Greater Riches than the Treasures in Egypt (2)

by Charles H. Welch

No.2. The setting of our key texts 

(I Cor. i. 30; iii. 21 - 23). 

In our approach to the N.T. and to the apprehension of all for which we have been apprehended of Christ Jesus, our attention was directed to the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (I Cor. i. 30 and iii. 21-23). There is so much in these two passages, that we shall be compelled to halt and weigh them over in the balances of the Sanctuary before passing on to other and similar passages. Indeed we may well discover, that by the time we have considered these two passages, together with their parallels in other epistles, that there will be very little left to say. In order to appreciate the Apostle’s conclusions as set forth in these two extracts from I Corinthians, we must acquaint ourselves with the context, then examine the A.V. translations and make any adjustments that fuller light and accurate scholarship indicates, and finally to consider each term or phrase as so many steps leading to the Divine goal. In the present study, let us endeavour to place Paul’s conclusions in their true relation with the context. 

The first Epistle to the Corinthians owes its origin, humanly speaking, to five allied causes: 

(1) The report of the household of Chloe. 

(2) A common report concerning their morals. 

(3) A letter from the Corinthians. 

(4) A special error in doctrine—the resurrection. 

(5) The collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem. 

The epistle follows the order of these five features, chapters: 

i. - iv. deal with divisions in the church. 

v., vi. deal with immorality in the church. 

vii. - xiv. deal with the letter from the church. 

xv. deal with the subject of resurrection. 

xvi. deal with the collection for the saints. 

The structure of the epistle follows this fivefold subdivision of theme, but puts the emphasis on certain features that might otherwise be overlooked. 

I Corinthians as a whole 

A | i. 1-9. Waiting for the coming of the Lord. 

    B | i. 10 - iv. 21. “IT HATH BEEN DECLARED UNTO ME.” 

        C | v. 1 - xiv. 30. The body, physically, spiritually, ecclesiastically. 

    B | xv. “I DECLARE UNTO YOU.” 

A | xvi. Maranatha. The Lord cometh. 

It will be seen that after a salutation or introduction of the epistle to the church as a whole, with a stress upon the place that the hope of the Lord’s return should have in their lives (I Cor. i. 7-9), the Apostle immediately plunges into the problems that threatened the spiritual life of the Corinthians by the words “it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you”. We must not for a moment think of these members of the household of Chloe as tale-bearers, but rather that by dint of personal probing and questioning, Paul had unearthed the confused state in which the church of the Corinthians had been thrown by their divisions, their laxity of morals and their doctrinal errors. 

The great Rabbi Hillel said “Many fathers, much strife”, and Paul’s own expression “Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers”, seems to point to the cause of divisions among them. He feared that when he did come among them that there might still be “debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings and tumults” (II Cor. xii. 20). It had become evident that the coming of Apollos to them, instead of proving an unmixed blessing, had been used by the evil one to sow discord. Paul had designedly used simple language when among them, owing to their predilection to “excellency of speech and of wisdom” (I Cor. ii. 11), in order that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. As a result, some of the Corinthians, disappointed and possibly rebuffed by the Apostle’s attitude, spoke of his personal appearance as ‘mean’ and of his speech as ‘contemptible’ (II Cor. x. 10). Apollos was mighty in the Scriptures, and fervent in spirit, and had been much blessed by the ministry of Aquila and Priscilla, so that he “helped them much which had believed through grace” (Acts xviii. 27). Apollos moreover was ‘eloquent’ logios and this gift may have been seized upon by some of the Corinthians as a weapon with which to beat Paul. 

“Apollos, who had followed him, though an able man, was an inexperienced Christian, and not only by the natural charm of his impassioned oratory, but also by the way in which he entered into subtle refinements so familiar to the Alexandrian intellect, had unintentionally led them first of all to despise the unsophisticated simplicity of St. Paul’s teaching, and next to give the rein to all the skeptical fancies with which their faith was overlaid . . . . . St. Paul could not but see the most extravagant exaggerations of his own doctrines—the half-truths, which are ever the most dangerous of errors” (Farrar, Life and Work of Paul). 

While naturally there was a Greek element in the church of Corinth, a company who could be reminded that they were “Gentiles, carried away by these dumb idols, even as ye were led” (I Cor. xii. 1), there was a strong Jewish section who also could be reminded by Paul “how that all our fathers were under the cloud and in the sea” (I Cor. x. 1, 2). 

The Judaic Christians who came armed with ‘letters of commendation’ (II Cor. iii. 1) from the twelve at Jerusalem, would naturally be most acceptable to the Jewish section of the church, with the consequence that the emergence of a party that favoured Apollos, drove the Jewish section to range themselves under the name of Peter, or apparently as they preferred to call him, Cephas, avoiding even the Gentile name which the Lord had given to him. Already at Corinth there had been invidious comparisons made between the apostleship of Peter and of Paul, to which allusions can be found in both epistles addressed to the Corinthians. Reluctantly, the Apostle wrote: “I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge . . . . . are they Hebrews?” (II Cor. xi. 5, 6, 22), and so, added to those who raised the party cry “I am of Apollos”, was sounded the equally mischievous cry “I am of Cephas”. 

Later, when he does refer to Apollos, he most nobly places Apollos upon an equal footing with himself saying: 

 “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed . . . . . I have planted, Apollos watered: but God gave the increase, so then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (I Cor. iii. 5-7). 

“These things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes: that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up FOR ONE AGAINST ANOTHER” (I Cor. iv. 6). 

To such, Paul wrote the words already cited: 

“Therefore let no man glory in men. For ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: ALL ARE YOURS: and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” (I Cor. iii. 23). 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 41, page 113).

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The Pleroma (10) - Charles H. Welch

No.10. Behold the fig tree, and all the trees. 

The reader may at times have wondered why the whole issue of life and death should have ‘hung upon a tree’ in the garden of Eden, and as the choice of this emblem manifests something of the wisdom and knowledge of the Lord, it may not be amiss if we turn our attention to the place that ‘trees’ occupy in the working out of the purpose of the ages. 

It is only within our own times that the extensive importance of trees to the well being of the world has been recognized as the following extracts will show: 

“Every moment that he draws breath here below man is dependent on the grass of the field for his very being. Sir Thomas Browne knew this and pointed it out in Religio Medici. ‘All flesh is grass, is not only metaphorically, but literally true; for all those creatures that we behold are but the herbs of the field digested into flesh in them, or more remotely in ourselves’. In the fourth chapter of this present book, Mr. Baker puts the same thought into a few words ‘Thus the tree, with the help of plant life, controls the food supply and life of man and of the animal kingdom’. 

A great deal of Mr. Baker’s writing in all his books has been concerned with the disasters that follow when man forgets that he is not the world’s master, but one of many tenants. The tenants are animate and inanimate—or so we chose to call them, though the animation of a tree is an inescapable thing, and some trees take on the proportions of majestic personality. But, call them what we may, the further we go into the matter the more deeply we apprehend that men and trees, grass and birds, the beasts of the field and all living things are held in a balance that may not lightly be disturbed . . . . . We find in this book some truly terrifying pictures of man flying in the face of Nature, ruthlessly uprooting and burning the very stuff that holds the world together: and no less terrible pictures of Nature making her implacable reply. Man strips the forests of China: Nature swirls away in the Yellow River every year 2,500,000 tons of the soil on which man might live. Man strips the western prairies to the bone; Nature hands him a dust bowl . . . . . When improvidence goes so far that one edition of an American newspaper consumes twenty-four acres of forest, it is not difficult to imagine a too-near time when the plight of those Negroes (a tragedy on the Gold Coast) shall be the plight of millions of mankind. Only knowledge, implementing a rational co-operation with Nature, can avert such a disaster; and I am not aware of any writer today who spreads that knowledge more fruitfully than Mr. St. Barbe Baker” (Howard Spring). 

A distinguished engineer some twelve years ago, warned America that unless something drastic and immediate was done to prevent the squandering of the soil, that America had not another 100 years before it of virile national existence. Another authority as late as 1946 pointed out that one-eighth of the crop land of the U.S.A. had been ruined by erosion, another eighth almost ruined, on a further quarter erosion is at work, and that in 100 years from now the United States will not be able to sustain a living man. 

Mr. St. Barbe Baker says: 

“The red lights are against us in our reckless career. To continue to rape the earth and fight for dwindling supplies of food and timber, spells destruction . . . . . Let us remember that the empires of Babylon, Syria, Persia and Carthage were destroyed by the advance of floods and deserts caused by the increasing clearing of forests for farmland.”

Much more to the same effect could be quoted, but what has been given is sufficient, not only to emphasize the extreme importance that must be attached to trees in their influence upon climate, soil and fertility, but to reveal once more to our wondering eyes, how completely abreast of the times is the Word of the living God. He knew what man is but now learning through centuries of folly for food or ill man’s destiny was intimately associated with trees. 

When the great day of the Lord shall come and judgment is about to fall on the earth we read: 

“Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (Rev. vii. 3). 


When the storm breaks, we read: 

“The first angel sounded . . . . . and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up” (Rev. viii. 7). 

Again when the bottomless pit is opened and the scourge of supernatural locusts is let loose on the earth, we read: 

“And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads” (Rev. ix. 4). 

From whence came this knowledge of the superlative value of trees but from the Lord Himself?

The wisdom of Solomon is proverbial, and it is written that his wisdom excelled that of all the children of the east country and of Egypt, and of what did Solomon speak? 

“And he spake three thousand proverbs, and his sons were a thousand and five, and he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall” (I Kings iv. 29-34). 

The book of Psalms opens with the blessedness of the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, and says “He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water” (Psa. i. 3). Jeremiah uses the same figure to describe the man whose hope is in the Lord (Jer. xvii. 8). 

Much has been said by adverse critics of the Bible concerning the barbarity of the wars that are described in its pages, but moderns could learn with profit the humanitarian law of Deut. xx. 19: 

“When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof . . . . . thou shalt not cut them down to employ them in the siege (for the tree of the field is man’s life)” (Deut. xx. 19). 

Here again the recognition of the extreme value of trees in the law of Moses anticipates modern science by centuries. The purpose of the ages may be said to hang upon three trees: 

The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
The Tree upon which Christ was crucified. 

The Tree of Life. 

The curse came in with reference to the first, and it is written ‘no more curse’ when the last is made accessible. The middle one, the cross, is where Saviour was made a curse for us, as it is written “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. iii. 13). 

The book of Proverbs uses the figure of the “Tree of life” four times, and indeed speaks of a tree in no other way. There are two other occurrences of the Hebrews ets but these are translated ‘wood’ in relation to a fire. 

Wisdom. “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom . . . . . she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her” (Prov. iii. 13-18). 
Righteousness. “The righteous shall flourish as a branch (for ‘leaf’). The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life” (Prov. xi. 28-30). 
Desire. “When the desire cometh, it is a tree of life” (Prov. xiii. 12). 
Heading. “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life” (margin: The healing of the tongue) 

(Prov. xv. 4). “The tongue, as a healing thing” (Miller’s translation). 

These, together with Gen. ii. 9 and iii. 22, are all the passages of the O.T. that speak of the Tree of Life. To these we may add the three references that are found in the Revelation. 

“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. ii. 7). 

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the tree of life . . . . . the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev. xxii. 2). 

 “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (Rev. xxii. 14). The texts read ‘Wash their robes’ instead of ‘do His commandments’ stole ‘robe’ instead of entole. 

It will be seen that the tree of life does not stand for life in the abstract but in its outgoings. Wisdom that is held fast, righteousness that bears fruit, a healing tongue, and a fulfilled desire. 

Let us now turn to the record of Gen. ii. and iii.: 

“The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. ii. 9).


“Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it” (Gen. ii. 17). 

It will be observed that the tree of life is said to have been ‘in the midst of the garden’. Now when the woman refers to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she says “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden” which means either that the two trees stood together, side by side, or that the two trees must be considered as representing one thing from two aspects. 

How was it that neither Adam nor his wife partook of the tree of life? There was no prohibition, but two things seem clear from Gen. iii. 22: 

(1) Man had partaken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
(2) He might then have gone further and have taken of the tree of life, but was prevented. A flaming sword was placed at the east of the garden to keep the way of the tree of life. 

Let us summarize what we have elsewhere discovered regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. An undue emphasis upon evil is untrue, there should be as much stress laid upon the word ‘good’, and if every ‘good’ is balanced by an ‘evil’ and this is known, no thought of temptation, a bait or a snare is tolerable. Angels evidently know ‘good and evil’ and a comparison of II Sam. xiv. 17 and 20, will show ‘good and evil’ is synonymous with ‘all things’, and it is obvious that if one knew all that is good and all that is evil, he would have all knowledge.

That there were two trees in the midst of the garden, Gen. ii. 9, iii. 3 and iii. 22 make clear, but if we confine ourselves simply to ‘trees’ and pay no regard to meaning or typical teaching, of what interest can two trees planted centuries ago, be to us? It is what those two trees stand for, and the consequences of Adam’s attitude to the Divine prohibition that bears upon us all. How can we explain why it was that man in his innocency, did not put forth his hand and eat of the tree of life, and live for ever? What was to stop him? 

In our endeavour to find a reasonable explanation of this somewhat strange fact, our mind returns to the group of references to the tree of life in Proverbs. We observe that the coming of ‘desire’ is likened to a tree of life (Prov. xiii. 12) and that this word ‘desire’ is a translation of the same Hebrew word that comes in Gen. iii. 6 “pleasant (margin ‘a desire’) to the eyes”. We also note that ‘the desire accomplished is sweet to the soul’ (Prov. xiii. 19). We learn that ‘the desire of the righteous shall be granted’ (Prov. x. 24) and that ‘the desire of the righteous is only good’ (Prov. xi. 23). 

All desires, however, are not good, nor can their attainment be likened unto a tree of life. Some desires are but ‘coveting’, as Prov. xxi. 26 (margin) will show. Wisdom also is associated with the tree of life in Proverbs (iii. 13-18), and it will be remembered that when the woman saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she succumbed to the temptation. The word translated ‘wisdom’ in Prov. iii. 13 is defined by Wilson as among other things, ‘the discrimination of good and evil’. In following the ‘desire’ and seeking to be ‘wise’ our first parents did not fulfil one other condition indicated in Proverbs. They were not ‘righteous’ (Prov. xi. 30) for in taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they transgressed. It would appear that so far as the typical teaching is concerned, what needed two separate trees to set forth the truth, can be represented in the spirit by two aspects of the same action. 

Had our first parents obeyed God, desire would have been righteous and the tree of life would have been taken; but inasmuch as they disobeyed, desire was unrighteous and death came in its train. There is much more that lies behind the references to these two trees; but we shall be unable to include one or two equally important references if we stay longer. 

A tree is associated with the bearing of a curse (Deut. xxi. 23) and so points on to the ‘tree’ upon which the Saviour died the just for the unjust (Gal. iii. 13). In three passages in the Acts the cross of Christ is spoken of as a ‘tree’ (Acts v. 30; x. 39; xiii. 29), and is so called by Peter in his epistle (I Pet. ii. 24), who never mentions the word ‘cross’ once. Paul in Galatians speaks both of the ‘tree’, as it touched the Jew under the law, and the ‘cross’ as it touched Gentiles by nature. 

The ‘healing’ that is associated with the tree of life (Rev. xxii. 2) and the ‘healing’ brought about by the ‘tree’ shown to Moses (Exod. xv. 25) alike point to that salvation which was accomplished by the cross, for the word ‘salvation’ soteria is derived from sozo which is often used to speak of “healing” or making “whole” (Matt. ix. 21; Acts iv. 9, 12). 

When the prophet would describe the blessed change that will take place when the day of glory dawns, he finds the imagery of the trees at his hand. 

“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace . . . . . all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree” (Isa. lv. 12, 13).

“The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree and the box together . . . . . and I will make the place of My feet glorious” (Isa. lx. 13). 

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa. xxxv. 1).

“Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest” (Isa. xxxii. 15). 

“He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isa. xxvii. 6). 

Here then is another pleroma, a story of grace and glory caused by the trees of Scripture. Like the Apostle in another context, we are obliged to write ‘time would fail me’ to speak of the symbolism of “The Fig, the Vine and the Olive”, of the ‘uncorruptible’ or aseptic (LXX) trees from which the Ark was made (Exod. xxv. 10), or what is implied by the promise “as the days of a tree are the days of My people” (Isa. lxv. 22), or the ‘two olive trees’ of Zech. iv., or the parable of Jotham of Judg. ix. Neither can we ponder the question of resurrection with Job (xiv. 7), the pictures of antichristian pride assembled by Ezekiel (xxxi.), nor the vision of the great tree granted to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. iv.), but if the reader will but explore these sylvan stretches of inspired imagery, a wealth of refreshing truths will be gathered as from a veritable “tree of life”. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 42, page 227).

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The Pleroma (9) - Charles H. Welch

No.9. The more excellent name (Heb. i. 4). 

It is a part of the argument of the epistle to the Hebrews, that the Apostle shall establish a series of ‘better’ things, for he is exhorting his readers ‘to go on unto perfection’, and having been a Pharisee by conviction and a Hebrew by birth, he knew how strong was the hold upon the Jewish believer of the things that belonged to the past.

In the above outline, the thirteen occurrences of the word ‘better’ are grouped together, and their study is of course a theme in itself. We are concerned at the moment with the opening ‘better’ thing, but it will be impossible for us to forget that such a word is a key thought of the epistle, and that this must have a bearing upon its interpretation. 

The first ‘better’ thing of the epistle is the exaltation of Christ (“having become by so much better than angels, by how much having inherited a more excellent name than they”). This sentence has an un-English sound, and yet it brings out the comparison that is intended. The becoming better than the angels is not by virtue of the Lord’s deity. Looked at from the divine standpoint, He Who is addressed as God (verse 8), must of necessity be better than angels; but looked at from the human standpoint, He was made for a little while lower than the angels, and in that capacity as Son He could be and has been highly exalted. The measure of His excellence above angels is His inherited name: by how much He has inherited, by so much He is greater. 

The question then has to do with the inherited name. But first, we might pause to ask: Why should such an argument be necessary, and in what way does it contribute to the theme of the epistle?

Writing as he was to Hebrews, the Apostle had in mind their veneration of angels. Stephen alludes to the place that angels hold in Israel, in Acts vii. 53, “who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it”. The epistle to the Galatians says of the law, “it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator” (Gal. iii. 19). Some of the Jews went so far as to contend that Malachi, the last of the prophets was an angel, his name meaning ‘My messenger’ or ‘My angel’. It is part of the purpose of this epistle to place the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Son, far above every other name and dignity. To have commenced with Moses as the law-giver would not have gone back far enough; Moses the mediator received the law by the disposition of angels. It must therefore be shown that Christ is much better than they, to establish His complete superiority. The exaltation of the Lord to the right hand of the Majesty on high marks the time when the Son was given the name that is above every name. It was at the resurrection that He was declared ‘Son of God with power’; it was as the risen One that He claimed ‘all power’ in heaven and in earth; the superiority of the Son above angels is one of degree, ‘by so much’, and is to be understood in the light of His inherited name. The Lord Jesus by His birth at Bethlehem became ‘the Son of God’, for said the angel to Mary, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke i. 35). When the Word became flesh, then was seen the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. All through the spotless years of His life up to that dread crisis of the cross, the Father’s testimony remained true and unchanged, ‘This is My beloved Son’. He vindicated His claim to the name He bore, and the name becomes His by inheritance. 

In order to appreciate the emphasis that should be placed upon the ‘inherited’ name, we take this study a little further in the epistle, and not that in Heb. i. 14 the believer is spoken of as an ‘heir of salvation’. All who believe are saved, saved by grace through faith, but some (and this is one of the great themes of Hebrews), will receive salvation as an inheritance also. Christ died for the ungodly, He also learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and though from His birth, ‘Holy, harmless and undefiled’, He nevertheless was perfected through these sufferings, and became the Author of aionian salvation, not simply to those who believe, but to those who ‘obey’ Him (Heb. v. 7-9). Not only did He become the ‘Author’ but He became the ‘Finisher’ or ‘Perfecter’ of faith. “Who for the joy set before Him endured a cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God” (Heb. xii. 2). There is a ‘race’ to be run, not only a gospel to be believed. 

Those who thus inherit salvation, not only believe, but suffer, endure, run the race set before them, and ‘have respect unto the recompense of the reward’. It is useless to speak of glory where there is not life. It is equally useless to speak of an inheritance unless one is already a child “If children, then heirs” is the order of Scripture, and the epistle to the Hebrews does not teach the way of salvation for the ungodly sinner, but deals rather with the pilgrim journey of the saint, with the evil heart of unbelief that can possess a believer at times, of things that accompany salvation, of a salvation that may be inherited. 

Soteria “salvation” occurs in Hebrews seven times, and the occurrences are as follows: 

Heirs salvation (i. 14). 
Neglecting so great salvation (ii. 3). 
The Captain of salvation (ii. 10). 
The Author of aionian salvation (v. 9). 
Things that accompany salvation (vi. 9). 
Without sin unto salvation (ix. 28). 

Unto the salvation of his house (xi. 7). 

Salvation in its primary aspect is so removed from anything that the sinner can do, and is so infinitely beyond the touch of any failure on his part, that to speak of ‘neglecting’ is to misapply the word. Timothy could be urged not to neglect a gift which he already possessed (I Tim. iv. 14), and these Hebrews could be warned by the example of their fathers in the wilderness of the possibility of failing to reach salvation in its fullest meaning, and that is in view in Heb. ii. 3. 

No sinner is saved from the guilt of sin by Christ as a ‘Captain’. The figure that sets forth initial salvation is the Passover. Joshua is the type of the Captain of salvation, but he leads a redeemed people on to the promised possession, so the Captain of salvation in Heb. ii. 10 is seen ‘bringing many sons (not to life), but to glory’. So with the rest of the occurrences of ‘salvation’ in Hebrews. This is true even with the last which deals with Noah and the Flood. The ungodly were not saved in the Ark. Noah was a saved and justified believer, only eight souls were saved, and the rest of the world destroyed. One can no more use the Ark as a type of initial salvation than one can use the type of the ‘Captain’ of the salvation that will be manifested at His Second Coming (Heb. ix. 28). 

While salvation is found 7 times in Hebrews, the title “Saviour” does not occur. Acts v. 31 speaks of Him as ‘A Prince and a Saviour’. Hebrews retains the word ‘Prince’ (ii. 10; xii. 2, same Greek word) but omits the title ‘Saviour’. In the epistle He is Captain, Leader, High Priest and Perfecter, titles that deal with the land of promise rather than with the exodus from Egypt. 

Let us now turn our attention to Heb. i. 4: 

“Being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” 

Let us first of all note the terms of comparison ‘by so much’, ‘by how much’, represented in the A.V. of Heb. i. 4 by the words ‘so much’ and ‘as’. 

The Apostle employs ‘by so much’ again in Heb. vii. 22 where we read in connection with the Melchisedec priesthood ‘By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament’. The two words tosoutos and hosos came together in Heb. x. 25 “Exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching”. We do not need an inspired revelation to assure us that He Who is set forth as ‘Son’ and ‘Brightness of His glory’, ‘Express image of His person’, ‘Upholder of all things’, heir of all things and maker of the worlds, must of necessity be ‘better than angels’, and the epistle does not say any such unnecessary thing. What Hebrews is concerned to enforce is that he Who was so high, stooped so low, and as Man He became ‘lower than the angels’, but by virtue of His triumph over sin and death, that is by ‘inheritance’ and not by absolute inherent right, this same Redeemer has now been raised so much above angels as the inherited Name excels every name that is named in this world and that which is to come. For at the Name of Jesus every knee shall one day bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord. 

The Saviour as the Heir of all things, the One Who by reason of His finished work has obtained by inheritance the Name which is above every name, will not enjoy this inheritance alone. He was made one with those who shall share His glory that they may be made one with Him. They too become heirs of salvation, they too, by the exercise of faith and patience ‘inherit the promises’ (Heb. vi. 12) and find in both Noah and Abraham (Heb. xi. 7, 8) examples of that faith which is the substance of things hoped for. 

While the bulk of the references to angels occur in Heb. i. and ii., there are two other occurrences that must be included to complete the tale, namely Heb. xii. 22 and xiii. 2. Heb. xii. 5-24 is occupied with a twofold theme: “sons” 5-14, “firstborn sons” 15-24. The first section speaks of that in which all partake if they be true children; the second speaks of that which relates only to the firstborn. 

The structure of this second section is as follows: 

The section opens with a warning: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God”. It does not say ‘fall from the grace of God’, but ‘fail of the grace of God’. Hustereo ‘to come short’ occurs in Heb. iv. 1, and that passage partially explains what we are considering here: “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” The context speaks of Israel’s forty years’ wandering in the wilderness, and their failure, though redeemed, to ‘go on unto perfection’. We are not dealing with sonship, but with birthright; not salvation, but possession, not deliverance from Egypt, but entry into Canaan. The warning is for the Hebrews who, like their fathers and like Esau, were in danger of drawing back, turning aside, losing the heavenly for the sake of the earthly. Heb. viii. 7 continues, ‘Then should no place have been sought for the second’, showing that the two covenants are here in view. The Apostle now brings before the mind the two mountains, Sinai and Sion, which are explained in Gal. iv. as representing the two covenants, Sinai standing for ‘Jerusalem that now is, and is in bond age with her children’, and Sion for ‘Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother’ (Gal. iv. 21-23 R.V.). 

We have in Heb. xii. 18-21 Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, and in Heb. xii. 22-24 Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and it is under the new covenant, and not under the old, that the birthright can be enjoyed. 

The figure called Polysyndeton (or ‘many ands’), is employed in the description of both covenants. Let us notice it: 

“For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, AND that burned with fire, AND unto blackness, AND darkness, AND tempest, AND the sound of a trumpet, AND the voice of words.” 

“But ye are come unto Mount Sion, AND unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, AND to myriads of angels, a full assembly, AND to a church of firstborn ones having been enrolled in heaven, AND to God the Judge of all, AND to the spirits of righteous ones having been perfected, AND to the Mediator of the new covenant—Jesus, AND to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” 

It will be seen that a due observation of these ‘ands’ will help us to keep each feature in its place. 

The A.V. leads one to read “To the general assembly and church of the firstborn”, as tough it were one company. Paneguris, the word translated ‘general assembly’, means an assembly met together for some festal or joyful occasion, and the construction of the passage necessitates the translation: “And to myriads, a festal assembly of angels.”

We learn that myriads of angels were associated with Sinai and the giving of the law: “The chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place” (Psa. lxviii. 17; see also Deut. xxxiii. 2). If these angels were at mount Sinai, they will also be at mount Sion, and there they will be a ‘festal assembly’, for ‘the marriage of the Lamb’ will have come. 

This church is the church of the firstborn, a special company, those who did not despise their birthright, nor barter it away for a morsel of meat. This same company is referred to as ‘The spirits of just men made perfect’, each expression having been used in the context of chapters xi. or xii. In xii. 9 we read of “The Father of spirits”; in x. and xi. ‘the righteous’ are in view (x. 38; xi. 4, 7, 8), and in xi. 40 it is their perfecting: “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should be perfected.” 

The close association of the ‘better thing’, the ‘better country’, and the ‘better resurrection’, with this perfecting shows that here in Heb. xii. we are taken to that time when the church of the firstborn shall be completed and enter into its inheritance. Here Abraham will set foot in that city for which he looked; Moses will receive that reward unto which he had respect; all who believed, yet died, not having received the promise, will enter into their birthright. The Mediator is not Moses, neither is the blood the blood of bulls and goats; Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant, and this blood of sprinkling speaks better things than that of Abel. 

The heavenly Sion is before the Apostle right through the epistle. The ‘so great salvation’ of ii. 3 is connected with the ‘world to come’ of which the Apostle spoke in ii. 5, and the ‘glory’ unto which the Captain of salvation was leading (ii. 10). The words: “He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (ii. 11), the thought of the Captain being ‘perfected’ through sufferings (ii. 10), find their echo in the words: “God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city”, and the ‘perfecting’ of the spirits of just men in xi. 16; xii. 23. 

It was toward this goal that the Apostle urged the Hebrew believers to ‘go on unto perfection’. The ‘weight’ which they were counseled to ‘lay aside’ would include those things mentioned in vi. 2, a passage we have already seen in close connection with Esau and his vain seeking for repentance (vi. 4-6; xii.16, 17). 

By assembling the different passages together in the epistle to the Hebrews where an inheritance is in view, we realize something of the purport of chapter i. 4. He, the Lord, is the great Inheritor, and all who follow in His steps, who run with patience the race set before them, will not only be saved by grace, but ‘inherit’ salvation, ‘inherit’ promises, and ‘reign’ as well as live with Him in glory. 

What the glory of the world was over which the angels had authority we can only guess; we know however, that as surely as Christ has by His finished Work obtained a more excellent name than they, so surely will the inheritance that is His excel in glory. This is once again the outworking of that principle which we have seen all along, the principle of the Pleroma. 

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 42, page 222).

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The Pleroma (8) - Charles H. Welch

 

No.8. Angels, their relation with the 

Divine Purpose as indicated in Heb. i. and ii. 

In our last study together we did little more than to sort out the usage of the word ‘angel’, observing the different words that are so translated both in the A.V. and the LXX. With the information thus gathered, we can now devote our time to those passages which treat of the place that the angels have had in the past and may yet have in the working out of the Divine purpose in the future, and how far man is intended under grace to take the place, or ‘fill the gap’ that the default of the angels occasioned in the beginning. No book of the N.T. treats with this matter so thoroughly as does the epistle to the Hebrews, and therefore to that epistle we now turn. 

It is impossible to read Heb. i. and ii. with any attention, and fail to be impressed by the fact that the argument of these chapters is most intimately linked together by the references to angels which abound in this part of the epistle. A brief analysis of this section is as follows: 

The epistle in these two chapters compares and contrasts the ministry of the prophets and of angels with the ministry of the Son, and uses the word ‘angel’ ten times in this brief compass. Not only so, the argument of chapter i. is enforced by the quotation of seven Psalms, which quotation is distributed in such a way as to compel the reader to admit the presence of a plan and design.

The argument of this chapter is further enforced by two questions: 

“For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son?” (5). 

“But to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand?” (13), 

and to remember of the passage quoted and the whole purpose of the chapter is to provide the answer. We must now return to the beginning of this epistle and see how and with what terms these comparisons with angels are introduced. Over against the revelation given in times past through the instrumentality of the prophets, the Apostle places the immeasureable superiority of the ministry of the Son. In chapter iii. Christ as the Son is set over against Moses the servant (iii. 6) and Jesus the Son of God is set forth as the great High Priest Who has ‘passed through the heavens’ (iv. 14), and as the Son, He is consecrated for evermore (vii. 28). 

We have already learned that angels are called ‘sons of God’, and consequently it may appear at first reading that the language of the Apostle is a little forced, but we are dealing with the inspired Scriptures and know before we go any further that no such conclusion is possible. The contrast between angels and the Saviour is not so much between One who is a Son and those who are not, but a contrast between those who are sons by creation, and the One Who is called “The only-begotten Son”, for Heb. i. 5 not only says “Unto which of the angles said He at any time, ‘Thou art My Son’, but ‘Thou art My Son; this day have I BEGOTTEN Thee’.” 

We must therefore pursue this subject further. Christ is called ‘The only-begotten Son’ four times in John’s Gospel (John i. 14, 18; iii. 16, 18), and once in the first epistle (I John iv. 9). When reading these passages we are not conscious of any problem as we read of the Saviour as the only begotten Son—but the moment we add the final reference to this term, a problem presents itself. 

“By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” (Heb. xi. 17). Now it is a matter of common knowledge that Abraham was the father, not only of Isaac, but of Ishmael (Gen. xvi. 15) and of other children by Keturah (Gen. xxv. 1). Unless therefore some factor is implied though unexpressed, Heb. xi. 17 presents a difficulty. As we discovered, so we find words employed in the context of Heb. xi. 17 that enable us to perceive something yet more wonderful in the title of the Lord. Abraham is spoken of as ‘he that had received the promise’, and of the son whom he offered it had been said ‘That in Isaac shall thy seed be called’ (Heb. xi. 17, 18). Ishmael was as truly begotten by Abraham as was Isaac, but Ishmael is called ‘the son of a bondwoman’ but Sarah herself as well as Abraham was given a promise by the Lord: 

“Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged Him faithful Who had promised” (Heb. xi. 11). 

Sarah too was peculiarly distinguished by the changing of her name, even as was Abraham (Gen. xvii. 5, 14, 16). It is moreover written that the Lord ‘visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoke’ (Gen. xxi. 1). Sarah was in the blessed line of the true seed, and so carried the promise of Eden forward towards its goal. 

Gennao the verb translated ‘to beget’ is used of the mother also, and is then translated ‘to conceive’, ‘be delivered of’, ‘bear’, ‘be born’, ‘be made’ and ‘to bring forth’. For example: 

“Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus Who is called Christ” (Matt. i. 16). 

The word translated ‘only-begotten’ is monogenes, and refers to the birth of the Saviour in the fullness of time ‘made of a woman’ (Gal. iv. 4). Another comfortable title is found in Heb. i. 6 ‘First-begotten’ which in the original is prototokos. 

“And again, when He bringeth in the First-begotten into the world He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him.” 

Translators are divided regarding the intention of the Apostle here. The A.V. ‘and again’ makes verse 6 another link in the chain of references quoted by the Apostle. The R.V. “And when He again” makes the word ‘again’ refer to the future. 

We observe that the word translated ‘world’ in this verse is the Greek oikoumene ‘the habitable world’, and that this word occurs once more in Hebrews, namely in chapter ii., where we read: 

“For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak” (Heb. ii. 5). 

By reading these two references together, it appears that the world to come will be subjected to Christ as the Firstborn, and not to the angels, and that moreover, the angels will at that great investiture ‘worship Him’. He is ‘the Firstborn of all creation’, ‘the Firstborn from the dead’, ‘the Firstborn among many brethren’. Pre-eminence as the ‘first’ is uppermost in the word prototokos. 

Further comparisons are made in Heb. i. between Christ as the Son and angels. Angels are spirits who minister, but the Son is addressed by the title “God”, and has a ‘throne’ and ‘sceptre’. Not only so He occupies a unique position at the right hand of God, a position never occupied by an angel ‘at any time’. In our next article we shall pursue this theme further. 

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(From The Berean Exxpositor, vol. 42, page 219).

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