What we are to Christ.
To us Christ is related as Apostle and High Priest (Hebrews 3:1). To Christ we are related as the house where he holds the unique position of Son, Heir, Director.
I. WE ARE MORE TO CHRIST THAN EVER HIS BRETHREN COULD BE TO MOSES. Moses had great authority, honorable position, but he was never as a son over his own house. Moses at best was the steward, and even he bad checks which reminded him that he was but the first among servants, not an all-controlling lord. And yet he was a man to be honored. Mark this in the Epistle, that its writer, in exalting Christ, exalted Moses also; whereas the enemies of Christ only exalted Moses, that by the same movement they might correspondingly depreciate Christ. The nation of Israel was as the house where Moses dwelt as appointed responsible director and custodian. A servant certainly, but a servant of a peculiar kind. He is called θεράπων. Nowhere else in the New Testament is a servant called by this name; it is as if there must be a unique description for a unique relation. If simple servitude had been all needing to be signified, δοῦλος would have done; if simple ministry, διάκονος would have done. But Moses has a servant-name to himself; as much as to say, "Among all the servants of God there has been none greater than Moses." The word indicates at one and the same time service and the greatest responsibility that could rest on mere man. Moses was the great steward of God in God's house for the time being, even the people of Israel. Compare him with the man spoken of as Joseph's steward (Genesis 43:19; Genesis 44:4). Consider also the question of Jesus in Luke 12:42: "Who then is that faithful and wise steward οἰκονόμος), whom his lord shall make ruler over his household ( θεραπεία)?" "It is required in a steward that he shall be found faithful." Thus the nation of Israel was a great deal to Moses, but not so much as we are to Christ. We are for the use of Christ, at his disposal, under his control, in a way far transcending the control which Moses had over Israel. Moses died and Joshua succeeded. Joshua died and others succeeded. But as a Son over his house, over the successive generations of Christians, Jesus is, emphatically, "the same yesterday, and today, and forever."
II. THE CONDITIONS WHICH MAKE US ABIDINGLY THE HOUSE OF CHRIST. We are the house of Christ who is the Son of God. It is a great destiny to feel that we are of use and service to him. Bat the use and service depend on our perseverance. Christ asks great, arduous, necessarily painful things from his household. Not that he rejoices in pain—everything but that; but to hold a place under him requires faithfulness in extremities. His household may have to resist unto blood, striving against sin. As to the members of Christ's household, Christ has infused into their hearts an expectation of serving him amid surroundings and conditions far different to those of the present service. And this expectation is one which at times makes them confident and also free of speech in their approaches to their Master. It is an expectation in which they can glory as the world looks curiously on them, because of present things they give up for the sake of the expectation. But here is the peril lest the confidence and the expectation sink so low in the heart as to lose power over the life. Moses was faithful in his house, but the house was not faithful. The privations and delays of the wilderness well-nigh killed the joy of liberty from Egyptian bondage, and the noble aspirations towards the land promised by Jehovah. Jesus will be faithful in the household of God; and some in that household will always be faithful to Jesus, through whatever dubious and protracted experiences. The point is one for the individual. Will he, through impatience and want of the single eye, the straightforward gaze, lose his place and promotion in the household of God?—Y.