In all its terms and meaning, all that we could desire—and we believe all that Thou dost desire—would be fulfilled.
Not as a part of our programme, but from our very heart we say, “Lord, break Thou the bread of life to me.”
Thou art the bread of life. Give us Thyself this morning. May there be a true ministration of Christ in this hour.
Send Thy Spirit, Lord, in a new way to us. Open our eyes, that we may see Thee, Lord. Answer this prayer for Thy own name’s sake. Amen.
The Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 1, verses 1 and part of 2:
God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things.
The peril running immediately alongside our reading of those words is the peril of familiarity.
What I mean is this: after more than sixty years of being actively in the ministry of the Word, and therefore closely acquainted with the Scriptures, these words are more alive and more meaningful today than ever.
So it ought to be. My trouble is that I have not long enough to live with these words and with this letter.
You ought not to know your Bible in that sense. We ought to be coming to it every time as though we did not know it. It ought to be to us like something which, really, after all, we do not know.
I cannot convey to you my own sense of this. I can only make a statement like that as to how it ought to be. I am not coming back to you with some addresses which I have made up out of the Letter to the Hebrews.
The trouble, the difficulty, is to convey that sense of immensity, vitality, and urgency that is present with me in this letter, as in other parts, of course. It must come to you in that way.
That is why we pray, “O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now unto me, that He may touch mine eyes and make me see.”
Beyond the sacred page, beyond the sacred thing—that is where we have to see. We see the letter, we see the page, we see the words; we know them. They are so familiar.
There is something beyond the actual writing that we have got to see. The Lord help us this morning.
Now, having repeated those words at the beginning of this letter, I trust that you have already grasped the significance of the introductory words, which really are a comprehending of the whole letter—or the truth of the letter that is in the letter.
I trust you have seen the two things that comprehend all that follows.
In times past: fragments, pieces, portions, bits, aspects.
Now all that, and much more, is gathered up together, comprehended, and brought together. Incompleteness no more; no more divers portions, no more divers times, no more divers ways.
But now: one time, one way, one all-comprehendingness. It is all here. Fullness is reached.
This is the other time, the subsequent time, the ultimate time of fullness and completeness.
So this letter brings us the ultimate fullness of all things in the Son. Not only comprehending, not only fullness, but finality.
This is the ultimate, the end. There is nothing beyond this. It is the end of all God-speaking.
God, Who did speak in those many different ways, forms, and methods, has now spoken finally—fully and finally. There is nothing beyond.
We ought to be impressed with that, you know. I do not know what you are looking for, what you are expecting, what you are praying for. God has given all that you could ever ask or pray for. It is present. It is now.
He has no more revelation to give, only revelation of what He has given. Revelation now and henceforth is not new truth; it is only light on the truth.
Are you clear about that? That is where we are, then, with these first words comprehending the letter.
Now I want you just to go over to chapter 12 of this letter, to pick out again our governing words. Remember what we said yesterday about the two all-inclusive governing words running right through the New Testament.
Chapter 12, verse 18:
For ye are not come…
“Ye are not.” I am not going further with that this morning. You are not.
Then what? Verse 22:
But ye are come…
Not—but. I am not going to follow on with either of what is said in connection with those two words this morning. That comes later, the Lord willing, as we get into that tomorrow.
But here you have, in these two statements—verses 18 to 21—a comprehending of all that has been. It is very comprehensive, as we shall see. Then it is ruled out, finalized, with this word: not.
Then, with verse 22, comes the introduction of another great order of things, wonderful beyond our fathoming.
I am not exaggerating, dear friends, when I say that I could go on for a whole year here on verse 22 and onward. The fullness and profundity are so great, because it comprehends the Bible.
But leave that for the time being. It is the distinct divide between the not and the but—the not and the but.
As I said at the beginning yesterday, we are this time concerned with what we have come to in the advent of Christ and His cross: what we have come to, what we are.
I wonder if you will ask a simple question: What are you? What are you? What would your answer or answers be?
Perhaps you say, “Well, I am a child of God. Well, I am a Christian.” The answers would be manifold.
Now, this morning, I want to focus all that, as the Lord enables, to tell you what we are.
Here, then, is the great, great divide between the not and the but, as concentrated in this one letter.
Other letters are very far-reaching, very great, comprehensive; but in this letter in particular, all that lies on the two sides of the cross is concentrated.
Concentrated in this letter called the Letter to the Hebrews.
Now we get right to our business. You notice—and I am not dealing with the detail, only with the general statement—under the not, “Ye are not come unto…”
Under that not, you have the constituting of the former Israel. You are taken to Sinai. At Sinai the former Israel was constituted a nation.
They were a people, a rabble, a multitude before—and a mixed multitude at that. Now here at Sinai they are constituted the ancient Israel, the former Israel.
They were Hebrews made into Israel. Hebrews, Jews—now Israel as a nation.
I know the name goes back before that: Israel as the person, Jacob’s new name, and his family. But here they are constituted as a nation, out from the nations, separate from the nations, distinct among the nations: a nation called collectively Israel.
Something new there in history; something new among the nations; something new in this world, on this earth. A new beginning of God—God’s end, God’s doing.
I need not take time to quote the Scripture: “I have chosen you,” says the Lord. “You are Mine own people,” implying, “You are the result of My action in history.”
The first word is God. That word always stands right at the head of every new movement of God: God.
In the beginning God…
God in action at the beginning. It is God taking the initiative. This people is the result of divine intervention in the history of this world, with a divine action—His own prerogative—wholly, completely, uniquely of Himself.
God in creation: a new beginning.
That is yours. You come to the New Testament, and the New Testament opens with the Gospel by John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
“In the beginning, God.” But this is another new movement. A new creation is here, indicated, pinpointed, and it is described.
In the beginning, God created man. Here in John, a new humanity—mankind—is brought into view.
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
“Not of blood”—it is in the plural. Why is it in the plural? All right, we will not tackle our liberal theologians, but the Holy Spirit is always very exact and correct.
When the Holy Spirit causes something to be put in a way that you might otherwise overlook, He puts it that way for a reason. “Not of blood”—not of Joseph and Mary.
That is the mingling of blood, is it not? That is ordinary natural mankind, the mingling of blood—two sources. Not that.
This is a direct application to the virgin birth. Not all that, but of God. These are born not that way.
As the people of God, they are not naturally born. You are never born a Christian. You are never born naturally a child of God.
You never inherit divine life by natural birth. Well, that goes without saying. But of God—God’s act, God’s initiative—to produce a new mankind, a new and different humanity, never produced by the will of man, never produced along natural lines before.
Not—but of God: a new humanity, a spiritual race; not a natural race at all, a spiritual race.
But then what? What is the implication, both of this letter comprehensively and of the New Testament as a whole? What is it?
A new Israel. A new Israel. That is what this letter is saying to Hebrews: Hebrews—not those Hebrews of history. A new Israel has come in.
I think you ought to note, if you have not, a very simple thing, of course. Everybody should be familiar with it. But I am very glad to notice that in a late translation and interpretation of the Bible—the New Testament called the Amplified—I am very glad to note what I am going to mention in another connection presently.
Wherever the name Christ is mentioned in the New Testament, in that translation, right through the Amplified New Testament, linked with the name and word Christ is “Messiah.”
It never divides between Christ and Messiah; it puts them together. They are one. Messiah is the Hebrew of which Christ is only the Greek, meaning “the Lord’s Anointed.”
The Lord’s Anointed—keep that in mind.
The Christ is the Messiah. The Messiah in the history of Hebrew mentality, concept, and expectation—the Messiah of the old Israel—is the Christ of a new Israel.
One name, same name, same meaning, carried over now. So wherever you read the word Christ in your New Testament, do not forget the hyphen: Christ-Messiah.
It is most impressive as you read that version every time you come upon the mention of it. Does it impress you? Do you see the meaning? Do you see the significance? Do you see what this is driving at?
A new Israel, because this is, shall we say, a new Messiah. Is that quite correct? It is the one Messiah. It is the old Messiah.
Here this letter is saying: all old Israel’s hopes, expectations, and conceptions of their coming Messiah—all that they ever associated with that name of the Coming One, Messiah—is taken up in Christ, comprehended in Christ.
He comprehends and fulfills it, and goes beyond their conception—and, we shall see, beyond their acceptance.
Well, it is a new Israel, not that one—limited, narrow, exclusive in conception, mentality, or even expectation. Much, much greater; much bigger than all that was ever looked for, expected, and prayed for.
So we come back to that in a minute. It is a new Israel, beginning with—I must use the word, though it is not quite exactly right—a new Messiah: the Christ, the Anointed One.
This, as we have said, is a new act of God. A new act of God is the Messiah, the Christ; and a new act of God is the new Israel.
There are two governing, dominating features and factors in this new Israel as the act of God—two aspects: the resurrection of Christ, God’s unique act.
The resurrection is God’s specific, peculiar act in history: the act of God. God raised Him. God raised Him.
Not resuscitation—resurrection.
God saw to it that there was no doubt whatever that He died, that He was dead. So far as He, as a man, was concerned: dead and buried.
If you are in a grave for three days and three nights, you have frequent grounds to conclude that that person is dead.
All right: no resuscitation, no reviving. He is dead. He died.
Now only God—only God and the intervention of God—can make for anything further. He is God’s act in His resurrection.
But then the other aspect of this act of God is Pentecost. Pentecost was God’s act. God did it.
The intervention of God—the third Person of the Trinity—the intervention of God in history to bring, as from death, this new race.
This new race. I do wish that all people who are so interested in this word Pentecost would recognize really what Pentecost was.
To limit it to this and that is something else. This is Pentecost: the act of God in bringing to birth an altogether new humanity.
If your Pentecostalism or experience—forgive me using the very phrase—does not mean that there is a new humanity of a different order, that is God’s doing and not the result of any kind of soul, psychic, or other force produced by the energy of man, it is not something of which you have to stand back and say, “That is God.”
It is God producing a new kind of humanity—unique, different: God’s act.
Resurrection, Pentecost: one thing as God’s act, firstly in the one Son, and then in the sons to be.
That is all very simple, I know, but I am working toward the object.
Now then, you come back to your New Testament, and especially, to begin with, to the Book of Acts. What have you in the book there?
The gradual dawning—the gradual dawning upon the apostles, and then upon the believers—the gradual dawning of what has happened.
What has happened? What the meaning of Christ was.
It is the faint rays, seemingly, of a new day just coming up over the horizon and shooting across the sky. In their consciousness, something has happened.
Notice the beginning. They still continue to go up to the temple, in the ordinances of the temple, the ritual of the temple, the time of prayer at the temple—still going up.
But something has happened. Something is spreading over their sky, and that fades out. It fades out. They are losing that attachment. They are losing that mentality.
They are meeting in homes, wherever they can meet—not meeting in the temple any longer.
No, it is not a sudden thing that has happened, that they make a sudden break. It is the dawning of the meaning of a new day.
It is so real, so clear. They do not put it into any system of teaching and say, “You must come out of that denomination. You must come out of that system. You must leave that order.”
No, it is just happening. Something is happening, and they are finding themselves out.
Note this that I am going to say: first of all, it is not a physical separation. It is not a physical separation question. It is an inward spiritual separation.
I put it this way: they find themselves out before they are out. They find that they no longer belong.
No one ever told them that they must leave their denomination, their church, their mission, or this, that, and the other organization. Something has happened inside.
You know, in the old creation God commenced from the outside; in the new, always from the inside.
In this spiritual dispensation, you just find yourself somewhere—perhaps where you never intended to be.
Peter never intended that he should go to the house of Cornelius. He quarrelled and argued with the Lord: “Not so, Lord.”
All right, Peter. What has happened to you? Do you not know what has happened to you? You are going to know.
Peter does come to know, does he not? Oh, he will write later on. He will write about this spiritual house of God.
Well, you feel what I mean? Something has broken—a new day has dawned, and the light is growing, growing. That is the first movement.
Oh, dear friends, do take hold of it. It is an organic thing. It is a movement of life within.
It is not legal: “You must. You must not. You must leave this and leave that in order to come to God’s fullness.” Not that at all.
I say, stay there until you cannot, for your very life’s sake—for your very walk with God’s sake, for your very knowledge of the Holy Spirit within. Stay. Stay.
Schism is a dangerous thing. That is not how it was.
On the inside: the way of the Holy Spirit, the initiative of God, the act of God, the dawning of a new awareness. Something is happening to me because it is happening in me.
I know what that means. I have had crises like that. I have had crises like that when I knew, I knew that something had happened to create a divide.
“Now, Lord, what am I to do? If I take action, look what will happen.” So I stuck, and on a false pretext went on.
In the end of some months, I found myself like this: “I was not in it. No, that is not where I am finding the Lord. That is not where life is.”
I had gone back to the Lord. I said, “Lord, what am I to do?” He said, “So many months ago, I took you out in spirit. Now perhaps you will have to follow in body.”
Oh, do not put a teaching on that. If you take hold of that and crystallize it into a doctrine, you will lose the point.
It is a spiritual movement, because this is the spiritual dispensation.
That commenced, as I have said, at the beginning of the Book of Acts. Before you are through that book, what will you find?
You find that the light has been growing, and you have in the letters compassed by that book—all these letters, every one of the Pauline letters is compassed by the Book of Acts, is it not, and others—you find in all these letters which come out, the growing revelation of what has happened.
What has happened? What the meaning of the resurrection of Christ and the advent of the Holy Spirit really meant.
Growing revelation—not of some new thing as a thing, but of what was at the beginning, at the root of things. So God is moving, so to speak, backward in order to move onward.
You have this growing revelation under these two words: not—but. An inward thing.
The day is moving on. It will come. It will come to its glorious consummation.
What happened at the beginning is in the consummation: the New Jerusalem coming down from above, the sum of this new thing that happened with the coming of the Lord Jesus.
We shall come back to that in Hebrews later on. But you are marking the way: the consummation of the initiation, the growing light, the growing light transforming the mentality.
I have the New Testament, you see, present—all of it—in mind as I am speaking.
The growing light, increasing understanding of what this new dispensation means—growing.
You have many, many exact statements in the growing light which has grown from the day when Paul first had Christ revealed in him. As he said, growing light—he did not have it all at once, but it was growing all the time.
In growing light he will say presently:
But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother.
You see the language? What it means?
Is it not impressive and significant that it is at the end of the Letter to the Galatians? You know what the Letter to the Galatians is about? Think again.
Well, it is along this line—the contrast of the not and the but, is it not? No circumcision. No—but.
At the end of that letter he uses this so significantly: Galatians 6:16—the Israel of God, the whole Israel of God.
Israel—that lies on the whole letter, you see. One Israel is gone. No, this rather is gone. That is the argument of the whole letter, is it not? That is why you got into such trouble. That is why this letter is such a battleground.
That is no more—not now another. But its Jerusalem headquarters are above; its birthplace is above. I will come back later.
The Israel of God: new Israel entirely.
Well now, I must press on. Where is this leading?
We must, dear friends—and this is a very vital point in our consideration of what the Lord is trying to say to us—we must recognize the new dimensions of God in this thing that has now come in on the other side: the dimensions of God.
What was the tragedy of the old Israel?
Of course, the tragedy of old Israel finally is their dismissal.
The kingdom of heaven shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
That happens. That stands today. The kingdom of heaven taken away—not for that which is true, but for another.
The tragedy of Israel, of course, is that they are dismissed from the dispensation, or the dispensational movement, of God.
These years have lasted two thousand. How many more? We do not know—probably not so long. Leave that alone.
Here I am going to upset a lot of you: leave Israel alone for the time being. You will get into terrible confusion if you get down on this earth with an earthly touch in these things.
Some of us have lived through things. We remember the Kaiser—forgive me; there is not a taint upon any nation of people—but we do remember him going to Jerusalem and having a new door broken into the wall of Jerusalem, that he might not go in through any of the old gates of old Jerusalem, because of who he was.
Because of who he was, a new gate must be broken in the wall ahead. And people fitted that into prophecy and said, “Therefore the Kaiser is the Messiah.”
All right. Say then, what was it?
When General Allenby entered Jerusalem and brought the Turkish rule to an end, the prophetic school made hold of it, brought it down to earth, and said, “The end of the times of the Gentiles.”
How long ago was that? Was it? Was it?
Mussolini. A dear man of God, so caught up in this kind of thing, went from Belgium to Rome to see Mussolini, saying to him, “You are the last Caesar, to reconstitute the Roman Empire.”
Whereupon Mussolini had a great statue made of himself—the last Caesar—and a great relief map of the revived Roman Empire, coming to ten kingdoms, behind his statue.
The last Caesar, the Roman Empire. Need we say more? What about him? God help us. The last Caesar!
You see? And you go on like that—confusion. You come down onto this earth.
Leave it alone, and see what God is doing.
God is doing a spiritual thing, not a temporal thing.
I could take an hour to enlarge upon that last phrase: a spiritual thing, not a temporal thing.
Do you see that in the sovereign activities of God now, He is confounding and confusing and breaking down all temporal representations of His heavenly things?
Men are trying to set up local churches after New Testament order. You never had more confusion in local churches than you have today.
They are trying to set up things, constitute things—Christian movements, Christian institutions, Christian organizations—and they are all in confusion, not knowing what to do with one another.
It is very grave. The psychiatrists are chasing one another around to get some explanation of their own trouble. Well, that may be exaggeration, but you see what I mean.
God is breathing upon every temporal representation in order to have a spiritual expression of Christ. That is the heart of what we see, and that is what is here.
Now I will say: we must recognize the dimensions of this that has come in with Christ, and into which we have come—the spiritual dimensions—or we shall repeat Israel’s tragedy.
Israel’s tragedy, yes, was being set aside in this dispensation. But why? Why? Have you ever answered why?
The answer is in one word, friend: exclusivism.
“We are the people. Truth begins and ends with us. You will never be able to get anywhere with God if you are not circumcised.”
Except ye be circumcised, ye cannot be saved.
“The nations are dogs, are dirt.” Poor Jonah, caught in this: “We are the people. We are the beginning and the end of all God’s work. You have got to come onto our ground, be on our ground, or you never will be God’s friend.”
Exclusivism. And God never meant that when He took them out of the nations, made them a distinct people, constituted them His own peculiar people.
He never meant that. He only meant to plant them in the nations—what a God He is, what a great God He is!
This saddened and stung Jonah: that God could ever think in mercy upon anybody outside of Israel—Nineveh.
You have it all the way through, have you not? That is the trouble in the New Testament with the Lord Jesus. It is exclusivism, not Judaism, that is the battleground.
The battle in the life of the Apostle Paul was that he was hammering at this brick wall of Jewish exclusivism. All his sufferings were because of that.
This new Israel is so much greater than the old because Christ, this Messiah, is so much greater than their conception of the Messiah.
The immense dimensions of the new Israel.
We have got to recognize this and resist exclusivism where Christ is concerned as we would resist a plague.
I am not talking about fundamental truths concerning the Person of Christ. I am talking about the greatness of this One Who is introduced:
Hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things.
“All things”—that is Paul’s great word, is it not? All the way through: all things, all things, all things. And in the end, the Son over all things, in Christ.
If I need to say it, I am not talking about universalism. I am talking about God’s ultimate realm, sphere, where there will be nothing but Christ.
The rest will be outside altogether. Wherever that outside is, it will be outside.
That is the last word of Revelation: without are the dogs, and so on—everything that makes a lie, that is false. That is right.
Well, there we are. Now, what is the governing concept here in this letter, right at the beginning?
Hath spoken at the end of these days in Son.
No article: in Son. What is the meaning of Son, or sonship? Always fullness—always fullness.
The fullness of the Father is in the Son, divinely, you see. The Son is the fullness of the Father.
Firstborn is the fullness: takes up all that is in the Father—fullness.
As we said, sonship is finality—finality.
Then, as to this letter, as to the whole revelation, sonship as here revealed and explained through this letter—in the first chapters particularly—is superiority, using that word in its right sense: superiority.
Do you notice the superiority of this Son, appointed heir of all things? Catalogue the things here: superior to Moses—you have it; superior to Joshua.
If Joshua had brought them into the rest, there would be no more to say. He did not; therefore he never reached finality.
Superior to Joshua. This Son is superior to Moses, to Joshua, to angels—superior to angels.
Think of the angelic ministry right through the Bible: their ministry, visitation, deliverances, activity.
One angel, one night, by a breath of his nostrils, wiping out a whole mighty army investing Jerusalem—one angel. Think of all that.
The old covenant was mediated by angels, and so on. This letter is arguing about the angel ministry of the old covenant: superior to angels, superior to Aaron and all his system and economy of priesthood.
All that comes under the not.
The tabernacle that was. This letter says there was a tabernacle—past tense. There was a tabernacle, and there was a holy place, and a holy of holies, and a curtained place—there was.
Superior is Christ to all that, and what a place it had.
Superior to the old covenant. This letter deals with the covenant, the old covenant. The day comes, quoting Jeremiah 31:31:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
That I will make a new covenant.
This letter has a lot to say about the new covenant. Superior to all the sacrifices.
Millions upon millions of sacrifices slain through the generations—an ocean of blood from those sacrifices, immeasurable humanly speaking, covering centuries. How vast!
One sacrifice only. One shedding of blood only—superior to the whole lot.
Superior to the whole life: hundreds of years of sacrifices and bloodshedding.
This one single sacrifice, shedding blood, superior to the whole lot. Now, that is what we have come to.
Well, shall we go on? This is the letter, is it not? Superiority.
How great, then, is sonship in Christ? How much vaster than any traditional or historical expression, representation, system, order, or country? We have come to this.
Now I must move somewhere. What is the consummate issue of all this?
Can we read all that we have said, and all that can be said and could not be said? Can we bring it down to one inclusive, comprehensive issue? We can. We can.
Although, I do not know about you, you may have doubts, but I have doubts about some new translations of the New Testament. But I do thank God for this Amplified.
I do, because at this very point it has helped me as nothing else has helped me.
You see, I have studied theology. I have studied Christian doctrine. I know the doctrines of grace. I know the Letter to the Romans—I think I do. Generally, I am fairly well acquainted with what is there and with what the theologians said about it.
The doctrines—and when you mention the Letter to the Romans, of course Luther and all the rest spring into view with their great phrase: justification by faith, righteousness by faith.
Oh, I tell you, friends, that strikes me cold.
It may not mean that for you, but to me, as one who has had to deal with all this theology and doctrine, the system of Christianity in its doctrines and so on, it is awfully wearisome.
Theology is a very wearisome thing, is it not? Is it not? A deadly thing, I think.
But this version has come to my rescue. When I read and heard the word “righteousness,” what did it mean?
Well, you see, in the Old Testament the symbol of righteousness is brass. In the symbolism of the Old Testament, the symbol of righteousness is brass.
Brass. Oh, how hard is brass! How cold is brass! I am not interested in brass.
You are following? You understand what I mean? That is what that word came to mean to me, even in the New Testament.
All glorious teaching—I am not talking about the teaching; I am talking about the phraseology, the terminology. What is it that is represented there?
Now here my version has rescued me. Oh, I am basking in the sunlight of this every day now, rejoicing in the spot.
Wherever that word “righteousness” or “justification” occurs in the Amplified New Testament, you have: right standing with God.
Right standing with God. Dismiss your theology. That is it.
That has been the quest of humanity from the beginning.
It does not matter where you go—in the darkest heathenism, the most ignorant, unenlightened realms of humanity, right through all the strata—the one thing, whether man puts it into words or not, whether it is in his phraseology or vocabulary, deep down in every human creature is the desire to be in right standing with God.
All these heathen rites, sacrifices, and ritual are, after all, attempts to find a place of right standing with what they call God.
They have no right conception of Who God is, what God is.
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.
The unknown God. Here it is.
I remember very early in my Christian life I tackled a monumental book: Professor Edward Caird’s History of Religion in the Greek Philosophers. Do not you tackle all that! I really spun round.
But in this magnum opus, Caird concentrated all into one statement.
“There is not a human being on this earth, of any race whatever, who does not have a consciousness of standing in relation to some supreme object of worship, whom he calls God.”
Is that true? Of course it is—everybody. A consciousness of standing in relation to a supreme object of reverence, and he calls that object God.
He does not know anything about that object, but he is conscious of God.
Now then, here we are. The quest of humanity, all through, with greater or lesser enlightenment and understanding—little or much, after all, within—is the quest to be on good terms with this object called God.
Right standing with God.
Now we start all over again with the beginning of Hebrews. Here is the One, the Son—the Son.
The great thing about this Son, the glorious thing about this Son, is that He is in right standing with God.
All this other in the past was an attempt to get into right standing with God, and it never, never did it. The failure.
The quest: right standing with God. Here is the Son, first of all, inclusively, comprehensively, the Beloved of the Father—the Beloved Son.
This is My beloved Son.
Could you have terms that more gloriously express right standing with God? Right standing with God.
Think on that. Dwell on that.
Then the letter goes on: bringing many sons unto glory. All the rest of the letter, which we leave now, is the way of right standing with God in the Son.
Glorious letter—hungry, comprehensive, wonderful, this is. It is only the fringe of it. We shall get more into it later, the Lord willing.
But I think you have really got enough for the time being. The Lord has this weekend.
O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now unto each one. May He touch our eyes and make us see.
O Lord, may the result of this hour in Thy Word, with Thee, be that this people will really be able to say, not mentally but in the heart, “I have seen the Lord.”
“I have, in some new, more wonderful way, seen God’s Son; seen what God is doing.”
And may we be able, Lord, to understand now what we are—what we are: God’s new and final Israel.
Teach us more of what that means, but set Thy seal upon this time.
Now, Lord, there is a little interval, and immediately this is closed, people are going to turn and talk about all sorts of things.
Save us, Lord. The whole value of this can go in five minutes if we are not very watchful.
Very watchful, setting a seal against our lips, having the door of our heart. O Lord, help us.
We are not here just for meetings and messages. We are here for life crises. Precipitate them, Lord, for Thy name’s sake. Amen.