HEB. x. 13. “From henceforth expecting.”
THESE words proclaimed the attitude and occupation of
our risen Lord. The world is full of thoughts about the
Christ of the past and the Christ of the future, but it
needs its attention to be called and recalled to the Jesus of
the ever present and ever passing now. Much more, said
Paul, shall we be saved by His life. The present attitude
of our risen Lord is expectant. Let us mark the end and
the origin of this expectation.
I. Its origin. His expectation is not composed of the
fabrics out of which most of our desires and day-dreams
are made. His expectation does not rest on His words,
nor on His wonder-working power, but upon His death.
It was after Christ had been transfigured on the mount of
joy, crushed in the garden of sorrow, nailed to the cross of
shame, after He came up out of the grave, feeling in every
fibre of His nature all that life and death could give, that
He made sorrowful hearts burn with joy as He talked with
them by the way. “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men
unto Me.”
II. The nature of the expectation. If this text teaches
us anything, it is certainly this lesson, that when we have
done our largest best for the cause committed to our trust,
we are to cherish no doubt about it, but to take our place
at God’s right hand—assume the expectant attitude, and
joyfully watch the Almighty do His work.
We must also take a firm hold of issues that have their
full measurement in things beyond our own brief day.
This is the sublime nature of the present expectation of
Christ. It goes not up and down in His breast as He
watches the energetic lines of the conflict between good
and evil here below, but it fastens its eye on the far-off
hills of final victory, where the right is eternally trium-
phant, and the wrong for ever more put down.
J. P.