (verses 4–10); and a remarkable commendation it was that would put to shame any who were endeavouring to belittle the apostle in the eyes of the saints at Corinth.
If any at Corinth asked Paul for a letter, his reply would be, “Ye are our letter.” The Corinthian assembly was the fruit of his labour. He could write to them in his first epistle, “We are God’s fellow-workmen; ye are God’s husbandry, God’s building. According to the grace of God which has been given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it” (1 Cor. 3:9-10). They owed their blessing in Christ to him as the instrument used of God; and when some were calling in question his being Christ’s instrument, he could write, “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me . . . examine your own selves if ye be in the faith.” If they were Christians, and he did not doubt it for a moment, they owed it to his preaching.
Others did not require of him a letter from the Corinthians; they could tell without one how intimately his life had been bound up with them. They were written on his heart, however much some might speak against him. His great affection for them was read and known of all men. The anxiety for their welfare gave him “no rest” in his spirit, even when a door for the publishing of the Gospel was opened to him at Troas (2 Cor. 2:12-13).
But if the Corinthians were written on Paul’s heart, Christ had been written on their hearts, and it was this that made them Christ’s epistle. Each true believer had Christ written indelibly on his heart, but it was the whole assembly that was Christ’s epistle. It is true that each one individually has something of Christ to make known in his life, and God desires that we each one might give a true impression of Christ to others; but it is the local assembly, as a whole, that gives its testimony to men as Christ’s epistle. It is not that we should be Christ’s epistle, but that we are so; and this makes it the more incumbent on us to give a true expression of Him to those around. The world gets its impression of Christ from Christians, and so it behoves us to manifest His features of grace in all our ways.
Man’s Writing and God’s
What Paul ministered at Corinth was not with ink. Man expresses himself in his letters by means of ink, and everything that man has written will one day perish. All human thoughts perish, whether spoken or written. Some may last a little longer than others, but sooner or later all will be forgotten, and forgotten for ever. How different it is with God! The living God writes by His Spirit, and what the Spirit writes will never pass away.
It is true that the servants of the Lord have written with ink, and the documents they wrote have all perished. Even the documents of the inspired Scriptures of Truth do not exist to-day; but the Word of God that was written in their documents still abides, and will abide.
Tables of Stone and Fleshy Tables of the Heart
There is even a contrast between what God wrote upon in the law and what He writes on now. The two tables of stone were written with the finger of God, but He was writing upon that which had no life, and which could not respond to that which was written on them. Nor was there a response from the hearts of Israel to that which was written on the tables of stone. Yet God had an ark constructed in which to keep the two tables of the law: in Christ, God would have One who would love the Lord His God with all His heart and His neighbour as Himself.
But there is a response to the living God from the hearts of those upon whom He has written Christ by His Spirit. God will have a living expression of Christ in this world, and it is for this He writes Christ on our hearts. Nothing can ever erase the writing of the Spirit on our hearts. The divine impressions of Christ that were first made may be deepened as we are the more engaged with Christ; and the deeper they are, the clearer will be our testimony of Him.
On the other hand, the impressions of Christ on the heart may be covered with many impressions of present things, so that the testimony is obscured and feeble. Whatever engages heart and mind will leave impressions on the fleshy tables of the heart. If the things of the world or of the earth engage us, they will hide the writing of the Spirit. They will not remove the divine writing, but will obscure it, so that we are not able to give a clear and unequivocal expression of Christ to those around us.
The letter kills, the Spirit gives life
Although the New Covenant is to be made with both the houses of Israel in the coming day, the spirit of the New Covenant was ministered by Paul and his companions. They did not minister the letter, for the letter belonged to Israel, and all who seek the letter miss the blessing that belongs to the spirit of the New Covenant. Christendom has largely become a great religious system with the letter of Christianity, but without the reality of divine blessing. Nominal Christianity will not do for God; there must be reality and living contact with Himself by the Spirit.
Sardis had the letter of Christianity, but not its spirit, for the Lord has to say to the assembly there, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Rev. 3:1). Such is Protestantism today: This is what it became after the spiritual power that first characterised the movement had faded away. How many there are today who rely on their baptism, their church membership or church attendance, for salvation. They have the letter of Christianity, but have not its spirit in the possession of divine life and the indwelling Spirit of God. These will indeed discover sooner or later that the letter kills; it does not give life.
Christianity is a living thing, and the work of God is real and vital. It is a living God who works by His Holy Spirit in the hearts of men, by His word, quickening those that are dead, giving them divine life, and bringing them into living association with Himself and His own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is in Himself the spirit of the New Covenant, even as is written in verse 17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit”. The apostle Paul did not labour to bring into existence a spurious Christianity. His work was to minister what was real, the spirit of the New Covenant, so that the Spirit of God might take the word and use it for the quickening of souls.
The Ministry of Death and the Ministry of the Spirit
Verse 7 to verse 16 is a parenthesis in which the apostle continues to contrast the New Covenant with the Old, both as to its character and glory. The law served a very useful purpose in exposing the evil and the weakness of the flesh. It never was, and could not be, the means of communicating life to the sinner. If a man had been able to keep all its requirements, he would have lived in this world with blessing from God, material blessing in an earthly inheritance. But all men were sinners, and the law brought home to them their guilt, even as Paul says in Romans 7, “But I was alive without law once; but the commandment having come, sin revived, but I died” (verse 9). Even the most pious found the law to be a “ministry of death”.
What a remarkable contrast is the spirit of the New Covenant, which is presented to us as a ministry of the Spirit! The Spirit of God ministers Christ to the heart, the One in whom are all the blessings He has secured for us by His death. Christ is presented to us in the gospel, for it is the gospel of God concerning His Son, and where Christ is accepted in the faith of the soul, the Spirit writes Christ on the fleshy tables of the heart. But the Spirit also takes up His abode in those in whose hearts He writes Christ, bringing into the heart the sense of all that Christ is as presented objectively in the testimony of the Spirit.
The Old began with Glory; the New subsists in Glory
The glory with which the Old Covenant was introduced was reflected in the face of Moses, whose skin shone when he returned from speaking with God on Mount Sinai. It was a glory that repelled the children of Israel, evidently conveying to their hearts a sense of dread, as realising their unfitness for the presence of a holy God. Although they had bound themselves in a covenant of blood to keep the law, there was no strength in them to carry out their obligations, and the glory of Jehovah’s presence reflected in the face of Moses brought terror to their hearts. But this legal glory is annulled, for God is no longer dealing with men on the ground of law, but in grace.
On the night of the Lord’s betrayal, He introduced His Supper, and in presenting the cup to His disciples said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). The new covenant is founded on the atonement accomplished in Christ’s death, and all the glory of redemption shines in His face in the presence of God. God has been infinitely glorified in the death of Jesus, and has shown His satisfaction in all that He has done to Him. He was raised from the dead “by the glory of the Father” and He is now glorified along with the Father at His own right hand. It is in this glory, which brings before us God’s righteous grace, that the new covenant, in its spirit, subsists. Christianity brings before us all the glory of the blessed God, and the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
R. 27.9.58
No. 2
In this chapter the apostle Paul contrasts Christianity with the law. Under the Old Covenant man was unable to procure divine blessing, because of his inability to keep the righteous requirements of the law. Those who were blessed of God during the Old Testament days, were blessed on the principle of faith, as the New Testament makes abundantly plain. In itself, the law was holy, just and good, but men were sinners, and the law, while exposing man’s condition, could do nothing to help him. Christianity, which gives us the spirit of the New Covenant, directed the eyes of men to Christ, in whom the grace of God was available for them. Man is not required under grace to endeavour to acquire God’s favour through his own merits, but is asked by God to believe in His Son, who through redemption, accomplished in the shedding of His precious blood, has glorified God in regard to the whole question of sin. In the Old Covenant, God was demanding righteousness from men; in the New He calls our attention to what He will do.
The Ministry of Condemnation and the Ministry of Righteousness
Israel were not long under law before they realised that the law was a ministry of condemnation. Before Moses came down from the mount with the tables of stone, Israel were already breaking the first commandment; they were bowing before the golden calf, and when he perceived what was transpiring, with divinely given wisdom he shattered the tables of stone at the foot of the mountain. Had he brought the tables of stone into their midst they must have been consumed in the righteous judgment of God. As it was, three thousand souls perished. When Israel murmured at the waters of Massah and at Meribah, there was no divine judgment, for they were not yet under law, but when under law they found it to be a ministry of condemnation. For the individual, as also for the nation in its failures, the law was indeed a ministry of condemnation.
In marked contrast, God is now ministering righteousness in grace to those who once were sinners far from Him. The New Covenant is to be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah in the coming day, but now, before Israel are blessed as a nation, God is blessing not only individuals from the nations of Israel, but has reached out in the riches of His grace to bless sinners of the Gentiles. The epistle to the Romans unfolds the precious truth of how divine righteousness is unto all and upon all the believe. God was able to forgive the sins of saints in past dispensations in view of the cross; and if such as Abraham were accounted righteous in the sight of God, on the principle of faith, it was in view of the work of redemption in Jesus’ blood.
The provision made by the Father for the returning prodigal enables us to understand something of the ministry of righteousness. The best robe, which the Father had in reserve, was not part of the inheritance that fell either to the prodigal before he left the father’s house, or to the elder brother who remained; it belonged to the riches of the Father’s grace, and with the ring, the shoes and the fatted calf, was ministered in righteousness to the repentant sinner who cast himself, as altogether unworthy, on the mercy of the Father.
The Glory of the Old and the Abounding Glory of the New
None could deny the glory of the old covenant, which not only shone on the mountain top, but shone in Moses’ face. Even if it was a ministry of condemnation it had its own peculiar glory, manifesting as it did that God was righteous in all His dealings, and was faithful to all His promises. God’s majesty and holiness shone out in the fire of the mountain top; “darkness, and tempest, and trumpet’s sound, and voice of words,” all combined to strike terror in the hearts of Israel, “and so fearful was the sight, Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and full of trembling” (Heb. 12:19-21). It was indeed glory!
How very different is the abounding glory of Christianity! God is no longer hidden in the thick darkness of Sinai: He is revealed in the Person of Jesus in His nature of love, yea in the Son we learn that “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” There is no longer the demand of the voice of words, but the glory of the grace of God in Jesus in heaven, and made known in the Gospel. When we read of the abounding glory, we think of the “riches of His (the Father’s) glory;” and “the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has taken us into favour in the Beloved” (Eph. 3:16; 1:6).
The Glorified Not Glorified By Reason of the Surpassing Glory
God’s presence at Sinai, and the outshining of His glory, gave glory to the Old Covenant. God had no pleasure in giving to men that which could only condemn them, even if it was necessary in the ways of God to prove to man how incorrigible he was in sin. How different it was when His Son came into the world! Even when Jesus was born into the world, the angels proclaimed “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men.” How the glory of the Old is dimmed in the light of the glory come in the Person of Jesus!
Through the work of the cross we are privileged to see the glory that excels; all the glory that shines unveiled in “the face of Jesus Christ.” Just as the light of the candle is paled in the light of the mid-day sun, so is the light of Sinai entirely eclipsed and dimmed in the glory of redemption and divine grace. The glory of God’s grace attracts the heart as it is seen in Jesus.
The Old is Annulled, but the New Abides
When writing to the Hebrews, who had been under the Old Covenant, the apostle brought out the excellency of the New Covenant, and reasoned, “In that He says New, He has made the first old; but that which grows old and aged is near disappearing” (Heb. 8:13). Very gently, the truth of the annulling of the old is brought before those who had revered the law. There was not the need for the same gentleness when writing to Gentiles who had not been under law. Paul tells them plainly that the law, as a means of obtaining divine blessing, has been annulled. In writing to the Colossians the apostle speaks very plainly, when he writes, “having effected the handwriting in ordinances which (stood out) against us, which was contrary to us, He has taken it also out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).
What God has brought into being in Christianity will abide for ever, for it is based on the work of the cross, and abides “in the power of the blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20). The character of the new is altogether different from that of the old, it is new creation, as we learn from 2 Cor. 5:17, and when all belonging to the old creation has passed away, the new will abide for eternity.
The Annulled Introduced with Glory, the Abiding Subsists in Glory
In verses 7 and 8, where there is the contrast between the ministry of death and the ministry of the Spirit, there is a similar contrast to what we have here between what is annulled and what abides (verse 11). The glory of what was to pass away could not be enduring, for the glory of the Old Covenant could not endure after the Old Covenant had been done away in the cross of Christ. The Old was introduced with glory, a glory that was derived from Jehovah’s presence, but after the glory of Jehovah had departed from the temple, the glory of the Old Covenant no longer shone out. In the cross, all the glory of the old has forever gone.
What God has brought into being in connection with Christ, risen from the dead, will ever abide; and the glory belonging to this new order will ever remain. At the close of this chapter, and in the next, we learn of this glory: the glory of the Lord, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We learn in this glory what God is in His holy nature of love, and in His character, a God who in righteousness has given His only Son to bring sinners before Him, cleansed from all their guilt, to enjoy the riches of His grace.
The Ministers of the New and the Minister of the Old
When Moses came into the camp of Israel, he had to put a veil on his face, for the glory reflected there condemned the people who had worshipped the golden calf, and brought upon themselves the judgment of God. The light of the glory in Moses was condemnation and judgment; but the light of the glory of the Gospel of Christ who is the image of God, brings to us the blessing of God. It is the light of accomplished redemption, which proclaims that God has been satisfied with the work of Christ upon the cross, and that He is able to bless all who trust in Him and in His Son, whom He has glorified. Paul and his fellow-servants had indeed great boldness in proclaiming such grace: he was not ashamed of the Gospel, for it was God’s power to salvation, to every one that believed. Moses had no such message to bring to Israel; nor have they who preach the law to men.
Moses’ Face Veiled, Jesus’ Face Unveiled
As we have seen, the reason for the veil on the face of Moses was that Israel could not look on the reflection of that which had bound them in a covenant of blood to keep the law. They were condemned in the light of the glory of the Old Covenant. But there is no veil on the face of Jesus where He sits on His Father’s throne. All the glory of divine grace shines radiantly from Jesus; there is nothing to hide, nothing for man to fear, nothing that condemns. Jesus has borne the divine judgment; God “has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (v. 21); and the light of this shines unveiled in the face of Jesus. This wonderful message, that tells to man that all the claims of God’s throne have been fully met in the death of Christ, is proclaimed in the Gospel; but its glory shines in the unveiled face of Jesus.
Israel Could Not Behold, We Can Behold
The glory in the face of Moses not only repelled Israel; it indicated a divine glory that would not pass away, and Israel being unable to behold the glory could not discern what would come into being when the transient glory of the Old Covenant was gone. How different it is with the Christian who can look into the unveiled face of Jesus and see what God had in His mind from the beginning, and what has been secured through redemption.
How blessed is the result of the Christian beholding the glory in the face of Jesus, “We . . . are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even by the Lord, the Spirit.” Occupation with Christ in His glory brings His own out in testimony in His own precious features of moral beauty.
The Veil on Israel’s Heart Now: Later to be Removed
The New Covenant is to be made with Israel when Christ returns to take up His kingdom, and the veil that is now upon their hearts through the rejection of their Messiah, will be taken away when they look upon Him whom they pierced, and realise that He is their long-promised Christ. What a day will that be for God’s ancient people! They will be brought to know that, like Christians to-day, they owe all to Christ and to His cross. The Old Covenant served its purpose in exposing to man his utter inability to save Himself, or to be for God’s glory in the flesh. Under the New Covenant Israel will have rich and abiding blessings; blessings that the Christian enjoys even now as having the spirit of the New Covenant.
R. 8.11.58