crucified. It will continue only while God gathers out of it His elect; and when the iniquity of the nations, like that of the Amorites, is filled up, its doom will be executed.

But the promise that Judah and Israel shall again occupy their own land is unforfeitable and immutable. When the Messiah comes again to succor them in the extremity of their distress, they shall say, "Lo! this is our God, we have waited for Him!" Their conversion will be after the pattern of that of the Apostle Paul. A Nation shall be born in a day. Then shall God fulfil to them His ancient promise: "I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Jer. xxxi. 33, 34; Heb. viii. 10-12.

Thus God will save Israel on the same principle on which He is now saving sinners of the Gentiles. Meanwhile all our blessing comes through the Jew;

he is broken off temporarily from the Abrahamic stalk, that we may be grafted in. Our salvation stands on the ancient promise to Abraham, and we are its recipients because we are one with Christ, the great Heir of God's immutable promise; and are by faith the sons of believing Abraham. Had the Son of Man come as the heir of Jacob, it would have limited His mission to the Jewish nation. Had He come as the heir of Moses, His blessings would have been bestowed only under the conditions of law. Had He come as the heir of David only, He could only have been the subjugator of the nations. But the seed of which He laid hold was the seed of Abraham, to whom unconditional promise was made, antedating the birth of Israel as a nation, the giving out of the law, and the establishment of a throne. Therefore sinners of the Gentiles are not brought into the relationships and conditions implied in either of these, but are brought under absolute, unconditional, unforfeitable promise and grace.

16

VII.

THE GREAT HIGH PRIEST.

"Hence He was obliged in all things to be made like His brethren, so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest as to things relating to God, in order to expiate the sins of the people, for by what He has Himself suffered, being tried, He is able to render aid to those being tried.”

WE have now the announcement of the main subject of the Epistle to the Hebrews: The particulars that we have learned concerning the Son of God, have been unfolded that we might understand His fitness for the office to which God has called Him, an office which has special relation to the needs of the many sons while they are being conducted to glory; we mean the office of the priesthood.

It was for this purpose, we are told, that " He was obliged to be assimilated to the brethren in all things." We have already seen, or have faintly apprehended, how thorough and perfect is this as

similation. It is a real man with whom we have to do; one who in the very feebleness of flesh encountered trials and temptations of the same nature as those we have to meet; and conquered, even as we may conquer, only in the power of faith in God.

The absence, in the original Greek, of the possessive pronoun "his," unnecessarily supplied in the common version, is most significant here. Those to whom He is assimilated are not now spoken of as His brethren, but as "the brethren." Though they are indeed most surely declared to be His brethren, that relationship is not in view.

All along, ever since He was spoken of as the First-Born, the thought of kinship with the many sons has been prominently before us. Now, however, He is introduced to us in a new relation, which is not one of consanguinity (if we may use that word in a higher sense than with reference to mere earthly ties of blood) but of office. It is the priest on the one hand, "the brethren" on the other. The fact that He is made priest does indeed spring from the fact that those in whose behalf He exercised priestly functions are His brethren; but in His official character as the High Priest, He stands dis

tinct from them, having certain duties to perform for and to them. As the First-Born, the Prince of their salvation, and the Kinsman, we have seen Him closely identified with them. Now, however, that His work is done, and He is seated on the right hand of the Majesty on High, while they are still left on the scene of His humiliation, He is made known to them as their merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God.

The Scriptural definition of a priest is one who, "having been taken from among men, is appointed on behalf of men, over things relating to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." Heb. V. I. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, writes: "The essential notion of a priest is this: that he is a person made necessary to our intercourse without being necessary or beneficially to us morally,—an unreasonable, unmoral, unspiritual necessity." That is to say, the functions of a priest are strictly official. He is appointed to do certain duties, and the performance of those duties is not optional with him. This is the primary and ideal conception of priesthood. Deity appoints the priest, and his functions are toward God on behalf of men. When, therefore,