is enemies
be made His footstool." And His Israel on their part wait (ver. 28),
"expecting," till in that bright promised day "He appears, the second
time, without sin," unencumbered by the burthen He once carried for
them, "unto salvation," the salvation which means the final glory.
"Once, only once"--this is the sublime law of that Sacrifice and that
Offering. As death for us men comes "once," and then there follows
"judgment," so the death of Christ, the "offering" of Christ, comes
"once," and then comes, in a wonderful paradox, not judgment but
"salvation," for them that are found in Him.

[J] So, with the late Professor Scholefield (_Hints on a New
Translation_) I venture to render [Greek: tou diathemenou]. I am
convinced that this rendering, though it has the serious difficulty of
lacking any clear parallel to certify the application of [Greek:
diathemenou], is necessitated by the connexion.

The messages of this chapter for our time are equally manifest and
weighty. It closes with the assertion of a principle which should be for
all time decisive against all sorts and forms of "re-presentation" of
the Lord our Sacrifice. He has "offered" Himself once and for ever, and
is now, on our behalf, not in the Presence only but upon the Throne. Yet
more urgent, more vital, if possible, is the affirmation here of the
need and of the virtue of His vicarious death. The chapter puts His
blood-shedding before us in a way as remote as possible from a mere
example, or from a suffering meant to do its work mainly by a mysterious
impartation to us of the power to suffer. He dies "for the redemption of
the transgressions under the first covenant"--in other words, for the
welcome back to God of those who had sinned against His awful Law. He
dies that we, "the called," "might receive the promise of an eternal
inheritance." He dies, He offers, that we, wholly and solely because He
has done so, may find the heavenly, invisible, spiritual Holiest a place
of perfect peace with God, dwelling in it as in our spirits' home.

Are these the characteristic accents of the voice of the modern Church?
Have we not need to listen again, reverent and believing, to the ninth
chapter of the Hebrews, as it discourses about sanctuary, and sacrifice,
and offering, and peace?

CHAPTER VII

FULL, PERFECT, AND SUFFICIENT

HEB. x.

The heaven-taught Teacher has led us now along the avenue of the
Levitical fore-shadowings, through the prophet