Hebrews 13:7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken to you the word of God: whose faith follow… Sameness is not a quality of things much loved for its own sake. In common things we soon grow wearied of sameness, and the whole earthly system of things is founded on the principle of variety and change. In what department of this universe shall we find immobility? Take your stand on the quietest day in the stillest place you can find — change is going on around you with every moment of time, so restless is nature down to its very heart. The same law holds in providence. Indeed, there could be no providence without change; no providing and no rule would be possible if no new circumstances arose. The same constitution of things holds in the higher sphere of man's moral progress and religious life. We make progress only in change — we put off the old and put on the new — we learn and unlearn — we fall and rise again; and as nature and providence are never the same on two successive days, so our souls are never in exactly the same moral state on one day as they were on the day before. The prayer of every Christian heart is: "Oh! unchanging One, let me change from day to day, until I gain Thine image and reach Thy presence!" And may we not believe this to be the prayer of angels too? Are they not thirsting for change " from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord? "And yet many hearts thrill with a sacred joy on hearing the words, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." How comes it that when we are pleased and profited by variety everywhere else, we are conscious of a sublime satisfaction in finding fixedness here? Is it not because we are created to find rest and portion only in God? Behind all changes in nature we press to unchanging power and law, and feel that these can reside only in an unchanging God. The text is a declaration of the immutability of Jesus Christ, and so takes for granted His divinity. It can be said of no creature that he is the same yesterday and to-day. That language can only have reference to a Divine Being, and it can only he with regard to His Divine qualities that Jesus Christ can be said to be immutable. In fact, He is not the same yesterday and to-day in the forms and aspects of His existence. In these there has been great change. He was "with God," then with man, now with God again. In regard to these visible, sensible manifestations, Jesus Christ is different to-day from what He was yesterday, and (we speak with reverence), for anything said in the Scriptures, He may be different to-morrow from what He is to-day. Some such change may be suggested in 1 Corinthians 15:24, 28. But these mortal, formal changes, whatever they are, do not affect the substantial meaning of the text. Jesus Christ, in all that constitutes His personality and in all that pertains to His character, is the same, and cannot change. In His will, in His purposes, in His principles, in His affections, He is for ever the same. These things constitute being and character, and these in Him are without change. (A. Raleigh, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. |
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