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account is given: "Look to yourselves, that ye destroy not the things which we have
wrought, but that ye receive a full reward" (II John 8, R.V.). This reference in II John 8
is followed by a warning concerning the doctrine of Christ.
In Heb. 13: 8, immediately following the reference to the leaders, and immediately
before the warning not to be carried away with divers and strange doctrines, comes the
glorious passage: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and unto the ages."
The same truth lies at the threshold of the epistle: "They shall perish: but Thou
remainest . . . . . They shall be changed, but Thou art the same" (Heb. 1: 11, 12). Through
all the changes in this creation, both past and future, the Lord remains unchanged;
throughout all changes in the dealings of God with men, the decaying and waning of the
old covenant, as well as of the old creation, there is One Who remains the same. This is
the bed-rock of our faith. This was the issue of the conversation of the leaders whose
faith was to be followed. This was the corrective against the divers and strange doctrines
which they were to avoid.
These words are parallel with the titles "Alpha and Omega", "Which was and which
is, and which is to come". In the "yesterday" we know that Abraham saw the day of
Christ, that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt: in the "to-day" He is still the same. He is still the one great Counter-attraction
that more than compensates for all reproach or loss, and this will remain unalterably true
throughout the ages.
The divers and strange doctrines that were likely to "carry these believers about" as by
adverse currents, were evidently closely connected with "meats", and these can but refer
to all those things that had been left behind:--
"Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and
sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the
conscience: which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers baptisms, and carnal
ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation" (Heb. 9: 9, 10).
The glorious standing given to the believer in Christ by the gospel has no room for the
shadowy sanctity pertaining to "meats":--
"But meat commendeth us not to God; for neither, if we eat, are we the better;
neither, if we eat not, are we the worse" (I Cor. 8: 8).
These things of the past are on the same level as circumcision:--
"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the
commandments of God" (I Cor. 7: 19).
"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and
approved of men" (Rom. 14: 17, 18).
We saw in a preceding article that the thought of "acceptable service" runs through the
closing chapter of Hebrews, and his passage from Romans follows the same theme.