Hebrews 13:8

This, too, he does not simply put down, but he fits it to the argument that has been interrupted, teaching that he was crucified by the Jews. And he also demonstrates his eternal existence, for he calls the human nature "yesterday and today" and names …

How, also, can He be changeable and mutable, who says indeed by Himself: "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me," and, "I and My Father are one;" and by the prophet, "I am the Lord, I change not?" For even though one …

The natural properties of the Word who came forth from the Father were maintained even when he became flesh. It is foolish therefore to dare to introduce a breach. For the Lord Jesus Christ is one and through him the Father created all things. He is composed of human properties and of others that are above the human, yielding a kind of middle term. He is, in fact, a mediator between God and humankind, according to the Scriptures, God by nature even when incarnate, truly, not purely man like us, remaining what he was even when he had become flesh. For it is written, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

How then could he be the same in the past when he had not yet assumed generation according to the flesh?… It is of Jesus Christ and not just of the Word that the text affirms that he is the same today, yesterday and forever, but how could the human nature possess immutability and unaltered identity when it is subject to movement and, above all, to that movement that made it pass from nothingness to being and to life?… In virtue of the union with flesh that is proper to him, it is still he himself who is described as existing yesterday and as preexistent.

The Son of God, assuming our likeness and becoming human, not taking up what he was but taking on what he was [i.e., the divine condition] effects our salvation. For he remains, as Paul put it, the same yesterday and today and forever, without undergoing any change in his divinity by reason of his incarnation, but remaining what he was and will always be.

In these words, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day and for ever," "yesterday" means all the time that is past: "to-day," the present: "for ever," the endless which is to come. That is to say: Ye have heard of an High Priest, but not an High Priest who fails. He is always the same. As though there were some who said, "He is not, another will come," he says this, that He who was "yesterday and to-day," is "the same also for ever." For even now the Jews say, that another will come; and having deprived themselves of Him that is will fall into the hands of Antichrist.

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day and for ever." Do not think that then indeed He wrought wonders, but now works no wonders. He is the same. This is, "remember them that have the rule over you."

For, it seemed, some were distorting the faith and saying that another would come, whom the Jews even now await. So he says that Christ is the same "yesterday," that is, in all past time, "and today," that is, in the present, and "forever," that …

He continues: Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today: and the same forever. According to a Gloss this is the way this section is introduced. For he had said before, I will not leave you or forsake you. But they could say: The one to whom this …

); he then bespeaks their prayers for him, and offers up his prayers to God for them, gives them some hope of seeing himself and Timothy, and ends with the general salutation and benediction,

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Jesus Christ the same yesterday - In all past times there was no way to the holiest but through the blood of Jesus, either actually shed, or significantly typified. To-day - he is the lamb newly slain, and continues to appear in the presence of God for us. For ever - to the conclusion of time, he will be the way, the truth, and the life, none coming to the Father but through him; and throughout eternity, εις τους αιωνας, it will appear that all glorified human spirits owe their salvation to his infinite merit.

IT IS WELL that there is one person who is the same. It is well that there is one stable rock amidst the changing billows of this sea of life; for how many and how grievous have been the changes of this year? How many of you who commenced in affluence, have by the panic, which has shaken nations, been reduced almost to poverty?

He who yesterday (proverbial for the past time) suffered and died, is to-day in glory (Re 1:18). "As night comes between yesterday and to-day, and yet night itself is swallowed up by yesterday and to-day, so the "suffering" did not so interrupt the glory of Jesus Christ which was of yesterday, and that which is to-day, as not to continue to be the same.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes

IT IS WELL that there is one person who is the same. It is well that there is one stable rock amidst the changing billows of this sea of life; for how many and how grievous have been the changes of this year? How many of you who commenced in affluence, have by the panic, which has shaken nations, been reduced almost to poverty? How many of you, who in strong health marched into this place on the first Sabbath of last year, have had to come tottering here, feeling that the breath of man is in his nostrils, and wherein is he to be accounted of? Many of you came to this hall with a numerous family, leaning upon the arm of a choice and much loved friend. Alas! for love, if thou wert all and naught beside, O earth! For ye have buried those ye loved the best. Some of you have come here childless, or widows, or fatherless, still weeping your recent affliction. Changes have taken place in your estate that have made your heart full of misery. Your cups of sweetness have been dashed with draughts of gall; your golden harvests have had tares cast into the midst of them, and you have had to reap the noxious weed along with the precious grain. Your much fine gold has become dim, and your glory has departed; the sweet frames at the commencement of last year became bitter ones at the end. Your raptures and your ecstacies were turned into depression and forebodings. Alas! for our changes, and hallelujah to him that hath no change. But greater things have changed than we; for kingdoms have trembled in the balances. We have seen a peninsula deluged with blood, and mutiny raising its bloody war whoop. Nay, the whole world hath changed; earth hath doffed its green, and put on its somber garment of Autumn, and soon expects to wear its ermine robe of snow. All things have changed. We believe that not only in appearance but in reality, the world is growing old.

FOR a very considerable number of years an esteemed and venerable vicar of a Surrey parish has sent me at the New Year a generous testimony of his love and an acknowledgment of the pleasure which he derives from the weekly reading of my sermons. Enclosed in the parcel which his kindness awards to me is a text from which he hopes that I may preach on the first Sunday morning of the New Year. This year he sends me this golden line, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever." I have preached from it before—you will find a sermon from this text in print. But we need not be at all afraid of preaching from the same text twice. The Word is inexhaustible—it may be trod in the winepress many times and yet run with generous wine. We ought not to hesitate to preach a second time from a passage any more than anyone going to the village well would be ashamed to put down the same bucket twice, or feel at all aggrieved at sailing twice down the same river! There is always a freshness about Gospel Truth, and though the matter may be the same, there are ways of putting it in fresh light so as to bring new joy to those who meditate upon it. Moreover, what if we should repeat our teachings concerning Christ? What if we should hear over and over again the same things "touching the King"? We can afford to hear them! Repetitions concerning Jesus are better than varieties upon any other subject. As a French monarch declared that he would sooner hear the repetitions of Bourdaloue than the novelties of another, so we may declare concerning our Lord Jesus, we would sooner hear again and again the precious truths which glorify Him than listen to the most eloquent orations upon any other theme in all the world! There are a few works of art and wonders of creation which you might gaze upon every day in your life and yet not weary of them.

FOR a very considerable number of years an esteemed and venerable vicar of a Surrey parish has sent me at the New Year a generous testimony of his love and an acknowledgment of the pleasure which he derives from the weekly reading of my sermons. Enclosed in the parcel which his kindness awards to me is a text from which he hopes that I may preach on the first Sunday morning of the New Year. This year he sends me this golden line, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever."

LET me read to you the verse that comes before our text. It is always a good habit to look at texts in their connection. It is wrong, I think, to lay hold of small portions of God's Word and take them out of their connection as you might pluck feathers from a bird. It is an injury to the Word of God and, sometimes, a passage of Scripture loses much of its beauty, its true teaching and its real meaning, by being taken from the context.

LET me read to you the verse that comes before our text. It is always a good habit to look at texts in their connection. It is wrong, I think, to lay hold of small portions of God's Word and take them out of their connection as you might pluck feathers from a bird. It is an injury to the Word of God and, sometimes, a passage of Scripture loses much of its beauty, its true teaching and its real meaning, by being taken from the context. Nobody would think of mutilating Milton's poems by taking a few lines out of Paradise Lost, and then imagining that he could really get at the heart of the poet's power. So, always look at texts in the connection in which they stand. The verse before our text is this, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Observe, then, that God's people are a thoughtful people. If they are what they ought to be, they do a great deal of remembering and considering—that is the gist of this verse. If they are to remember and to consider their earthly leaders, much more are they to remember that Great Leader, the Lord Jesus, and all those matchless Truths which fell from His blessed lips. I wish, in these days, that professing Christians remembered and considered a great deal more, but we live in such a flurry, hurry and worry, that we do not give time for thought. Our noble forefathers of the Puritan sort were men with backbone, men of solid tread, independent and self-contained men who could hold their own in the day of conflict. And the reason was because they took time to meditate, time to keep a diary of their daily experiences, time to commune with God in secret. Take the hint and try and do a little more thinking—in this busy London and in these trying days—remember and consider.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday ... - As this stands in our common translation, it conveys an idea which is not in the original. It would seem to mean that Jesus Christ, the unchangeable Saviour, was the end or aim of the conduct of those referred to, or that they lived to imitate and glorify him. But this is by no means the meaning in the original. There it stands as an absolute proposition, that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever;” that is, that he is unchangeable. The evident design of this independent proposition here is, to encourage them to persevere by showing that their Saviour was always the same; that he who had sustained his people in former times, was the same still, and would be the same forever. The argument here, therefore, for perseverance is founded on the “immutability” of the Redeemer. If he were fickle, vacillating, changing in his character and plans; if today he aids his people, and tomorrow will forsake them; if at one time he loves the virtuous, and at another equally loves the vicious; if he formed a plan yesterday which he has abandoned today; or if he is ever to be a different being from what he is now, there would be no encouragement to effort. Who would know what to depend on? Who would know what to expect tomorrow? For who could have any certainty that he could ever please a capricious or a vacillating being? Who could know how to shape his conduct if the principles of the divine administration were not always the same? At the same time, also, that this passage furnishes the strongest argument for fidelity and perseverance, it is an irrefragable proof of the divinity of the Saviour. It asserts immutability - sameness in the past, the present, and to all eternity but of whom can this be affirmed but God? It would not be possible to conceive of a declaration which would more strongly assert immutability than this.