Types in Hebrews - Table of Contents - Holy Pig Splash Page

and the Redeemer. For we are but men — weak and sinful men, who need not only mercy and help, but
sympathy. But there is no such gulf. For though He is "the effulgence of the glory (of God) and the very
image of His substance," and upholds all things by the word of His power, He came down to earth, to
take part of flesh and blood, to live as a man among men, and to die a shameful death at the hands of
men. And having thus been "made perfect through suffering," He has become "a merciful and faithful
High-priest in things pertaining to God." 5
And yet we must not overlook the special setting in which this wonderful truth is here revealed. The
Apostle Paul was divinely commissioned to unfold the great characteristic truths of Christianity - "grace,
salvation-bringing to all men," and Christ "a ransom for all." But they must have a strange conception of
what inspiration means, who can cavil because these truths have no place in Hebrews. For here we have
to do, not with the children of Adam, but with "the children of Abraham," who is the father of all
believers. Nor are we told how lost sinners can be saved, but how saved sinners on their way to rest can
be "made perfect in every good work to do His will."
The glorious truth of the love of God to a lost world must not be limited by the teaching of Hebrews,
neither must the truth revealed in Hebrews be frittered away by ignoring its special meaning. In a sense
the Lord has taken up the seed of Adam, but not in the sense in which, Hebrews tells us, "He taketh hold
of the seed of Abraham." For though God loves the world, He loves His own the best; and "the children"
in Hebrews are not the Adamic race, but the children of the promise, the children of God. And these, and
these alone, it is that the Lord here calls His brethren. 6 Many a Scripture may be studied in the market
place, but we must withdraw from the market place to the sanctuary if we are to join in the worship, or
profit by the teaching, of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Footnotes
1) Still more literally the passage reads: "In many parts and in many ways, of old, God having spoken to
the fathers in the prophets in these last days spake to us in (His) Son."
2) "All the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die" (Exodus 11:5); the firstborn here, as usually,
representing the family.
3) The marginal note in R.V. is "Gr., a Son." What can this mean? It cannot be intended to delude the
ignorant multitude into supposing that the Greek text has the indefinite article! Nor yet that the absence
of the Greek article requires the indefinite article in English. (When the word "Christ" is anarthrous, are
we to read "a Christ"? Must (John 1:1) be rendered "the Word was with the God, and the Word was a
God"?) We dare not dismiss the note as merely thoughtless pedantry; but the only alternative left is that
it is meant to suggest a Unitarian exegesis. And yet the painful suspicion receives colour from the R.V.
rendering of Chap. 5:8; 7:28. Here we turn with a feeling of relief to Bishop Westcott's gloss, "God
spake to us in one who has this character that He is Son."
4) John 5:18; 10:33, 36. As regards the significance of the title as connoting Deity, I venture to refer to
my book, The Lord from Heaven. Published by Kregel Publications, 1878.