better knowledge and conscience (ἑκουσίως ἁμαρτάνειν), for which there is no more any sacrifice, but only the avenging judgment over the enemies of God (vv. 26, 27). There is therefore even in the New Covenant, as in the Old (§ 115, b), a malignant sin for which its atoning institute is not available, and which can hence never be forgiven, like the sin against the Holy Ghost, of which Jesus speaks (§ 22, b), because he who commits it can no more be renewed to repentance (vi. 4-6), as even Esau found no more room for μeтávola (xii. 17).11

§ 126. The Fulfilment of the Covenant Promise.

Although the perfect salvation is but a getting possession of the Old Covenant promise, yet may it, in so far as it is connected with the fulfilment of covenant duty, be also regarded as wages (a). The immediately impending judgment of God decides as to the bestowal of this salvation, the day of which judgment is ushered in with the overthrow of the world, and brings everlasting destruction to all the enemies of God (b). But to believers Christ appears as the deliverer from this destruction, and leads their souls to eternal life (c). Then begins the final consummation in the unchangeable kingdom of God, when the risen in the heavenly city of God see God in glory and in eternal Sabbath festival (d).

(a) While the patriarchs (xi. 13), and all believers of the Old Covenant (ver. 39), did not really receive the promise, as they had first to be perfected by the one sacrifice of Christ

His death as the sin-offering of the New Covenant, on which all Christian hope rests, is denied; and as with unbelievers it is declared to be the death of a transgressor (vi. 6), the Son of God is therefore trampled under foot, while the blood of the covenant is regarded as unclean, and the grace of the Spirit is despised, while it is declared to be a misleading, false spirit, which misleads the Church which believes on Messiah (x. 29).

"This impossibility is represented, to be sure, under the figure vi. 7, 8, as the result of a divine sentence of rejection; but iii. 13 shows that only the divine judgment of hardening is thereby meant (§ 29, d; 91, c), by which the hearts which are given over to sin, become in the end so hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, or so harden themselves (iii. 8, 15, iv. 7), that a return is no longer possible. But if the members of the Church generally could fall away, it follows that the reversion of the heavenly perfection, which became theirs in virtue of the right of the first-born (xii. 23; comp. § 124, a), is not irrevocable.

(ver. 40), the members of the New Covenant have this advantage over them, that they are fitted and destined to receive directly the perfect salvation promised.1 But now, as the definite obtaining of the promise remains dependent on the fulfilment of New Testament covenant duty (x. 36; comp. § 125, c), so this too can be conceived of as wages for this fulfilment (ver. 35: polаπоdoσía). To be sure, the μισθαποδοσία). reward is but the fulfilment of a promise given of His own free will, and the service is nothing else but holding fast the joyful confidence of this fulfilment (mappŋoía): but after that God had once, in a new covenant, as at all times (xi. 6: μιolaπodóτηs), connected the fulfilment of His promise with the fulfilment of a definite duty (comp. x. 36: Tò éλημа Toû cov), a relation of reward is ever again presented, which may now be available for the performance of this duty (comp. § 32). As Moses looked to the recompense of reward (xi. 26), as Christ Himself endured the cross in view of the reward set before Him (xii. 2), so can the Christian give up the earthly in view of the higher reward (x. 34).2

(b) If there is a reward of wages, there is also naturally a retributive punishment (ii. 2: polaжodoσía), and which of the two is to be given to each individual is decided by the last judgment, which the fundamental doctrine of Christianity

1 As the possession of the Holy Land promised to Abraham (xi. 8), so here this perfect salvation is designated as their everlasting possession (ix. 15); but as, according to § 124, a, this salvation is regarded as the portion of the Christian as a child, here the idea of xλnpovouía, which, moreover, elsewhere occurs, as in Peter (§ 50, c), for the inheritance promised to believers (vi. 12: o¡ . . . κληρονομοῦντες τὰς ἐπαγγελίας ; comp. i. 14 : κληρονομεῖν τὴν σωτηρία»), passes over into that of heirship (comp. vi. 17). It agrees with this that the Son is appointed to be xλnpovóμos, and as such has received a name higher than the angels (i. 2); so also xii. 17, according to which Esau wished to inherit his father's blessing. As, moreover, from the point of view of hope, by which the Christian even now possesses what is allotted to him as a sure possession in the future (§ 117, d), Christians can even now be designated as xλnpovóμos tãs ἐπαγγελίας (vi. 17), although the special κληρονομεῖν of the promise (= λαμβάνειν : ix. 15; śzituxiv: vi. 15; xi. 33; xoμięsobmi: x. 36) is inherited only through Tioris and μaxpotupía (vi. 12). Just so Isaac and Jacob are said to be fellowpossessors of the promise with Abraham, which they have not yet received (xi. 9; comp. 1 Pet. iii. 7, and therewith § 51, c).

This is but the same doctrine of retribution which we found in the early apostolic system of doctrine (§ 51, d; 57, b), and even in Paul (§ 98, c). It does not even go beyond that, when, vi. 10, it is traced to the retributive righteousness of God, that He does not leave out of His regard those doings of a

announces as κρίμα αἰώνιον (vi. 2). To this judgment God has reserved retributive punishment (x. 30), and His judgment is dreadful (ver. 31) and unavoidable (xii. 25). He brings upon those who have fallen away, and upon all the enemies of God (vπevávτioi), the ảπóλeia (x. 39), which, according to ix. 27, is not only bodily death, but in every case something more dreadful (x. 28, 29), and it is repeatedly represented as a consuming fire (ver. 27, xii. 29; comp. vi. 8). If by this figure of the Old Testament (Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3) fire can be taken as the current symbol of the divine wrath, then the repeated reference to its consuming energy can only be so understood, that that destruction is no longer considered simply, as § 34, c, 99, b, as an abiding of the soul in death, but as a sort of potential death, as a torturing form of destruction. But this judgment does not follow immediately on the death of any one, as has been concluded from ix. 27 (comp. also Biedermann, p. 300; Pfleiderer, p. 362 [E. T. ii. 91]); but there is a day which, as the judgment-day of God known in the Old Testament (comp. § 40, d; 64, b), is spoken of as simply the day (x. 25), and it appears from the connection of xii. 26 with vv. 25, 29, that this day is introduced with the last great shaking of the heaven and the earth (ver. 26, after Hag. ii. 7), i.e. with the overthrow of the present world

man by which he fulfils his covenant duty; but to him who has hitherto approved himself (even though it may be but in one respect), He gives help for yet future confirmation (ver. 9), although the attainment of this goal ever remains dependent on his further conduct (vv. 11, 12). There is therefore here no ground afforded, with Ritschl, ii. p. 116, to conceive, on grounds of purely dogmatic considerations, God's righteousness to be determined by the logical results of His dealings in reference to the salvation, as even here it is not "the exercise of love on the part of the readers as an activity of divine grace which is taken account of," as Ritschl asserts without any proof.

3 If death is the punishment of sin, according to § 122, d, inasmuch as it delivers men over to the power of the devil, then, according to ii. 14, this power ceases for the redeemed with the overthrow of all hostile powers generally, and the final λa can hence, for those who have committed deadly sins, be no longer merely abiding in death, but only something more terrible-and that is the gradual annihilation inflicted by it. If, in Old Testament fashion, God appears exclusively as the judge of the world (xii. 23, xiii. 4), who is therefore to be served with reverential awe and fear (xii. 28), the reason is this, that to the idea of an eternal high priest (§ 120), Christ's intervention in the last judgment was little suited (comp. Schenkel, p. 338). On the other hand, God exercises judicial functions even here by means of His word, which penetrates and divides the innermost parts of men (iv. 12, 13).

(comp. i. 11, 12), an idea which is hinted at even in the words of Jesus (§ 33, c).

(c) If Christ also is not regarded as the judge of the world, yet here too, as generally, the day of judgment is regarded as coincident with the day of His second coming, when God brings in again His First-begotten into the world (i. 6), and to this day shall the present generation survive. But believers expect Him to appear, for the second time, not for judgment, but for salvation (ix. 28) from the destruction which overtakes all in whom, on account of their rebelliousness, His soul has no pleasure (x. 38, 39). As the everlasting High Priest, He can for ever deliver those who draw near to God by Him (vii. 25), so that they now reach the possession of the owτnpía (i. 14: κλnpovoμeîv σwτηpíav; comp. footnote 1).5 But this salvation, as in the early apostolic system of doctrine generally (§ 50, d; 57, d), is a salvation of the soul, which, as in the words of Jesus, is designated as a saving of it (x. 39: TEρIπoínois ↓ʊxñs), since when lost it goes into

The second coming, that is to say, and the judgment are at hand (x. 37, after Hab. ii. 3); for the end simply, which comes with this day, the readers are to make ready (iii. 14, vi. 11), because then their salvation is at hand (ver. 9). It is precarious, from iii. 9, to conclude with Riehm, p. 618, that the author, according to the type of the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, had in view a period of forty years from the dawn of the Messianic time (§ 117, c) to the coming of the final consummation, a period which was, at any rate, presently approaching its end. Yet the author, along with his readers, sees the day already approaching (x. 25), apparently because the foretokens of the catastrophe in Judaea, with which Christ had prophesied of it as coincident (§ 33, b), were already visible. That the execution of the divine judgment must take place before the second coming (Schenkel, p. 339), is nowhere indicated.

1

As by the perfecting of Christ as the High Priest everything is achieved that is necessary for the salvation of believers, it can be said, v. 9, that He has already become the author of eternal (final) salvation, or the apxnyòs rūs awrnpías aurav, ii. 10 (comp. Acts iii. 15, and therewith § 40, d), i.e. the leader who, by His entrance into the heavenly glory (comp. vi. 20), shows to all the way which leads to their salvation. Regarded from the ideal standpoint of Christian hope (comp. § 117, d), the salvation as, according to footnote 1, the possession of the promise, already exists when the conditions of the future salvation are given (comp. § 96, b), therefore also salvation may be proclaimed through Christ already (ii. 3). On the other hand, it follows neither from i. 14 nor from ii. 3, that the idea of awrnpía includes the positive element of perfect blessedness (Riehm, p. 793), as even the apxnyos rñs owrnpías does not certainly designate the original possessor of salvation. Neither in the early apostolic nor in the Pauline system of doctrine have we found any trace anywhere of this turn of the idea so clear in its origin.

everlasting destruction, which here forms the contrast to it (comp. § 26, b, footnote 1; 34, c); and its correlate is hence life in the highest sense, which, even according to Old Testament doctrine (Hab. ii. 4), results from righteousness, essentially consisting of faith (§ 125, c), or from subjection to fatherly chastisement (xii. 9; comp. for these correlative ideas, § 50, c; 57, d; 96, c).

(d) The final consummation begins in the immovable kingdom (xii. 28), i.e. in the perfect kingdom of God (comp. § 34, a; 57, d), which Christians are to receive in idea, but whose coming yet presupposes (comp. § 117, d) the change (i. 11, 12) that comes with the last shaking of the heaven and the earth (vv. 26, 27). This kingdom appears under the image of the city founded by God Himself (xi. 10), for which even the patriarchs longed as for their heavenly home (vv. 14 to 16), and so they felt themselves to be but strangers and pilgrims on the earth (ver. 13; comp. vv. 9, 10). But even Christians, although they are come even now in a certain sense to this heavenly Jerusalem (xii. 22), yet long after the abiding city of the future (xiii. 14), as their better possession (x. 34); and they must therefore feel themselves, as with Peter (§ 51, a, footnote 1), upon this earth as strangers and pilgrims. In this heavenly city of God they will live in immediate nearness to God, seeing His face (xii. 14; comp. § 34, b; 99, b), and, delivered from destruction, they shall share (ii. 10: εἰς δόξαν ἀγαγόντα, τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τῆς owτnplas) in His glory (comp. § 118, c, footnote 7). The final consummation, according to this, is not an earthly one (comp. Riehm, p. 797). The contrast also between heaven and earth appears here, at any rate, to be removed by the change coming on the world, as § 34, a; 99 b. Hence the resurrection is yet required for sharing in it; the Christian fundamental tradition already announced this resurrection (vi. 2), which is a better resurrection than the simple re

6 Even on this account is hope in the objective sense, i.e. the hoped-for fulfilment of the covenant promise (vi. 19; comp. § 125, a, footnote 2), designated as the anchor of the soul, inasmuch as it guarantees the soul its endless deliverance, and assures it from perishing. Even in the psychological basis of its view of doctrine, that is to say, our Epistle shows decisively the early apostolic type of doctrine in contradistinction from the Pauline; and Riehm, p. 671, from iv. 12, wrongly concludes that man is conceived of trichotomically (comp. § 27, c).