even when they
seem to fly for refuge to His Law.

[R] For this use of [Greek: echomen] compare Rom. v. 1, where the best
supported reading gives [Greek: echomen eirenen].

Thus the great concatenated passage concludes with one of the most
formidable of Scripture utterances. But let us boldly gather peace and
hope even from this word of fire. For what is the true message of the
verses we have traversed, when we look back and sum them up? It is the
glory, the fulness, the living richness, the abundant lovingkindness,
the supreme and absolute finality, of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is our Lord Himself, the perfect and ultimate revelation of
the grace and peace of God. And the fiery jealousy of the close, the
warning that we shall lose our souls if we "decline" the blessed Son,
what does it mean as to His Father's heart? That He so loves the Son,
and so loves us, that He adjures us by all His terrors as well as all
His mercies never to turn for refuge for one hour away from the
all-perfect Christ.

CHAPTER XII

APPEALS AND INSTRUCTIONS

HEB. xiii. 1-14

The last chapter of the Epistle has a character quite of its own. Unlike
many of those often arbitrary divisions of the New Testament books which
we know as chapters, it is a naturally separate section. The long and
sustained arguments are over. The Writer's thoughts, gravitating to a
close, and occupied naturally as they do so with the personal conditions
of his Hebrew brethren, attach themselves now to one now to another side
of their duties, their difficulties, their more particular and detailed
needs, practical and spiritual. As he touches upon these, sentence by
sentence, we often see at a glance the probable occasion of the words,
but often again we are left in the dark about it. Who shall say
precisely why he insists (ver. 2) upon the exercise of hospitality? or
who were "the prisoners" (ver. 3) whom he bids them remember? Who shall
tell what in this particular community was the occasion for a solemn
emphasis (ver. 4) upon the holiness of marriage, or why again, just for
them, it was well to speak in warning (ver. 5) about the love of money
and the temptation to discontent? Nor can we be certain who were those
departed "leaders," "guides," of ver. 7, whose "faith" the disciples
were to "imitate," whose blessed "exit from their walk of life" they
were to "contemplate."

All we can say of these opening topics of the chapter is that, whate