I N D E X
130
PERFECTION
PERDITION
130
OR
Things that make for perfection.
If we take note of these opening and closing sections therefore, it becomes evident that `perfection' cannot
possibly be attained under the ministry of priests who themselves needed an offering for their own sins, who were
made after the law of a commandment which respected their mortal condition, and whose service stood in meats and
drinks and baptisms, `carnal ordinances', that really indicated that the way into the Holiest of all had not as then
been opened. Such ordinances and sacrifices failing to touch the conscience, failed altogether, and were only
`shadows' and `not the very image' of the good things to come.
To believers who were never brought up under the law, who never boasted in `the glory and the covenant, and
the giving of the law, and the service of God', the turning from the shadow of Aaron, his tabernacle, his priesthood
and his sacrifices, to the reality Christ, heaven itself, the one great Sacrifice and the abiding Priesthood, seems a
simple act of reasonable faith. To the Hebrew, cradled in the thought that of all nations the nation of Israel alone
had the oracles of God, such a turning would be a wrench, a rupture, a counting `gain' as `loss' and as so much
`refuse' (Phil. 3:8). Therefore God in His kindness and His condescension reasons with them step by step, until the
last ground of boasting in the law is destroyed and Christ is seen as all in all.
We commence therefore the new section with an argument:
`If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need
was there that another Priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of
Aaron?' (Heb. 7:11).
In David's time the service of God's house was raised to its greatest height. If David himself did not actually
build the Temple, the complete revelation was made to him of that house, exceeding magnifical with its golden
vessels, its courses of priests, its wonderful psalms. Yet it is David and no other who gives us Psalm 110 saying:
`The Lord said unto my LORD, Sit thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool ... The LORD hath
sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec' (verses 1 and 4).
The apostle, therefore, asks a pointed question, what further need for another Priest, of another order, if
perfection were attainable under the Levitical priesthood? Of all the reasons that are most trenchant that which is
given in parenthesis is the one, viz., `For under it the people received the law' (verse 11).
Perfection and Legalism
It has been objected that the giving of the law from Mount Sinai preceded and did not follow the setting up of the
Levitical priesthood. We do not think the expression `received the law' refers to the giving of the law at Sinai, and
that it is hardly a good translation. In chapter 4:2 we find that the people were `evangelized', here, in 7:11, we see
that with the institution of the Levitical priesthood the people were `legalized'. They were shut up to carnal
ordinances, mortal priests, and the blood of bulls and of goats, until Christ should come Who by His offering should
`take away the first, that He may establish the second' (Heb. 10:9).
`For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law' (Heb. 7:12).
This was a sore point with the Jew. Stephen was stoned to death because they said that he taught that:
`Jesus of Nazareth shall ... change the customs which Moses delivered us' (Acts 6:14).
The same charge was brought against Paul:
`Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place'
(the Temple) (Acts 21:28).
Those who had become believers from among Israel still retained their regard for the law:
`Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: and they
are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that
they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs' (Acts 21:20,21).