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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 today, and unto the ages". The
same truth lies at the threshold of the epistle: "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 bedrock of our faith. This was the issue of the
manner of life of the leaders whose faith was to be followed. It was the corrective against
the divers and strange doctrines which they were to avoid.
These words "yesterday and today and for the ages" are parallel with the titles "Alpha
and Omega", or "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 "today" 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 washings (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 have seen before that the thought of "acceptable service" runs through the closing
chapter of Hebrews, and this passage from Romans follows the same theme.
To us at the present time, this scruple regarding "meats" (food) seems to have no
parallel. We are not concerned about food having been offered to idols, neither are we
under any law that divides foods into clean and unclean. At the same time it will not take
us long to discover that a great deal passes as "holiness" and "privilege", which rests not