Hebrews 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken to you the word of God: whose faith follow… I. WHAT IS DENIED. It is denied that either time, or mood, or circumstances, or provocation, or death, can alter Jesus Christ our Lord. 1. Time changes us. Your portrait, taken years ago, when you were in your prime, hangs on the walls of your home. You sometimes sadly contrast it with your present self. Then the face was unseamed by care, unscarred by conflict; but now how weary and furrowed I The upright form is bent, the step has lost its spring. But there is a greater difference between two mental than physical portraitures. Opinions alter. And sometimes the question arises, Can time alter Him whose portrait hangs on the walls of our hearts, painted in undying colours by the hands of the four Evangelists? Of course, time takes no effect on God, who is the I AM, eternal and changeless. But Jesus is man as well as God. He has tenses in His being: the yesterday of the past, the to-day of the present, the to-morrow of the future. It is at least a question whether His human nature, keyed to the experiences of man, may not carry with it, even to influence His royal heart, that sensitiveness to the touch of time which is characteristic of our race. But the question tarries only for a second. Time is foiled in Jesus. He has passed out of its sphere, and is impervious to its spell. 2. Moods change us. We know people who are oranges one day, and lemons the next; now a summer's day, and, again, a nipping frost; rock and reed alternately. You have to suit yourself to their varying mood, asking to-day what you would not dare to mention to-morrow; and thus there is a continual unrest and scheming in the hearts of their friends. But it is not so with Jesus. Never tired, or put out, or variable. 3. Circumstances change us. Men who in poverty and obscurity have been accessible and genial, become haughty when idolised for their genius and fawned on for their wealth. New friends, new spheres, new surroundings alter men marvellously. What a change has passed over Jesus Christ, since mortal eyes beheld Him. Crowned with glory and honour; seated at the right hand of the Father. Can this be He who was despised, an outcast, and a sufferer? R is indeed He. But surely it were too much to expect that He should be quite the same? Nay, but He is. And one proof of it is that the graces which He shed on the first age of the Church were of exactly the same quality as those which we now enjoy. We know that the texture of light is unaltered, because the analysis of a ray, which has just reached us from some distant star, whence it started as Adam stepped across the threshold of Eden, is of precisely the same nature as the analysis of the ray of light now striking on this page. And we know that Jesus Christ is the same as He was, because the life which throbbed in the first believers, resulted in those very fruits which are evident in our hearts and lives, all having emanated from Himself. 4. Sin and provocation change us. Our souls close up to those who have deceived our confidence. But sin cannot change Christ's heart, though it may affect His behaviour. If it could do so, it must have changed His feelings to Peter. But the only apparent alteration made by that sad denial was an increased tenderness. II. WHAT IS AFFIRMED. 1. He is the same in His person (Hebrews 1:12). His vesture alters. He has exchanged the gaberdine Of the peasant for the robes of which He stripped Himself on the eve of His incarnation; but beneath those robes beats the same heart as heaved with anguish at the grave where His friend lay dead. 2. He is also the same in His office (Hebrews 7:24). Unweariedly He pursues His chosen work as the Mediator, Priest, and Intercessor of men. III. WHAT IT IMPLIES. It implies that He is God. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. |
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