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I. THE WORD OF GOD.in the splendid prophecies and appeals of the great evangelic prophet, Isaiah. It is certainlyin the Gospels; but it is not less in the story of the Exodus. Throughout, there is silence ontopics which merely gratify curiosity, but on which other professed revelations have beencopiously full. Throughout, there is no attempt to give instruction on science or nature; butto bend all energy in discussing the claims of God on men. Throughout, the crimson cordof sacrifice is clearly manifest, on which the books are strung together as beads upon athread. And throughout, there is ever the subtle, mysterious, ineffable quality called Inspiration: a term which is explained by the majestic words of this opening verse, "God, havingspoken of old to the fathers, hath at the end of these days spoken to us."Scripture is the speech of God to man. It is this which gives it its unity. "The Lord, themighty God, hath spoken, and called the earth." The amanuenses may differ; but the inspiringmind is the same. The instruments may vary; but in every case the same theme is beingplayed by the same master-hand. We should read the Bible as those who listen to the veryspeech of God. Well may it be called "the Word of God."But the Scripture is God's speech in man. The heavenly treasure is in vessels of earth."He spake unto the fathers in the prophets. . . He hath spoken unto us in his Son." It is veryremarkable to study the life of Jesus, and to listen to his constant statements as to the sourceof his marvelous words. So utterly had he emptied himself, that he originated nothing fromhimself; but lived by the Father, in the same way as we are to live by him. He distinctly declared that the words he spake, he spake not of himself; but that words and works alike werethe outcome of the Father, who dwelt within. Through those lips of clay the eternal Godwas speaking. Well might he also be called "the Word of God"!And here the words of the prophets in the Old Testament are leveled up to the plane ofthe words of Jesus in the New. Without staying to make the least distinction, our writer tellus, beneath the teaching of the Spirit, that he who spake in the one spake also in the others.Let us then think with equal reverence of the Old Testament as of the New. It was our Saviour's Bible. It was the food which Jesus loved, and lived upon. He was content to fast fromall other food, if only he might have this. It was his one supreme appeal in conflict with thedevil, and in the clinching of his arguments and exhortations with men. And here we discover the reason. The voice of God spake in the prophets, whose very name likens them tothe up-rush of the geyser from its hidden source.As God spake in men, it is clear that he left them to express his thoughts in the language,and after the method, most familiar to them. They will speak of Nature just as they havebeen accustomed to find her. They will use the mode of speech whether poem or prosewhich is most habitual to their cast of thought. They will make allusions to the events transpiring around them, so as to be easily understood by their fellows. But, whilst thus left toexpress God's thoughts in their own way, yet most certainly the divine Spirit must have5

I. THE WORD OF GOD.carefully superintended their utterances, so that their words should accurately convey hismessages to men.In many parts of the Bible there is absolute dictation, word for word. In others, there isdivine superintendence guarding from error, and guiding in the selection and arrangementof materials: as when Daniel quotes from historic records; and Moses embodies the sacredstories which his mother had taught him beside the flowing Nile. In all, there is the full inspiration of the Spirit of God, by whom all Scripture has been given. Holy men spake asthey were moved by the Holy Spirit, . . . searching what, or what manner of time, the Spiritof Christ which was in them did signify" (2 Tim. iii. i6 ; 2 Pet. i. 20, 21 ; 1 Pet. i. ii).We need not deny that other men have been illuminated; but the difference betweenillumination and inspiration is as far as the east is from the west. Nor do we say that Godhas not spoken in other men, or in these men at other times; but we do say that only in theBible has God given the supreme revelation of his will, and the authoritative rule of our faithand practice. The heart of man bears witness to this. We know that there is a tone in thesewords which is heard in no other voice. The upper chords of this instrument give it a timbrewhich none other can rival.The revelation in the Old Testament was given in fragments (or portions). This is themeaning of the word rendered in the Old Version sundry times, and in the Revised diversportions. It refers, not to the successive ages over which it was spread, but to the numerous"portions" into which it was broken up. No one prophet could speak out all the truth. Eachwas intrusted with one or two syllables in the mighty sentences of God's speech. At the bestthe view caught of God, and given to men through the prophets, though true, was partialand limited.But in Jesus there is nothing of this piecemeal revelation. "In him dwelleth all the fullnessof the Godhead bodily." He hath revealed the Father. Whosoever hath seen him hath seenGod; and to hear his words is to get the full-orbed revelation of the Infinite.The earlier revelation was in many forms. The earthquake, the fire, the tempest, andthe still small voice-each had its ministry. Symbol and parable, vision and metaphor, typeand historic foreshadowing, all in turn served the divine end; like the ray which is brokeninto many prismatic hues. But in Jesus there is the steady shining of the pure ray of his glory,one uniform and invariable method of revelation.Oh the matchless and glorious Book, the Word of God to men-to us; revealing not onlyGod, but ourselves; explaining moods for which we had no cipher; touching us as no otherbook can, and in moments when all voices beside wax faint and still; telling facts which wehave not been able to discover, but which we instantly recognize as truth; the bread of thesoul; the key of life; disclosing more depths as we climb higher in Christian experience: wehave tested thee too long to doubt that thou art what Jesus said thou wast, the indispensableand precious gift of God.6

II. THE DIGNITY OF CHRISTII. THE DIGNITY OF CHRIST"Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, andupholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins,sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Being made so much better than theangels." HEBREWS i. 3, 4.InSON.-" He hath spoken unto us in his Son." God has many sons, but only one Son.When, on the morning of his resurrection, our Lord met the frightened women, he said, "Iascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." But, as he used thewords, they meant infinitely more of himself than they could ever mean of man, howeversaintly or childlike. No creature-wing shall ever avail to carry us across the abyss whichseparates all created from all uncreated life. But we may reverently accept the fact, so repeatedly emphasized, that Jesus is "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of theFather" (John i. i8). He is Son in a sense altogether unique.This term, as used by our Lord, and as understood by the Jews, not only signified divinerelationship, but divine equality. Hence, on one occasion, the Jews sought to kill him, becausehe said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God (John v. i8). And he, so farfrom correcting the opinion-as he must have done instantly, had it been erroneous, wenton to confirm it and to substantiate its truthfulness. The impression which Jesus of Nazarethleft on all who knew him was that of his extreme humility; but here was a point in which hecould not abate one jot or tittle of his claims, lest he should be false to his knowledge ofhimself, and to the repeated voice of God. And so he died, because he affirmed, amid theassumed horror of his judges, that he was the Christ, the Son of God. "He counted it not aprize to be on an equality with God." It was his right.His dignity is still further elaborated in the words which follow. He is THE BEAM OFTHE DIVINE GLORY, for so might the word translated effulgence be rendered. We havenever seen the sun, but only its far-traveled ray, which left its surface some few minutesbefore. But the ray is of the same constitution as the orb from which it comes; if you unravelits texture, you will learn something of the very nature of the sun; they live in perpetual andglorious unity. And as we consider the intimacy of that union, we are reminded of thosefamiliar words, which tell us that though no man hath seen God at any time, yet he has beenrevealed in the Word made flesh. We hear our Master saying again the old, deep, mysterious7

II. THE DIGNITY OF CHRISTwords: "I and my Father are one. We will come and make our abode." And we can sympathizewith the evening hymn of the early Church, sung around the shores of the Bosphorus:"Hail! gladdening Light, of his pure glory poured,Who is the Immortal Father, Heavenly, Blest."He is also THE IMPRESS OF THE DIVINE NATURE. The allusion here is to the impression made by a seal on molten wax; and as the image made on the wax is the exact resemblance, though on another substance, of the die, so is Christ the exact resemblance ofthe Father in our human flesh. And thus he was able to say, "He that bath seen me hath seenthe Father." The Life of Jesus is the Life of God rendered into the terms of our human life;so that we may understand the very being and nature of God by seeing it reproduced beforeus, so far as it is possible, in the character and life of Jesus. These two images complete eachother. You might argue from the first, that as the ray is only part of the sun, so Christ is onlypart of God; but this mistake is corrected by the second, for an impression must be coextensive with the seal. You might argue from the second, that as the impression might be madeon a very inferior material, so Christ's nature was a very unworthy vehicle of the divineglory; but this mistake is corrected by the first, for a beam is of the same texture as the sun.Coextensive with God, of the same nature as God; thus is Jesus Christ.He is, therefore, superior to angels (ver. 4).-Lofty as was the esteem in which Hebrewbelievers had been wont to hold those bright and blessed spirits, they were not for a momentto be compared with him whose majestic claims are the theme of these glowing words.He surpasses them in the glory of Divine Nature. Turn to Psalm ii. -one of the grandestminiature dramas in all literature. Probably composed on some marked episode in the reignof David, there is a glow, a sublimity, in the diction which no earthly monarch could exhaust.We are not, therefore, surprised to find the early Church applying it to Christ (Acts iv. 25).In reading it, we first hear the roar of the mob and the calm decision of the throne; and thenour attention is centered on him who comes forward, bearing the divine autograph to thedecree which declares him Son. Nothing like this was ever said to angel, how-ever exaltedin character or devoted in service. It is only befitting, then, that the unsinning sons of lightshould worship him; and as we hear the command issued, "Let all the angels of God worshiphim," we are still further impressed by the immense distance between their nature and his.Do we worship him enough? During his earthly life he was constantly met by expressiveacts of homage, which, unlike Peter in the house of Cornelius, he did not repress. The almostinstinctive act of the little group, from which he was parted on the Mount of Olives in hisascension, was to worship him (Luke xxiv. 52). And no sooner had he passed to his homethan there burst from the Church a tide of adoration which has only become wider anddeeper with the ages. The Epistles, and especially the Book of Revelation, teem with expres8

II. THE DIGNITY OF CHRISTsions of worship to Christ. And the death-cries of martyrs must have familiarized the heathenmind with the homage paid to Christ by Christians. Of the worship offered him in catacombs,or in their secret meetings, amongst dens and caves, paganism was necessarily ignorant.But the behavior and exclamations of the servants of Jesus, arraigned before heathen tribunals,and exposed to the most agonizing deaths, were matters of public notoriety.Some years ago, beneath the ruins of the Palatine palace, was discovered a rough sketch,traced in all probability by the hand of a pagan slave in the second century. A human figure,with the head of an ass, is represented as fixed to the cross; while another figure, in a tunic,stands on one side, making a gesture which was the customary pagan expression of adoration.Underneath this caricature ran the inscription, rudely written, Alexamenos adores his God.But what a tribute to the worship paid in those early days to our Saviour, amidst gibes andtaunts and persecution!The hymns which have come down to us ring with the same spirit. Pliny writes to tellthe Emperor that the Christians of Asia Minor were accustomed to meet to sing praise toChrist as God. As each morning broke, the believer of those primitive days repeated inprivate the Gloria in Excelsis, as his hymn of supplication and praise: "Thou only art holy;thou only art the Lord; thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the gloryof God the Father." The early Church did not simply admire Christ, it adored him.Is not this a great lack in our private devotions? We are so apt to concentrate ourthoughts on ourselves; and to thank for what we have received. We do not sufficiently oftenforget our own petty wants and anxieties, and launch down our tiny rivulet, until we areborne out into the great ocean of praise, which is ever breaking in music around the personof Jesus. Praise is one of the greatest acts of which we are capable; and it is most like theservice of heaven. There they ask for naught, for they have all and abound; but throughoutthe cycles of glory the denizens of those bright worlds fill them with praise. And why shouldnot earthly tasks be wrought to the same music? We are the priests of creation; it becomesus to gather up and express the sentiments which are mutely dumb, but which await ouroffering at the altar of God.Let a part of our private and public devotion be ever dedicated to the praise of Jesus;when we shall break forth into some hymn, or psalm, or spiritual song, singing and praisingChrist with angels and archangels and all the hosts of the redeemed. On that brow, oncethorn-crowned, let us entwine our laurels. Upon that ear, once familiarized with threatsand scorn, let us pour the fullness of our adoring devotion. So shall we gain and give newthoughts of the supreme dignity of the Lord Jesus. "Thou art worthy to receive.honor."9

III. THE GLORY OF CHRIST'S OFFICEIII THE GLORY OF CHRIST'S OFFICE"He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name." Hebrews i. 4.APART from Scripture, we should have been disposed to infer the existence of otherorders of intelligent and spiritual beings besides man. As the order of creation climbs up toman from the lowest living organism through many various stages of existence, so surelythe series must be continued beyond man, through rank on rank of spiritual existence upto the very steps of the eternal throne. The divine mind must be as prolific in spiritual as ithas been in natural forms of life.But we are not left to conjecture. From every part of Scripture come testimonies to theexistence of angels. They rejoiced when the world was made, and they are depicted as ushering in with songs that new creation for which we long. They stood sentries at the gate ofa lost paradise; and at each of the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem an angel stands (Rev.xxi. 12). They trod the plains of Mamre, and sang over the fields of Bethlehem. One preparedthe meal on the desert sands for Elijah; another led Peter out of gaol and a third flashedthrough the storm to stand by the hammock where the Apostle Paul was sleeping (Actsxxvii. 23,24).But in the mind of the pious Hebrew the greatest work which the angels ever wroughtwas in connection with the giving of the law. The children of Israel received the law "as itwas ordained by angels" (Acts vii. 53, R.v.). It was necessary, therefore, in showing the superiority of the Gospel to the Law, to begin by showing the superiority of him through whomthe Gospel was given, over all orders of bright and blessed spirits, which, in their shiningranks and their twenty thousand chariots, went and came during the giving of the decaloguefrom the brow of Sinai (Psalm lxviii. 17).It is not difficult to prove the Lord's superiority to angels. It is twofold: in Nature andin Office.In Nature. "He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they" (ver.4). In verse 7, quoted from Psalm civ. 4 (R.v. marg.), where they are distinctly spoken of asmessengers and ministers, they are compared to winds and flames.-winds, for their swiftnessand invisibility; flames, because of their ardent love. But how great the gulf between theirnature, which may thus be compared to the elements of creation, and the nature of thatglorious Being whom they are bidden to worship, and who is addressed in the sublime titleof Son! (Heb.i.6; Psalm xcvii. 7.)In Offce. In verse 14 they are spoken of as ministering spirits, "sent forth to do servicefor the sake of them that shall inherit salvation" (R.v.). This liturgy of service is a literal fact.When struggling against overwhelming difficulties; when walking the dark, wild mountain10

III. THE GLORY OF CHRIST'S OFFICEpass alone; when in peril or urgent need-we are surrounded by invisible forms, like thosewhich accompanied the path of Jesus, ministering to him in the desert, strengthening himin the garden, hovering around his cross, watching his grave and accompanying him to hishome. They keep pace with the swiftest trains in which we travel. They come unsoiledthrough the murkiest air. They smooth away the heaviest difficulties. They garrison withlight

The Way Into the Holiest Author(s): Meyer, F.B. (1847-1929) Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library Description: F.B. Meyer's detailed exposition of the book of Hebrews brings to readers the rich le