This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the
Lord-Heb. 10:16.
We can scarcely estimate the shock to a primitive Hebrew Christian when he
discovered that Judaism was to fade away. Such an earthquake might seem to
leave nothing standing. Now, the great object of this Epistle to the Hebrews
is to insist on that truth, and to calm the early Hebrew Christians under
it, by showing them that the disappearance of the older system left them no
poorer, but infinitely richer, inasmuch as all that was in it was more
perfectly in Christ's Gospel. The writer has accordingly been giving his
strength to show that all along the line Christianity is the perfecting of
Judaism, in its Founder, in its priesthood, in its ceremonies, in its
Sabbath. Here he touches the great central thought of the Old Covenant
between God and man, and he falls back upon the strange words of one of the
old prophets. Jeremiah had declared as emphatically as he, the writer, has
been declaring, how the ancient system was to melt away and be absorbed in a
new covenant between God and man. Is there any other instance of a religion
which on the one side proclaims its own eternal duration, "the word of the
Lord endureth forever" [1 Pet. 1:25], and on the other side declares that it
is to be abrogated, antiquated, and done away? The writer of the Epistle had
learned from more sacred lips than Jeremiah's the same lesson, for the
Master said at the most solemn hour of His career, "This is the blood of the
New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" [Matt.
26:28]. These articles of the New Covenant go very deep into the essence of
Christianity, and may well be thoughtfully pondered by us all, if we want to
know what the specific differences between the ultimate revelation in Jesus
Christ and all other systems are. The earliest Christian confession, the
simplest and sufficient creed, was, Jesus is the Christ. What do we mean by
that? We mean that He is the realization of the dim figure which arose,
majestic and enigmatic, through the mists of a partial revelation. We mean
that He is, as the word signifies etymologically, "anointed" with the Divine
Spirit for the discharge of all the offices which, in old days, were filled
by men who were fitted and designated for them by outward anointing-
prophet, priest, and king. We mean that He is the substance of which ancient
ritual was the shadow. We mean that He is the goal to which all that former
unveiling, in part, of the mind and will of God steadfastly pointed. This,
and nothing less, is the meaning of the declaration that Jesus is the
Christ. The true presence of God, the true lustrous emanation from, and
manifestation of, the abysmal brightness, is in Jesus Christ, "the
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person" [Heb. 1:3],
for the central blaze of God's glory is God's love, and that rises to its
highest degree in the name and mission of Jesus Christ our Savior. If we
would see God, our faith must grasp the Man, the Christ, the Lord-as Climax
of all names-the Incarnate God, the Eternal Word who has come among us to
reveal to us all the glory of the Lord. So let us make sure that the fleshly
tables of our hearts are not like the moldering stones that antiquarians dig
up on some historical site, bearing half-obliterated inscriptions, with
fragmentary names of mighty kings of long ago, but with the many-syllabled
Name written firm, clear, legible, complete upon them, as on some granite
block fresh from the stonecutter's chisel.
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr. Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
