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The exhortation of Hebrews is "Let us go on unto perfection" (Heb. 6: 1), and this is
implied in the words of Heb. 3: 14 (cf. Heb. 3: 6):
"If we hold the BEGINNING of our confidence stedfast unto the END."
Going on unto perfection implies reaching a goal, going on to the end, finishing the
course, touching the tape. Perfection and its associate words are all derivations of the
root tel which gives us telos "the end". This will be made more evident when the
exhortation to go on unto perfection is before us, but it should ever be kept in mind.
Unless we clearly distinguish between Hope which is ours by gift in grace, and which can
neither be won nor lost, and Prize and Crown which is associated with running a race,
pressing on, enduring to the end, a prize that even Paul himself when writing to the
Philippians was not sure of attaining, we shall make sad havoc of the teaching of
Hebrews. Throughout the epistle, those addressed are already looked upon as "holy
brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling". The wilderness experiences of Israel were
the experiences of the REDEEMED. Those who forfeited entrance into the land included
Moses himself, and surely Moses was a saved man!
We conclude this article with an extract from No.14 of this series entitled The Hope
and the Prize found in Volume VIII, pp.87-89, which bears upon the epistle to the
Hebrews. We have referred the reader many times to the epistle to the Hebrews as
illustrating the principle, though not dealing with the same prize that obtains in Phil. 3:,
and once again we draw attention to that epistle in order that we may see a parallel and an
illustration.
In Heb. 5: 8-12, and 6: 1 the apostle writes:--
"Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered;
and having perfected, He became unto all that obey Him the author of aionian salvation;
named of God a high priest after the order of Melchisedec, of whom we have many
things to say and hard of interpretation, seeing ye are becomes dull of hearing; for when
by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you
what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God . . . . . Wherefore leaving the
word of the beginning of Christ, let us go on unto perfection."
There we have a parallel with the "forgetting" and the "stretching out to" of Phil. 3:
The historical illustration supplied by Hebrews is found in chapters 3: and 4: The
failure of Israel in the wilderness is largely connected with their fickleness of memory.
While it could have been written of them after the mighty redemption from Egypt, "they
soon forgat His works", we find that they "remembered the fish which they did eat in
Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the
garlick" (Num. 11: 5), and accordingly after the spies had made their report, and after they
had seen the bunch of grapes from Eshcol (note the contrast to fruits [viands] of Egypt)
"they said one to another, Let us make a Captain, and let us return into Egypt". It is
significant that the word "Captain" in the LXX is the same as that name of Christ in
Hebrews, and the contrast is vitally connected with the two attitudes of mind expressed in