Bible Commentaries
Hebrews

THE BOOK OF HEBREWS

XVI

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION PART I

This letter has evoked more controversy than any other New Testament book except Revelation. The controversy has been mainly on two points, somewhat related – its canonicity and authorship. A book may be determined canonical whose author may not be named in the text not otherwise determinable. But while positive knowledge of the author is not essential to canonicity, it strengthens the claim, if the author is shown to be a prophet or an apostle.

CANONICITY OF THE LETTER
The elaborate discussion of this question belongs to the department of historical introduction, but a condensed yet reliable statement of the case is here given:

1. In the East its place among the New Testament books has never been seriously questioned.

2. In the West: (1) It was recognized as authoritative in the first century, as appears from the letter of Clement, pastor at Rome, about A.D. 96, addressed to the church at Corinth. Irenaeus speaks of Clement as embodying in his letter the teaching which he had recently received from the apostles. (2) From the end of the second century to the close of the fourth its place in the New Testament books was retained, but its apostolic origin questioned by some. Jerome states the case in his time thus: "The epistle to the Hebrews is not included in the Latin canon, nor Revelation in the Greek canon, and yet we receive both; following by no means the usage of the present time, but the authority of ancient writers, who for the most part freely refer to passages of both as canonical." (3) From the end of the fourth century it was firmly established in the Western canon, and remained undisturbed for more than a thousand years. (4) In the Reformation period, like many other books, it was subjected to doubt, both on authorship and somewhat of its matter. Some examples will indicate the nature of the doubt:

Erasmus denied both the received title and subscription and the Pauline authorship, but says, "I do not think that the faith is exposed to peril if the whole church be mistaken in regard to the title of this epistle (the title attributed to Paul) so long as it is settled that the Holy Ghost is its author, and on this point we are agreed."

Luther questioned Paul’s authorship because, as he interpreted them, some passages, particularly Hebrews 6:4-6, were unlike Paul. He is the first to suggest, by way of a mere guess, that Apollos was the author, and others since have adopted his guess, notably Henry Ward Beecher.

Calvin wrote, "I, indeed, embrace it without controversy among the apostolic epistles. . . . As to the question, ’Who composed it,’ we need not trouble ourselves much." Much later, Dean Alford: "Nowhere are the main doctrines of the faith more purely or more majestically set forth; nowhere holy scripture urged with greater authority and cogency; nowhere those marks, in short, which distinguish the first rank of primitive Christian writings from the second are more unequivocably and continuously present."

Without multiplying citations we may count it settled that the letter to the Hebrews is an integral and very important part of the inspired Word of God. The questions evoking discussion, and wide divergence of views, are: When, where, to whom, and by whom written?

Canonicity established and conceded, it may be asked, Why consider the relatively unimportant questions of author, date, place, and persona addressed? The sufficient reply is, that answers to these questions will aid much not only in the interpretation of the book itself and of other books as well, but what is more important, the relation of the New Testament books to each other, and their adjustment as component parts of a complete and final revelation of God to man, will appear. When these books are considered in their adjustment, New Testament revelations is no longer so many disjoined fragments, but a complete and symmetrical system of orderly developed truth.

The reader will understand that on these matters not vital, and concerning which the best scholars of Christendom have honestly differed, there must be no assumption of dogmatism. With the utmost respect for the opinions of others, with our own fallibility of judgment premised, we will for ourselves approach the subject in our own way, announcing in advance that our conclusions are no mightier than the arguments back of them. First of all, then, come –

THE TITLE AND SUBSCRIPTION
In our common version the title reads "The Epistle of Paul, the Apostle, to the Hebrews." And the subscription reads: "Written to the Hebrews from Italy by Timothy." In the Canterbury revision, the title is simply "To the Hebrews," and there is no subscription. It is at once conceded that the oldest New Testament manuscripts support the Canterbury revision, both as to the superscription and the subscription, and yet it cannot be denied that both are evidence of an early and general conviction that Paul wrote this letter from Italy by Timothy.

Our next question is: Who are intended by "The Hebrews"? It accords with well-established usage to employ the term "Hebrews" to distinguish Palestinian Jews from Hellenists, or Jews of the dispersion, as in Acts 6, but the word may also be employed to distinguish Jews from Gentiles. In every case the context determines whether the term must be understood in its restricted or general sense. In other words, if the subject matter applies equally to the Hebrew people, regardless of locality, we cannot fairly limit it to the Palestinian Jews. You may not say this letter was written to the Jerusalem Jews merely because the superscription says, "To the Hebrews." Paul himself claimed to be a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and yet he was not a Palestinian Jew, but a Cilician – one of the dispersion. It cannot be questioned that both the argument and the exhortation apply to Jews abroad as well as to the Jews at home. We must gather, then, from the letter itself the locality of the persons addressed. Indeed, the superscription, no matter who put it there, tells us nothing more than, yea, not as much as the letter itself. From the initial sentence to the benediction the letter is to the Jews only, as if there was not a Gentile in the world. Nor may we in advance say that it was written to the Jews of one city only, that is, to Jerusalem Jews, or Alexandrian Jews, or Ephesian Jews, or Roman Jews. Everything in the letter is too general to admit of such an extreme local restriction. One thing however, everybody will admit – it was written exclusively to Jews professing to be Christians. Neither saint nor sinner, ancient or modern, denies that. It being evident beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was written to Christian Jews, the question recurs – to Christian Jews, where?

Forgetting everything we may have heard, believed, or read, let us go to the letter itself for light. Let us open our book and read the following passages: Hebrews 5:12-14; Hebrews 6:1-3; Hebrews 6:10; Hebrews 10:32-34; Hebrews 12:4; Hebrews 13:3; Hebrews 13:18-19; Hebrews 13:23.

From these passages the following facts appear:

1. The religious history of the persons addressed was well and personally known to the writer and he to them.

2. Considerable time had elapsed since their conversion.

3. They were in a state of arrested development.

4. The writer and Timothy had labored together with and for them.

5. They had suffered persecution when converted, were despoiled of goods, had been made a "spectacle" by either their own afflictions or through their compassion for imprisoned leaders, but had never themselves been persecuted to martyrdom.

6. They had been particularly noted for their ministering to the saints.

7. They were tempted to abjure Christianity and relapse into Judaism.

8. They were called upon to pray for the writer’s restoration to them, and are supposed to be glad of that prospect and of Timothy’s being set at liberty, and of the prospect of seeing the two together again.

There is absolutely nothing in any of these facts to suggest Alexandrian Jews as the persons addressed. Nor did the Alexandrian Jews ever suppose themselves to be those to whom the letter was written. The facts also exclude the Jerusalem or Palestinian Jews, no matter who the writer. For example: Assuming Barnabas for the author, Timothy does not fit; he never worked with Barnabas anywhere, much less in Jerusalem or Alexandria. Assuming Apollos for the author, and Jerusalem Jews addressed, the facts will not adjust themselves. He could not have written to Jerusalem Jews the passage at Hebrews 13:19; Hebrews 13:23; and the passages at Hebrews 6:10 and Hebrews 12:4 could not fit the Jerusalem Jews. From the beginning the Jerusalem Christians had resisted unto blood. It was the martyr church of the New Testament, and but recently James, the brother of our Lord, had been murdered. From the beginning they had been ministered unto by the churches abroad, and had never themselves so ministered, and there is no New Testament evidence that they were in danger of apostasy. Assuming Apollos to be the author and Alexandrian Jews addressed, it is simply incredible that his own people received a letter from him and never attributed it to him at any time in their history.

All of the passages exactly fit the known history of the Christian Jews of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia, and the Christian Jews of no other place. They knew Timothy. They had been persecuted and despoiled of goods when they were converted. They had been made a spectacle in their own afflictions and in their compassion for imprisoned leaders. They had not themselves been persecuted to martyrdom. They were in a state of arrested development, and from the beginning had been under the fire of temptation to apostatize, as is evident from letters written by Paul, Peter, Jude, and John. They had been and were yet noted the world over for ministering unto the poor saints of Jerusalem and Judea.

There is absolutely nothing in the letter to limit its address to one town or city. The context does not favor one church a great majority of which were Jews. On the contrary, some of the exhortations can be better understood by supposing the Jewish Christians addressed to be in the minority, and staying away from the church meetings because the pastors were Gentiles or the Gentile element predominated. The author, therefore, voices the conviction rather than a dogmatic assertion –

It is impossible that this letter was written to Jews either at Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, Caesarea, or Syrian Antioch.

All of them are out of the question. No one of them ever claimed for a moment to be the recipient of the letter. Moreover, at the most probable date of this letter all Judea was seething in revolt against Rome, like a boiling pot, and in no condition to receive a letter from any one. Therefore, in answer to the question, "To whom addressed?" my reply is, To the Jewish Christians of Asia Minor and Greece, Of course this answer includes Proconsular Asia as a part of Asia Minor. There are much stronger arguments on the persons addressed that can be better cited under other heads.

The occasion of the letter. On this point there is absolute unanimity. Indeed, the whole trend of the letter leaves no room for doubt. These Jewish Christians, wherever they were, were in eminent danger of abjuring Christianity altogether and relapsing into Judaism. That this may be evident let us open our book and read the following passages: Hebrews 2:1-3; Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 3:12-14; Hebrews 4:1-2; Hebrews 4:14-16; Hebrews 10:19-36; Hebrews 12:1-3; Hebrews 12:12-17.

Here again the context forbids the idea that the persons addressed were Palestinian Jews. The New Testament history nowhere indicates that the Jerusalem church was in danger of abjuring Christ altogether and totally relapsing into Judaism. The evidence is indeed abundant that many of them desired to make Gentiles become Jews in order to become Christians, and that others, while waiving this point, yet insisted that Jewish Christians must hold themselves aloof from social contact with Gentile Christians, but nowhere is there a hint that they were about to abjure Christianity altogether.

In the Sadducean persecution (Acts 3-4) and in the Pharisee persecution, led by Saul of Tarsus, and in the persecution by Herod, they had remained as firm as a rock in their faith. When James and Jude, brothers of our Lord, and Peter write letters exhorting to steadfastness in faith, they write to the Christian Jews of the dispersion, and not to the Palestinian Jews. When in the persecution which had but recently led to the martyrdom of James, there is no historical evidence that Jerusalem Christians were in danger of abjuring Christianity.

Just here comes another very forcible argument against the idea that Palestinian Jews are being addressed. There is not a word in the letter that supposes the danger of apostasy to arise from witnessing the imposing ceremonies of the Herodian Temple. While indeed the letter incidentally proves that the Temple is yet standing, and while it clearly threatens the near and utter destruction of the whole Jewish polity as a covenant, its entire argument is based upon the ancient historic Judaism as established by Moses, Aaron, and Joshua. It is not even germane to the argument to mention the first Temple built by Solomon. It is a question of origins, of the dignity of founders, and not of present imposing rites and ceremonies. In other words, the argument goes to the root of things, and not to the superficial present. From Pentecost to the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Jews were safeguarded against total relapse into Judaism. But not so with the Jews of the dispersion. If addressed to the Palestinian Jews, the absence of special reference to the services of the Herodian Temple is inexplicable.

Our next question inquires for the cause of the danger of apostasy. What juncture of affairs constituted the temptation to abjure Christianity? The letter itself explains. First of all, the bitterness of persecution was wearing out their patience, and the pressure of non-Christian Jews tempting them to apostatize was very great. The Lord did not come to avenge them, as had been promised, and they were weary and despondent. They were losing respect for their leaders, many of whom were Gentiles. They were absenting themselves from the popular assemblies. This can be best accounted for if they were in the minority and the Gentile element predominant; in such case they would not feel at home in this mixed crowd.

In the meantime a very subtle philosophy was constantly appealing to them, which has been described in letters preceding this one. The discussion against gnosticism, so prominent in the letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, is carried on in this letter. Its methods of approach were esoteric not exoteric. It worked privately from house to house. It slipped and crept and slid around and whispered:

"No use to go to church; you can learn better at home. Public gatherings may suit the vulgar, ’the great unwashed,’ the hoi polloi, but this philosophy appeals to the cultured few. The Christian Messiah at best was only a lower eon, or much shaded down emanation of God. You may accept this philosophy and remain a Jew of the type of the Essenes if you are inclined to asceticism; or you may accept it and remain a Jew of the Pharisee type if you want to cling to ritualism and the cycle of weekly, new moon, or annual sabbaths. Or you may accept it and turn to license and pleasure, seeing that sin resides only in matter. This Christianity is too harsh, rigid, and exacting. It calls on you to sacrifice everything. Why needlessly put your head in the fire? Why give up everything? You have waited in vain for that promised coming of the Lord. Your own Moses, Aaron, and Joshua, and long line of prophets were greater than this Nazarene, who, after all, was executed as a felon, and it is a shame to become the followers of a publicly convicted and executed felon. Christianity is impractical. Humanity cannot endure its requirements."

It will be shown later in the exposition that this letter was especially intended to controvert this many-sided philosophy of blended Jewish and heathen elements; that its arguments closely follow and connect with the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, and is itself closely followed by and connected with the letters of Peter and Jude addressed to the same people and called forth by the same emergency. This writer, and Peter and Jude, recognized the same danger of apostasy, the same lack of patient endurance, the same temptation to deny the Lord Jesus Christ, and the despair about his second advent. And so did John, last of all, long after the Temple had fallen, write his letters and the book of Revelation to the same people. Indeed, this emergency called forth all of John’s writings. In other words, the provocation to apostatize was the old-time Jewish reluctance to pay the cost of a spiritual religion, whose rewards were in another world; to endure its privations in this life; to patiently wait for the Lord. All the exhortations in the letter are on this line. And here again we find another strong argument against the thought that it was written to the Jerusalem Jews. The gnostic philosophy originated in the Lycus valley of Proconsular Asia, and spread over the section to whose people this letter was addressed. There is no evidence that the Jerusalem Jews were ever tempted to apostatize through this philosophy.

We now come to the question: Who wrote the letter to the Hebrews, when did he write it, and where? Just where, in order of time, is its place among the New Testament books? And in what language did he write it? Again disclaiming dogmatism, the author here expresses in one sentence an answer to all of these questions thus:

It was written in Greek, by the apostle Paul, near the close of the first Roman imprisonment, just after the letter to the Ephesians, and was addressed exclusively to professing Jewish Christians in Asia Minor and Greece. It completes the group of letters of the first Roman imprisonment.

In order to account for Timothy’s imprisonment and release, the reader will please look at the beginning of Philippians, Philemon, and Colossians. In all three of these Timothy is associated with Paul at Rome, as the author of the letters. But when we look at the beginning of the letter to the Ephesians we do not find Timothy’s name associated with Paul’s. There is no evidence that he had left Rome, and unless he was imprisoned at this juncture, there is no fair way to account for his not being associated with Paul in the letter to the Ephesians. He was speedily released after that imprisonment, however, and in the letter to the Hebrews, following the letter to the Ephesians, it is announced that Timothy has been set at liberty, and when we take up the first letter to Timothy we can see how the subscription may have been added: "Written from Italy to the Hebrews, by Timothy."

While not contending for the superscription and subscription as a part of the original text, I am thoroughly convinced that both express facts, and generally recognized at the time they were appended to the letter.

Without arguing another matter at all, the abiding conviction is expressed that the letter is not a translation from a Hebrew original, nor is it a treatise, speech or sermon by Paul which has been used substantially by another writer, but clothed in his own style and language. There is only one mind in the letter. It is not a composite work. It is not Luke or Clement or Timothy working out the thoughts of Paul. The author of the thoughts is the author of the style and of the words. Any attempt to make Luke the author because some parts of the letter resembles Luke’s style fails from the fact that the parts which make it resemble Luke’s books are matters originally coming from Paul and merely quoted by Luke. Undoubtedly Paul fixed Luke’s style on these points.

The letter is a careful and elaborate composition throughout. The arguments, each followed by exhortation, extend down to verse 18 of the last chapter. It is a calm, quiet, painstaking, deliberately prepared document, and yet a genuine epistle. It grows out of preceding letters. Not as a 2 Corinthians grew out of 1 Corinthians, but as Romans grew out of Galatians, and as Ephesians grew out of Colossians. Having written a special letter to the Colossians against the gnostic heresy, he wrote a circular letter elaborating the same line of thought, which letter we call Ephesians. And having written the letter to the Ephesians addressed to the whole body of the churches to which it was sent, it fits exactly that he should continue the same thought or subject in a letter addressed to the Jews only.

Careful preparation is evinced, moreover, in the studied self-repression of the author and in the rigid restriction of the argument to the one viewpoint and purpose.

While the author of Hebrews does not sign his name, for reasons to be given later, the restraint is not with a view to conceal his identity. He knows well to whom he writes, and well knows that they will know him as well as if he had signed his name in the usual fashion. It is not therefore a case of an anonymous communication, nor of a non de plume, to put people to guessing at the author. A writer who wished to conceal his identity by absence of a signature would never say, "Pray that I may be restored to you." "Our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you." And it may be said here that Asia Minor never doubted from whom the letter came, nor did any other place down to the middle of the second century.

QUESTIONS

1. On what points has this letter mainly evoked controversy?

2. May a book be canonical whose author is not named?

3. Give brief statement of canonicity of this book.

4. Apart from canonicity, what questions have been widely dis- cussed, with divergent views?

5. Why are these questions important?

6. Tell of the title and subscription, and their value.

7. To whom was the letter addressed?

8. In what two senses may this word "Hebrews" be employed, and how determine in a given case which is meant?

9. Why may we not conclude that the letter is addressed to Jews of a particular church or city?

10. To what class of Hebrews is it addressed?

11. What passages in the letter bear on the "where" of these Hebrews, and the facts developed?

12. Show why these facts do not fit Jerusalem Jews or Alexandrian Jews.

13. The facts of these passages fit the Christian Jews where?

14. What is the occasion of the letter, and the passages bearing on it, and why do these passages exclude Jerusalem Jewish Christians?

15. What other fact bears in the same direction?

16. Why does this letter make no reference to the Temple at Jerusalem?

17. What causes were operating at this time to provoke relapse into Judaism on the part of Christian Jews in Asia Minor and Greece, and which of these causes also make against the theory of the letter being addressed to Jerusalem Jews?

18. In one sentence give the author’s view of who wrote this letter, where, when, and in what language, to whom, and in what group of letters?

19. Account for the reference ill the letter to Timothy’s being set at liberty.

20. Why not take the position that the thoughts are Paul’s, either written originally in Hebrew and translated by another, or that Paul’s thoughts are wrought out by another in his own style?

21. Where do the arguments stop?

22. Show how the letter is evolved from and fits into other letters.

23. Why is the letter not anonymous in the ordinary sense of that word?

XVII

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION PART II

The question yet before us is, Who is the author of this letter? External evidence is what has been handed down by tradition or history; internal evidence is gathered from the letter itself, that is, what may be inferred from its doctrines, historical statements, and style – style to be used in a very comprehensive sense, including the purity of the Greek text, rhetorical form, vocabulary, phrases, terms of expression, etc.

The argument against Paul’s authorship is based entirely on internal evidence. A fair examination will disclose that there is not a shred of external evidence either against Paul or for any other man. When, in history it has been conjecturally attributed to others, this has been based upon some inference from internal evidence. The external evidence, be it much or little, is all one way. It is axiomatic that external evidence cannot be set aside by internal evidence, unless the latter be overwhelming, conclusive, and demonstrative. Internal evidence is available by comparison only, i.e., this questioned letter must be compared with history, doctrines, and style, as set forth in unquestioned sources of information. Various names have been suggested as the possible author. Of these the only one worth a moment’s consideration are Paul, Luke, Barnabas, Apollos. In the case of Apollos there is not a scrap of his writing left to us with which to compare this letter. If he ever wrote anything we do not know it. He had opportunity to know Paul and Timothy. He was an Alexandrian Jew, an eloquent man and mighty in the Hebrew scriptures. That is the only foundation for Luther’s guess 1,500 years after the letter was written.

Barnabas left no certain literary remains with which to make comparison. The matter of the one document attributed to him would never suggest that he wrote this great, immortal letter. The Barnabas of Acts and Galatians 2:13 could never have made the complete break with Judaism that is disclosed in this letter.

Luke alone, in his Gospel and Acts, leaves us a basis for comparison. But these books present him only as a historian, carefully tracing out what others did and said. He himself makes no speeches, does no arguing or interpreting. In him appears only a hand and pen to record the deeds and words of others. Moreover, Luke was not a pure Hebrew, and perhaps a Gentile. In Colossians 4, he is not reckoned among the circumcision. He, if wholly a Gentile, is the only one writing a Bible book. The author of this letter was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. The parts of Luke’s books which most nearly resemble this letter are reported speeches of Paul, or matter that he derived from Paul. In Paul’s case there is no lack of documentary matter with which to make comparison. But in making comparison, objectors to Pauline authorship have not only ignored the variety of Paul’s style, but have based their conclusions upon the distinction between Hebrews and only a part of Paul’s writings – mainly his letters to the Galatians and Romans. They fail to discriminate between Paul’s method and style in writing to Gentiles and in writing to Jews exclusively.

We go very far toward the settlement of this question when we understand the full extent of the Pauline literature with which Hebrews must be compared. We must take all of the thirteen conceded letters of Paul, and of the reported speeches in the Acts and even Stephen’s speech, supposedly reported to Luke by Paul.

Apart from Hebrews, these books give us our knowledge of Paul’s life, doctrines, and styles. It is admitted at once that if from any or all of the books involved in the comparison, it could be proved that Paul died before the letter to the Hebrews was written, that, of course, would settle the case against the Pauline authorship. But there is no such proof. It is impossible to fix either the exact date of Paul’s death or the writing of this letter. It would be something in a negative way if it could be shown that this letter could not be made to fit well into the period of Paul’s life. But it is quite easy to find one period of Paul’s life into which it fits exactly, and another period where it could possibly fit. It fits all around just after the letter to the Ephesians, as the closing letter written in Paul’s first Roman imprisonment. A case could also be made out, but not so strong, that it follows 2 Timothy. This would make it the very last of Paul’s letters.

A critic like Luther gets his idea of Paul’s doctrines and style from Galatians and Romans, ignoring the fact that not all of Paul’s doctrines nor all of his styles are confined to these two books. A statement on the case of authorship is about this: The field against Paul. It is the only way to make any kind of a plausible showing against him. The opposition breaks down when it attempts to support the claim of any other one name.

It maintains a precarious standing by alternatives only, saying, "The author was Barnabas, or Luke, or Clement, or Apollos, or some other man." Limit the issue to Paul against Barnabas alone, or any of the others, and there would be no case worth trying.

Moreover, the opposition breaks down when attempt is made to secure a consensus of judgment on the internal evidence. The ground continually shifts as taken by individual objectors like the location and formation of loose desert sand driven by contrary winds. What one objector to Paul regards as quite conclusive, another concedes to be very questionable. It is like the testimony of expert doctors in a case at court. The expert in a specialty is the most incompetent of all witnesses out of his particular line; he cannot generalize. Ne sutor ultra crepidem. Of all men he has the least judicial mind. His dependence upon presuppositions his contempt for external evidences, his conceit of his own power to dissect the most ancient documents, or to put aside as worthless the most ancient traditions, may qualify him for special pleading, but never to be a safe juryman or a sane judge.

Inasmuch as all of the argument against Paul’s authorship is based upon internal evidence, it may be well to submit a fair statement of these objections as developed from time to time in the history subsequent to the apostles, i.e., all of it worth considering as a reply thereto. They may be summed up under the following heads:

1. The absence of his name in either the address or farewell. The force of this objection is strengthened by the fact that his name does appear in the address of his genuine letters, and after 1 Thessalonians, for reasons stated, his autograph is appended to them at the close.

2. The author of Hebrews at 2:3 concedes that he was not an apostle, but derived his gospel second hand from the apostles, whereas Paul’s gospel was independent, original, and first hand. To put the objection in other words, whoever wrote Galatians 1:11-12 could not have written Hebrews 2:3. Dr. Farrar ventures to call this decisive against Paul’s authorship.

3. The severity of two passages, Hebrews 6:4-8; Hebrews 10:26-31 is not apostolic, and their doctrine of apostasy not Pauline. These two passages underlie the opposition of more critics to Pauline authorship than all others. Some, in the early centuries, rejected the letter because they supposed that the first of these passages favored the Novationists. The supposed teaching of apostasy in these passages was one of the chief causes of Luther being unwilling to receive the letter as Paul’s. Tertullian, in trying to make Barnabas the author, does so in the very chapter in which he quotes’ Hebrews 6:4-8.

4. It is objected that the style – the word "style" here used in its comprehensive sense – is un-Pauline; that it is an I Alexandrian style, evincing such an acquaintance with Philo as was not possessed by Paul. On this ground of style, Origen, while conceding Paul’s virtual authorship, attributes the form of the composition to an unknown amanuensis.: Erasmus, the great scholar in the beginning of the Reformation time, declared the style of Hebrews wholly unlike Paul’s, and Luther, on the same ground, after being disturbed by: the passages Hebrews 6:4-8 and Hebrews 10:26-31, and recalling Acts 18:24. ’ 28, made the first guess known to history that Apollos was ’’ the author. It has become quite fashionable now to count; Luther’s guess, made 1,500 years after the letter was written, a demonstration.

5. The absence of certain favorite terms of Paul, e.g., "justify" (Greek dikaioo) used so often in Galatians and Romans, and the use of "purify" (Greek katharizo) instead, . and the infrequent use of Soteria – "Salvation."

6. The relative purity of the Greek. On one or the other or all of these internal grounds, some learned men, while attributing the doctrine and thought to Paul, have assigned the composition and rhetorical form to an amanuensis, while others have denied to Paul any connection with the authorship. Let us consider these objections seriatim:

1. It is admitted that the absence of Paul’s name in either the address or farewell is contrary to his custom, and certainly calls for rational and adequate explanation. When once, however, the explanation is sufficient, the absence of the name constitutes a strong presumption of Paul’s authorship. For example, while no good reason can be assigned why Apollos should omit his name, if he were the author, the reasons of Paul’s omission of his name, under the circumstances, are very strong. Let us consider these circumstances. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. This letter is exclusively to the Jews. Its whole line of argument designedly stops short of his own call and testimony. To make it thoroughly effective, to strike from it an embarrassing complication he must utterly repress any illusion to his own mission, in this case, rigidly carry out one of the great self-repressing never acceptable to Jewish minds. In other words, he must, in this case, rigidly carry out one of the great self-repressing principles of his life so forcibly expressed by himself elsewhere: "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews. I am become all things to all men that I may by all means save some" ( 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). The object of the letter is to prevent Christian Jews from abjuring Christianity and relapsing into Judaism. The argument is limited to this view. Gentiles are not considered. Hence as Paul writes he does not write as the apostle to the Gentiles. The argument is necessarily shut up to proof anterior to his own call, and apart from his own special mission. His usual official signature or any appeal to his own testimony would unnecessarily complicate his problem and prejudice its solution. His problem, hence, is not "Shall Gentiles become Christians?" or "Shall they become Jews in order to become Christians?" or "Shall Jews admit Gentile Christians to social fellowship?" but it is "Shall professing Jews abjure Christianity altogether and return to strict Judaism?" Therefore, not being an apostle to the circumcision, he omits his name and apostleship, but being a Jew he has the feeling of a Jew – that intense desire to speak and write to his brethren according to the flesh, expressed so forcibly in his other letters. The man who wrote Romans 9:1-5; Romans 10:1-3; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 would not hesitate to suppress himself and his signature in this case in order that his arguments might stand upon their Jewish merits, unhandicapped by official signature which would necessarily introduce a view of the case not at all within his purpose or the scope of his argument, and this self-repression is a marked characteristic of Paul. Its delicacy in this case surpasses that displayed in, Philemon 1:8. This man always preferred to be a home missionary, and had to be choked off that line of work. He kept turning his face toward Jerusalem against both divine and prophetic interdiction (see Acts 22:13-21; Acts 21:10-13). In all the history of missions, if perhaps we except Jonah’s case, there is not another so remarkable – a man burning as with unquenchable fire to be a home missionary, but divinely thrust out and whipped into being a foreign missionary.

2. The second objection to Pauline authorship is based on Hebrews 2:3 which reads, "Which salvation having at first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by them that heard." This language does not concede that the author was not an apostle, nor does it intimate that he derived his own gospel of salvation from others. It simply affirms that Christ first spoke his own gospel of salvation, and that it was confirmed to the Jews by the original apostles, after the gifts at Pentecost, all of which was literally true before Paul’s conversion and call. His own call and independent gospel did not concern Jews, to whom exclusively he is now writing, and whom he is addressing strictly on a line that would appeal to them. Under such circumstances to say that it is unlike Paul to omit reference to his call and gospel, contradicts a striking incident of his life, for he makes substantially the same statement under like circumstances at Pisidian Antioch, as reported in Acts 13:31. What is there in one case more than the other? Compare them fairly. It is true in Hebrews he says the gospel spoken by our Lord was confirmed to us by them that heard it. Addressing Jews only at Antioch he says: "He was seen for many days of them that came up from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses." This does not intimate that Paul himself had not seen the risen Lord, nor that he was not now a witness. In both cases and for the same reason he omits reference to himself. Then, if he at Antioch of Pisidia, addressing Jews only might refer exclusively to the confirmation of Christ’s resurrection by the testimony of the twelve, without impugning his own independent testimony, which he does not there even mention, why may he not, in a letter to Jews only – a letter whose argument designedly stops short of his own call to the Gentiles – refer to the same kind of confirmation of the gospel, without disparagement of his independent gospel and testimony? In other words, with equal propriety, he might be the author of Acts 13:30-31 and Hebrews 2:3-4. We may always distrust an inference that is decisive to Dr. Farrar when it comes to historical criticism.

3. The objection to Pauline authorship based on the passages Hebrews 6:4-8 and Hebrews 10:26-31 arises solely from the objectors’ questionable interpretation of these passages. It is an assumption merely that the severity complained of in them is not apostolic. It is many times paralleled in the words of our Lord and in the teachings of Paul elsewhere. Moreover, it is no easier to find apostasy here than in many unquestioned utterances of Paul. When we come in the exposition to interpret these passages, it will not be difficult to show that there is nothing here to contradict the final preservation and perseverance of the saints. This objection is on a line with Luther’s going off at a tangent against the letter of James because he misunderstood its import. Neither James nor Hebrews is "an epistle of straw."

4. The objection based on style in its broadest sense is equally inconclusive. The most indeterminate method of proving authorship known to literature is the style method. All historical critics, like other experts, lose the power of generalization in the narrowness and depths of the rut into which specialism leads them. A blind mole burrowing is an authority on earthworms, but is no judge of landscapes or mountain scenery. Let it be repeated as proverbial that a specialist is unsafe on a jury or on the bench.

A man, by a life devoted to microscopic details concerning a very small matter, may become an authority on the variety of hummingbirds, and might be able to prove ultimately that the sprigs of down on a mouse’s tail are more numerous than the stickers on a grasshopper’s hind leg, but that would not qualify him to judge of the spiritual beings of the cosmos.

We have seen the result when style adepts have turned themselves loose on Junius, Shakespeare, Homer, or Milton. Each one is able to prove to his own satisfaction anything he chooses, but let him not hope to convince his brother adepts. Each of them has his own demonstration, equally worthless. How easy to prove in this way that the author of Il Penseroso could not have written L’ Allegro. They forget, if they ever knew, that a genius possesses many styles, and adapts his vocabulary to each new theme, yea, even his turns of expression.

Paul was the loftiest genius among them. Compare the tugged fiery style of the letter to the Galatians with the apostrophe to love in 1 Corinthians 13, and the mighty logic of Romans with the sweet humility and tact of Philemon.

In the first case it is like comparing Niagara Falls with Lake Tahoe, and in the other the Himalaya range with a violet in a hedgerow. The man who delivered the address before Agrippa, the address on Mars’ Hill, and who wrote Romans, Philemon, 1 Corinthians 13, was a master of all styles and vocabularies. And why should not a cultured Jew, reared in the university city of Tarsus, graduated from the rabbinical school at Jerusalem, familiar with the Greek poets, rabbi of a Hellenist synagogue in Jerusalem – why should he be ignorant of Philo and Alexandrian literature? The Mediterranean is not very broad, and Alexandria was in constant touch with Tarsus, in literature as well as trade. We may safely take for granted that Paul knew more about Philo and Alexandrian literature than all of his critics put together.

5. We now reply to the fifth serious objection to Pauline authorship, to wit: The use, or nonuse, of certain words.

(1) It is conceded that Hebrews does not use the word "justify" – (dikaioo) so often used in Galatians and Romans – and does use "purify" – (katharizo) – but the reason is obvious : Justification was the theme of Galatians and Romans, or the salvation for us. Sanctification is the theme of Hebrews, or the salvation in us. Paul’s words correspond to his theme, e.g., he uses the word "law" (nomos) seventy-five times in Romans because, as the correspondent to justification, he needs it, but does not use it in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Titus, and 2 Timothy, because he does not need it. If the absence of the word "justify" from a letter disproves Pauline authorship, then he was not the author of I and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians. And while he does not use katharizo ("purify") in Romans and Galatians, because not needed, yet he does use it where the same sense requires it quite as many times in 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Titus, as in Hebrews. "Justify" is a legal term relating to Christ’s work for us. "Purify" is a Holy Spirit term applying the work of Christ in us. Unfortunately some critics get their one idea of Paul’s style and words from his discussion of the legal aspects of salvation in Galatians and Romans, making that alone the standard of his style and vocabulary.

The letters of the first Roman imprisonment make a great advance in the development of the plan of salvation. In the same way they argue against Pauline authorship because of the infrequent use of soteria ("salvation") in Hebrews, though Romans uses the word five times, to seven in Hebrews, and all his other letters use it nineteen times.

6. And where will the narrow argument based on the relative purity of the Greek in different compositions, composed at different times, and under different circumstances, lead us? It would certainly lead us to deny that the author of John’s Gospel was also the author of the Apocalypse, and the same argument would distribute the New Testament books among many unnamed authors, reverse all established dates and annihilate all historical evidence. A dim-eyed Jew, rapidly writing in great sprawling letters to the Galatians – writing in the hand of fiery speech offhand, in a foreign tongue – would hardly turn out the same kind of Greek in the calm, carefully prepared treatise to the Hebrews. Let a professor of Greek in an American college today, while on a trip away from his books, stirred by profound emotion, write rapidly offhand an impassioned letter in Greek – write it as if he were talking – and afterward in the quiet of his study, with grammar and lexicon at hand, prepare carefully, without haste, a labored and dispassionate treatise in Greek for a literary magazine, and then let him submit these two documents to one of these infallible experts and hear this verdict: "It is impossible that one man wrote both. The author of No. I struggles in embarrassment to express himself in an unfamiliar tongue. His sentences are ragged, elliptical, and faulty. The author of No. 2 thinks in Greek. His Greek is like a polished shaft of Parian marble chiseled by the sculptor. His vocabulary is abundant and choice. His argument is articulated, his periods well rounded, and his style superbly rhetorical. No amount of external proof could convince a cosmopolitan scholar that the same man wrote both, however much it might mislead an uncultured provincial." Lo! Sir Oracle, the Owl!

All the objections based on vocabularies, on methods of quotation, on phrases and terms of expression, are not only utterly inconclusive against Paul, but there can be made out a much stronger case for him than against him on these very grounds, as we see in the "Speaker’s Commentary" in the introduction to Hebrews.

The case of Paul may be briefly stated thus:

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
The external evidence is cumulative and threefold: scriptural, documentary, and traditional.

Scriptural. The first scriptural evidence is derived from 2 Peter 3:15: "And account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according unto the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you." If this testimony be relevant it is decisive. The argument for its application to the case is substantially this:

1. Peter wrote his first letter to elect Jews of the dispersion in five provinces of Asia Minor (1 Peter 1:1).

2. His second letter was to the same people (2 Peter 3:1).

3. In this second letter he says, "Our beloved brother Paul hath written to you."

4. The particular topic discussed by Peter, concerning which he alleges agreement with Paul, is the emphatic topic in our letter to the Hebrews, namely, the long suffering of our Lord in delaying his advent, which delay was tempting them to apostatize.

5. Peter distinguishes this letter of Paul to the Hebrews from all his other letters.

6. The most probable date of Peter’s second letter allows ample time for his knowledge of the letter to the Hebrews. Indeed, Peter’s letter shows evident acquaintance with the group of Paul’s letters written during his first Roman imprisonment, and designedly supplements Paul’s great argument against the Gnostics.

7. If our letter to the Hebrews be not the one which Peter attributed to Paul, then Paul’s letter is lost. The only escape from this argument would be proof that Peter himself never wrote the second letter attributed to him, but this would be only a nominal escape, since somebody wrote that letter and the direct testimony as to Paul writing to the Hebrews remains. Whatever may be the merits of this argument as to Peter’s testimony, it is certain that Peter never said, "Our beloved brother Barnabas, or Apollos, or Clement, or Luke, hath written unto you."

The second scriptural evidence is the constructive testimony of Paul himself derived from a comparison of the last paragraph of the letter to the Hebrews with certain passages in the letters to Timothy. Hebrews closes with the announcement that Timothy is at liberty and about to visit the people addressed in that letter, and that Paul expected to be acquitted and restored to them, perhaps accompanying Timothy. Now, later after Paul’s release in 1 Timothy 1:3 and 2 Timothy 1:15 we find that Paul and Timothy were together in Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia. The fit is like that of a glove on the fingers or the feathers in a dove’s tail.

The third scriptural evidence is based on 2 Timothy 1:15-18. The strange fact is disclosed that Paul was not welcomed in Ephesus, that all Asia had turned against him, and but for the ministering care of one family, the household of Onesiphorus, Paul would have suffered there, and there seems to be a hint that his very life might have been in danger. Timothy knew of these ministrations of Onesiphorus and when Paul went away he was constrained by exhortation to remain in Ephesus to see if he could not right matters there. Now, in some way we must account for this sudden revulsion of sentiment against Paul – a revulsion that amounted to a revolution. We can easily understand how a Gentile convert, under the influence of the Gnostic heresy, would naturally hate a man who exposed that heresy in the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, but something more is necessary to account for the sudden sweeping opposition of Jewish Christians to Paul. This letter to the Hebrews, and it alone, accounts for so great a revolution of sentiment. The case was about this: Not only all Palestine, but the dispersions as well, was seething at this time with a revolt against Rome. That awful struggle had already commenced which in two or three years would terminate in the total destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple, and the utter overthrow of the entire Jewish polity. The prophetic denunciations of Moses (Deuteronomy 28:47-68), of Daniel (Daniel 9:26-27), and of our Lord (Matthew 23:29-39; Luke 19:42-44), were now massed in an awful menace and hanging over Jerusalem as a storm cloud of wrath about to burst upon the holy city and people. Everywhere, at home and abroad, a frenzy possessed this doomed people. Their patriotism impelled them to stand up for their old order, the holy city and the sacred Temple, and to become implacable foes to those who, in their judgment, slighted these holy things.

At this juncture of intolerant frenzy came Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, plainly announcing an eternal severance of Christianity from Judaism. Far beyond anything in other letters, it calls for a final break between the old and the new covenant, and foreshows the speedy overthrow of the entire Jewish polity. Its covenant is annulled, its heavens are shaken, and the whole system has become as worthless as the perishing shell of a nut whose kernels have sprouted into a new tree. Its great leaders – Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and David – are overshadowed by a greater Lord, of whom they are but feeble types. To unconverted Jews such a letter at this juncture was as a spark of fire to a powder magazine, and the undeveloped Christian Jew, always leaning back toward Jerusalem, could not stand before the pressure, and so all Asia was turned against Paul. He was outlawed and banned. It became treason to give him shelter, food, or drink. His very appearance would stir a mob into a most lawless and fanatical outbreak of violence.

In such a view of the case we can understand the unselfish devotion of Onesiphorus, who, having previously at Rome shared Paul’s sufferings, now with his household shelters, surreptitiously hides away and ministers unto this hunted man when he attempted to join Timothy at Ephesus. It is fairly inferable from 2 Timothy 4:13 that Paul’s escape from Asia Minor was a flight, leaving behind in his hurry at Troas his cloak and books or parchments.

If it be objected that this argument in supporting Paul’s appearance again in Ephesus flatly contradicts his own prophecy in Acts 20:25, the reply is a flat denial of contradiction. Both the prophecy and the history are true and only apparently contradictory. We find in the case of Abraham (Romans 4:18-21; Hebrews 11:17-19) an illustration of apparent conflict between history and prophecy. We may find another case of the unbelieving captain described in 2 Kings 7:1-2; 2 Kings 7:17. So here he did indeed return to Ephesus, but the elders of that church from whom he parted in tears at Miletus, saw his face no more.

Documentary. As one example only of documentary evidence, we cite the fact that in all the early manuscripts of the New Testament – the Alexandrian, the Vatican, and the Sinaitic – the epistle to the Hebrews is not only grouped with Paul’s letters, but is placed between the Ephesians and the pastoral epistles. This indicates a widespread consensus among the learned in favor of the Pauline authorship.

Traditional. It would go far beyond the limits of this chapter to cite all the traditional evidence, but we do give the earliest traditions. Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 165-220, preserved the testimony of Pantenus that the letter to the Hebrews was written by Paul. Pantenus almost touched the times of the apostles. The testimony of Origen, A.D. 186-253 is also very striking. He says, "Not without good reason have the men of old times handed down this letter as Paul’s." Here Origen speaks simply as a witness as to what is tradition. His declaration is clear that the men of old times banded down this letter as Paul’s. As a critic on internal evidence he may attribute the style to an amanuensis.

When we come to consider the internal evidence, it will then be appropriate to give the views of Origen, the critic, to the effect that while the doctrine and thoughts of the letter are Pauline, its composition was by an unknown scribe. This view of what was tradition prevailed throughout the East, and particularly in the section where lived the people addressed. Asia Minor never attributed the letter to anybody but Paul.

While some critical views, as to internal evidence conjectured, have attributed this letter to others than Paul, there is not a shred of traditional evidence, fairly considered, against Paul and in favor of any other man. It is admitted that while at first this letter was received as apostolic at Rome, i.e., in the Western churches, yet later for about two centuries, on internal grounds alone, the Pauline authorship was questioned, but by the meeting of the Council of Laodicea and of Carthage, the consensus swung back to Paul. It is a little remarkable that, whether in earlier or later times, historical critics, influenced by what they conceive to be internal evidence, have questioned Paul’s authorship, as time passes the pendulum swings back, and like the temporary quiverings of the magnetic needle which finally settles in a definite position pointing to the north, so always the judgment returns to Paul as the writer of this letter.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE
The internal evidence in favor of the Pauline authorship may be briefly stated thus:

1. On all hands everywhere the doctrines and thought are attributed to Paul; even many, who suppose an amanuensis, Luke, or Apollos, or some other, say that whoever wrote it expressed Paul’s thought in his own style.

2. Vocabulary. There are in this letter more than fifty Greek words, all of them found elsewhere in Paul’s letters or speeches, but found nowhere else in the New Testament.

3. There is also a large number of words in this letter frequently used elsewhere by Paul, but seldom used by any other New Testament writer. In the same way it would be easy to cite a long list of phrases and modes of expression in this letter to be found elsewhere only in the speeches and letters of Paul.

4. Metaphors. The metaphors employed in this letter are various. Some domestic, some architectural, some pugilistic, some theatrical, some nautical, some medical, some based on the races in the Isthmian games, and all these metaphors we find used by Paul in similar construction in his letters and speeches elsewhere.

5. Quotations. Any student of Paul readily sees that certain Old Testament passages had fixed themselves on his mind. This is evidenced in his speeches and other letters. In this letter these are the very Old Testament passages which he quotes. The coincidence is not only remarkable as to the passages quoted, but in the method of citing the Old Testament and in his ways of viewing and handling religious truth. There is not here and now time and place for a critical reply to the objections on internal evidence, but it is certainly safe to say that taking internal evidence alone, an argument can be made for Paul’s authorship far stronger to a judicial mind than anything that can be made out against him.

6. The strongest argument for Paul on the internal evidence is found in the closing paragraphs of Hebrews 13:18-25. In every word and phrase and idea this paragraph is Pauline. It is impossible to make it apply with any degree of plausibility to any other author. We have only to compare it with the methods of closing in his other letters to note its reference to Timothy, to his request for prayer that he may be restored to them, its harmony with the conceded history of Paul’s previous life and labors, and particularly with dovetail exactness it fits into the group of Paul’s letters which preceded this closing letter of the first Roman imprisonment, in order to be assured of Pauline authorship.

Having examined many authorities and studied thousands of pages of controversy on this subject, the author is thoroughly settled in his mind that Paul, and no other, is the author of the letter to the Hebrews; that it concludes the group of letters written during the first Roman imprisonment, following Ephesians, elaborating the doctrines set forth in the preceding letters against Gnosticism, properly introducing the pastoral letters, and that it was addressed to the Jews of Asia Minor and Greece.

QUESTIONS

1. What are the two kinds of evidence in determining authorship, and what their relative value?

2. How only is internal evidence available?

3. How does this fact alone affect the suggested names of Apollos, Barnabas, and Luke?

4. What other and decisive argument against Luke?

5. What capital error usually committed by critics opposing Pauline authorship?

6. What is the full sources of matter confessedly derived from Paul must be considered in the comparison?

7. What is one proof would be decisive against Paul, and why cannot it be given?

8. What is a fair statement of the case of authorship, and on what points does this case against Paul break down?

9. Name under six heads the strongest arguments against Pauline authorship.

10. What is the reply to them seriatim?

11. What is the nature of the external evidence for Pauline authorship, and what its three classifications?

12. State the argument on the first scriptural evidence in support of Paul’s authorship; the second; the third.

13. What documentary proof tends to the same conclusion?

14. Give substance of traditional evidence coming from the East.

15. State the case in the West, citing authorities up to the Reformation.

16. How was the question reopened in the Reformation period, and what the position, of Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin respectively?

17. State in substance the internal evidence favoring Pauline authorship.

XXIII

ANALYSIS OF HEBREWS AND OUR LORD’S SONSHIPS

Before commencing the exposition of this remarkable letter, I wish to refer briefly to commentaries suitable to English students. I commend heartily Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown, brief but critical and trustworthy, though dissenting from it, however, in the persons to whom the letter is addressed. I commend very heartily "The Speaker’s Commentary." Its introduction is superb, indeed, the best I have seen, though I differ from this commentary as to the persons addressed in the letter. I commend, with some reservation, "The Pulpit Commentary," particularly its homiletical part. Farrar, in "The Cambridge Bible," is as usual sharp and erratic. Of course, as a radical critic, he dissents from authorship by Paul. Edwards, in "The Expositor’s Bible," is weak. In "The American Commentary," Kendrick follows the radical critics in his introduction, and gives an easy flowing translation of Hebrews. I have never regarded Kendrick as occupying the first rank on the matter of soundness of judgment in interpretation.

ANALYSIS OF HEBREWS

1. INTRODUCTION, answering the questions:

1. Who wrote it?

2. In what language?

3. Where written?

4. What the circumstances of the writer?

5. When written?

6. To whom?

7. The occasion, or circumstances of those addressed.

8. Of what group of letters is it a part, and what its place in the group?

9. What its character and style?

10. What its theme?

II. THE MEDIATOR OF THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SON OF GOD (Hebrews 1:1-9).

1. By eternal subsistence. In his pre-existence: (1) "The effulgence of God’s glory and very image of his substance." (2) "Through whom also he made the worlds." (3) "Upholding all things by the word of his power."

2. In his incarnation (1) "The Firstborn." "Made purification of sins."

3. In his resurrection (1) "Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." "When be again bringeth his firstborn into the world." (2) "Sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high." "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." (3) "Anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows."

III. SUPERIOR TO THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE (Hebrews 1:10-12)

1. He created and upholds it.

2. He is changeless; it changes.

3. He dissolves it by fire at his final coming (Hebrews 1:11-12, and 2 Peter 3:4-12), and recreates it (Revelation 21:1).

IV. SUPERIOR TO ALL OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS AS REVEALER
1. Their revelation fragmentary, diverse, incomplete.

2. His revelation complete, and closes the canon of Scriptures.

3. It is a gospel of salvation – theirs a promise.

V. SUPERIOR TO ANGELS – GOOD AND BAD

1. To good angels: (1) In his threefold sonship he is the object of their worship. (2) In his expiation of sin. (3) In his inheritance. (4) In his enthronement. (5) In his anointing with the oil of gladness. (6) In their subordination of service. (7) In his confirmation of them for their fidelity in ministering to the heirs of salvation. (8) In his gospel as compared with the law disposed by them. (9) In the higher penal sanctions of his gospel over the penal sanctions of the law. (10) In the gospel’s better accrediting than the law. (11) In his sympathetic priesthood. (12) In his becoming a brother to them whom they only serve.

2. To bad angels: (1) In his successful resistance to Satan’s temptation, both in the desert and in Gethsemane. (2) In his complete victory over Satan and all his demons on the cross. (3) In delivering Satan’s victims. (4) In his final judgment of them.

VI. GREATER THAN MOSES, MEDIATOR OF THE OLD COVENANT
1. The builder of the house greater than the house.

2. The Son in the house greater than the servant.

3. The house built by the Son greater than the house built by the servant.

4. Neither Moses nor the people led out of bondage by him ever reached the earthly Promised Land, but Jesus enters the heavenly promised land, saying, "Here am I and the children thou hast given me."

VII. GREATER THAN JOSHUA, THE CAPTAIN GENERAL OF ISRAEL

The rest into which Joshua led his generation was imperfect and temporary, but Jesus entered the true rest or redemption.

VIII. THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH

Commemorating the rest after creation (Genesis 2:2-3), and commemorating the temporal deliverance from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:4-15), and of the imperfect rest of Joshua (Hebrews 4:8), was nailed to the cross of Christ and blotted out (Colossians 2:14; Colossians 2:16-17), and forever superseded by another day – the Christian’s sabbath – "sabbath-keeping" (Sabbatis mos) that remaineth to the people of God, commemorating the resurrection rest of Christ’s finished work of redemption (Hebrews 4:8-10).

IX. GREATER THAN AARON THE HIGH PRIEST
1. In descent from Judah, not Levi.

2. After the order of Melchizedek.

3. Sinless, whereas Aaron was a sinner.

4. Aaron died, but he ever liveth to intercede, and therefore is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God through him.

5. In sympathetic touch with his people.

X. THE GENERAL SUPERIORITY OF THE NEW COVENANT OVER THE OLD COVENANT (Heb. 8:5-10:18)
1. In its better promises.

2. In its better surety.

3. It is the substance of which the other was the shadow.

4. Written on the heart instead of tablets of stone.

5. In the dignity and intrinsic merit of its one great expiatory sacrifice, offered once for all.

6. This one expiation blots out sin and its remembrance; the multitude of the others, oft repeated, only passed sin over till this one came.

7. In the personal and experimental knowledge of God possessed by all members of the new.

8. All the members of the new are priests unto God, having a superior festival and better nonexpiating sacrifices (Hebrews 13:10-13; Hebrews 13:15-16).

9. The old broken repeatedly by one of the parties to it, and disregarded by the other.

10. The old in its city, its tabernacle, and all its appointments and sacrifices and priesthood and ritual and ordinances forever taken away. The new abideth forever, thoroughly kept by its surety, and so provides for all its members that they, when fully saved, will forever keep it.

XI. ALL THE WORTHIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TIMES

Won their victories by faith – the great first principle of the new covenant (Hebrews 11).

XII. THE ENCOURAGEMENTS TO A SUCCESSFUL RACE
Under the new far exceed those of the old (Hebrews 12:1-17).

XIII. THE OUTCOME OF THE NEW

Far better and more glorious (Hebrews 12:1-24).. The covenant argument has its climax in Hebrews 12 and closes at Hebrews 13:16. The Mediator argument finds its climax in Hebrews 13:8.

XIV. CLOSING WORDS (Hebrews 13:17-25).

The one theme of this book is: Christian Jews should hold fast to the profession of their faith in Jesus Christ, steadily going forward to maturity, and not relapse into Judaism, because the new covenant, mediated by our Lord, forever supersedes, and on all points is infinitely superior to the old covenant given through the disposition of angels and mediated by Moses.

The argument and exhortation rest on the nature, person, and office of our Lord in relation to salvation, and on the excellencies of the new covenant mediated by him. So resting, the argument naturally commences with the dignity and worth of the Mediator as contrasted with all other intelligencies, and then develops the excellencies of his covenant. Jesus the Messiah is the one hero of the book from start to finish. The arguments, each followed by appropriate exhortation, commence with verse I, reach the climax as to the covenant in Hebrews 12, and close with the priesthood of all Christians and the superiority of their festivals and of their nonexpiatory sacrifices, at Hebrews 13:10; Hebrews 13:15-16. The climax on the Mediator is reached at Hebrews 13:8.

The Mediator of the new covenant is first presented to view in his threefold sonship to the Father:

1. The sonship of his pre-existence; i.e., prior to time and creation of the universe. He was the Son of God by eternal subsistence, or, as this book expresses it, "being the effulgence of his glory and the very image of his substance." The activities of this substance are thus expressed: "Through whom he also made the worlds," and his providence after their creation, "upholding all things by the word of his power." Eternity of being, creation, providence, set forth his essential deity and overthrow the false conceptions of the Gnostic philosophy concerning eons, which at this very time is one of the active causes tending to apostasy. On this point, as on others, the book fits into the pre-ceding letters of the first Roman imprisonment, rounding up their argument, and prepares for the interfitting of subsequent New Testament books. We cannot, except by violence to the system of correlated revelation, disrupt it from this connection. But it is the evident purpose of the book to connect his first sonship with the second and third sonships, reaching the climax of the argument as to Mediator in Hebrews 13:8 of the last chapter: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, yea, and forever."

2. Son of God by procreation of the virgin Mary – his "firstborn." Compare Luke 1:35 and 2 Samuel 7:14. This chapter expresses the work of this sonship in four distinct offices.

(1) Prophet: "Hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son" (Hebrews 1:2).

(2) Both priest and

(3) expiating sacrifice: "When he had made purification of sins" (Hebrews 1:3). Other parts of the letter give elaborate details of his priesthood and vicarious sacrifice, which will be considered later.

(4) King: "I will be to him a Father and he will be to me a Son" (latter clause of Hebrews 1:5). This is a quotation from 2 Samuel 7. The verses immediately before it are: "When thy days are fufilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, that shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever" (2 Samuel 7:12-13).

It is this promise to David which influenced him more than all other words of God to him, and evoked the matchless Psalm 72; occasioned the kingdom prophecies of Daniel Zechariah, and Micah, and the testimonies so elaborately set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, on the King and kingdom. But so far, the allusions are to the King and his birth, and in the setting up of his kingdom, and the constitution of his church before his death. It is the King building and establishing and not his reigning after his exaltation. The word, "firstborn," belongs to the second sonship, i.e., so far as it relates to his first coming into this world, and not "the bringing in again."

3. The Son of God by his resurrection: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." "And when he again bringeth in his firstborn into the world." The first passage, (Hebrews 1:5) first clause, is a quotation from Psalm 2, and by Paul himself, is expounded as applying to his resurrection at Acts 13:33. The other passage: "When he again bringeth in his firstborn into the world," needs careful consideration. It means that as he brought him first into the world by his incarnation – his birth of the virgin Mary – so he brought him into the world the second time at his resurrection. It means that when he died on the cross he left the world and his spirit ascended to the Father, as in Luke 23:46 – "And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ’Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and having said this he gave up the spirit."

Here arises a series of crucial questions: Where did the spirit of Jesus go when separated from his body, why did it go there, and how long did it stay there, and leaving there, where did it next go, and for what purpose, and how long did he remain at this second place, and for what purpose, and then where did he next go and why, and where is he now, and what doing, and how long will he remain, and then where will he go, and for what?

The answers are: His spirit went to heaven; he went there as High Priest to sprinkle on the mercy seat the blood shed on the cross and make atonement for sins. He remained there in the interval between his death and resurrection; he then returned to the earth for his glorified resurrection body, and remained on earth comforting and instructing his disciples for forty days, and then he again ascended to heaven, soul and body, and sat down at the right hand of God; was crowned King of kings and Lord of lords, and there he reigns as King and makes intercession as High Priest until his third and final advent to raise the dead and Judge the world and then turn over the kingdom to the Father.

Let us note very carefully the following points:

1. At his first advent he assumed the body of his humiliation to become the sacrifice for sin. At his second advent he assumed the body of his glory for reigning and interceding in heaven. At his final advent he will assume his mystical body, the church, for its glorification forever.

2. When his body died, his soul, negatively, (1) did not descend into (Gehenna) hell. His descent into hell on the cross, soul and body, during the three hours of darkness; (2) His soul did not go into hades considered as a place, in order to preach a gospel unto the wicked dead, nor to deliver Old Testament saints from a half-way prison, but, positively, according to Leviticus 16, entered heaven to make atonement in the holy of holies for offering and pleading the merit of his expiating blood. On that great day of atonement (Lev. 16) there was continuous action. Immediately after the death of the vicarious sacrifice, the high priest, with the warm blood, parted the veil which hid the holy of holies. This blood of the typical vicarious sacrifice cleanses the typical sanctuary and makes atonement. There is no halt in the proceedings; the action is continuous. So this letter will tell us how Jesus passes through the veil – that is, by the death of his body – and enters into the most holy place beyond the veil and cleanses with his own nobler blood the true sanctuary and makes atonement.

To make this clear, let us repeat: One of the greatest questions of New Testament theology is: How was the soul of our Lord employed in the interval between his death and resurrection? Some make hades an intermediate place between heaven and hell (Gehenna), divided into two compartments – paradise for the good, and Tartarus for the wicked. This they call "the middle life." They contend that all Old Testament saints are sidetracked in paradise, and that all the lost of Old Testament times are sidetracked in Tartarus until the final judgment and that the same disposition is now made of the souls of good and bad. See J. R. Graves’ Middle Life, Bishop McTyiere’s sermon in Methodist Pulpit, South, afterward regretted, as I am informed, and Bishop Hobart’s (Episcopal) funeral sermon on a brother bishop, and the interpretation of the creed: He descended into hell (hades).

On this theory some contend, by a misinterpretation of 1 Peter 3:19-20; 1 Peter 4:6, that the disembodied soul of Christ, between his death and resurrection, was employed in preaching a saving gospel in Tartarus to those who perished in the flood. Others, citing apocryphal books, contend he entered into paradise and announced to the souls of the saints resting there the finishing of his work for their salvation, and that he took out with him, when he left, the souls of Abraham and other Old Testament saints. On similar lines is based the Romanist theory of purgatory. When we come to interpret 1 Peter 3:19-20; 1 Peter 4:6, all these theories will be examined in a special chapter. Just now our concern is to establish positively where he was and how employed in the interval between his death and resurrection.

The answer is suggested by his own words on the cross: "It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And he gave up the spirit, intensified by the recorded prodigy: "The veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom" (Luke 23:45) with this comment in our letter:

Which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and stedfast and entering into that which is within the veil; whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. – Hebrews 6:19-20.

But into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offereth for himself and for the errors of the people: The Holy Spirit thus signifying that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest while the first tabernacle is yet standing. . . . But Christ having ’become a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. . . . For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us. – Hebrews 9:7-8; Hebrews 9:11-12; Hebrews 9:24.

Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus. – Hebrews 10:18-19.

Here it is evident that the veil which hid the holy of holies typified Christ’s body. When his body died that veil was forever rent. Through this rent body he entered the heavenly holy of holies and there offered his own expiating blood an offering through the eternal Spirit, hence in Hebrews 12:22-24, the last glorious thing the Christian comes to is "the blood of sprinkling," not on his heart as applied by the Holy Spirit in regeneration, but that blood sprinkled on the mercy seat in the heavenly sanctuary.

It has been objected to this view that Jesus said to Mary after his resurrection: "I have not yet ascended to my Father," but that refers to his ascension in his glorified body, and not in his disembodied spirit. His body could not be raised until his spirit had made atonement in heaven, hence it said: "Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus."

I once heard a preacher say that Jesus never sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat in heaven until his ascension in his risen body forty days after his resurrection as described in Acts 1:10. I asked him two questions:

1. "If the high priest in Leviticus 16 waited forty days after the sacrificial goat was slain to take the blood into the sanctuary?"

2. "How the body of Jesus could be raised until the blood of the covenant was on the mercy seat?"

It was through his rent body, not his risen body that our Forerunner reached that sanctuary. When he expiated sin on the cross it was necessary that he offer the blood in the sanctuary for atonement. So long as the blood remained at the cross it could not be made efficacious. It must be accepted to become a propitiation. The mercy seat was the place of propitiation. There-fore when his body died, his soul immediately passing through the veil – a rent body – entered into the heavenly sanctuary to make his expiation effective in that salvation of men. It was the culmination of the whole process of the work of his second sonship.

His third sonship starts at the resurrection. He was brought to life through the blood of the everlasting covenant accepted in heaven. This makes clear the passage which Milton misunderstood: "And when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith: ’And let all the angels of God worship him.’" His soul was out of the world and in heaven. He must be brought into the world again to obtain and inhabit his risen and glorified body, which is his second advent) as our souls must come from heaven with him at his third and final advent, to obtain and inhabit our glorified bodies ( 1 Thessalonians 4:14). And as the angels had worshiped him in his third sonship – his risen and glorified humanity – God says, "Let all the angels of God worship him." You may rest assured that all of Psalms 2 and Psalm 110 apply to this third sonship as expressed in this first chapter and affirmed in Acts 4:23-28, and in many other New Testament passages.

I once had a friendly private controversy with a Campbellite who affirmed that there could be no law of pardon till Jesus became the Son of God, which took place at his resurrection, and therefore Acts 2:38 was the first law of pardon under the new covenant, and so all gospel cases of pardon must not be considered. I told him that his fallacy consisted in ignoring the second sonship, and that in all his sonships sinners were pardoned, and that the plan of salvation was one plan from Abel to the final judgment, Hebrews 11 of this book abundantly shows. It is to this third sonship that his heirship and his anointing with gladness, and his session at God’s right hand, all belong. He was appointed heir because of the reconciliation he accomplished in his second sonship, so our lesson declares (Hebrews 1:4), and the great passage in Philippians 2:6-11. So testify also Psalms 2 and 110. Equally clear also his anointing with gladness Hebrews 1:9; Hebrews 12:2, which will be considered more particularly in another connection.

3. Superior to the universe (Hebrews 1:10-12). We must note that in all the first two chapters the arguments connect with Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians in a demonstration against the Gnostic heresy concerning creation and eons. Here our Lord’s pre-eminence over the universe appears from:

(1) He created it. (2) His providence upholds it. (3) His eternity and immutability. (4) He dissolves it at his will.

On this last point the reader will recall the process by which the chaotic matter of the earth was reduced to order (Genesis 1:6-10) by the creation of the atmosphere separating the waters above from the waters below, and then separating the waters below from the land, and how this process was reversed in bringing about the flood (Genesis 7:11; Genesis 7:17-24), and then renewed in restoring the old condition after the flood (Genesis 8:2-3). That was a memorable mutation, and showed God’s control over the ordinary course of nature. He will recall his covenant with Noah, pledging continuity of the order of nature, and safeguarding against another water dissolution while the earth remaineth (Genesis 8:22; Genesis 9:8-17).

But here in our lesson is predicted a more remarkable mutation – a dissolution by fire (Hebrews 1:11-12). And no reliance on what is called "the settled course of nature" will avail against this dissolution. Soon after this letter Peter wrote to the same people his great argument on the same line, (2 Peter 3:1-13), and reminded the Christian Jews of Asia Minor of this very letter of Paul (2 Peter 3:14-16). Jesus is sovereign over nature’s course, which he established, and in it brings mutation at his will.

4. Greater as a revelator than all the Old Testament prophets (Hebrews 1:1-2):

(1) In all his sonships he is a revelator of the Father – the visible of the invisible God. The effulgence and image in his first sonship, so in his second sonship (John 14:8-9), and so in his third sonship.

(2) In the teaching of his prophetic office. Their revelation was fragmentary, infrequent, diverse, incomplete (Hebrews 1:1-2), and often beyond their own understanding (1 Peter 1:10-12).

(3) His revelation illumines theirs, dispels its mysteries, and completes the canon of the Scriptures.

(4) It unfolds in panorama the events of all time touching the kingdom of God, until the great culmination. (See Revelation 1:1, and throughout the book.)

QUESTIONS

1. What commentaries named on this book, and how commended?

2. Give the main points of the author’s analysis.

3. What is the theme of this book?

4. On what does the argument and exhortation rest?

5. How does the argument naturally commence, what does it develop, who the hero of the book, and what the terminals of the several arguments?

6. What is the threefold sonship of Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant?

7. What is his work in the first sonship, and how expressed?

8. Against what heresy are the first two chapters especially directed, with what preceding letters does this argument connect, and into what subsequent New Testament books by other writers does it fit?

9. What arthe activities of our Lord in his second sonship?

10. What are the activities of our Lord in his third sonship?

11. How many advents of our Lord into the world, and what the purpose of each?

12. What was Jesus doing between his death and resurrection?

13. What heresies concerning the place where our Lord’s soul went, and his work between his death and resurrection, and what the scriptural and other grounds relied on to support them?

14. What distinguished advocates of these theories?

15. State at length the author’s argument as to what Jesus was doing between his death and resurrection?

16. In what particulars is our Lord superior to the material universe?

17. On what ground do men of science reject miracles?

18. Show from Genesis the process of the established order of things, and in one remarkable instance this reverse of this process, and its restoration.

19. What is the second mutation, according to this letter, awaits the heavens and the earth, and what the means of its accomplishment?

20. Prove from Peter in a letter subsequent to this how men’s reliance on the continuity of the order of nature will be swept away by this second mutation.

21. Show how in this letter of Peter to the same people addressed in Hebrews, he identifies this letter as Paul’s.

22. In what particulars is our Lord superior to Old Testament prophets?