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Of course the problem was with him all the time; he says: "The celestial Jerusalem,
must be one of the on-heavenly `things' of Ephesians, until it descends." Until it
descends! Exactly; that is the crux of the matter. But when we express ourselves as
thankful that we have not a place in that heavenly city that comes down from God out of
heaven, that, our critic says, is heading straight for apostasy! When dealing with
Heb. 3: 1 he admits the difficulty of expressing, in English, the word epouranios, and
confesses that the English "up over all the heavens" is misleading, but hopes that, in time,
"up over" the heavens will become acclimatized. No such leniency must be extended to
the writer of The Berean Expositor, however, even if he but quotes the A.V. so as to
avoid the difficulty. Our critic has said, "Frankly, I do not know what The Berean
Expositor teaches". Surely some of our readers, after reading the above statements may,
with justice, feel similarly about the writings of our critic.
We will not let the matter rest here, however, but will give, positively, not merely
what we would reply now, but what we have already written. We quote from The
Berean Expositor, Volume XI, pages 189, 190:--
"A superficial exposition, which is ever ready to seize upon some verse to refute
`Ultra-dispensationalism', whatever that may mean, says:--
`Here is the same word that is used in Ephesians, therefore the
Hebrews were members of the One Body, and the whole dispensational
distinction is exploded.'
Readers of The Berean Expositor know full well that the peculiar and exclusive
character of the dispensation of the mystery rests upon positive Scripture (e.g., Eph. 3:)
and not inference, and further that the words of Eph. 1: 3, 20; 2: 6; 3: 10; and 6: 12,
have a special feature to be found nowhere else--but this we leave.
It is essentially in harmony with the perfecting of the pilgrim character, that those
addressed should be called `partakers of the heavenly calling', and that heavenly calling
needs no further exposition than is given in Hebrews itself to make its scope and position
clear to us.
`Heavenly.'*
A | Partakers.--Now.
a | 3: 1. Partakers of heavenly calling. Christ not ashamed.
b | 6: 4. Partakers of holy spirit.
B | Place. The Tabernacle.
c | 8: 5. The shadow of heavenly things.
d | 9: 23. The heavenly things themselves.
A | Partakers.--Then.
a | 11: 16. The better country--a heavenly, God not ashamed.
b | 12: 22. The heavenly Jerusalem (Holy City).
[* - We have already intimated that this is the same word as is used in Ephesians.
The word `heavenly', here, simply adheres to the A.V.]
If we trace the teaching associated with this word, we are led on through participation
of the `gifts', which were anticipations of the world to come (6:), and from the shadow to