AN EXPOSITION OF THE WARNING PASSAGES IN HEBREWS BY JOHN BROWN OF EDINBURGH CHAPTER THREE VERSE FIFTEEN TODAY IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS The words quoted in the 15th verse have already been explained. The only thing that requires to be remarked on is the connection to which they stand and the purpose for which they are introduced. A sentence seems begun here, which is never completed. Some very learned interpreters have connected it with the beginning of the fourth chapter, considering the last verses of this chapter is included in the parentheses. It appears to us more natural to consider it as connected with the 13th verse, the 14th being parenthetical, and as an expansion of the idea suggested by the words while it is called today. Thus, exhort one another in as much as it is today, exhort one another from its being said, and so on. As one of the means of preserving each other from apostasy, frequently bring before each other's minds the dreadful consequences which resulted for non-belief in the case of your ancestors. It is easy to perceive how well the topic of mutual exhortation was chosen. The example is taken from their ancestors for whom the Jews had a special reverence. The evil to be guarded against is the same in both cases. Unbelief. The circumstances of their ancestors were similar to their own, both placed under a new economy. The consequences of unbelief in their case would be the same as in the case of their ancestors. Exclusion from God's rest. While their guilt would be much more aggravated than that of their fathers from the superior dignity of the head of their dispensation, and their punishment much more severe, exclusion from a happiness of which peaceful residence in the Holy Land was but an imperfect figure. We cannot help in this perceiving the wisdom given to the Apostle as Peter expresses it. In the verses which follow, he points out to them those circumstances in the history which were peculiarly fitted to impress their minds with the criminality and danger of apostasy from the faith of Christ, verses 16 and 18. For some, when they had heard, did provoke, albeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? Let us proceed to examine the passage somewhat more particularly. Verse 16. For some, when they heard, did provoke, albeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. These words, as they stand in our version, express the sentiment that they who offended God so highly in the wilderness as to induce Him to exclude them, by a solemn oath from any part in the rest of Canaan were but a part of those who came out of Egypt under the care of Moses. And did we know no more of the manner than what is stated in these words, we would naturally conclude that they form but a small part. From the history itself, we know that a whole of the male adult Israelites who left Egypt under Moses, with the exception probably of some of the Levites and certainly of Caleb and Joshua, were involved both in the sin and punishment to which the psalm refers. It is not very easy to see the bearing which the words have on the apostles' object. There does not seem coherence in the exhortation, be not rebellious as your fathers were in that provocation, where some but not all rebelled. It seems strange to use the word some as descriptive of many thousands, the great majority, and to suppose that the words not all refer merely to a small minority, Caleb and Joshua and a few Levites. These considerations have led many of the most learned and judicious interpreters to prefer another motive for entering the words, which they will bear, and which brings out a sense more agreeable to the facts of the history, and more obviously bearing on the apostles' great object, which plainly is, from the history of their ancestors, to impress on the minds of the Hebrew Christians the criminality and danger of unbelief and apostasy. They consider the 16th verse, as well as the 17th and 18th, as consisting of two interrogations. For who were they who, when they had heard, did provoke? Were they not all they who came out of Egypt by Moses? These questions, like those in the succeeding verses, are just equivalent to a strong assertion. It is as if the apostle had said, there is one fact in the history which peculiarly deserves your attention. all who came out of Egypt by Moses, after having heard, provoked. The only objection to this version is that it seems not exactly to express the fact, for there were exceptions, as we have already noticed. It is, however, quite common in the Scriptures, as well as in other writings, to use universal terms when the exceptions are comparatively few. and we define such universal terms used in the very history referred to and from which it seems probable that the inspired writer borrowed them. The sentiment in this verse in is almost all the great body of those who came out of Egypt by through the instrumentality of Moses after having heard provoke Jehovah. This mode of interpretation has a great recommendation that it gives symmetry to the paragraph. The word renders some a coring, and the two following verses as an interrogative. And it rids us of the difficulty of giving a reason for its being stated that only some, and not all, that came out of Egypt with Moses heard and provoked. It is to be recollected that the accents and divisions of the sacred texts were the work, not of the inspired writers, but of transcribers who had no claim to infallibility as her frequent blunders sufficiently show, and that the Greek language had no point of interrogation. The words when, or after, they had heard, have by many been supposed to refer to the Israelites hearing the divine communications made to them by Moses, and especially hearing the voice of God, an awful solemnity pronounced from amid the darkness which covered Mount Sinai, the law of the Ten Commandments. But I apprehend they directly referred to their having heard the command of God to go up and take possession of the land of Canaan and the promise that God would enable them to do so. They did not mix faith with the annunciation made to them. On hearing, instead of believing the promise and obeying the command, they provoked God by calling in question His kind intentions, and obstinately refusing to do what He had commanded them. The following passage from Deuteronomy is a striking commentary on the statement in the text. And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which you saw by the way of the mountain, of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh, Barnea. And I said to you, you are come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God does give to us. Behold, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up and possess it. As the Lord God of your fathers has said to you, fear not, neither be discouraged. And he came near to me, every one of you, and said, we will send men before us, and they shall search out this land. And bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. And the saying pleased me well, and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe. And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came to the valley of Ashkel, and searched it out, and so on. This statement, almost all who came out of Egypt with Moses, after having heard the promise and command of God, provoked him by refusing to believe the promise and obey the command, was well fitted to excite a salutary fear in the minds of the Hebrew Christians. He cautioned them against arresting in privileges and thinking themselves safe merely because they had, by profession, forsaken Judaism. and had heard the promises and commands of God made known by Jesus Christ and his apostles. All who left Egypt did not enter Canaan. All who by profession leave the world lying in wickedness do not, of course, enter into the heavenly rest. Men may hear the gospel and yet not believe it. The grace of God may come to them and yet come to them in vain. But this is not all. The great majority, almost all who came out of Egypt with Mothis, Almost all who heard a promise and command of God were unbelieving and disobedient. Was not this a most striking demonstration of the strength of the natural tendency to unbelief and disobedience in the human heart? And was it not reasonable and right that the Hebrews should take heed lest there was in any of them an evil heart of unbelief, when it was so plain that there was such a heart in the great majority of their ancestors? Every new proof of the tendency of human nature to unbelief and disobedience should make us the more jealous over ourselves with a godly jealousy. The Apostle proceeds to turn the attention of the Hebrew Christians, more particularly to the punishment, and the cause of the punishment, of the majority of their ancestors. Verse 17 But and with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that is sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that did not believe? These questions are equivalent to an assertion. On account of the unbelief and disobedience of the ancient Israelites, God was grievously offended with them and manifested his displeasure by excluding them by an oath from Canaan and dooming them to die in the wilderness. He was grieved, or rather offended, with them for forty years. For a long period of forty years, by keeping them in the wilderness and by a variety of severe judicial inflictions, he showed his displeasure at them. It is probably to this that Moses refers in the 90th Psalm when he says, For we are consumed by your anger, and by your wrath are we troubled. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins, in the light of your countenance. For all our days are passed away in your wrath. We spend our years as the tale that is told. Your carcasses fell in the wilderness. The word translated carcasses properly signifies limbs or members of the body. The awful sentence your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness is equivalent to your limbs shall bestrew the desert. Your bones shall whiten amid its sands. It was executed not merely by such awful judicial inflictions as took place in consequence of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the plague of the fiery serpents, and the joining in the impure rites of the Moabitish idolatry. but also by retaining the people in the wilderness till the whole of that unbelieving and disobedient generation, who did not perish in these judgments, were in the ordinary course of things brought to their graves. These circumstances in the history of the ancient Hebrews were well fitted to excite in the minds of those to whom the apostle wrote a holy fear of unbelief and disobedience. Jehovah is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If unbelief and disobedience offended Him in them, they will offend Him in us also. If unbelief and disobedience to the will of God as spoken by Moses brought down on our Father such judgments, what may we expect if we are unbelieving and disobedient, when He makes known His will to us by His Son? Death and the wilderness, exclusion from Canaan, will be found but very feeble figures of the evils in which unbelief and disobedience to Him will involve us. But what the Apostle wishes Chief Luke to impress on the minds of his readers is that unbelief lay at the foundation of all their sins and all their judgments. Verse 19. So we see that they cannot enter in because of unbelief, In other words, it is plain from the history of the Israelites that it was their unbelief that prevented their obtaining possession of Canaan. The apostle seems to have had in his mind the words of Jehovah, How long will his people provoke me? And how long will it be ere they believe me? Some interpreters would understand the expression, they could not. is equivalent to they would not. The word is not infrequently used in this way. Justus' brethren could not, i.e. they would not, speak peaceably to him. I cannot, says a man in a parable. I cannot rise and give it to you. Word of the meaning is, I am not disposed to rise and give it to you. This is true, but it does not seem to be the truth here taught. That seems plainly to be. Unbelief was a cause why they were excluded from the rest of God. Unbelief was by no means the only sin of which that wicked generation were guilty. They had made and worshipped the golden calf. They had often rebelled and murmured. But notwithstanding all their sins, if they had even down to the period when God swore in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest, believe the divine promise, and show that they believed that by acting accordingly, they would have obtained possession of the promised land. They could not, continuing unbelieving, enter in, for their unbelief prevented their doing what was absolutely necessary to their entering in. In continuing unbeliefing, it would not have been becoming a god, and therefore it was impossible that he should bring them in. This is distinctly stated in reference to the worship of the golden calf, Exodus 32, verse 34. Unbelief was the source of all their other sins, and it was in consequence of obstinate perseverance in unbelief that the irreversible sentence of exclusion was pronounced. They attempted afterwards to enter, but they found it was too late. Numbers 14-45 Previously, to the oath of God, their unbelief prevented them from entering by inducing them to refuse to go up at the command of God. and afterwards their unbelief as a procuring cause of the divine sentence of exclusion made all attempts on their part fruitless. The conclusion to which the Apostle wished the Hebrew Christians to come from the consideration of this fact in reference to their ancestors is this. If unbelief was so mischievous in the case of our fathers, it cannot be less so. It must be more so in ours. If unbelief shut the Mount of Canaan, have we not reason to think unbelief will shut us out of heaven? It deserves notice that, under the gospel, it is unbelief that by way of eminence excludes men from the celestial blessedness. There is no sin so great, but it may be pardoned if the sinner will believe. There is no sinner so guilty, but he may be saved through the faith of the truth. Unbelief prevents salvation, both as it keeps us away from the Savior, and because it's direct opposition to the favorite purpose of God in a new economy. It draws down the severest influences of his righteous indignation. It may be proper, before concluding our remarks on this chapter, to correct a mistake into which some good men have fallen with regard to the nature of that unbelief which led to the exclusion of the Israelites from Canaan, and which has led, we are disposed to think, to important and dangerous misapprehensions respecting the nature of that unbelief by which a man is excluded from the celestial rest. The promise of bringing the Israelites into Canaan has been considered by some as an absolute, unconditional promise made to that generation, and the faith required of them as a belief on the part of every individual that he would infallibly enter into the possession of the land, and that the unbelief for which the Israelites were punished was a disbelief of the promise viewed in this light. And as there is plainly an analogy between the promise revealed to the Israelites and the promise revealed in the gospel, they have argued that there is an absolute promise of salvation made to every hearer of the gospel, and that the faith required of him is a belief that he himself shall be saved and enter into the possession of the heavenly rest. Let us look at the promise made in reference to Israel entering into the promised land. I will bring you into the land concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. and I will give it to you for an heritage. I am the Lord. This is a promise which refers to Israel as a people, and which does not by any means necessarily infer that all, or even that any of that generation were to enter in. No express condition is mentioned in this promise, not even to believe in it. Yet so far as that generation was concerned, this, as the event proved, was plainly implied. For if it had been an absolute unconditional promise to that generation, it must have been performed. Otherwise, he who cannot lie would have failed in accomplishing his own word. There can be no doubt that the fulfillment of the promise to them was suspended on their believing it and acting accordingly. And they believed that Jehovah was indeed both able and determined to bring his people Israel into the land of Canaan and under the influence of this faith. gone up at his command to take possession, the promise would have been performed to them. This was the tenor of the covenant made with them. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall you be a peculiar treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.' And Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him, and so on. Joshua appeals to the Israelites themselves for the completeness of the fulfillment of the promise. And behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing is failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you. All are come to pass to you, and not one thing has failed of it. That generation believed the promise that God would give Canaan to Israel and under the influence of this fact went forward under the conduct of Joshua and obtained possession of the land for themselves. The gospel promise of eternal life, like the promise of Canaan, is a promise which will assuredly be accomplished. It is sure to all the seed. They were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Eternal life was promised in reference to them before the times of the ages and confirmed by the oath of God. They have been redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb, and are all called a new time according to His purpose. Their inheritance is laid up in heaven for them, and they are kept for it by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation. And they shall all at last inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. But the gospel revelation does not testify directly to anyone that Christ so died for him in particular, that it is certain that he shall be saved through his death. Neither does it absolutely promise salvation to all men, for in this case all must be saved or God must be a liar. But it testifies that God in Christ is reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing to men their trespasses, seeing He ever lives, to make intercession for them. The Apostle knowing that all these things happened to them for examples and were written for the admonition of those on whom the ends of the Mosaic Age had come. draws a conclusion that inattention, unbelief, and disobedience to the command of God given by Jesus Christ would be attended with consequences more dreadful than inattention, unbelief, and disobedience to his command given by Moses in proportion to the superior dignity of Christ to Moses. And that, if in the one case they led to exclusion from the rest of Canaan, in reference to which a promise and command had been given by Moses, they would in the other lead to exclusion from that better rest in reference to which a promise and command had been given by Jesus Christ. And on these principles he founds the exhortation contained in the first verse of the fourth chapter.