Ver. 9.
Ver. 10.
Ver. 11.
And how does the divine reasoning now advance? "From glory to glory"; from acceptance by the Holy One, who is Love, to present and endless preservation in His Beloved One. Therefore much more, justified now in His blood, as it were "in" its laver of ablution, or again "within" its circle of sprinkling as it marks the precincts of our inviolable sanctuary, we shall be kept safe through Him, who now lives to administer the blessings of His death, from the wrath, the wrath of God, in its present imminence over the head of the unreconciled, and in its final fall "in that day." For if, being enemies, with no initial love to Him who is Love, nay, when we were hostile to His claims, and as such subject to the hostility of His Law, we were reconciled to our (τῷ) God[73] through the death of His Son, (God coming to judicial peace with us, and we brought to submissive peace with Him,) much more, being reconciled, we shall be kept safe in His life, in the life of the Risen One who now lives for us, and in us, and we in Him. Nor only so, but we shall be kept exulting too in our (τοῦ) God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received[74] this (τὴν) reconciliation.
Here, by anticipation, he indicates already the mighty issues of the act of Justification, in our life of Union with the Lord who died for us, and lived again. In the sixth chapter this will be more fully unfolded; but he cannot altogether reserve it so long. As he has advanced from the law-aspect of our acceptance to its love-aspect, so now with this latter he gives us at once the life-aspect, our vital incorporation with our Redeemer, our part and lot in His resurrection-life. Nowhere in this whole Epistle is that subject expounded so fully as in the later Epistles, Colossians and Ephesians; the Inspirer led His servant all over that region then, in his Roman prison, but not now. But He had brought him into the region from the first, and we see it here present to his thought, though not in the foreground of his discourse. "Kept safe in His life"; not "by" His life, but "in" His life. We are livingly knit to Him the Living One. From one point of view we are accused men, at the bar, wonderfully transformed, by the Judge's provision, into welcomed and honoured friends of the Law and the Lawgiver. From another point of view we are dead men, in the grave, wonderfully vivified, and put into a spiritual connexion with the mighty life of our Lifegiving Redeemer. The aspects are perfectly distinct. They belong to different orders of thought. Yet they are in the closest and most genuine relation. The Justifying Sacrifice procures the possibility of our regeneration into the Life of Christ. Our union by faith with the Lord who died and lives brings us into actual part and lot in His justifying merits. And our part and lot in those merits, our "acceptance in the Beloved," assures us again of the permanence of the mighty Love which will maintain us in our part and lot "in His life." This is the view of the matter which is before us here.
Thus the Apostle meets our need on every side. He shews us the holy Law satisfied for us. He shews us the eternal Love liberated upon us. He shews us the Lord's own Life clasped around us, imparted to us; "our life is hid in God with Christ, who is our Life" (Col. iii. 3, 4). Shall we not "exult in God through Him"?
And now we are to learn something of that great Covenant-Headship, in which we and He are one.
Detached Notes to Chapter XII
I
Εἰρήνην ἔχομεν, "We have peace": Εἰρήνην ἔχωμεν, "Let us have peace." Which did St Paul write? On the whole, after long thought upon the evidence, we decide for the former reading. The documentary witness is strong for the latter. For those who place the great Uncial manuscripts in the place of practical decision, ἔχωμεν has a clear verdict in its favour. But the other class of copies, the Cursive, later on the whole than the Uncials, but probably often representing correction rather than corruption, are greatly in favour of ἔχομεν. The evidence of ancient Versions, and of quotations by early Christian writers, inclines on the whole for ἔχωμεν. But in the study of a reading the argument and context of course claim attention; for most surely the original reading, whatever it was, was pertinent. Now here the question of pertinence seems to us to lead to a decided verdict for ἔχομεν. The Apostle is engaged here altogether with assertion, instruction; exhortation is to come later. Through this whole paragraph he does nothing but assert facts and principles. Is it to be believed that he begins it with a disjointed exhortation?
In itself the exhortation would bear a meaning perfectly intelligible. "Let us have peace" would mean "Let us enjoy peace." So ἔχωμεν χάριν, Heb. xii. 28, means, practically, "Let us use grace." Neither exhortation would mean that we do not yet possess, in respect of the Lord's gift, "peace" and "grace" respectively. But, we repeat it, the context here seems decisive against the presence here of any exhortation. We want, logically, assertion.