"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, CONSIDER the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, JESUS."

The Greek word translated "consider" has, according to Liddell and Scott's dictionary, the following meanings:"Remark, observe, perceive, learn, understand, know," and in the intransitive signifies "to be in one's right mind." Now we might substitute any of these dictionary meanings for the one given in the above quotations and find in none of them anything but a very appropriate and appealing exhortation. There is not a single suggestion in them that we should not follow, and for any Christian to fail to do so would be to fail of Christian "right-mindedness." The word .used in the Authorized Version, "consider," however, imparts a touch of new life to the list, for its Latin derivation cum sidere ("with a star"), implies companionship. It is surely bad to be beside one's self, but oh, how good, even in thought, to be with the Bright and Morning Star of our hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. So with the word there thus comes a sense of at-homeness, restfulness, that it is the privilege of all to enjoy who are of the glad company of "His own."

"Close to Thy trusted side
In fellowship divine," 1

writes the poet, and in very truth "to remark, observe, perceive, learn, understand, know, consider" JESUS is to enjoy divine fellowship. Let us not be in a hurry to leave these words, however. Let us rather linger by them, until perceiving, knowing, considering Him become the very guiding compass of our lives. If seeing is believing, seeing is, in that sense, knowing. And the great Apostle's life was consumed with that grand passion for knowing Him that started with the heavenly "vision" on the road to Damascus. "The people without a vision shall perish," says an inspired writer, and perishing indeed was Saul, the persecutor, until the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ illumined him, and he saw and knew Him whom to know was "life eternal."

A great modern writer says:"Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see, and the greatest thing a human soul does in this world is to see something and to tell what it saw in plain language." And so it was that the greatest thing that happened to Paul was the vision of the flashing glory that blinded his eyes to the light of day but opened them forever to Christ. And the greatest thing that he ever did, or that anybody else can do, was in life and plain language to tell forth the glories of an ever-growing vision of Jesus.

"He had perceived the presence and the power of greatness, And deep feeling had impressed upon his mind great things With portraiture and color as distinct as if upon that mind There lay a substance, that almost seemed to haunt his bodily sense."

This exhortation, therefore, "Consider Jesus," gathers immense power from the life of him from whom it comes, for he practiced what he is preaching to us, and that might seem enough for us. Paul, however, mingles it with the warm current of his thought. He links it to all that he had just written. He says "wherefore," and a whole volume is compacted within that word. He then appeals to us by the name that he would stamp upon us, "holy brethren," and reminding us of our high destiny, so wraps us up in the web and woof of entreaty, that every word pleads with us, leaving us no shadow of a pretext for not doing as he says. Let us therefore give the more earnest heed to his exhortation, for we also ourselves remember, out of our past experience, not indeed a theophany, but how,

"When God's shadow, which is light,
Our wakening instincts fell across,
Silent as sunbeams over moss,
In our soul's nest half conscious things
Stirred with a sudden sense of wings,
Lifted them up, and trembled long
With premonitions sweet of song."

"Wherefore."The second and third chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews both open with this word, though the expression in the Greek varies. The literal translation of the first is "on account of this," while the word in the next is "hothen," sometimes rendered "from whence,"a rather archaic expression, suggestive however of a distinct shade of thought. "On account of this" hints at a careful weighing of the reasons for giving heed, while "from whence" implies the spontaneous result of the previously manifested glories. The first "wherefore" transports us back in thought to the dignities and high destinies of Him who had been so tersely and so magnificently disclosed in the first chapter as the Heir of all things, Creator of heaven and earth, the Purger of Sins, THE ABIDING ONE, and impresses upon us the solemnity of not anchoring to Him and the things that we have heard, "lest we float by them." The second "wherefore" gently launches us in the current of divine blessings, which, like a full river, gushes from the divine springs pent up within the life and work of the glorious Son of Man, so truthfully revealed in the second chapter. Wherefore, wherefore? brethren, it is just the most natural thing in this wide world that we should be constantly considering Jesus is it not?

"Holy brethren" Just because we have become very much accustomed to this title, it is sometimes sapped of its strength. We must therefore turn it over and over in our minds, and thus, paradoxically, by becoming more accustomed to it, set it on fire by the friction of a constant rubbing. I remember some years ago reading a legal document, dating back to early New England days. Floating dreamily along in the smooth flow of the language, in a moment I was awakened from my half-dream by the startling words:"In the year of our LORD GOD 1638." Why, right there into those words was compressed a whole sermon on the Son of Man who was also Son of God. He existed from all eternity, He began hi the year "one." I am not preaching a theology, brethren, so I hope that no over-zealous theologian will twist these words into a heresy. It is not a theology but an exhortation, a gleam of lighting, revealing to us another mount of Transfiguration. It is alight with a living truth, and I would like to keep stirring the fire in it till I waked right up and became thoroughly alive to my "profession." It is the truth of the first and second chapters of Hebrews, those beautiful and wonderful chapters that should ever burn and glow within our hearts. It is to the consideration of Him who therein shines forth "in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning," that we are called by the "wherefore." But it is indeed more than that. Just listen.

If we add three words to the expression "holy brethren," and write "holy brethren of Jesus Christ," we may perhaps be a little startled, and perhaps shrink a little. Even though the exact phraseology is not used in Scripture, the truth of it shines out along the trail of another "wherefore" in the same second chapter:"Wherefore, HE is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praises unto Thee." The grace of such a declaration should take away the shrinking-should it not?-unworthy as we may be. For, brethren, it is all of pure grace. We are sanctified, set apart to Him, "holy," inasmuch as we are called to live in His company, to be bound "up in the bundle of life with (this) Lord God." "Wherefore, wherefore, holy brethren, remark, observe, perceive, learn, understand, know, CONSIDER" the Apostle and High Priest of our profession.

"Partakers of the heavenly calling." How the words in these delightful chapters, some of the loveliest in the Bible, romp around one another, cling to one another, and tie one another up into golden sheaves of blessing for us. The Greek word "metochoi," rendered by the translators, "partakers," is to be indissolubly linked with the verb form "meteschen" in the second chapter, closing the lovely thought, "He likewise TOOK PART of the same," so that verb and adjective unite in a sort of rhapsodic appeal:"You, brethren, partake of that heavenly calling and all its joys, because He took part in your sad earthly calling, captives to fear and sorrow. Therefore, holy brethren, CONSIDER Him."

But another word in the verse before us, "calling," is the noun form of a verb in the second chapter, and the two are married in a sacred union, "He called us brethren, He is calling us on high." And immediately after, the music of the great assembly above rings sweetly in our ears, as if wooing us thither, partakers as we are of this high destiny. But let us not lose the fine force of that word "calling." That devoted Christian and lovely character, Samuel Rutherford, is accredited with the ardent words:"I could swim through seven hells and count it as nothing, could I but lie at His feet." Are the words extravagant? Perhaps they may seem so if we measure them against the sluggish emotions of our own hearts. But Samuel Rutherford was ever "considering" the glories of the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, and so was there ministered unto him an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for as he lay dying, suddenly with one of his characteristic outbursts he cried:"Oh, for arms to embrace Him; oh, for a well-tuned harp! I hear Him CALLING, 'Come up hither.' "

"At His side" here in thought; "at His side" there in glory. These two things blend into the exquisite harmony of the subject of this meditation. F. C. Grant