Be ye' imitators of those who through faith and patience--these two graces which yet are one--inherit the promises.' The writer probably includes among these inheritors the sainted dead of the old Covenant, of whom he says in Heb. 2. that they died in faith, not having received the promise,' and any of the new Covenant who had passed into the other world. And he declares, by the strong language of my text, which is even stronger in the original by the use of a present participle, the present blessedness of all the departed saints. They do now inherit the promises. The metaphor is drawn, consciously or unconsciously, from the old story of Israel's possession of the Promised Land, and so suggests all the ideas of rest, of the wanderings being over, of victory, of peace, of society, of each man having his portion of the great land which belongs to all, which that story naturally brings with it.
And for us there may come the encouragement of looking to those dear ones that have gone before us, knowing that they stand in their lot' in the Canaan of God, and that we, too, may stand in ours. And so from the thought of their present blessedness in their present inheritance, we may gather cheer, whilst we struggle and tramp along the wilderness road.
And, again, we may gather encouragement not only from the thought of where and how their wanderings have ended, but from the remembrance of the path that they trod. We have no strange road to walk, but one beaten by holy feet from the beginning, and plain for us too. They have passed along the King's highway, and having passed, and having entered into their rest, they remain as witnesses that it is the right way to the city of habitation.'
But we have to look higher than to them, and to take for our encouragement not only the pattern of all the pilgrims that have gone before us, but that of the Lord of the march, the Breaker,' who is gone up before us, and looking off' from the cloud of witnesses, to look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith, who trod the road, every step of it, and left footprints not unstained with blood in which we may plant our poor feet, having left us an example that we should follow in His steps.'
