An Alphabetical Analysis
Volume 7 - Doctrinal Truth - Page 228 of 297
INDEX
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
Me'.
'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
understanding:
'Here in the body, pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home'.
THE SURETY
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.
Christ the Surety
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