The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the HebrewsEdwards, Thomas Charles
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews
Edwards, Thomas Charles
Bible. Hebrews -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
One difference between the Old Testament and the New is the comparative
silence of the former respecting Moses and the frequent mention of him
in the latter. When he has brought the children of Israel through the
wilderness to the borders of the promised land, their great leader is
seldom mentioned by historian, psalmist, or prophet. We might be tempted
to imagine that the national life of Israel had outgrown his influence.
It would without question be in a measure true. We may state the same
thing on its religious side by saying that God hid the memory as well as
the body of his servant, in the spirit of John Wesley’s words, happily
chosen for his and his brother’s epitaph in Westminster Abbey, “God
buries His workmen and carries on His work.” But in the New Testament it
is quite otherwise. No man is so frequently mentioned. Sometimes when he
is not named it is easy to see that the sacred writers have him in their
minds.
One reason for this remarkable difference between the two Testaments in
reference to Moses is to be sought in the contrast between the earlier
and later Judaism. During the ages of the old covenant Judaism was a
living moral force. It gave birth to a peculiar type of heroes and
saints. Speaking of Judaism in the widest possible meaning, David and
Isaiah, as well as Samuel and Elijah, are its children. These men were
such heroes of religion that the saints of the Christian Church have not
dwarfed their greatness. But it is one of the traits of a living
religion to forget the past, or rather to use it only as a
stepping-stone to better things. It forgets the past in the sense in
which St. Paul urges the Philippians to count what things were gain a
loss, and to press on, forgetting the things which are behind, and
stretching forward to the things which are before. Religion lives in its
conscious, exultant power to create spiritual heroes, not in looking
back to admire its own handiwork. The only religion among men that lives
in its founder is Christianity. Forget Christ, and Christianity ceases
to be. But the life of Mosaism was not bound up with the memory of
Moses. Otherwise we may well suppose that idolatry would have crept in,
even before Hezekiah found it necessary to destroy the brazen serpent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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