Hebrews 3.
THE comparisons in the Scriptures are beautiful and instructive, but their contrast are ofttimes turning points with the soul and God. These differences will be seen in the pages of the Old Testament especially, and will of necessity be found important to a right understanding of the mind of God, as well as to the establishment of the consciences and the faith of the Lord’s people, whose intercourse and communion with Christ and the Father should be in the peace and joy of accomplished redemption.
All worship in “the holiest” will be found to depend upon “boldness to enter in.” And what can give this to a worshipper in our dispensation but “the rent veil,” and “the blood of Jesus,” and “the High Priest over the House of God,” as in Heb. 10; in fact, “a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.” There can be no other path but this blood-sprinkled one, nor any other place than “the holiest” where God is, nor any other priest than “Jesus the Son of God, passed into the heavens.” If worship is to be Christian worship, it must have the truth and savor of the perfectness of Christ’s finished work and prevailing intercession as its proper character and foundation. In brief, the New Testament, as a whole, brings the believer into liberty before God― “the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,” and gives boldness (as we have seen) to the worshiper “to enter into the holiest,” where God is; whereas the Old Testament believer never stood in this liberty, and never knew this boldness. How could he, when there was a remembrance again made of sins every year? Will this give liberty? How can there be boldness to enter where God is, when the Holy Ghost is signifying “that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest?” The liberty and boldness proper to a Christian now, when thus viewed in contrast with a Jewish believer in his temple, or at the door of the tabernacle with a prohibition to enter in, will serve as an example of the important differences we are considering.
The break down in Christian worship in these days is so wide-spread and dishonoring to God, and to the High Priest, and the believer, that the subject must be traced further and fuller, in order that souls may be aroused to the discovery that true worship under Moses in a past time is false worship in “the house of God” in this present time. This is a bold statement to make; may the Lord give us to feel that it is also a very humbling one as we pursue our examinations.
The two dispensations to which we have alluded, or the period before Christ came, and the period since He went away, have their comparisons, which we shall notice. Each has its house; the first, in which Moses was “a servant,” the other, in which Christ takes the place of “Son.” Each had its priesthood, each had its sacrifice, and each had its worshippers. These are important similarities, and there are others.
The contrast, or some of the most striking, are these: The house of Moses, as we may call it, had an earthly calling, but the house of the Son has a “heavenly calling.” In the house of Moses all were servants and none were sons; whereas, in the Son’s house, all are sous; “for ye have not received the spirit of bondage (servant ship) again to fear, but ye have received “he Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.” Precious grace!
The epistle to the Hebrews will further tell us what was the personal glory of the one in each house. “This man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house.” Moreover, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.” The next great contrast is between Aaron and the “many priests,” and Christ, a Priest who continueth ever, made after the power of an endless life.” “For He testifieth, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.”
Every careful reader must have been struck with the frequent use of the words perfect and perfection in this epistle as contrasted with Moses, and all that economy; “for the law made nothing perfect.” Moses, at His brightest, was but a typical mediator; Aaron, with his “garments of glory and beauty,” was but a typical priest; the altars, with the sacrifices and their blood, were but typical things; and all were imperfect in themselves, and, at their best, did but make up “a worldly sanctuary.” That economy never produced a perfect priest, nor a perfect sacrifice, nor a worshipper made perfect; whereas in the Son’s house all is perfect.
Before passing on to notice other contrasts, we shall do well to remember that Moses was made great by being put into his office between Jehovah and Israel, and that Aaron also was dignified by being invested with “the garments of glory and beauty,” and put into the office of priesthood; but the Lord Jesus Christ cannot be made great by any office He may sustain; on the contrary, His own personal glory makes great, and casts glory upon any and all His offices, as Mediator, Priest, and King. Moreover, such “an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His own sins, and then for the people’s; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself.”
Another important contrast is found in the fact, that only one family had a title to the successional priesthood of Israel; whereas now all the Lord’s people are priests, one as much as another, “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.” The acknowledgment that any man, or any class of men, has a better title to the presence of God than another, or that any such can stand in greater nearness, and rightly take a place between other believers and God for blessing, would be a denial of true Christian priesthood in its present place and power. The refusal to own that believers are all and equally made kings and priests unto God and the Father is the apostacy of Christian worship and standing, and leaves no other alternative than to fall back on the superseded types and shadows of Moses and his house. “If he were on earth, he should not be a priest,” gives us at a glance the new order and elevation of true Christian priesthood and service. May none of us be in understanding below the place where the grace of God and the effectual work of Christ have set us in rest and peace.
Another great contrast exists between the house of Moses and the Son’s house, inasmuch as in the first there were courts, and veils, and separation, which marked and maintained the distance between Jehovah and His Israel; but in the Son’s house there is neither a veil before God, nor an outer court for the worshippers; all prohibitions of this sort are gone. The middle wall of partition has been broken down; the handwriting of ordinances that was against us has been blotted out, and nailed to His cross; the veil rent from the top to the bottom, and the outer court abolished. A “new and living way into the holiest” is proclaimed by God Himself; and “let us draw near” are the first notes of the emancipated conscience, and the liberated heart, as we enter in with boldness. Nor will we forget, in the height of our liberty and of our worship in the holiest with our Priest, at what a coat we have been introduced and made at home there with God, and where God is.
Another contrast yet remains between the sacrifices of Moses and Aaron, in the house made with hands, and those of “the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” What a contrast shall we find here, as we open our new book of Leviticus, and read, “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins; wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” Continuous offerings, and a consequent remembrance of sins every year, marked the imperfectness of Moses and his house; but the two pillars of our temple, the Jachin and Boaz of today, will tell us of the “remission of sins,” engraven on the chapiter of the first, and “no more offering” on the chapiter of the last. God, the Jehovah, of whom it was written, “In burnt offerings, and offerings for sin, thou hast had no pleasure,” will now say, from the very holy of holies, “I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sing.” What a new way is this of knowing and worshipping our God and Father!
A few words of practical import may very suitably close these meditations, as we ask ourselves, “In which house am I, in the consciousness of my own soul? Am I standing before God in the liberty and nearness of the Son’s house? or in the distance and bondage of the house of Moses? Am I a worshipper in the Holiest by the “new and living way,” with the great High Priest over this house of God? or am I taking the place of a Jew in the outer court, tied and bound by the remembrance of sins? Again, as regards the sacrifice, am I in the peaceful acknowledgment with God, that Christ, by His one offering once offered, “has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself?” and that the worshipper, once purged, has no more conscience of sins? or am I insisting on the fact that Christ has left me where I was, a miserable sinner as to my state and condition, and that I have something yet to do for myself upon these matters with God?
Do I estimate “boldness to enter in” by my own actual experiences? If so, I shall call it the greatest presumption, and stay out; but if my estimate is formed on the value of the precious blood of Christ, and the intercession of my Priest, I must go in with boldness, were it only to own that He is as perfect in His work as a Priest in the heavens as He was perfect in His work as a Sacrifice on the cross. If you think of yourself, you will never get boldness; if you think of the blood and the Priest, and the God who calla you in, it will be the greatest presumption to hesitate. “Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil, that he die not,” was a law for the house of Moses; but in the nearness and intercourse of the Son’s house, with God the Father, will be found not only liberty and boldness, but the sure guarantee for a separate walk with Christ on the earth. With Him in the holiest, where God is, is the necessary link and security for a closer association with that same Christ, in our denial of the flesh, the world, and the devil the worshipper in the heavens will be outside the camp on earth. May this be known increasingly by the Lord’s dear people, the little while they tarry for Him.