rly
unknown to us, that passage is precious in its principles, true for all
time, of remembrance and appeal. It consecrates the fidelity of the
Christian memory. It assures us that to cherish the names, the words,
the conduct, the holy lives, the blessed deaths, of our teachers of days
long done is no mere indulgence of unfruitful sentiment. It is natural
to the Gospel, which, just because it is the message of an unspeakably
happy future, also sanctifies the past which is the living antecedent to
it. Just because we look with the love of hope towards "our gathering
together unto Him," we are to turn with the love of memory towards all
the gifts of God given to us through the holy ones with whom we look to
be "gathered together." "The exit of their walk of life" (ver. 7) is to
be our study, our meditation. We are to "look it up and down" ([Greek:
anatheorountes]) as we would some great monument of victory, and from
that contemplation we are to go back into life, to "imitate their
faith," to do just what they did, treating (xi. 1) the unseen as
visible, the hoped-for as present and within our embrace. Thank God for
this authorization and hallowing of our recollections. Precious indeed
is its assurance that the sweetness of them (for all its ineffable
element of sadness, as eyes and ears are hungry for the faces and the
voices gone, for the look and tone of the preacher, the teacher, through
whom we first knew the Lord, or knew Him better) is no half-forbidden
luxury of the soul but a means of victorious grace.

But now comes in a passage of the chapter which more obviously tells its
own story of occasion and aim. The Writer recurs to the supreme theme of
the Epistle, the antithesis between the Lord Jesus, with His finished
work and absolute permanence, and the transitory antecedents of the
older dispensation. Once more the Hebrews are to remember His eternity,
His eternal personal identity, unbeginning and without end (ver. 8); He
is "the same, yesterday, and to-day, and unto the ages." Before all
types and preparations, before law, and ritual, and prophecy, He is.
When, having done their long work, they cease, He still is. Over the
glory of His being and character passes no "shadow of turning." Never to
the endless ages shall He need to be other than He is, or to be
succeeded by a greater. "JESUS, MESSIAH"; He is Alpha; He is also
Omega. The whole alphabet of revelation between the first letter and
the last does but spel