CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 13:20. God of peace.— Romans 15:33; Romans 16:20; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16. Translate the verse, “Who brought up from the dead Him, made through the blood of the everlasting covenant, great Shepherd of the sheep, the Lord, even Jesus.” Or as R.V. “Who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, with [by or in] the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus.” See Hebrews 9:15-18, and compare Acts 20:28; Zechariah 9:11. The meaning appears to be, that the great Shepherd is provided with, or (so to speak) carries along with Him, blood sanctioning a covenant which is of perpetual force.
Farrar’s note on Hebrews 13:13.—Let us go forth out of the city and camp of Judaism (Revelation 11:8) to the true and eternal tabernacle (Exodus 33:7-8) where He now is (chap, Hebrews 12:2). Bearing his reproach.—“If ye be reproached,” says St. Peter, “for the name of Christ, happy are ye” (compare Hebrews 11:26). As He was excommunicated and insulted and made to bear His cross of shame, so will you be, and you must follow Him out of the doomed city (Matthew 24:2). It must be remembered that the cross, an object of execration and disgust even to Gentiles, was viewed by the Jews with religious horror, since they regarded every crucified person as “accursed of God” (Deuteronomy 21:22-23; Galatians 3:13). Christians shared this reproach to the fullest extent. The most polished heathen writers, men like Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, spoke of their faith as an “execrable,” “deadly,” and “malefic” superstition; Lucian alluded to Christ as the “impaled sophist”; and to many Greeks and Romans no language of scorn seemed too intense, no calumny too infamous, to describe them, and their mode of worship. The Jews spoke of them as “Nazarenes,” “Epicureans,” “heretics,” “followers of the thing,” and especially as “apostates,” “traitors,” and “renegades.”
Moulton’s note on Hebrews 13:20.—Two passages of the prophets have contributed to the language of this remarkable verse.
1. Isaiah 63:11: “Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?” Here the shepherds are no doubt Moses and Aaron (Psalms 77:20); the Greek translation, however, has, “Where is He that raised up out of the sea the shepherd of the sheep?” Moses, who led Israel through the sea, was brought up therefrom in safety to be the “shepherd” of his people Israel; by the same almighty hand the great Shepherd of the sheep has been brought up from among the dead.
2. Zechariah 9:11; in other words, “because of the blood which ratified thy covenant (Exodus 24:8) I have released thy prisoners.” In (i.e. in virtue of) the blood of an eternal covenant God has raised up the Lord Jesus.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 13:18-23
Requests for Prayer.—“Pray for us” is the frequent and natural request in Christian correspondence. See Romans 15:30; Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 3:1. This request for the people’s prayers is characteristically Pauline, and must be taken into due account in any discussion of the authorship of the epistle. The desire to stand well with his converts, and delight in their approbation, affection, and trust, were marked features in St. Paul’s character.
I. The interest of Christian teachers in their people’s prayers.—An interest felt and sustained partly—
1. For the people’s sake, because nothing opens the heart to the teacher’s influence, and keeps it sensitive and receptive to gracious influences, as prayer does. And it should be both
(1) private and personal, and
(2) collective, united, and public. The proper bond between ministers and people is only maintained by mutual prayer on each other’s behalf. And partly—
2. For the teacher’s own sake. Because he needs the kind of inspiration to do the highest and holiest work which only comes to a man when he knows that others are praying for him. There is a tone on Christian ministry which can only come as the response to intercessory prayer.
II. The sense of integrity may make a claim for prayer.—“We have a good conscience.” Whoever the writer was, one thing is evident—he was misunderstood and misrepresented and mistrusted, just as we know St. Paul was, by the Jewish, and even to some extent by the Jewish Christian, party. Some separation from him had been caused. This letter was in some sense written to remove wrong impressions, and make the standpoint of his teaching quite clear. It was fitting that he should assure them of his full loyalty to Christ and to them, of his genuineness, simplicity, and integrity. He meant nothing but their true spiritual good, and therefore he might honestly ask their prayers. Often we may be puzzled and disturbed by the teachings of the Christian teacher, but we can keep relations so long as we are fully confident of his integrity. What he is may keep us from offence at what he says.
III. The prayers of Gods people may influence God’s providence (Hebrews 13:19).—That has been the conviction of God-fearing men in all the ages. It is the absolute conviction of loyal and loving souls to-day. It never strikes them as for one moment unreasonable that God, who ever acts upon wise considerations, takes into account all facts, and forms good judgments, should let His people’s prayers influence His decisions and His arrangements. To think prayer could not affect God’s plans would be to assume that He could be apprehended through no rational or moral being that we ever heard of; it would be to refuse to recognise any reality in His Divine Fatherhood. A God who hears prayer, but takes no heed of it, and responds in no way to it, is inconceivable.
IV. The highest plea for prayer lies in the prayerfulness of him who makes the plea.— Hebrews 13:20-21, declare the prayerfulness of this writer, and indicate what he asks on the people’s behalf. It is summed up in the word “perfect.” He wants advance, growth, development, in the Christian life; for that he works, for that he prays. He can say, Pray for me, for I am always praying for you.
V. The prayer of him who asks for prayer may be a model for those whom he asks to pray for him.—The tone and substance of the prayer given in Hebrews 13:20-21, may be taken as a model of prayer. Impress that the act of prayer tends to put men in right relations with responsibility and with privilege. Prayer strengthens to bear responsibility and sanctifies the enjoyment of privilege.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 13:18. Conscience.—Now, as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has within itself, and the judgment, either of approbation or censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives, ’tis plain, you will say, from the very terms of the proposition, whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man. And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not, that it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also. At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case; and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man that, did no such thing ever happen as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the Scripture assures us it may) insensibly become hard, and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it—did this never happen—or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment—or that the little interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness—could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred court—did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it, or was ashamed to show its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment—or, lastly, were we assured that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing, and that Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case—was this truly so, no doubt, then, the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it, and the guilt or innocence of a man’s life could be known, in general, by no better measure than the degrees of his own approbation or censure.—Laurence Sterne.
Hebrews 13:20-21. The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant.—This everlasting covenant is the covenant of grace, or the gospel, made with Christ, as the Head and Representative of all His believing people. It is called “everlasting” in contradistinction to some transient outward forms of it that had already vanished, or were vanishing away. God had made legal, ceremonial, national covenants, which were temporary—which had not the elements of permanency. But this covenant touches, embraces everything, reaches up to God’s highest attributes, and down to man’s deepest needs—over all the breadth of law, and along all the line of existence. We do not rest on the mere word “everlasting,” which sometimes in the Scriptures has evidently a limited signification. No great doctrine or belief should rest on a mere term, unless the thing is taught clearly, by argument or precept or implication. But in this case we have the idea all through the Scriptures of absolute and unlimited duration. The “blood of the everlasting covenant.” That is the virtue of the death of Christ. It is that grand act of atonement and self-sacrifice by which He bore the penalty of sin for us, and secured the gospel as God’s method in this world for ever.
I. God is the God of peace.—The God who makes peace where it has been broken, and gives it where it is lost—the God who makes peace between heaven and earth, between law and conscience, between Himself and sinful men.
II. “He brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus.”—He wrought that mightiest work that has ever been wrought in this world—the resurrection of Christ. Again, “through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” The death is the germinating spring of the after-life—the humiliation is antecedent to and causal of the exaltation.
III. It is through the same act of self-sacrifice in death that He becomes “the great Shepherd of the sheep.” “The good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” That was the mark and criterion which He Himself gave by which men might know Him, and until this life was given the world could not have assurance that the good Shepherd has come. Now we come to the human side of the passage, and we have this blood of the covenant full of efficiencies on this side also.
1. The term “perfect”; giving us at once this high idea, the idea of perfection as a thing attainable now, by means of the blood and death of the Son of God. This perfection is not merely a thing ideal and distant, not only a thing to be hoped for beyond earth and time, in heaven and glory. It is a thing to be striven for and realised in measures in daily life and service—“perfect in every good work.” Nothing could be more practical, nothing further removed from a barren idealism and a visionary spirit. “In every good work,” in everything that benefits man, adorns the Christian profession, glorifies God in the fulfilment of His will.
IV. In this illustration of the power of the cross we have the inworking of the Spirit of God in the heart of the man who is thus seeking perfection—“working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight.” This secures simplicity and spirituality—God working within by the Spirit. Then all is right and good. The water is cleansed at the fountain, thought is touched as it springs, feeling purified as it begins to flow, affection lifted to its object, will bent to the will of God; the image of the heavenly beginning to shine, the likeness of the Resurrection dawning in the risen soul. Then
(1) let us come to this blood of the covenant, or to the death or to the cross of Christ, for cleansing;
(2) for motive;
(3) for speech.—A. Raleigh, D.D.
Hebrews 13:21. The Believer God’s Agent.—We often speak of ourselves as only “instruments in God’s hands.” It is our privilege to think of ourselves, if we are truly His servants, as agents. An instrument is a dumb, senseless, lifeless thing, which has no active, intelligent power even to co-operate with him who handles and uses it; but an agent (ago) is one who acts; in behalf of, and under control of, another, and yet acting intelligently and individually, as Aaron spoke under Moses’ dictation. Even the ox and ass yield a voluntary, intelligent obedience, and are far above the plough they drag, or the goad by which they are urged on. We are God’s agents, and He worketh not only by us, but in us, both to will and to work. (See Greek of Philippians 2:13.)