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Monday, April 29th, 2024
the Fifth Week after Easter
the Fifth Week after Easter
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Bible Commentaries
Carroll's Interpretation of the English Bible Carroll's Biblical Interpretation
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliographical Information
"Commentary on Hebrews 10". "Carroll's Interpretation of the English Bible". https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bhc/hebrews-10.html.
"Commentary on Hebrews 10". "Carroll's Interpretation of the English Bible". https://www.studylight.org/
Whole Bible (48)New Testament (19)Individual Books (14)
Verses 6-39
XXIV
PROMISES OF THE NEW COVENANT
Hebrews 8:6-10:39.
The fourth promise of the new covenant is that all Christians shall be priests unto God, and shall directly offer to him spiritual, nonexpiatory sacrifices, anywhere, at any time, and in all places. The negative value of this promise is itself incalculable. It forever set aside and dispenses with:
1. The old covenant’s one place of meeting God. Whether tabernacle, temple, earthly Jerusalem, or land of Canaan, their mission and sanctity are ended forever. Holiness no longer attaches to any of them. All are as empty as the sepulcher of our Lord. The efforts of the Crusades to recover a city and land no longer holy was a foolish quest. As says our Lord himself to the woman of Samaria: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain [i.e., Gerizirn, the site of the Samaritan temple] nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father . . . The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshipers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-24).
2. It dispenses with all the third party – human go-betweens – that officiated between the soul and its God. The Greek and Romanist priestly hierarchies of human gobetweens, and all their imitations in other denominations, are sinful degenerations into the obsolete and superseded old covenant.
3. It sets aside all the doctrines of consubstantiation and transubstantiation, which in any form affirm and repeat and adore a real expiatory sacrifice in the Memorial Supper of our Lord, or attach saving efficacy to the memorial rite of baptism. In other words, connecting two and three it sweeps away the whole system of sacredotalism which makes the office of a human third party necessary to the salvation of the sinner.
4. All the Old Testament sabbatic cycle, whether seventh day, lunar, annual, seventh year, or fiftieth year – the limited fixed times in which to come before the Lord.
5. All the Old Testament nonexpiating sacrifices.
6. Israel according to the flesh as the people of God.
POSITIVELY
1. It affirms a spiritual Israel, every one of whom is a priest unto God. In the book of Hebrews this doctrine ’if embodied in the phrase: "church of the first-born" (Hebrews 12:23)., which means that the Old Testament type, which gave to the first-born of a family the right of primogeniture, including the authority of priesthood, and which was exchanged for the tribe of Levi, is fulfilled in each one born of the Holy Spirit under the new covenant. In other words, every one born of the Holy Spirit is a priest who may at all times, m( all places, and under all emergencies go for himself directly to God.
The doctrine of this new and spiritual Israel – a people of God’s own possession – is elsewhere presented by Paul (2 Cor. 6:17-7:1; Titus 2:14). Here the language of Peter is the most explicit: "Ye, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . . . Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." To these we may add: "And he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father; to him be the glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.” Revelation 1:6). "And makest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they reign upon the earth" (Revelation 5:10). "Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection; over these the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6).
(1) Our own selves: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service." And concerning the Macedonians Paul says, "And this, not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves unto the Lord, and to us through the will of God" (2 Corinthians 8:5).
(2) Contribution to Christ in his cause and people. We recall the case of the Philippians: "And ye yourselves also know, ye Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church had fellowship with me in the matter of giving and receiving but ye only; for even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my need. Not that I seek for the gift, but I seek for the fruit that increaseth to your account. But I have all things and abound: I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things that come from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God" (Philippians 4:15-18).
(3) The testimony of this letter: "Through him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of lips which make confession to his name. But to do good, and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased" (Hebrews 13:15-16).
(4) All the testimonies from the prophets introduced in the last chapter (See Job 17:3; Psalm 119; Isaiah 38:14; 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 51:16-17; Isaiah 1:11-17; Jeremiah 7:21-23; Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8.)
But this idea of the priesthood of all Christians is so closely associated with another thought that we cannot separate them. One of the passages cited says, "A royal priesthood"; another says, "He has made us a kingdom and priests," while this letter says, in commenting on the service of the Christian priesthood, "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God with reverence and awe." Everything relating to the old covenant was shaken, and soon, in the destruction of Jerusalem, would pass away forever. But this royal priesthood would continue – this kingdom would never be moved. As Daniel prophesied, the kingdom set up by the God of heaven would be an everlasting kingdom and would never pass to another people. Or, as our Lord expresses it: "The gates of hell shall never prevail against the church he established. These priests are all kings, and their kingdom is eternal!"
The fifth great promise of the new covenant is the final advent of our Lord to raise the dead and judge the world. The passages in this letter are very striking: "So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him unto salvation."
1. On this passage particularly note the negative: "apart from sin," i.e., not this last time as a sin offering. That was the object of his first advent. There is no gospel to be preached after this final advent – no intercession – for he vacates the mediatorial throne and the high priest advocacy
2. "Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day drawing nigh. . . . For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise" (Hebrews 10:25-37).
Here the speediness of his coming is emphasized, as in very many other New Testament passages. But it is not "quickly" as man counts, but "quickly" as he counts, "with whom a thousand years is as a day." As Peter declares:
Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is long-suffering to youward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with a fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? But according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. – 2 Peter 3:3-13.
It was the apparent tardiness of his coming, as men Judged, that was tempting these Asia Minor Jews to apostatize. And it is in this very connection and on this precise point that Peter bears the direct testimony of Paul’s authorship to this letter: "And account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you" (2 Peter 3:15).
3. He comes in his last office, not as a prophet, sacrifice, priest, and not even as king to continue his mediatorial session at God’s right hand, for he will turn over the kingdom to the Father ( 1 Corinthians 15:24-25), but he comes as judge to wind up earth’s affairs.
(1) In the dissolution of the material universe: "And thou, Lord, in the beginning, didst lay the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou continuest; and they shall wax old as doth a garment; and a mantle shall thou roll them up, as a garment, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail" (Hebrews 1:10-12). "But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Matthew 24:29). "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them" (Revelation 20:11); and particularly: "But the heavens that now are and the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. . . . But the day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:7-10).
(2) In the everlasting punishment of the wicked: "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at naught Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that said: Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:26-31).
"For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessings from God; but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned" (Hebrews 6:7-8).’ "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard" (Hebrews 2:3). "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him that warneth from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. . . . For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:25-26; Hebrews 12:29).
4. In the better resurrection of the righteous: "Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35), and the consummation of their salvation: "For not unto angels did he subject the world to come, whereof We speak. . . . And again I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold, I and the children God hath given me. . . . For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise" (Hebrews 2:5; Hebrews 2:13; Hebrews 10:36).
On two and three as simultaneous: "The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon: and behold, a greater than Solomon is here" (Matthew 12:41-42). "But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all the nations; and he shall separate them one fro goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand: Come ye, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . . Then shall he say also unto them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these shall go away into eternal punishment; and the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:31-46).
"And to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus; who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).
"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which was the book of life, and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hades gave up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:11-15).
QUESTIONS
1. What is the fourth promise of the new covenant?
2. What is the negative value of this promise?
3. What its positive value?
4. What passage in the book affirms the first element of positive value?
5. Cite passages from other New Testament books supporting this view?
6. What new and additional idea attaches to this priesthood, what the proof of it, and what the conclusion therefrom?
7. What are the spiritual sacrifices offered by this new priesthood?
8. What is the fifth great promise of the new covenant?
9. What, passage shows the negative object of his coming, and what the explanation of it?
10. Cite the passages which emphasize the speediness of his coming?
11. Is this a speediness in man’s sight or God’s sight, and what the proof from Peter?
12. Prove from Peter on this point that Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews.
13. In what offices does he not come, and the resultant doctrines?
14. In what office does he come?
15. What, without citing passages, the three objects of his final advent?
16. What passage in this book shows the effect of his coming on the material universe, and what correlative passages from other books?
17. What passage from this book show that he comes to judge and punish the wicked?
18. What the passages in this book which show that he comes for the consummation of the salvation of the righteous?
19. Cite passages from other New Testament books that the salvation in glory of the righteous is simultaneous with the everlasting punishment of the wicked.
20. In view of the fourth promise, will there ever be a restoration of the Jews, as Jews, and a restoration of the earthly Jerusalem and its temple worship?
21. What then, is the meaning of the restoration of the Jews as a nation?
Verses 22-29
XXX
EXHORTATIONS AND SPECIAL PASSAGES (CONTINUED)
The seventh exhortation in this book is as follows: "Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith – let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not – let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together, exhorting one another" (Hebrews 10:22-25). The doctrines that underlie this manifold exhortation are, (1) Christ has rent the veil hiding the holy of holies by his death, and dedicated for us a new and living way. (2) We have a great High Priest over the house of God. (3) The day of his final coming is rapidly approaching (Hebrews 10:19-21).
Here a question arises, Does "having our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22) refer to water baptism, and if so, what the bearing of the teaching? It is not clear that it has such reference. But if it does, it strongly supports the Baptist teaching, to wit: Our souls are cleansed by the application of Christ’s blood by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Baptism in water only washes the body, and hence can only externally symbolize the internal cleansing. In this way Paul, internally cleansed, could arise and wash away his sins symbolically in baptism (Acts 22:16), or as Peter puts it: "Water, even baptism, after a true likeness doth now save us, not putting away the filth of the flesh [i.e., the carnal nature] but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). In other words, it is a figurative salvation, and the figure or likeness is that of a resurrection (see Romans 6:4-5). Paul’s reason for the seventh exhortation is expressed in the famous passage (Hebrews 10:26-29), the whole of which is an explanation of the eternal, unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit, very different from the gradual, unconscious sins of "drifting" and "hardening." Its conditions and characteristics are:
1. There has been great spiritual light and knowledge, thoroughly convincing the judgment of the truth of the gospel, and strongly impressing the mind to accept it.
2. It is a distinct and wilful rejection of the well-known light and monition of the Holy Spirit.
3. It is a culmination of sin against every person of the Trinity. (1) It is a sin against the Father in deliberately trampling under foot the Son of his love. (2) It is a sin against the Son in counting the blood of his expiation an unholy thing. (3) It is the sin against the Holy Spirit in doing despite to his grace who has furnished complete proof to the rejector’s conscience that it is God’s Son who is trampled under foot, and that the blood of his vicarious sacrifice alone can save.
4. Once committed, the soul is there and then forever lost, having never forgiveness in time or eternity, and knows that for him there is no more sacrifice for sin, and expects nothing but judgment and fiery wrath which shall devour the adversaries.
5. Let the reader particularly note that this sin cannot be committed except in an atmosphere, not merely of light and knowledge, but of spiritual light, knowledge and power, and that it is one wilful, malicious act arising from hate – hating the more because of the abundance and power of the light. The eighth exhortation is, "Cast not away your boldness" (Hebrews 10:35). The exhortation is based on appeal to their remembrance of the triumphs of their past experience. They had patiently endured a great conflict of suffering just after their conversion; they had been made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions cast on them and by their sharing in the afflictions of their leaders. This is evident from the history of Paul’s labors among men. There was nothing in their present afflictions severer than those they triumphantly endured in their earlier experience.
The ninth exhortation is, "Therefore, let us also, seeing that we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls" (Hebrews 12:1-3). The imagery here is that of a foot race, such as these people had often witnessed in the Isthmian Games at Corinth, or in the great amphitheater at Ephesus. "The race set before us" – the great example upon whom the runner must fix his eye – is Jesus, the author (or captain) and perfecter of our faith.
The force of the example of Jesus in Hebrews 12:2 is this:
He is set before us as the one perfect model or standard. A joy was set before him as a recompense of reward that when attained would make him the gladdest man in the universe. For this he voluntarily became the saddest man in the universe. Thus "the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" was "anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows;" "He saw of the travail of his soul and was satisfied." Here we are confronted with this double question: Does the phrase, "author and perfecter of our faith," mean that Jesus first inspires and then completes our individual faith – i.e., what he begins he consummates – or that he is the captain and completer of the faith in the sense that his completed victory is both cause and earnest of our own victory, as in Hebrews 2:10? The latter best accords with the import of the Greek word, archegos, used both here and in Hebrews 2:10, and with the whole context.
The word "witnesses" in Hebrews 12:1 means martyrs whose examples should excite our emulation, and accords with the meaning and usage of the Greek word marturos, which makes them witnesses to the truth and not spectators of what other people may do. Moreover, the biblical evidence is scant, if there be any at all, that departed souls are allowed to sympathetically intervene in the struggle of those left behind. Yet, by rhetorical license, in the exercise of the imagination, a poet, orator or writer may summon the dead to appear before the living for dramatic effect. But we go far when we seek to construct doctrine on rhetorical license. What is the "besetting sin" in Hebrews 12:1? It may not be the same in all cases. It is the sin to which one most easily yields whether pride, lust, covetousness, anger, vanity, or any other.
The tenth exhortation (Hebrews 12:4-13,) is, "Regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, because (1) chastening is an evidence of sonship. (2) If we have borne arbitrary chastening from earthly parents, much more we will bear disciplinary chastening from our Heavenly Father. (3) While grievous at first, it yieldeth afterward peaceable fruit or righteousness, if rightly received.
Here come up the Creationist theory of the origin of human spirits and the Traducian theory. The Creationist theory is that the spirit of every human being born into the world is a direct creation of God, and only the body is derived from the earthly parent. The Traducian theory is that every child, in his entirety, spirit and body, is derived from his earthly parents, begotten in the likeness not only of bodily features but in spiritual state, otherwise man could not propogate his species, and every child would, in his inner nature, be born holy, not subject to inherited depravity and not needing regeneration until he became an actual transgressor hence needing only proper environment and training to grow up in holiness.
The passage in question is not decisive for either theory. God is the Father of spirits in that originally the spirit of man was not a formation from inert matter, but a special creation (see Genesis 2:7). Thus the whole race, body and spirit, was potentially in the first man, died body and spirit in him when he fell, and after his fall he "begat children in his likeness" body and spirit.
In Hebrews 12:12-13, "hands hanging down," "palsied knees," and "crooked paths" refer to the physical effects of spiritual depression or terror, the inner man acting on the outer. See case of Belshazzar (Daniel 5:6), and recall cases coming under your own observation in which discouragements or despondency of the spirit enfeeble the body. Some men, morally brave, are physically timid. A famous French marshal always trembled at the beginning of battle. On one occasion his officers rallied him on his shaking legs. He answered, "If my legs only knew into what dangers I will take them today, they would shake more than they do."
The eleventh exhortation (Hebrews 12:14 ff) is, "Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord." There are two hazards attending obedience to this exhortation, against which there are special cautions, as follows: (1) The springing up of a root of bitterness to defile many. (2) The spirit of profanity, or the despising of sacred things.
In our own experience or observation, cases arise of a single root of bitterness disturbing the peace of communities and retarding the sanctification of hundreds.
Profanity here means, not so much swearing as it does a spirit of irreverence in speaking of sacred things, and, sometimes interested lost souls are completely sidetracked by the levity and foolish jestings, and the questionable anecdotes of preachers in their hours of relaxation.
The author having often, in his early ministry, witnessed the wounding and shocking of sober-minded Christians and the loss of interest in awakened sinners caused by the foolish jestings in the preacher’s tent concerning sacred things, and sometimes by obscene anecdotes, entered into a solemn covenant with Dr. Riddle, the moderator of the Waco Association, never to tell nor willingly hear a doubtful anecdote. This covenant was made while camping out one night on the prairie in the light of the stars.
The twelfth exhortation and its doctrinal basis are found in Hebrews 12:28-29: "Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire.
I will group in classes the exhortation of Hebrews 13 as follows:
1. Love to brethren, strangers, and those in bonds.
2. Honor the sanctity of marriage.
3. Eschew the covetous spirit.
4. Hold in kind remembrance your leaders that have passed away.
5. Bear the reproach of Christ, even if it ostracises from worldly society.
6. Offer spiritual sacrifices of praise, confession, contribution, and prayer.
In closing this exposition there are two things worthy of note: First, The bearing of Hebrews 13:8 on the preceding verse, which means that preachers may come and go, but Jesus is ever the same. Second, The controversy arose over Hebrews 13:10, a controversy as to what is the Christian altar. Was it the cross on which Jesus was crucified? Then how can the altar be greater than the gift on the altar, as Christ taught? Was it Christ’s divinity on which his humanity was sacrificed? This controversy was a refinement of foolishness, because the altar under consideration is not supporting the expiating sin offering of which the priests were never allowed to have a part, but the altar to which non-expiatory offerings were brought, such as meat offerings, thank offerings, tithes etc. Of these the priests and Levites might partake. The meaning is simply this – that Christianity provides in its way for the support of its laborers through the voluntary offerings to Christ’s cause (see 1 Corinthians 9:13-14).
QUESTIONS
1. What is the exhortation in this book relative to faith, hope, and love?
2. What doctrines underlie this manifold exhortation?
3. Does "having our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22) refer to water baptism, and if so, what the bearing of the teaching?
4. How do you interpret Paul’s reason for this exhortation as expressed in Hebrews 10:26-29, which refers to the eternal sin?
5. What is the exhortation relative to boldness, and on what is it predicated?
6. What is the exhortation relative to weights, sins, etc., what its imagery, and what its elements?
7. What is the force of the example of Jesus in Hebrews 12:2?
8. What does the phrase "author and perfector of our faith" mean?
9. What is the meaning and import of "witnesses" in Hebrews 12:1?
10. What is the "besetting sin" in Hebrews 12:1?
11. What is the exhortation relative to chastening, and what its reasons?
12. What are the theories relative to the origin of human spirits, and what the bearing of this passage on the subject?
13. What is the meaning and force of "hand hanging down," "palsied knees," and "crooked paths?"
14. What is the exhortation relative to peace and sanctification?
15. What two hazards attending obedience to this exhortation?
16. Do you know of a case of a single "root of bitterness" disturbing communities and hindering sanctification?
17. What is the meaning of profanity here, and what illustration of the effect of such profanity given?
18. In what did Esau’s profanity consist?
19. What is the meaning of Hebrews 12:17? So, What the exhortation relative to grace, and what its doctrinal basis?
21. Group in classes the exhortations of Hebrews 13.
22. What is the bearing of Hebrews 13:8 on the preceding verse?
23. What controversy arose over Hebrews 13:10?
24. Why was this controversy a refinement of foolishness?