THERE is more than one thing needful, beloved friends, for this access to God. I must get my sins purged; in cannot enter into the Holiest. And further, I must have my conscience purged, or else I shall not enter in. If a man has debts, he does not like to meet his creditors; and even if they are paid, but he does not know it, he does not like to meet them either. We must know that the conscience is cleared, if we would go right up to God. If God is dealing with us (perhaps I should rather say for us), He brings us into His own presence with our conscience cleared.
Now notice what a remarkable expression we have here in contrast with those Jewish things; “For Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Read Heb. 9:11, 14, 24, 2611But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; (Hebrews 9:11)
14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14)
24For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: (Hebrews 9:24)
26For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26).)
We are not come to the end of the world yet — the full force is “the consummation of the ages” — that is, the consummation of the whole thing by which man had been tried and exercised to bring out what I have been speaking of, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. It was not only that man had sinned, that he had broken the law, and been proved guilty before God; but when he had the Saviour present, in grace, he refused Him; God had come into the world — “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” That is the sense, that full testing had gone on without law, under law, and in the trial of His love. They rejected Him, dealing in love. That is what the cross was, “They hated Me without a cause” (John 15:2525But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. (John 15:25)).
Christianity starts from this: that God has been in the world in love, and that man has turned Him out. It is not merely that man has sinned, and that God has turned him out; that was the case in Eden. But when God came into this world of sin, man said, “We will not have Him, even if it be in love!” The Lord Jesus said, “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin,” &c. If I am a Christian, it means that Christ has been rejected. What was Christ? “Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” It is blessed to see it. Perfectly holy in all His ways, He could not be defiled, and therefore was able to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. Nature cannot stand here, let it be honest enough. It must be all grace — nothing else will do.
This light detects a Pharisee. See that woman taken in adultery, in the very act (John 8). If He says, “Stone her,” He is no Saviour. If He says, “You must not,” He has broken the law. You must either give up grace or give up the law, they urge. “Stop,” says the Saviour; “I am going to apply the law to all of you!” So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself and said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her; and again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest unto the last, and Jesus was left alone; and the woman standing in the midst.”
The eldest had most character to lose, and he went out first. It does not make a bit of difference whether a man had ten sins or five hundred. A wretched sinner she was; nobody excuses her. God says, “It will not do to bring this one up and leave you hardened ones bind!” God takes them all into the light.
Who will stand that? No one in Leamington or anywhere else! Now come, He says, I can show grace. I am not come to judge; I am come to save.
The sin was completely proven, and in that moral sense it was the end of the world. Leave man to himself? Why, God had to bring the flood in, he was so bad. And as to Israel, they were attaching the name of Jehovah to their sin; they made the name of Jehovah blasphemed among the heathen. Love they rejected, and this is the end of man’s history, and the beginning of God’s declaring of Himself. “Now,” He says, “we have the end of what you are; what I am must come out. If you have brought out enmity against God, I am going to show you that I love you.” The individual sinner is brought to have an exercised conscience about himself.
When my own conscience comes to own this, not only that I have broken the law, but that I am a lost sinner — God says, “Now you know yourself; I come that you may know Me, and that you may know that I am a Saviour; I say that you are a lost sinner, but that Christ has come into the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Christ cleared the sins totally away, doing it all Himself. The cross was the turning-point to God. It was there Christ bore our sins, and the hatred that crucified Him was all we had to do with it. The thing that saves us is all His own. What part in it had we? None else besides our sins, and the hatred that crucified Him. God’s part was giving His only-begotten Son.
We have now to see what God can do for man, not from reasoning as to what he is for God, but by believing what God has been and is for him. When the prodigal son had the best robe on, he could not say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants.” His father was treating him as a child; he was come into the new condition. It was not merely the new desires he had, the repentance merely, but it was what the father had done for him so as to bring him into his own presence.
There was I, a sinner, loving any trifle better than God, He who has so loved me as to give His own Son for me! “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” There I get in my heart and mind not simply a general vague sense that God is love, but I learn that in that love He has done a work for me.
Well, I believe Christ died for my sins according to the Scriptures. Had He to die often? “Oh, no!” says the apostle; “that could not be.” Christ’s sacrifice was not like one of those Jewish sacrifices, in which there was a remembrance again made of sins every year. Mark how strongly that is put, “for then must He often have suffered,” &c. He had really to drink the cup. He sweat great drops of blood only thinking of it in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered. Well, if it is not done perfectly, done once for all, Christ must have suffered often. That cannot be. He cannot come down again and die over again. If He has borne my sins in His own body on the tree, He has done once and forever the thing that puts them all away. If the putting away all my sins is not done, it never can be. Individual after individual is brought to acknowledge it, but if the work is not done and finished, it never can be done. Therefore He says, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do” (John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4)). “It is finished!” (John 19:3030When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30).)
Those priests were standing, often offering the same sacrifices, which could never take away sins. Sin came up, they had to do it over again: it was a perpetual remembrance of sins made again every year. A year goes round, and the sacrifice must be repeated. Sins were there. It was a continual memorial. “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool” (Heb. 10:1414For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)). He forever “sat down”; it was after standing. The work was completely and fully done, once and forever, and He sits down, the work accomplished once for all, completely according to the glory of God.
Woe to him who neglects this great salvation! It is a finished work. You cannot have a stronger expression of it than this, “that the worshippers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:22For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. (Hebrews 10:2)). The Lord Jesus has, by the Eternal Spirit, “offered Himself without spot to God.” He drank the bitter cup for me, and the next point He brings out is this, that having done that, He appears now in the presence of God for me, “Who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:44Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 1:4)); and when I go to God I find Him sitting there, the perpetual witness that He has cleared my sins away, and that He is in the presence of God for me. I find Him who has done it sitting there; else “must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world.” The sins could not be put away if He had not finished the work. But He has. If not, it never could be done.
It is settled peace when my soul receives the testimony of the Holy Ghost to this. “For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified;” “He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption;” “He is the Mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”
Then, you see, beloved friends, supposing through grace I say, “Well, I am a poor sinner, I hate those sins, the root and principle in me, how can I be in the presence of God?” I find Christ there, who has put away those sins Christ in the presence of God for me. I find this blessed truth, I have a Saviour in the glory. I follow Him up to the cross, I see Him there under my sins. I see Him now at God’s right hand in the glory! Oh! I say, He has not got my sins there! If I see Him in the glory, I say, “Well, my sins are gone!” That is the practical word, “When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty or high.” I see Him in the glory who bore my sins and I know they are all gone.
My conscience is purged, when in the simplicity of faith I see that God Himself has put away my sins, that the Lord Jesus Christ has drunk the cup for me, that He His own self bore my sins it His own body on the tree. I know they are gone The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins. When I look up to God, and se, Christ in glory, is there a question of imputation of my sins to trouble me?
Mark, beloved friends, I do not speak of “past, present, and future sins.” I cannot say “future.” I never ought to think of committing a sin again. I do not put my state at this moment before God into question. I hear people saying, “Oh, I know my sins up to conversion are gone!” Did Christ bear your sins up to conversion? What is the meaning of that? It is confounding the sense of it brought home to my soul with the efficacy of the work by which He appears in the presence of God for me.
How comes it all about? It is by God’s blessed will. He willed my salvation; He has given me the Saviour. There are three things connected with the work of which I speak — there must be someone having the kindness to do it; it must be done; and I must know that it is done. Of these three things in Hebrews the first is, that it is by the will of God. We see the blessed Son “was made lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man;” — “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, To do Thy will, O God!” — “By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” He was crucified. It is done. It is not only that there was the goodwill of love, to be willing to do it, but it is done. I get the divine goodwill of God in it. It is a divine work done and finished so that Christ, who bore our sins, has “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Now, I want to know it. The Holy Ghost tells me of the eternal efficacy of the work. I have the blessed will of God that gave Christ. I have the work finished, and I have the divine testimony to it by the Holy Ghost. I have the three things — (1) the love that was willing to have it done; (2) the work finished, in that which was done once for all upon the cross; and (3) the testimony of God Himself that He no more will bear my sins in mind.
Mark the effect that flowed from it. The veil was rent from the top to the bottom. That work has put my sins away that shut me out, and it has opened the door to let me in. I go right into the presence of God Himself, in the Holiest, and I go in white as snow. What lets me into the presence of that Holiest of all is the very thing that put all my sins away.