It is indeed very blessed to be enabled to tell a poor awakened sinner that in Jesus all things are ready which he needs for remission of sins, righteousness, and life. And it is not less blessed to be enabled to tell those who have so come to Jesus, that all things are ready for their worship in the holiest of all; that everything is there ordered by the blessed Jesus Himself for their entrance therein, and that He Himself has consecrated the way for their approach.
The time is coming when “many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:33And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:3)). But now is the time for believers to encourage one another to enter into the holiest of all—even into heaven itself, because Jesus is there, and His blood is there. Come ye, say they, and let us draw near with a true heart.
Under the law, much of the priestly ministry was outside the tabernacle, and open to the view therefore of the worshipper. If he brought a burnt sacrifice, he was to bring it to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, where he was to kill it, and then the priests sprinkled the blood in his sight upon the altar that was by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. This part of the priest's work was visible to the outside worshippers. But he who could approach thus far was never satisfied as to his conscience. He came indeed to these sacrifices—he saw them offered—but they were utterly inefficacious as to the purging of the conscience. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.” But now all on the outside has been once and for all accomplished; the priestly ministry is all within and invisible, and therefore only known to faith by the revelation of God.
Let us put ourselves in the place of a Hebrew worshipper, by God's grace taught to know Jesus as the one sacrifice for sin, and as the ever-abiding High Priest in the holiest of all. What a struggle must there often have been in his mind when approaching God, because he had no sacrifice to offer—nothing visible on which to lean, no victim to lay his hand upon. It must indeed have required real true heartedness to Jesus to enable him to draw near—and to look at everything with which he had been formally conversant as taken up in Jesus, so that all that he had seen before was now only to be discerned by faith as fulfilled in Christ. And are we not often false to Jesus in this matter? Do we not often harbor the thought that something yet remains to be done—either by ourselves or by Him—in order to our drawing near? Do we not often thus become occupied with the circumstantials of worship rather than with Jesus—the substance? Are we not often false to Him in questioning our title to draw near because we find distance in our own hearts, as if it was the warmth of our affections, instead of the blood of Jesus, which brought near?
But oh, beloved, how false to Jesus has the church been! The worshippers are often pressed down by a burdensome ritual, and allowed neither to know that they are once and forever purged, nor that all is prepared for their entrance into the holiest. They are turned back again to that which is visible, and go through the daily routine of service, never getting farther than the door of the tabernacle! They are set in the place of distant Jews, instead of that of priests sanctified for heavenly ministrations and worship!
And how continually do we see souls led to put the act of worship in the place of Jesus. Surely this is not to draw near with a true heart. A doubt harbored as to the all-sufficiency of His sacrifice, or the perfect efficiency of His priesthood, or His tender sympathy and compassion, is not to draw near with a true heart. if we shrink back into a distant place after all He has done, are we true-hearted to Jesus? But what positive treachery to Jesus is it to set up an order of men as in greater nearness to God than others-virtually putting them within and virtually putting others without. To lean on priests, or ministers, in worship, as if they were needed to that end, is absolutely denying the virtue of the person and work of Christ. But such things are the necessary offsprings of departure from the truth of a sinner's justification before God, by the one sacrifice of Christ. Distant worship necessarily follows imperfect justification. And if a sinner's justification before God by the blood of Jesus be not seen, much less will entrance into the holiest of all by the same blood for worship be allowed as the common portion of the saints. But even where the truth as to justification has been recovered and is preached, we still see a form and a ritual of worship altogether subversive of the truth. The access proclaimed in the gospel preached, is not permitted those who have believed that preaching! Thus the saints are practically kept in a place of distance, and thus taught to be false-hearted to Jesus!
(To be continued)