Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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Hebrews II. 4 327
first hy (Sid) the Lord, consequently, not first by intermediate persons,
'E(3e(3aL(x)d7], is therefore, of course, not co-ordinate with dpxijv
Xa(3ovaa XaXeiodac, but Xa(3ovaa depends on il3ej3aL(x)dr]. That the salvation
was revealed directly by the Lord is what has been delivered
to us by the aKovoavreg the ear (and eye) witnesses as a certainty,
and consequently as a divine authentication of the au)Ti]pia.
Some have found in vers. 1-3 a proof that the Epistle to the
Hebrews could in no case have been written by the apostle Paul.
(Euthal., Luth., Calv., etc.) For Paul, far from excluding himself
from the number of eye-witnesses, rather lays all weight on the
fact, that he had seen the (risen) Lord himself, 1 Cor. xv. ; Gral. i.
This argument is, however, without force ; other grounds there may
be against the Pauline origin of the epistle, but in these verses there
is none. It is one thing to have once seen the risen Lord, it is another
thing to be an ear-witness of the salvation spoken by Christ,
i. e. of the entire revelation of God in Christ. (Com p. Acts i. 21.)
The same Paul, who, in writing to the Corinthians who doubted of
the resurrection, or to the Galatians who disputed his apostolic mission,
appeals to
the former fact, must yet have acknowledged that
he was not an eye-witness of the salvation in the latter sense.
Moreover, the 1 plur. in ver. 1 is not communicative, but merely
{nsinuato7y.
Ver, 4,—It is quite consistent with the practical aim which our
author never loses sight of, that he attaches only a subordinate
value to the confirmation of the Gospel by miracles. He says
ovvsm^aprvpovvTog. Maprvpelv means to bear witness of a thing
which is still under question, doubtful, iTriiiaprvpeXv to testify of a
thing already established, awemnaprvpeXv to give an additional
testimony to a thing in itself certain, and confirmed by proofs from
other sources. This implies that the salvation in Christ does not
properly stand in need of confirmation by miracles, but bears already
in itself the testimony of its truth. And, indeed, it will never happen,
that a heart which is inivardly far from the truth of the Gospel,
which is wanting in repentance and self-knowledge, the sjairitual
hunger and thirst, will be, so to speak, forced into an acknowledgment
of the truth of this Gospel by an appeal to the miracles which
accompany it. On the contrary, to such hearts miracles are rather
TTpoaKoiinara, " that with seeing eyes they see not, and with hearing
ears they hear not." Only the heart which has first experienced in
itself the miracle of regeneration, of creative renewal, is capable of
the humility which believes, even where it does not comprehend.
For this very reason, however, the miracles are not something nonessential;
but, as in the time of Christ, so still, they serve the end
of being boundary stones between faith and unbelief, signs of God
for the believing spirit, intimating that he is a living God, who stands