It has by this time become abundantly evident, that we are not at all saved by works of law that we perform, but that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We are saved in Him alone. It is God Who saves us because of His great love wherewith He loved us, in order that in the ages to come He might exhibit the exceeding greatness of His grace in loving kindness to us. No man may ever boast in self, nor in the awful agonies of hell, nor in the joys of heaven.
In this remarkable chapter of I Corinthians 15 the apostle Paul defends the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, over against all unbelief and skeptical reasoning. He defends the premise that if there is no resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen. And, to be sure, if Christ is not risen then we are still in our sins, our faith is vain and all preachers of the resurrection facts are found to be false witnesses. But Christ is risen!
The text here reads literally as follows: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore He heard that he was sick, he abode at that time two days in the place where He was.”
In this essay we would call attention to the words of Jesus spoken at the occasion of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the upper-room. We refer to the following from Jesus’ mouth: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another.”
Beginning with this article we hope to write a short series of essays on the passage of the Word of God recorded for us in Hebrews 10:19-25.
In our former article we called attention to the fact, that here in the book of Hebrews in general and particularly in this passage, drawing near to God means a coming to the living God. When we draw near to God we draw near to God as He lives in the holy place, as He is enthroned on high. We also noticed, that the text here in question teaches us that our drawing near to God must be done in true hearts, that is, with hearts that are filled with the love of God through the Holy Spirit. Our hearts...
In this article we see ourselves confronted with the task of beginning to give our explanation of the terms in the verses 19 and 20. We read in these verses the following: “Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, which He hath dedicated, a new and living way through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God.” We notice, first of all, that the evident intention of the writer in this quoted passage is to state the reason, the ground as well as the incentive...
At this juncture of our series it can do no harm to briefly restate what we have thus far learned from this portion of the book of Hebrews. In our first article (see September 15 issue) we called attention to the meaning of the terms: “true hearts” and “heart sprinkled from an evil conscience”. The implication of these terms, as we noticed, was, that only the pure in heart shall see God. Only those who are pure, can draw near unto God in confidence of being accepted of Him. This is not only true in heaven, but it is also...
In our previous article we were discussing the question, whether the term “flesh” in the phrase “through the veil, that is, His flesh” could be read as though the text said “His body”. We then remarked that, in our opinion, the two terms are not identical in meaning; that they are not used interchangeably without a distinctive meaning in each. It is, therefore, our conviction that for the proper understanding of the term “flesh” in our text it can aid us a great deal to inquire into the respective usage and meaning of the terms “flesh” and “body” in Holy...
We now come to our exposition of the twenty-third verse of the 10th chapter of Hebrews. This verse reads as follows: “Let us hold fast the confession of the (our) unwavering hope, for He that hath promised is faithful.” At the outset of this article we would notice that the writer does not connect our verse to the foregoing verses with any particle such as “for” or “wherefore”, nor with a conjunction such as “and”. This lack of any such connection of a grammatical nature does not mean that this verse is the beginning of a new and different subject....
