It is profitable to seek to place ourselves in the circumstances of those to whom the New Testament scriptures were immediately addressed. Not that the same scriptures are not immediately applicable to ourselves; they are so because applying to that which is essential and characteristic. But by placing ourselves among those first addressed, we shall better discern the way in which the Holy Ghost regards and uses the circumstances of the saints in communicating truth unto them. Indeed when circumstances are thus duly regarded, we shall find perspicuity given to many statements which otherwise might be general or vague; and this will be found especially the case when any direct contrast with the habit of thought and tone of feeling of those addressed is intended.
A Hebrew under the law moved in a religions atmosphere. From his childhood be had been accustomed to look with veneration on the goodly temple. He was instructed concerning sacrifice and incense. He was brought up to revere the consecrated priesthood. The priest in his consecrated garments, coming forth to bless the worshipping people, must have been an impressive, though familiar, object to him. He must necessarily have attached the most solemn importance to the unseen work of that priest within the holy place.
Now suppose such an one as this, taught of God, and so receiving His testimony concerning Christ: he believes on Jesus, owning Him as the Son of God, the Christ of God, and the Lamb of God. He finds peace in his soul unknown before; and he has confidence with God through Jesus Christ, by Whom he has now received the reconciliation.
We know that thousands of Hebrews were thus brought into light and peace through faith in Jesus; to such was the Epistle to the Hebrews primarily addressed.
But how would such believers stand in relation to their former associations? Having personal peace of conscience through the blood of Jesus, would they continue worshippers according to the order of that economy in which they had been brought up? No. That which gave them peace would destroy every old association. Having learned the preciousness of the blood, by finding through it remission of sins, they would have to learn it as equally precious, because by it they were redeemed from the “vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers.” They would have access as worshippers into heaven itself—and that too as a holy priesthood—there to “worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
The consequence must be that, in the city of solemnities itself, such an one finds himself in the wilderness. He can no longer have fellowship with the multitude who keep holy-day. His temple and his High Priest are now in heaven; and if he went up to the temple in Jerusalem at the hour of prayer, he there has to testify that Israel are blindly groping amidst the shadows, and that all the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Him, Whom they had slain, but Whom God had exalted by His own right hand. But, such an one, though full of heavenly communion and intelligence, would appear, to the eyes of those around him, as though he had been cut off from Israel; yea, he might actually have been put out of the synagogue (John 16:22They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (John 16:2)). If he would speak of worshipping God, they would have cast it in his teeth that he had neither sanctuary, nor altar, nor sacrifice, nor priest! Hard indeed must it have been to have maintained that he had all these, when apparently he could not point to one of them. Hard indeed to hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope steadfast unto the end. But with a single eye to JESUS all this was possible. Yea; there ought to have been a confidence and rejoicing in the assertion of what he had found, as far superior to all that he had left. All he had left was visible and present indeed—things which were palpable to sense; and all he had found was known only to faith; but still he could say what he had. He could testify that the only value of all that God once established amidst Israel was found in its representing that which he now in substance knew in heaven. And he could therefore say, Taste and see that the Lord is gracious.
But how strange and irregular must it have appeared to such to assemble for worship without any single visible essential of worship: no prescribed or consecrated place; no sacrifice; no ministering priest! But here came in the profession—that all these they had. “We have,” says the apostle, “such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man.” Throughout this Epistle the apostle takes most lofty ground. He takes his place as one with us—i.e. one of the church—and tells out what we have. He will not allow any pretension to interfere with ours. And he seeks to stir us up to the holding fast of our profession. But has there not been sad declension here? We have been false witnesses of the grace of God; as though He had not blessed us already so abundantly that we can, to the glory of His grace, challenge every pretension and assert our profession to be yet higher. Oh! that the Lord would lead our souls consciously to take this standing, that by it we might be able to contradict every pretension of the world and of the flesh, whether religious or otherwise. “We have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens.” “We have a hope as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the vail.” “We have an altar whereof those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.” And we have “a minister of the sanctuary.”
Let us now turn to the consideration of the Lord Jesus, as this “Minister of the sanctuary.”
The apostle Paul was not a minister of the sanctuary; worshipped there through the ministry of Another. He had as much need of this ministry as any of his converts. He stood on the same level with them, in relation to ministry in the sanctuary. He had indeed a most blessed ministry, in a peculiar sense his own—the ministry of reconciliation among the Gentiles. He had received the reconciliation through Jesus Christ Himself, and, by his preaching, others likewise received it; he could speak of it as special grace, that he should have been put into the ministry: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and persecutor and injurious.” But he was not called out from the multitude of believers, as the priest was from the multitude of Israel, to minister for them before the Lord (Hebrews 5); though he surely was a chosen vessel to bear the Lord's name to the Gentiles, and though he had a certain place of authority and eminence in the church itself. But however distinct may have been his ministry—or even ministries, he was one of a common priesthood. He well knew that there were but two ranks in Christian priesthood; the Great High Priest, and the priests. He was one of the priests; and therefore though he could magnify his office as an apostle of the Gentiles, he could not magnify his priesthood. Hence he writes authoritatively as the apostle; while before the Great High Priest he is but a brother among brethren. The great subject of priesthood, which he so largely discusses in the Epistle to the Hebrews, demanded that the apostle should himself take the place of a worshipper; that thus his own peculiar office might sink into nothing before the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Thus does the apostle acknowledge and declare that Jesus, the Son of God, alone is the representative Priest of the saints, and that He has no representative priest on the earth. Would that in this Paul had had more successors!
The apostle Paul then was a minister of the gospel to every creature under heaven, and a minister too of Christ's body (the church) on earth (Col. 1:23-2523If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; 24Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: 25Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; (Colossians 1:23‑25)); but it was not by intervention of his ministry that any worshipped. The disciples needed his instruction and guidance, and were to know that he had authority; but they were enabled to worship as well in the absence as in the presence of the apostle. He might have led their worship, or he might have followed others in it. His office was lost, so to speak, when they stood together in the attitude of worshippers before the Great High Priest. He might have prayed with the disciples (as Acts 20:3636And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. (Acts 20:36)), or they with him (as Acts 21:55And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city: and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed. (Acts 21:5)). It is indeed most important clearly to distinguish between the common standing of all regenerate persons as priests unto God, and diversities of ministry. Paul and Barnabas were set apart (Acts 13) for a distinct ministry to the Gentiles; but this was not setting them apart as ministers of the sanctuary. They could be ministers of the sanctuary in no other sense than that in which all saints minister there. If they presumed to more than this, they must deny either the proper standing of the saints of God, or the alone place of the Son of God. For in the sense of being “ordained for men in things pertaining to God” Jesus is the ONLY Minister of the sanctuary. It is therefore no light matter to set up such a pretension as that which an ordained priesthood or clergy certainly does. It interferes with the prerogative of Jesus. It is a fearful instance therefore of human presumption or ignorance.
The sanctuary in which Jesus ministers is not on earth, as that was in which Aaron ministered, but in heaven itself. But it is nevertheless true that God has now a ministry on earth as well as a ministry in heaven. But these ministries differ most essentially. The ministry on earth goes forth from God to sinners, upon the ground of God's manifested love in the gift of His Son. The ministry of the sanctuary is a ministry on behalf of those already brought nigh unto God by the blood of Jesus. In the former there is nothing whatever priestly. The minister of the gospel does nothing for the sinner; for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; but he proclaims what God has done, what God has wrought, and what God declares. On the other hand, the Minister of the sanctuary is actually occupied with doing something for the worshippers—for those who have already come to God through faith in Jesus, and who have free access into the holiest of all. The minister of the gospel has to tell sinners of the work of sacrifice; a work done on earth; a finished work, never to be repeated. But the work of the Priest is continuous; a work on behalf of believers alone; a work for the true worshippers, and which is carried on in heaven. To confound these ministries is sad confusion indeed. To make the ministry of the gospel priestly in its character is to deceive sinners into the thought that they are worshippers; and it is at the same time entirely to obscure the blessed ministry of reconciliation. Nor is that error less dangerous which has confounded the ministry of the Spirit, by gift, in the church, with the true service of the One. Minister of the sanctuary. It is an awful invasion of His office to suppose that any in the church are peculiarly priests for the rest.
Now if this great truth has been sufficiently cleared, that there may be many ministers of the gospel, and many specially gifted to minister in the church, but only One Minister of the sanctuary, it remains for us to consider the Lord Jesus in this office. And there are three points on which I would rest: 1st.—the minister himself; 2nd.—the place of his ministry; 3rd.—the character of his service and our special interest in it.
1.— “We have such a High Priest.” The Person of our Great High Priest, and the connection between His Person and His office, having been already rested on in a previous paper, I would now only say, that this language is in its character boasting. And it is rightly so; for we may glory in the Lord. It is right to challenge any comparison with Him; and to leave who will to draw the conclusion. But this is not all that is said of Him here; it is added, “Who is set down at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens.”
It has been noticed already that the attitude of sitting down, contrasted with the standing of Aaron, shows that the One has completed the work of sacrifice which the other never did. But there is this also to be noticed—the place in which He is seated, “on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.” How every expression of honor and dignity seems to be collected together here! What a seat is this! There is our High Priest seated! And there is this other blessed truth—He has taken His seat there at the call of God. “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Aaron was called of God, but he was never called upon to sit down even in the worldly sanctuary. He was never even spoken with, as Moses, face to face by God. He was not up in the mount with God in the glory as was Moses, he was below with the people. But what a value was stamped by God on the sacrificial work of Christ when He was thus called of Him! The exaltation of Jesus to the seat on which He now sits proves most abundantly the value of the blood He has shed. How precious that blood must be to God—how perfect its efficacy in His sight! Let us often meditate on the dignity of our High Priest as shown, not only by His Person, but also by the seat unto which He has been called of God; remembering that He has taken that seat in consequence of His having “by Himself purged our sins.”
The word here rendered “minister” is not the word ordinarily applied to the ministry of the gospel. The apostle Paul does indeed once apply it to himself (Rom. 15)— “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.” But in that instance the apostle is not speaking of ordinary gospel ministry, but of his own special ministry as the apostle of the uncircumcision. This instance therefore only serves to mark the peculiar force of the term. It properly means one who sustains some distinct and onerous office for the public good; and, in some instances, at his own cost.
The word has been transferred to our language in the word “liturgy,” the public service of God. It might therefore be rendered— “as soon as the days of his ministration (liturgy) were accomplished “(Luke 1:2323And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house. (Luke 1:23)). Zacharias, as a priest, performed divine service for the people. So it is of the Lord a little below in this eighth chapter, “but now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry” (liturgy); more excellent than that of Zacharias or the Jewish priests. He alone performs divine service for others. He does this as the great public Minister of the saints, in heaven. Any number among the saints might minister and fast before the Lord on earth
(Acts 13); but they did not stand in such a relation to God as is involved in performing a service for others which they could not undertake. No saint stands towards God in such a relation to any other saint—if any assume it, they in this assume the exclusive prerogative of the Son of God.
I believe that our souls are little aware of the effect of looking to any set of men to perform public service for us to God. It must necessarily take the soul away from immediate dependence on the great public Minister, and His divine service in heaven. It is not that every one is qualified to lead the public worship of the saints, any more than that every one is qualified to teach the saints or to preach the gospel. But there are none who stand in the same relation to the church as Zacharias did to the Jews (Luke 1); nor is any one called to perform service for them, so that, if such a person was wanting, the saints could not worship. Let the saints ever remember this, and guard against any intrusion on that office solely belonging to the great High Priest. Divine service is now performed in heaven by the one great High Priest, and He is jealous of the intrusion of any into this His office; as He was when Korah and his company intruded into the office of those whom He once ordained to perform divine service on the earth.
Divine service then is only performed for us in heaven. We may, i.e. all Christians may, perform it on earth before the Lord, as they of Antioch did (Acts 13). I do not at all doubt the antiquity of liturgies, nor raise any question as to their spirituality; but this I may safely affirm, that not a vestige is to be found in the New Testament of an ordered ritual; and that a liturgy could have had no place in the church, till it had lost the sense of the One Who performs divine service in heaven, by going back to the pattern of an earthly priesthood. And how all the system with which we now see liturgies connected shows that such declension there has been! That such was the tendency even in the apostles' days, the Epistle to the Hebrews abundantly proves. That some had drawn back and neglected the assembling of themselves together is distinctly stated. And as the Spirit of God in this Epistle expressly meets such a condition of things, this Epistle becomes of peculiar value to the saints in days like the present, when Satan is so plainly working in the same way.
Remember it is no question between the comparative advantage of one ritual above another; or whether there may not be evangelical truth and spiritual breathings in a liturgy; it is a much more solemn question. It is a question concerning the assumption by men of an office belonging alone to the Son of God. Korah and his company might have intended to adhere ever so strictly to the directions for priestly service; but that was not the question—it was one of personal intrusion into an office unto which God had not called them. Indeed they perished with censers and incense in their hands: the controversy of God was with them. And just so it is of all false assumption of office in the church. It is not a question of what may or may not be done in the office, it is the intrusion into it which is so fearful a sin. For is not reproach cast upon the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven—is He not trodden under foot—if the thought is allowed of the necessity of any one person, or any order of persons, to perform divine service for us on earth? “WE HAVE,” blessed be His name, “a minister of the sanctuary” always performing divine service for us above. Be it our souls' joy to know it more and more!