] of a fire, already kindling around
the doomed city, warns the Hebrew backsliders that the Christ so
wilfully scoffed at is at the door. Observe the contrast. The law of
Moses is on occasion set aside. The matter is almost private. Only two
or three persons witnessed it.[228] Its evil influence did not spread,
and when the criminal was led out to be stoned to death, they who passed
by went their way unheeding. The Christ of God is put to an open
shame;[229] the covenant, for ever established on the sure foundation of
God's oath and Christ's death, and the spirit of all grace that filled
the heart of Christ are mocked. Of how much sorer punishment shall
Christ at His speedy coming deem the scorner worthy? The answer is left
by the Apostle to his readers. They knew with Whom they had to do.[230]
It was not with angels, the swift messengers and flaming ministers of
His power. It was not with Moses, who himself exceedingly feared and
quaked.[231] It was not with the blind pressure of fate. They had to do
with the living God Himself directly. He will lay upon them His living
hand,--the hand that might and, if they had not spurned it, would have
protected and saved. Retribution descends swift and resistless. It can
only be likened to a sudden falling into the very hands of a waiting
avenger.[232] He will not entrust the work of vengeance to another. No
extraneous agent shall come between the smiting hand and the heart that
burns with the anger of the sincere against the false, of the
compassionate against the pitiless. Does not Scripture teach that the
Lord will execute judgment on behalf of His people?[233] If on behalf of
His people, will He not enter into judgment for His Son?

From the terrible expectation of future judgment the Apostle turns away,
to recall to his readers the grounds of hope supplied by their
steadfastness in the past. He has already spoken of their work and the
love which they had shown in ministering to the saints.[234] God's
justice would not forget their brotherly kindness. Now, however, His
purpose in bidding them remember the former days is something different.
He writes to convince them that they needed no other and greater
confidence to face the future than had carried them triumphantly through
conflicts in days of yore. They had endured sufferings; let them conquer
their own indifference and put away their cynicism with the lofty
disdain of earnest faith. The courage that could do the former can