Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

INTRODUCTION.
2T7
to furnish the Jewish Christians with a written substitute for the
oral preaching of the twelve. What practical necessity occasioned
the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews ?
No book of the New Testament, and, in general, of the Holy
Scriptures, owes its origin to a mere subjective literary choice, to a
mere love of writing on the part of the author. , The Epistle to the
Hebrews, accordingly, however systematic and almost scientific its
contents are, was occasioned by a practical necessity. The investigations
concerning its author we must refer from the introduction
(to which they do not belong, and where they are not as yet even
possible) to the close of the commentary ;
but, for the better understanding
of the epistle itself, some preUminary observations respecting
the occasion of it must needs be made.
It is evident from Acts ii. 5, and Acts xv., and Gal. ii,, that the
Jewish Christians, though not resting their justification before God
on the Mosaic law, yet observed that law (Acts ii. 88, iii. 19, iv. 12).
And this too was quite natural. For that law was not only given
by God, and not yet abrogated by him, nay, observed even by Christ
himself (Gal. iv. 4, seq.), but besides this, being national as well as
religious, it had become so entirely a part of the Israelitish customs
and manner of life, it was so wrought into the texture of the whole
conduct and life of that people, that so long as they were a people,
and so long as Jewish Christians were members of the Israelitish
state, a renunciation of those national customs was purely inconceivable.
It may, indeed, be doubted whether the Israelites who
had become Christians, continued to fulfil those legal observances
which bore a more optional character. It can scarcely be supposed,
for example, that every one who fell into a sin would bring the guilt
or the sin-ofiering into the temple. On the other hand, the manner
of preparing meats, the observance of the Sabbath, etc., remained
the same.
Indeed, until the destruction of Jerusalem, when God, by the
overthrow of the Israelitish state, put an end to Israelitish nationality
and customs, the hope of seeing Israel converted as a whole,
although it had been ever lessening, was not entirely given up ; and
this of itself was a reason for the Jewish Christians not separating
themselves from the Israelitish community. Thus the Jewish
Christians, or to speak more correctly, the Israelites who believed on
the Messiah, were in the habit of frequenting the temple for daily
prayer. But the hatred of the unbelieving Jews towards them grew
more and more intense. Towards the end of the fiftieth year they
no longer suffer the presence of the apostle Paul in the temple
(Acts xxi. seq,), although they dared not yet openly cast him out as
a Jewish Christian, but availed themselves of the pretext that he
had taken a Gentile Christian into the temple along with him. But