Hebrews 6:17-20 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:… I. FIRST, THE STAY OR ANCHORAGE OF THE SOUL DURING THE 'VOYAGE OF LIFE IS CHRIST WITHIN THE VEIL, CHRIST IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES, CHRIST IN THE HEAVENLY HAVEN. UPON HIM IN HIS EXALTED GLORY THE SOUL STAYS ITSELF AND IS SECURE. 1. In the first place, He is the living Christ of intercession, not the dead Christ of sacrifice. 2. Secondly, although within the veil, the Living Christ has a vital interest in us who are yet without. His entrance into the heavenly place has not broken off His connection with our earthly lives and interests. The same redeeming purposes, the same tender human sympathies, the same great mediatorial solicitudes fill His Divine heart. 3. The use of the term "Forerunner" conveys to us an additional idea not included in that of the palest-hood. The high priest was not a forerunner; no one was to follow him into the holy place; but Christ is strictly a forerunner. "Where He is, there His servant is to be also" — where He is, and as He is, for we are to be "like Him when we see Him as He is." At present He is our interceding Priest, but the consummation of His intercession is our reception into the heavenly place with Him. As the Forerunner Be enters the holy place, not alone, but only first. "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there shall My servant be also." Very great and very precious are the assurances thus conveyed to us. First, that in virtue of His entrance to the heavenly place we shall surely enter also. He has "opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers"; by His own blood He appears in the presence of God, and secures our appearance also. "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." He prepares the place for us in the sense of making a place for us certain. But more than this is meant. As the Forerunner He secures our entrance under the same conditions; we enter as He has entered; our humanity glorified as His is glorified. We shall enter as He has entered, with a proper resurrection body; with all the marks of personal identity that distinguish us here, that are the means of intelligent communism and friendship. II. IN THE SECOND PLACE. THE ANCHOR WHICH HOLDS THE SOUL STEADFAST TO THE LIVING FORERUNNER WHO IS WITHIN THE VEIL IS HOPE; HOPE MOORS THE STORM-TOSSED SOUL TO THAT WHICH WILL SECURE IT. Our hope must be "a good hope through grace"; our anchor must have length of cable sufficient, and must lest only upon Christ. Hope is so far more than faith. That which is seen is not hope. Hope is that trust in the future and the unseen which calculates probabilities, which hits the mean between possible failure and certain security. We feel uncertainty enough to make it hope, and assurance enough to make the hope strong and animating. We "give all diligence to make our calling and election sure." We cast out the anchor of our hope with cable enough, so to speak, to fasten it upon the unseen Christ. A great and blessed hope, the hope of being with Christ, and of realising the exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. A good hope, warranted by accumulated evidence — by God's wonderful revelation — by His assured and unchangeable promises; a hope warranted by His words, by His resurrection, by His entrance into the holy place as our Forerunner, who hath "brought life and immortality to light," and who is Himself " the Resurrection and the Life." We are "begotten again to this lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." III. OBSERVE, IN THE THIRD PLACE, HOW HOPE FIXED UPON CHRIST MAKES THE SOUL STEADFAST AND SECURE. Unregenerate men are described as "having no hope"; they are "without God and without hope in the world"; that is, they have no hope that is not delusive, that will not fail them in the testing hour, and make them ashamed. "The God of hope" is not their hope; they hope in something else, they do not know the hope that comes "through patience and comfort of the Scriptures." There can be no hope for a man who has not fled for refuge to Christ, "the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope." To Christ, then, the redeemed man has come; he has fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before him, and this hope is the anchor that keeps his soul firm It is a thing of practical, powerful efficacy, that secures both our present steadfastness and our ultimate salvation. It is "an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast." 1. The first suggestion of the metaphor is of a tempestuous and perilous sea, which our ship of life has to navigate, and that we are in danger of "making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience." What image could give a more vivid representation of our spiritual condition? — of the rough sea upon which we ride? — the hurricane above us, and the sunken rocks and quicksands around us. 2. How beautifully in this representation are both worlds brought together! Our ship sails upon the ocean of this life, has to bear its tempests, navigate its perils, but she finds her sure anchor within the veil — the anchor of her hope is fixed in the glorified Christ. The ship rides upon the sea of time; its anchor is fixed in eternity. Here there is no sure anchorage — hence the anchor is " hope," the expectation of things not seen. The immortal soul can fix securely only upon an immortal stay; and when after vain hopes in other things she has fixed her anchor upon Christ, it is as though she had laid hold upon the bases of the everlasting hills, as though with sevenfold strength she had grasped "the bars of the earth." (H. Allon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: |
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