Consistency with the divine mind is holiness—at least one character of holiness. Separation to God is, I know, another.
To mourn when the Lord laments, to dance when He pipes, this is holy. The proposal to make the children of the bridechamber fast while the Bridegroom was with them, was an attempt to defile them, however religious it might be deemed. And Jacob praying, after the hosts of God had met him at Mahanaim, was an exercise of spirit not consistent with the divine mind. It was mourning, when Christ was piping. The Lord by His messengers were greeting him as on his return home, but he himself was trembling and disturbed at the thought of Esau and his four hundred men.
Now, this holiness, or consistency with the divine mind, is looked for in the people of God, I would say, in two respects, in this 10th chapter of Hebrews. In this chapter, we see Christ seated and expecting. These two things mark Him as One ascended to the right hand of God. He is seated, because He has done with sin forever, having accomplished atonement by the one offering of Himself, thus having perfected forever them that are sanctified. But He is also expecting, because He has not yet entered His kingdom in power and glory, nor will He, till His enemies are made His footstool.
Thus, Christ in heaven is witnessing the sufficiency of the already accomplished sacrifice for sin, and also looking onward, in hope, to the coming day of glory and dominion.
Consistency with the divine mind, which, as we have said, is one form of holiness, requires that our condition here on earth, as the people of God, should be according to this condition of Christ in heaven. This chapter, therefore, after showing us the Lord thus in heaven seated and expecting, calls on us to take a corresponding attitude of soul here; to enter with boldness within the vail, and there to hold fast the profession of our hope. In spirit we are to be seated and expecting, as He is. We are to bear witness to the sufficiency of the blood of the Lamb of God, by resting in the atonement already perfected, and looking to nothing beside it or beyond it, for the sprinkling of our hearts from an evil conscience; and at the same time, to be unsatisfied with all present conditions, longing, as in hope, for the coming day of the glory and presence of the Lord.
Thus, we are to rest, and yet to wait; to be settled and quieted in conscience, and yet to be longing and expecting, as for a portion and inheritance. We are to have faith and hope in our souls—faith, because of the accomplished reconciliation; hope, because of the futurity of glory.
In our way, we are to reflect Christ in heaven, as He is seated and expecting. In a great sense, there is infinite distance between Him and us. That I need not say, save as in this passing way, for His glory. He is the Sanctifier, we the sanctified. That bespeaks this infinite distance. But still, in our way, we, though still here on earth, are to reflect a seated and an expecting Christ in heaven.
But again. This consistency of which I speak, is looked for in our assemblies, as well as in our souls. Our assemblies are, in their way, also to reflect a seated and expecting Christ. The services in the house of God are to be of this same character. We are, as this chapter still tells us, to be “exhorting one another,” and “so much the more as we see the day approaching.” Our business with each other, is to provoke one another unto love, and to good works.
Now, being thus occupied with exhortations to charity and services, if in God’s strength we may move each other thereto, we bear witness to ourselves and among ourselves, that we are already a reconciled people, having done with the judgment of sin, as a seated Christ has done with it. Were it not so, we should have other work to do, then to be provoking one another to love and to good works. But resting, as Christ himself does, in accomplished atonement, as at the end of sin, this good work of mutual or common exhortation becomes our due and suited business. And further. The apostle goes on to tell us, that this ministry of exhortation is to be among us, because “the day is approaching”—thus intimating that we are to be an expecting as well as a seated assembly.
I ask then, what condition of things on earth or among us down here, can be more blessed than this? In our souls, and in our assemblies, we are, after these manners, called to reflect Christ in heaven. It is something like Moses, who of old was to go down, and make things in the midst of the camp of Israel in the wilderness, according to the patterns of the things shown to him on the mount.
Surely, I may say, this dignifies, as well as gladdens our souls and our assemblies. We are not straitened in the call and provisions of grace—sadly, humbling indeed in our own bowels, in the answer which we make to such a call—but not in the call itself.
But at the close of this teaching which our chapter thus reads to us, we have to listen to a solemn word of warning. See verses 26-31.
This passage lets us know, that to turn back to the provisions of a worldly sanctuary, and thus to sin against the truth we have now received; to gainsay the mystery of accomplished reconciliation by the blood of the Son of God, by returning to confidence in that which anything or everything else could give us, is ruin to the soul. It is treading underfoot the Son of God. It is doing despite to the Spirit of grace. It is provoking the vengeance of the Lord, and falling into the hands of the living God. And to such a condition nothing attaches, but a fearful looking for of judgment. This unbelief, this confidence in flesh, this living in the world in the return to ordinances, is to un-seat Him that is passed into the heavens.
Is there not a cause, now-a-days, why we should afresh bear in mind ourselves, and remind one another, that the Lord Jesus in heaven is there both seated and expecting?