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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 7:18 - 7:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
18. Ἀθέτησις. See note on Heb 7:12. Comp. Gal 3:15.
γίνεται, “there occurs” or “results,” in accordance with Psa 110:4.
προαγούσης. Comp. 1Ti 1:18; 1Ti 5:24. The “commandment” was only a temporary precursor of the final dispensation.
ἐντολής. Most ancient and modern commentators understand this of the Mosaic Law in general.
διὰ τὸ αὐτῆς ἀσθενὲς καὶ ἀνωφελές. These very strong expressions—almost as strong as any that St Paul has used—would have caused terrible offence to all Judaists had they been introduced suddenly. As it is they only occur incidentally in the midst of a sustained and powerful train of reasoning. The writer here shews how completely he is of the school of St Paul, notwithstanding the strength of his Judaic sympathies. For St Paul was the first who clearly demonstrated that Christianity involved the abrogation of the Law, and thereby proved its partial, transitory, and inefficacious character as intended only to be a preparation for the Gospel (Rom 8:3). The law was only the “tutor” or attendant-slave to lead men to Christ, or train their boyhood till it could attain to full Christian manhood (Gal 3:23-24). It was only after the consummation of the Gospel that its disciplinary institutions became reduced to “weak and beggarly rudiments” (Gal 4:9).