The Soul of Man, Part 8
TEXT.
Heb. 12.23.
— foreign
— And to the Spirits of just Men made perfect.
THE particular scope of this context falls in with the general design of the whole Gospel, which is to perswade men to a life of Holiness. The matter of the exhortation is most weighty, and the Arguments inforcing it most powerful: he doth not talk, but dispute; he doth not say, but prove that greater and more powerful engagements unto holiness lye upon those who live under the Gospel, than upon the people who lived under the Law. And thus the Argument lies in this Context.
If God at the delivering of the Law upon Mount Sinai strictly enjoyned and required so great Purity and Holiness in that people,Exod. 19.10. signified by the Ceremonies of two days preparation, the washing of their cloaths, abstinence from conjugal society, &c. much more doth he require and expect it in us who are come under a much more excellent and Heavenly dispensation than theirs was.
To make good the sequel, he compares the legal and the evangelical Dispensations in many particulars, verse 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. giving the Gospel the preference throughout the whole Collation.
In summ, the priviledges of the New Testament-Believers are here stated, both negatively, and positively.
1. Negatively, by shewing what we are exempted from.
2. Positively, shewing what we are come unto.
First, Negatively, What we are exempted or freed from, verse 18, 19, 20, 21. We are not come unto the Mount that might be touched, &c. The summ of all is this, that the promulgation of the Law was accompanied with amazing dread and terror. For after Moses by command from God had sanctified the Mount, and set Rails about it, that neither Priest, nor People, Man nor Beast, might touch the very borders of it, lest they dye: the Lord descended in fire upon the top of the Mountain the third day in the morning, with most terrible tokens of Divine Majesty, sc. with Thundrings, Lightnings, dark clouds, and the noise of a Trumpet exceeding loud; the Mount was covered with smoak, as the smoak of a Furnace, and flames mounting up unto the midst of Heaven,Crebris micat ignibus ather. the whole Mountain shaking and trembling exceedingly: out of this horrid Tempest the awful voice of God was heard, all the people in the Camp trembling, yea and Moses himself quaking for fear.
This was the manner of the Laws Promulgation: but to such a terrible Dispensation as this we are not come, which is the negative part of our priviledge.
Secondly, He opens the positive priviledges, to which we are come.
(1) Ye are come, (saith he) to mount Sion, not the Earthly, but the Spiritual Sion. Mount Sion was the place celebrated above all the World for the Worship of God, Psal. 87.7. All my springs (saith God) are in thee. There was the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, the glory of the Lord dwelling between the Cherubims. The Priests that attended the service of God, had their residence there, as the Angels have in Heaven. Thither the Tribes went up from all quarters of Iudea, Psal. 84. as the children of God now do to Heaven from all Quarters of the World. Iudea was the best Kingdom in the World; Ierusalem the best City in that Kingdom; and Sion the most glorious place in that City. Here Christ taught his heavenly Doctrine; near to it he finished his glorious work of Redemption. Hence, the everlasting Gospel went forth into all the world: and on these considerations its put to signifie the Gospel-Church or State in this place, and is therefore called the heavenly Ierusalem in the following words. We do not come to the literal Sion, nor to the earthly Ierusalem; but to the Gospel Church, or State, which may be called an Heaven upon earth, compared with that literal Ierusalem.
(2) Ye are come to an innumerable company of Angels.] Gr. to myriads of Angels, foreign, Hellenistae dicunt foreign ▪ sine alio additamento, ad significandam innumeram multitudinem Grot.a myriad is ten thousand; but myriads in the plural number and set down indefinitely too, may note many millions of Angels: and therefore we fitly tender it, to an innumerable company of Angels.
They had the ministry of Angels as well as we, thousands of them ministred to the Lord in the dispensation of the Law at Sinai, Psal. 68.17. But this notwithstanding, we are come to a much clearer knowledge both of their present Ministry for us on earth, Heb. 1.14. and of our fellowship and equality with them in Heaven, Luke 20.36.
(3) Ye are come to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, whose names are written (or enrolled) in Heaven.] This also greatly commends and amplifies the priviledges of New Testament-Believers; the Church of God in former ages was circumscribed and shut up within the narrow limits of one small Kingdom, which was as a garden inclosed out of a waste wilderness: but now by the calling in of the Gentiles the Church is extended far and wide, Eph. 3.5, 6. It is become a great Assembly comprizing the Believers of all Nations under Heaven; and so speaking of them collectively, it is the general convention or Assembly, which is also dignified and ennobled by two illustrious characters, viz. (1) that it is the Church of the first-born, (i. e.) consisting of Members dignified and priviledged above others,Primogeniti Israelitarum scripti crant in matricula terrestri, hi vero in albo coelesti. as the first-born among the Israelites did excel their younger Brethre… (2) That their names are written in Heaven, (i. e.) registred or enrolled in Gods book as Children and Heirs of the Heavenly inheritance, as the first-born in Israel were registred in order to the Priesthood, Num ▪ 3.40, 41.
(4) Ye are come to God the Iudge of all.] But why to God the Judge? this seems to spoil the harmony, and jar with the other parts of the discourse. No, no; they are come to God as a righteous Judge, who as such will pardon them, 1 Iohn 1.9. crown them. 2 Tim. 4.8. and avenge them on all their oppressing and persecuting Enemies, 1 Thes. 1.5, 6, 7.
(5) And to the Spirits of just men made perfect.] A most glorious priviledge indeed in which we are distinctly to consider
1. The quality of those with whom we are associated or taken into fellowship.
2. The way and manner of our association with them.
1. The Quality of those with whom we are associated, or to whom we are said to be come, and they are described by three characters
viz. (1)
(1) Spirits of Men.
viz. (2)
Spirits of just Men.
viz. (3)
Spirits of just Men perfected or consummated.
(1) They are called Spirits, that is, immaterial substances, strictly opposed to Bodies, which are no way the objects of our exteriour Senses, neither visible to the eye, nor sensible to the touch, which were called properly Souls whilst they animated Bodies in this lower World; but now being loosed and separated from them by death, and existing alone in the World above, they are properly and strictly stiled Spirits.
(3) They are the Spirits of just Men.] Man may be termed just two ways, (1) by a full discharge and acquittance from the guilt of all his sins, and so believers are just men even whilst they live on Earth groaning under other imperfections, Acts 13.39. or (2) by a total freedom from the pollution of any sin. And though in this sence there is not a just man upon Earth, that doth good, and sinneth not, Eccles. 7.22. yet even in this sense Adam was just before the Fall, Eccles. 7.29. according to his original constitution, and all believers are so, in their glorified condition, all sin being perfectly purged out of them, and its existence utterly destroyed in them. On which account
(3) They are called the Spirits of just men made perfect,] or consummate. The word perfect is not here to be understood absolutely, but synecdochically they are not perfect in every respect; for one part of these just Men lies rotting in the grave, but they are perfected, for so much as concerns their Spirit, though the flesh perish and lie in dishonour; yet their Spirits being once loosed from the Body, and freed radically and perfectly from sin, are presently admitted to the facial vision and fruition of God, which is the culminating point (as I may call it) higher than which the Spirit of man aspires not, and attaining to this it is for so much as concerns it self, made perfect. Even as a Body at last lodg'd in its centre, gravitates no more, but is at perfect rest; so it is with the Spirit of man come home to God in glory, 'tis now consummate, no more need to be done to make it as perfectly happy as it is capable to be made, which is the first thing to be considered, viz, the Quality of those with whom we are associated.
2. The second follows, namely, the way and manner of our association with these blessed Spirits of just Men, noted i… this expression, we are come.] He saith not, we shall come, hereafter, when the Resurrection hath restored our Bodies, or after the general Judgment; but we are come to these Spirits of just Men. The meaning whereof we may take up in these three particulars.
(1) We that live under the Gospel-light, are come to a clearer apprehension, sight and knowledge of the blessed and happy estate of the Souls of the righteous after death, than ever they had, or ordinarily could have who lived under the Types and shadows of the Law, Eph. 3.4, 5. And so we are come to them, in respect of clearer apprehension.
(2) We are come to those blessed Spirits in our Representative, Christ, who hath carried our nature into the very midst of them, and whom they all behold, with highest admiration and delight. By Christ who is entred into that holy place where these Spirits of just Men live, we are come into a near relation with them. For he being the common head both to them in Heaven, and to us on Earth; we and they consequently make but one Body or society, Eph. 2.19. whereupon (notwithstanding the different and remote Countries they and we live in) we are said to sit together with them in Heavenly places, Ephes. 3.15. and Ephes. 2.6.
(3) We are come.] That is, we are as good as come, or we are upon the matter come; there remains nothing betwixt them and us but a puff of breath, a little space of time which shortens every moment; we are come to the very borders of their Country, and there is nothing to speak of, betwixt them and us: and by this expression we are come, he teacheth us to account and reckon those things as present, which so shortly will be present to us, and to look upon them as if they already were, which is the highest and most comfortable life of Faith we can live on Earth. Hence the Note is,