SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
TYPES IN HEBREWS
CHAPTER 3
HEBREWS IN THE OLD
TESTAMENT
"GOD, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the
prophets by diverse portions and in diverse manners, hath at the end of these
days spoken unto us in His Son."1
Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews opens by
declaring the divine authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. It is not
merely that they were written by holy and gifted men, but that they are a
divine revelation. God spoke in the prophets. And the mention of "prophets"
must not lead us to limit the reference to what we call "the prophetic
Scriptures." Both in Hebrew and in Greek the term used is wide enough to
include all the "diverse manners" in which God spoke to men - not only by
prophecy (as the term is commonly understood), but by promise, law,
exhortation, warning, type, parable, history. And always through individual men
specially chosen and accredited. Through them it was that the revelation came.
The highest privilege of "the Jewish Church" was its being entrusted with these
"oracles of God"; for not even in its darkest days did that church pretend to
be itself the oracle. But the Christian apostasy is marked by a depth of
blindness and profanity of which the Jew was incapable.
To understand this
Epistle we need to be familiar with the language in which it is written. And it
is the language of that "divine kindergarten" - the typology of the Pentateuch.
The precise point in Israels typical history at which the Epistle opens
is the 24th chapter of Exodus; and this gives us the key to its scope and
purpose. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, but more than this, they had
fallen under Egypts doom. For the death sentence was not upon the
Egyptians only, but upon all the inhabitants Of the land.2
But God not only
provided a redemption, He also delivered His people from the House of Bondage.
They were redeemed in Egypt by the blood of the Passover, and they were brought
out of Egypt "with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm." (Deuteronomy
26:8) And standing on the wilderness shore of the sea, they saw the waters
closing over their enemies, and raised their triumph song to their Saviour God?
(Exodus 15) But not even deliverance from both the guilt and the slavery of sin
can give either title or fitness to draw near to a holy God. And at Sinai His
care was lest the people, although thus redeemed, should approach the mountain
on which He was about to display His glory. (Exodus 19:21)
The
twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus emphasizes this still more strongly; for there
we read that even Aaron and the elders were excluded. Moses alone might come
near. And Moses right of access was due to his being a type of Christ, as
mediator of the covenant. The record then recounts the dedication of the
covenant. The blood of the covenant sacrifices was sprinkled, on the people -
the elders presumably representing the whole congregation of Israel - and then
we read, Aaron and the elders ascended the mountain along with Moses. But
yesterday it would have been death to them to "break through to gaze." But now
"they saw God." And such was their "boldness," due to the blood of the
covenant, that "they did eat and drink" in the divine presence.
The man of
the world will ask, How could "the blood of calves and goats" make any
difference in their fitness to approach God? And the answer is, just in the
same way that a few pieces of paper may raise a pauper from poverty to wealth.
The bank-note paper is intrinsically worthless, but it represents gold in the
coffers of the Bank of England. Just as valueless was that "blood of slain
beasts," but it represented "the precious blood of Christ." And just as in a
single day the banknotes may raise the recipient from pauperism to affluence,
so that blood availed to constitute the Israelites a holy people in covenant
with God.
What was the next step in the typical story of redemption? By the
sprinkling of the blood of the covenant Israel was sanctified; and then, to the
very people who were warned against daring to draw near to God, the command was
given, "Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." (Exodus
25:8) Moses, the mediator of the covenant, having thus made purification of the
sins of the people, went up to God. This was the type, the shadow, of which we
have in Hebrews the fulfillment, the reality; for when the Son of God "had made
purification of sins" "by the blood of the everlasting covenant," he went up to
God, and "sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." (Hebrews 1:3; cf.
13:20) Here, then, it is that Hebrews takes up the story of redemption. Not at
the twelfth chapter of Exodus, but at the twenty-fourth. The Passover has no
place in the doctrine of the Epistle. Its purpose is to teach how sinners,
redeemed from both the penalty and the bondage of sin, and brought into
covenant relationship with God, can be kept on their wilderness way as "holy
brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling." (Chap. 3:1) Such a great redemption
implies a great Redeemer; and His divine glory is the theme of the opening
section of the book. A superstitious assent to the dogma of His Deity is so
common in Christendom that we need to be reminded that a real heart belief of
that supreme truth is the mark of divine spiritual enlightenment. And we
utterly fail to realize the depth of meaning, the almost dramatic force, which
the Old Testament Scriptures here cited would have with a godly Jew. Let any
one read a Jewish commentary on the forty-fifth Psalm, for example, and then
try to gauge the thoughts of a Hebrew saint on learning that the words of the
sixth verse of that Psalm are divinely addressed to Him whom the nation called
the crucified blasphemer! "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." Every
element of prejudice and superstition which leads a nominal Christian to accept
this would make the true Hebrew realize his need of divine grace to enable him
to assent to it and to grasp its meaning. And yet the great truth which is thus
enforced by quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures is implicitly asserted in the
opening sentence of the Epistle. "God spake to us in His Son." To a Gentile
this may have but little meaning - how little may be judged by the
Revisers marginal note;3 for we are accustomed to hear that we are all
sons of God, and that "Jesus is our elder brother." But the Lords claim
to be Son of God was rightly understood by the Jews to be an explicit claim to
Deity; and because of it they decreed His death.4
And that claim is stated
here with new emphasis. Our English idiom will not permit of our reproducing
precisely the words of the text, and yet we can appreciate their vivid and
telling force: "To us God spoke in SON." The Hebrews Scriptures are divine, for
they were given through men who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,"
but the words of Christ have a still higher dignity, for He Himself is God.
But to some this truth that He is God may seem to create an impassable gulf
between the redeemed 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.
Chapter Four
Literature | Photos | Links | Home