At the right hand of the Father the Saviour is now 'expecting' (Heb.

10:13), creation is 'expecting' (Rom. 8:19); shall not His believing people

join in this blessed expectation, and share together with the Lord of glory

that intense desire, that longing which we found revealed in Job 14, and

which can and will illuminate the darkness of the present grief until 'joy

cometh in the morning'.

We return to our covering text: 'Ye are strangers and sojourners with

'Go and tell My servant David, Thus saith the Lord, Shalt thou build Me

an house for Me to dwell in?  Whereas I have not dwelt in any house

since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt,

even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle (or as

My habitation)' (2 Sam. 7:5,6).

We trust the reader, if he knows the hymn, will be able to sing with fuller

'Here in the body, pent,

Absent from Him I roam,

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent

A day's march nearer home'.

Two wonderful aspects of the redemptive Work of Christ, are found under

the titles (a) The Kinsman-Redeemer, known by Job and gloriously acknowledged

by him in the well-known words, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' (Job 19:25),

and (b) The Surety, which by its very nature and meaning involves the kinship

emphasized by the Old Testament word 'Redeemer' (see Goel and Gaal in the

article on Redemption, p. 186).  In this study we deal with the office of

Surety and its related consequence, the office of The Sin Bearer.

An important theme of the epistle to the Hebrews is the superiority of

the Sacrifice and the Priesthood of Christ over all other sacrifices,

offerings and priests of the law.  While there are a series of differences,

each one being enough in itself to set the Levitical offerings aside, the

one that is stressed more than any other in Hebrews is connected with life.

This may be seen in Hebrews 7.  Contrasting the Priesthood of Christ with

that of Aaron, the epistle says of Christ:

'Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the

power of an Endless Life ... by so much was Jesus made a Surety of a

better testament (covenant).  And they truly were many priests, because

they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death: but this Man,

because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable (intransmissible)

priesthood' (7:16-24).

The sacrifices of the law are set aside: 'It is not possible that the

blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins' (Heb. 10:1-4).

Immediately, the epistle goes on to speak of Christ, saying: 'Lo, I come (in

the volume of the book it is written of Me), to do Thy will, O God'.  'But

this Man, after He had offered One Sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at