The unshaken kingdom.
I. THE CARNAL HOPES OF ISRAEL. We know well from the Gospels what notions the disciples had of a visible kingdom, with its center of power and glory in the earthly Jerusalem. It was a dominating thought among them down to the very departure of their master. They greeted him, getting ready for his ascension, with the inquiry whether he was about to restore the kingdom to Israel; And we may well suppose that among all the Hebrew Christians this hope prevailed to the last. A spiritual and invisible kingdom could not all at once become manifest. And as a visible kingdom retreated further and further into the region of improbabilities, this would add another trial to whatever came in the way of personal suffering. They had prayed the prayer, "Thy kingdom come," but prayed it too much after their own fancies. And now to their sorrowing eyes it looked a kingdom clean going forever.
II. THE CONTRASTED OBJECT OF EVERY CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. The writer has just been dividing existing things into the shaken and the unshaken. Naturally, therefore, considering what the hopes of Hebrew Christians had been, there follows a reference to an unshaken kingdom. The true Israelite does well to keep his thoughts fixed on a kingdom. But let him be careful not to neglect the reality for the phantom. God desires a kingdom based on something more than material force, for such kingdoms can only get built up through ambition, cruelty, violence, and injustice. God has promised a kingdom, and his promise cannot be broken; but it must be kept in his own way. That kingdom has its foundation in the accepted claim and power of Christ over the individual human heart. We may say of that kingdom what Paul says of the love of God in Christ Jesus, "that neither death, nor life,… nor things present, nor things to come. nor any other creature, should be able to shake the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." It cometh without observation; the inspection of the natural eye will never discern it; the assaults of the natural man operate in another realm altogether.
III. THE EFFECT OF THIS RECEIVED KINGDOM. "Let us have grace," says the writer. What he really means is, "Let us show thankfulness." Instead of sorrowing over a corrupt ideal vanished, let us be deeply thankful for a Divine reality that cannot pass away. The old mode of serving God has gone forever. The old temple, with its altar and its holy place, its sacrifices and its priests, can never be aught but a memory. The foreshadowing service of outward ceremonies is gone, and the true spiritual service has forever taken its place. And recollect especially the same God remains. God appointed the old λατρεία (Hebrews 9:1) from amid all the terrors of Sinai. And he is not the less God of Sinai because he appears in the gentler aspect of Father of Christ Jesus. Israel's God Jehovah was a consuming fire upon occasion, and the same indignation and power reside in him still. Whatever outward form our λατρεία may fake—and there is much latitude in this—there must ever be a deep feeling of personal unworthiness and of humblest adoration. Outward pomp in itself, however costly, however laborious, cannot please the spiritual God; if it have no heart of spirituality and sincerity, the fires of his wrath will soon lick it all away.—Y.
Hebrews
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