ts
complete inconsistency with the Christian idea of the person and work of
the Mediator. For the Hebrew conception of God, as the "I AM," tended
more and more in the lapse of ages to sever Him from all immediate
contact with created beings. It would be the natural boast of the Jews
that Jehovah dwelt in unapproachable light. They would point to the
contrast between Him and the human gods of the Greeks. An ever-deepening
consciousness of sin and spiritual gloom would strengthen the conviction
that the Lord abode behind the veil, and their conception of God would
of necessity react on their consciousness of sin. If, therefore, God is
the absolute Being--so argued the Gnostics of the day--He cannot be the
actual Creator of the world. We must suppose the existence of an
emanation or a series of emanations from God, every additional link in
the chain being less Divine, until we arrive at the material universe,
where the element of Divinity is entirely lost. These emanations are the
angels, the only possible mediators between God and men. Some theories
came to a stand at this point; others took a further step, and
worshipped the angels, as the mediators also between men and God. Thus
the angels were regarded as messengers or apostles from God and
reconcilers or priests for men. St. Paul has already rejected these
notions in his Epistle to the Colossians. He teaches that the Son of
God's love is the visible image of the invisible God, prior to all
creation and by right of primogeniture Heir of all, Creator of the
highest angels, Himself being before they came into existence. Such He
is before His assumption of humanity. But it pleased God that in Him,
also as God-Man, all the plenitude of the Divine attributes should
dwell; so that the Mediator is not an emanation, neither human nor
Divine, but is Himself God and Man.[8]

Recent expositors have sufficiently proved that there was a Judaic
element in the Colossian heresy. We need not, therefore, hesitate to
admit that the Epistle to the Hebrews contains references to the same
error. Our author acknowledges the existence of angels. He declares that
the Law was given through angels, which is a point not touched upon more
than once in the Old Testament, but seemingly taken for granted, rather
than expressly announced, in the New. Stephen reproaches the Jews, who
had received the Law as the ordinances of angels, with having betrayed
and murdered the Righteous One, of Whom the Law a