without the intervention of hands at all. Like Paul we can say, "not of men, neither by

man." "He gave some apostles, &100:" (Eph. iv.8-11). Ministry is now independent of the

laying on of hands, so also "healing" and all things else. No man now comes between the

believer and his Lord.

At first glance it must seem little short of heresy to teach from Heb. 6: 2 "Leaving.

...the (doctrine of the) resurrection of the dead." The difficulty lies in our failure to

"prove the things that differ," and in the looseness of translation in our A.V. We make a

great mistake when we assume that the resurrection as held by the Pharisees and the Jews

is the same as that taught by the apostles.

Anastasis nekrõn are the words of Heb. vi.2, "The resurrection of the dead." Paul used

these words when he said, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee; of the hope and

resurrection of the dead I am called in question" (Acts 23: 6). So also Acts 24: 21.

If we read in connection with Acts 24: 14, 15, we have the faith expressed of the

orthodox Jew. John xi.24 is also parallel, the resurrection of the last day being all that

was known.

Mark 9: 9 and 10 contain something that will help us to understand Heb. vi.2,

"...till the Son of man were risen from among the dead (ek nekrõn), and they kept that

saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead

should mean." Surely if the Pharisees believed the resurrection of the dead, the disciples

of the Lord did also; their difficulty was not one of unbelief in resurrection, but a failure

to understand the import of a little word ek introduced by the Lord when He spoke of

rising "out from among dead ones." This phrase is used of Lazarus in Luke 16: 31,

"neither will they be persuaded, though one rose out from among the dead." This is the

expression used in Acts 4: 1, 2, 10, and Rom. 1: 4.

In Phil. iii the apostle gives us a wonderful "Profit and Loss account." Christ more

than compensated to Paul for all that he had forfeited as a Pharisee. Paul had looked for a

resurrection of the dead; now, as a believer in Christ, he looked for a resurrection out

from the dead (exanastasis ek). This passage demands a fuller exposition than our present

knowledge will justify us in attempting, but here we have that for which the apostle could

urge the Hebrew believers to leave the resurrection of the dead. Leave the general

resurrection for the blessed hope of being raised out from the dead--the blessed portion

of believers of the present dispensation.

Space will not allow of our going much into this last clause. It does not mean that we

are to leave the scriptural teaching of the finality of the judgment of God, but to leave the

contemplation of the general judgment, as of the general resurrection, and remember the

judgment-seat of Christ, which was prominent in the parallel passage to Heb. 6:,