2. 3:2 f.; 10:21 oJ oi\ko" tou' qeou' . The relation of the Order to God, as its Head and Indweller.
3. 11:10, 16; 13:14 hJ tou;" qemelivou" e[cousa povli", hJ mevllousa ( povli" ). Comp. 8:11. The social constitution of the Order.
4. 12:22 ff. The vision of the fulness of the Order.
5. 12:28
basileiva ajsavleuto"
. Comp. Col. 1:13. A present kingdom. Each of these aspects of the Christian Society must be considered separately.
1.
The Christian Society as the Society of the age to come
(Heb. 2:5).
The far-reaching phrase
hJ oijkoumevnh hJ mevllousa
, which is inadequately rendered by the world to come, suggests the thought of the Order towards which the earlier discipline of the world had been directed. It has been all along foreseen. It is the true fulfilment of the destiny of humanity: the initial stage of the consummation which answers to creation. It is essentially comprehensive. It includes men as men, and places them in their due connexion with Nature. This inherent universality of the Order, as contemplated under this aspect, explains the silence of the Epistle on the call of the Gentiles. Old divisions, which had their place in the times of preparation, could not continue when man was seen to have reached the divine end in Christ. Henceforth the people and the nations were united in a larger fellowship. The spiritual Order was revealed in Him, of which Greek civilisation and Roman government were partial types.
2.
The Christian Society as the House of God
(3:2 ff.; 10:21).
Under the image of the House of God the Christian Society is regarded in a different light. It is the organised system in which God dwells, and of which He is the Master. The sense of the dwelling-place, which is dominant, passes into that of the family, and then the dwelling-place consists of human hearts. The image is derived directly from Num. 12:7. The earliest and simplest expression of the thought of the House of God is in Gen. 28:17. The phrase is rarely applied to the Tabernacle: Ex. 23:19; 34:26; Josh. 6:24; Judg. 18:31. It is used of the Temple in 2 Sam. 7:5; 1 Kings 8:17 and later writings.
The passage from the thought of a material to that of a spiritual House is natural: Jer. 7:4; John 2:16, 19 (comp. Matt. 23:38). In its widest meaning the House includes Nature no less than Humanity; but it is through man that all other things reach their end. Hence while Christ is a great Priest over the House of God (Heb. 10:21), Christians are in a peculiar sense His House (3:6). As St Paul writes to the Ephesians:
Each several
building
each chamber in the whole fabric of the universe
fitly framed together, groweth into a holy sanctuary in the Lord; in Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit
(Eph. 2:21 f.). Compare 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 2:5; 4:17.
3.
The Christian Society as the abiding City
(Heb. 11:10, 16; 13:14).
It is however under the idea of the city, the state ( povli" ), that the