s the real
builder, though he employs masons and joiners to put the materials
together according to his plan. This applies to the subject in hand; for
God is the Architect of all things. He realises His own ideas as well
through the seeming originality of thinkers as through the willing
obedience of workers. Now, the dispensation of the old covenant was one
part of God's design. To build this portion of the house He found a
faithful servant in Moses. The dispensation of the new covenant is but
another, though more excellent, part of the same design; and Jesus was
not less faithful to finish the structure. The unity of the design was
in the mind of God.

Moses was faithful when he refused the treasures of Egypt, and chose
affliction with the people of God and the reproach of His Christ. He was
faithful when he chid the people in the wilderness for their unbelief,
and when he interceded for them again with God. Christ also was faithful
to His God when He despised the shame and endured the Cross.

Yet we must acknowledge a difference. God has accounted Jesus worthy of
greater honour than Moses, inasmuch as Moses was part of the house, and
that part the pre-existent Christ erected. Moses was "made" all that he
became by Christ, but Christ was "made"[41] all that He
became--God-Man--by God. Moreover, though Moses was greater than all the
other servants of God before Christ, because they were placed in
subordinate positions, while he was faithful in the _whole_ house, yet
even he was but a servant, whereas Christ was Son. Moses was in the
house, it is true; but the Son was placed over the house. The work which
Moses had to do was to uphold the authority of the Son, to witness, that
is, to the things which would afterwards be spoken unto us by God in His
Son, Jesus Christ.[42]

The Apostle seems to delight in his illustration of the house, and
continues to use it with a fresh meaning. This house, or, if you please,
this household, are we Christians. We are the house in which Moses
showed the utmost faithfulness as servant. We are the circumcision, we
the true Israel of God. If, then, we turn away from Christ to Moses,
that faithful servant himself will have none of us. That we may be God's
house, we must lay fast hold of our Christian confidence and the
boasting of our hope out-and-out to the end.

2. Again, the threatenings of the Old Testament for disobedience to God
apply with full force to apostasy from Christ. They ar