Hebrews 13:8

ALWAYS THE SAME

‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’

Hebrews 13:8

You will observe the accuracy of the words and the exact force of the expression. It is not ‘yesterday, and to-day, and to-morrow,’ though that would be the natural sequence; but all the past is a yesterday’; and the oldest among us will best appreciate the word.

I. The past.—To read the ‘yesterday’ of Jesus, we must go back to that time, before the corner-stone of this world was laid, when, in far anticipation of all the ruin that should befall us, He planned His advent of love and blessing—‘Then said I’—O where is that ‘then’?—what millions of ages back!—‘ Then said I, Lo, I come!’

II. The present.—And what ‘ to-day’? The same; exactly ‘the same.’ We are often apt to depreciate the present in the prospect of the future. There is no diminution here. No change. With the identical love that brought Him to our world, He loves ‘His own’ now. And His work, His power, His willingness, His grace, are unchanged. As he called then so He calls now—‘Come unto Me.’

III. The future.—‘Yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’ Has it ever happened to you to say—‘I think there was a time when God loved me—when I was a little child. There have been periods in my life when I felt God was very near to me. I could not doubt His love then. I believe Him now to be near. Will he be near me when I am dying? Will He always be near me?’? Doubt not. Jesus lives! If you feel that doubt in Jesus, you have not yet read Him rightly. That Sun is always rising to its zenith, and never sets. ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE CHANGELESS CHRIST

I. Changeless in His teaching.

II. Changeless in His Person.

III. Changeless in His work.

His work saves, for He is the Saviour; remember, first and chiefest, the Saviour. Not the great Moralist, Teacher, Thinker, though with a moral life which lights up every page of the Gospel narrative, so sublime and perfect. Not the great Examplar, though the Hero, the Saviour, the Comforter, Who lives and breathes in every verse at once touching and eloquent of our New Testament; though the Hero, and Saviour, and Comforter is at once perfect, flawless. Not the Moralist, Teacher, or Exemplar, but first and chiefest the Saviour, the Redeemer. Here, though the world never saw before, will never see again, like teacher, like examplar, here is the real source of His changeless power, of His limitless influence over the souls of men and women.

Dean Spence-Jones.

Illustration

‘ “Can you tell me who Jesus was?” asked Napoleon at St. Helena. The question, having been declined by Bertrand, Napoleon proceeded: “Well, I will tell you. Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and myself have founded great empires. But upon what did the creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire on love, and to this day millions will die for Him. I think I know something of human nature; and I tell you that all these were men; and I am a man. No other is like Him. Jesus Christ was more than a man.… Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen that he becomes insensible to the barrier of time and space. Across the chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is, above all others, difficult to satisfy. He asks for the human heart. He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally, and forthwith His demand is granted. In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him experience this remarkable supernatural love towards Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame. Time can neither exhaust its strength, nor put a limit to its range. This is what strikes me most. I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.” ’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE VITALITY OF CHRISTIANITY

The words, ‘yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,’ were no doubt used by the author of the Epistle in the proverbial sense at that time given to them. They declared that from the ages to the ages Christ changeth not, that from eternity to eternity Jesus Christ is the same. But they may serve also to throw us back in mind to the time at which they were written, a time when in one sense they were literally and vividly true; when so far as the Christian knowledge of Christ was concerned, the whole of the Christian past was but as yesterday.

I. We find it difficult to realise with any fulness the conditions of Christian life in those days, and the advantage and disadvantage to the Christian preacher and the Christian convert of the recent character of the events on which the one based his teaching, the other his conviction. The Christian of those days would have found it much more difficult to forecast the Christian faith and practice, the Christian difficulties and the Christian advantages of a time eighteen hundred years after him, when events, vividly fresh to him, should have become matters of far-off history. At the natural creation germs were sown which have developed according to the laws imposed upon them, and have produced the marvels that surround us. The revelation of Christ planted a spiritual germ, the developments of which have been manifold, bewildering in the diversity of their character. As the spirit is vastly freer than the body, so the spiritual germ expands to all appearance unfettered, free, so far as we can see, from everything resembling the stringent laws which govern the growth of the natural organism.

II. While Jesus Christ remains the same for ever, man’s ideas of Jesus Christ have varied greatly, and vary greatly still.—To different ages Jesus Christ has been different; different in power, in operation, in nature; to different men, nay, to the same man at different stages of the man’s development; He is different still. But all the time, while men have been forming feeble and varying conceptions of Him, He has been the same. What age has been least feeble and least wide of the truth in its conception of that which is inconceivable, what men or what school of the present age are most near to the truth, it is beyond the power of man to know.

III. It is one of the most powerful of the incidental arguments for Christianity, that it has gone through almost every possible phase, and yet we may fairly claim that it is possessed of greater vitality at this present time than it ever possessed before. It has been all things to all men, and yet it has not changed. It has decked itself in splendour, and has fitted itself to the cabin of the slave. It has filled the whole soul of the man of mighty intellect, and has satisfied the mind of low degree. It has fired the hearts of martial kings to great resolves, and has guided the nameless poor to humble deeds of mercy and love. The whole of our science of theology has grown out of it, a science second to none in difficulty and grandeur, and yet the very fulness of its blessing and its power has been poured upon those to whom theology is an empty name. It has for each the message which each needs, and how diverse are those messages in their form and in their operation; but how surely is it the same spirit which worketh all in all. We speak of the changes through which Christianity has passed, but they are chiefly changes of garb. There have been times, no doubt, of dark and prevailing ignorance, but even in the darkest times there have been those who possessed the one true knowledge, the love of God which passeth knowledge.

Bishop G. F. Browne.