WE want now to look a little, the Lord helping us, at the present work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of God. I have read only a few words of Scripture but if we really gain an understanding of the meaning of the fact that Christ has entered into heaven and now appears in the presence of God for us, it will not be without profit.
In the first place let us ask, Who is it that has entered into heaven? It is the One who is none other than the eternal Son of God. His glories are brought before us in the first chapter; in fact in nearly every chapter in the Epistle His superlative glories are brought before us in a way that must bow our hearts in worship. But just as He became Man in order that He might accomplish the work of the cross so He has now entered into Heaven as Man.
Let us be quite clear as to this. He who is God became Man, but when He became Man He did not cease to be God, and therefore we have the holy mystery—a mystery that you and I will never, never understand, but in the presence of which we wonder and worship—of God and Man being here in one and the same Person. But He Who came into the world as Man has gone back into the presence of God as Man, and the great, wonderful, outstanding fact of Christianity is this, that there is a Man in the presence of God today and there is a divine Person in this world. The Holy Spirit is here because there is a Man in the presence of God. If He had not been glorified, the Spirit would not have been given, but the Spirit has been given as witness to the fact that there is a real Man in the presence of God.
Someone may ask, Why stress that so much? For this reason. He has entered into the presence of God for us, which means that you and I may enter in. Having accomplished the great work of redemption, He has made it possible for us to have a standing in the presence of God.
Now there is another thing we want to observe—that Christ has entered into Heaven. “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands.... but into Heaven itself.” His death as presented in this Epistle was His own voluntary act; He “through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.” In the same way, because of the greatness and glory of His Person, as well as on the ground of accomplished redemption, He has entered into the presence of God for us. By His own act He has gone in, because He has an indisputable right to be there.
That is a marvelous thing. The first man because of his sin put an immeasurable distance between himself and God, and, to all outward appearance, it looked as if God had been defeated. The second Man has gone right into the presence of God, and that for us, which is the pledge that you and I may appear there also. Not only that we may appear there in a coming day, but so that He conduct us in spirit into the divine presence— “the holiest”―here and now.
Christ, then, has entered into Heaven, and He now appears in the presence of God. That sums up in a very few words what is really the main subject matter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is priesthood. The priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ has to do with God, and with our relation to God, and our appearing in the presence of God.
Here let us digress a little to observe the difference between the priesthood and the advocacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. His priesthood has to do with our relation to God, His advocacy has to do with our relation to the Father. His priesthood is a ceaseless service in regard to us each; there is not a moment in our history, by day or by night, when He is not exercising His priestly service on our behalf. His advocacy is a more occasional service. If we turn to the first epistle of John we shall see that quite clearly.
At the end of the first chapter the inspired writer is dealing with the question of a believer sinning. I wonder if that sounds strange in some believer’s ear. Do you say, “I thought after I was converted I should never sin again.”? Well I expect by now you have found out your mistake; and if not you will find that this chapter has something very serious to say to you. A young fellow came to me after a meeting and said he had a real desire to be saved. “But” said he, “there is one thing that troubles me, I can understand very clearly that if I come to Christ tonight every sin that I have committed up till tonight will be put away by the blood of Jesus, but supposing I sin afterward, what then?” I read to him, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” and said, “do you believe that?” “Yes” he replied. “Now” I said, “how many sins had you committed when the Lord Jesus shed His blood?” “None” he at once answered. “And how many sins does His blood wash away?” “All sin” “How many is that?” “That means all sin from the time I came into the world till the time I leave it, that’s splendid” he exclaimed. All sin does indeed mean all sin from the time you came into the world until the time you leave the world.
Some person may say, “That does not quite solve the problem; supposing I do sin after I am converted, what then?” Look at the 9th verse, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confessing our sins is not simply a matter of asking to be forgiven. It means that, if I have sinned. I have judged and owned that sin before God, realizing what a serious thing it is in His sight.
Someone thinks, “If that is the case, then it seems to me it does not matter if I sin or not, I have only to confess my sins and that is all about it.” Apparently there were such people in John’s day and so he opens chapter 2 by saying, “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.” Supposing I do sin, I have got to be merciless in my judgment of myself and in my condemnation of my conduct; but, “If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” If I sin it is not a question of my relationship with the Father being affected, but of the communion between the child and the Father being interrupted.
Supposing I drop into a house some day unawares, and the mother is giving her boy a right good scolding. She says, “He has been a very, very naughty boy.” “Then,” I say, “he is not your son any more.” What would she say? He is her child all the same, and it is just because she loves her son so much that she does scold him, and the communion, if I may use the word as between the mother and the child is lost. But the boy comes later and he says, “Mother I own I did a wrong thing, and I am very sorry for it,” then the old happy relations are restored once more. Why do you and I feel so unhappy when we have sinned? Because we are children of God and because that delicate, fragile link of communion has been snapped, and we are made miserable. When there is confession we find that our Advocate has been there before us; and we may be assured that we are forgiven by the Father. Now you can quite see, I think, that the work of the Advocate is an occasional work, but the work of the Priest is a ceaseless work, as He appears in the presence of God for us.
Let us all take these words right home to ourselves individually, and say, “Christ has entered into heaven, and now appears in the presence of God for me.” Can you imagine anything more wonderful than that? Think of what we are, poor, insignificant, little specks in God’s great universe. Then think of all that the blessed Lord Jesus has to engage His attention; the interest of this world and other worlds, everything that goes on in this great universe, myriads of His people all over the world, and yet my brother, my sister, He appears in the presence of God for you. He knows your name, He knows where you live, He knows your life, He knows every detail of your history, He knows your sorrows, He knows your temptations, and He is as interested in your little life as if you were the only person that He had to represent before God.
Let me remind you of a beautiful illustration in the Gospels of the present priestly work of the Lord Jesus. It is in Matthew 14. The Lord Jesus had just fed the multitude, when He told His disciples to get into a boat and go to the other side, while He Himself went up into a mountain apart. The Lord Jesus had virtually left the world, He was alone on top of that mountain, and He was praying. Below there were His disciples in the ship in the midst of the sea, and the waves were contrary. Can you not see the analogy? Our blessed Lord Jesus has left us; He is on the mountain top. In other words, He now appears in the presence of God. You and I are below in the midst of the sea of tumult, opposition, difficulties, and the thousand and one things that we have to encounter in our pathway through this world, and we find that Satan’s power, like the wind, is contrary.
Perhaps there is a young Christian, who lives in a home where there is nobody who knows the Saviour but herself, and they are all against her; sometimes she is almost tempted to give up. Perhaps there is a, young fellow, and where he works he suffers a tremendous lot from his workmates; there is not another Christian in the place except himself, and they do everything they can to side-track him and sometimes he feels sorely tempted to fling it all up and let go. Perhaps there is somebody who has got a heavy sorrow, somebody who has got a burden upon their heart of which they cannot speak to anybody but to God Himself. You have been finding the winds contrary in ever so many different ways, and there have been times when things were just at their worst, and Satan has whispered in your ear and said, “Before you were converted you did not have all this with which to contend; your unconverted friends seem to have a very much smoother time of it than you have—and yet you say that Jesus loves you and you love Him! Why should you have the afflictions and the opposition that you have?” Sometimes you give these thoughts a little room in your heart, and you ask yourself “I wonder why it is?” and it seems, when your burden becomes so great, that He is a long way off.
What happened that night? Jesus saw them toiling in rowing, and what was He doing? He was praying. For whom was He praying? I think to ask that question is to answer it. I have no doubt whatever He was praying for the disciples. Listen my brother, my sister, the Lord Jesus looks down upon you from the mountain top; He sees these tears that nobody else knows anything about. He sees that burden that you have got to bear, He sees the trials that compass you, He sees the infirmities with which you have got to contend. He sees, He knows, He loves, He cares, and He prays. Why is He praying for you? He is praying for you in order that knowing His succor, His sympathy, and His support, He may render you superior to it all.
You may remember that when Aaron as High Priest first went into the presence of God, He entered with the names of the children of Israel on his shoulders and on his breast. Our High Priest now appears in the presence of God for us, and He appears there with your name and my name on His shoulders of strength, and on His heart of love.
Let us go on with our story. In the fourth watch of the night, when the night is at its darkest, Jesus came to them, and if they were so filled with terror that at first they failed to recognize Him, there came His well-known gracious voice, “Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid.” Thus does He come to us in our circumstances in order that He may conduct us into His circumstances. He comes right down to our side of things in order that He may conduct us to His side of things, and when we reach Him the storm ceases, and we are able to take our place at His feet and worship Him as the Son of God.
Now notice another thing. We have already seen that His advocacy has to do with sins but His priesthood has not to do with sins. His priesthood has to do with infirmities and therefore we read in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Sins bring in distance between ourselves and the Father, and affect the tender, vital link of communion. Infirmities are things, not sinful in themselves, that encompass us in our weakness because of the mixed condition in which we find ourselves. Our High Priest supports us in our infirmities in order that He may render us superior to them all.
In all this He has a grand object in view. He does it not simply that you and I may feel a little happier because of His support or because He relieves us from our infirmities. In point of fact, it is not always His way to relieve. Paul had an infirmity, and His prayer was not answered in the way that he expected. He did not get deliverance from his infirmity though he was quite delighted with the answer he got. There is often greater glory to the Lord Jesus, when His grace is magnified by His making us superior to the things that try and trouble us than when He delivers us from them. The point is this, He supports us in our infirmities, He makes us superior to them and enables us to rise altogether above them—for what? In order that He may conduct us into the presence of God. This we learn when we come to the climax of the epistle in the 19th verse of chapter 10, where we read that we have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
We hardly appreciate these words as much as those to whom they were in the first place addressed, and I am afraid there is sometimes such familiarity with them that they are robbed of their freshness, sweetness and power. The Jews of old were well accustomed to the high priest entering in once every year; they knew that there was never any possibility of their entering in. When the inspired writer spoke of Christ having entered into heaven and now appearing for us, they would have seen what he alluded to and understood it, but I think as they read chapter 10 they must have been positively staggered, that they had boldness to enter into the holiest.
Christ came into the world to represent God before man: He has gone into the presence of God to represent man before God. He has entered into the presence of God with our names upon His heart: you and I are privileged to enter into the presence of God with His name upon our hearts. Is it not marvelous beyond all conception that we can now find an entrance into the presence of God, and find our home there?
Jesus fills that holy place; Jesus, our precious Saviour, Jesus our Great High Priest, Jesus the object of God’s supreme delight. God delights in Jesus and He shares that delight with us. In that holy place there is one voice only to be heard and that is the voice of God. “The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Hab. 2:2020But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. (Habakkuk 2:20)) We hear His voice as He tells us of the glories of Christ; of His delight in Christ; and there can be only one result from that, our chapter does not tell it, but it is a very clear inference, and that is that worship will go out from our hearts to God.
That is what He wants. He has been working with us for that; it is why He saved us to begin with. The Lord Jesus is exercising His priestly office for us in the presence of God today, in order that, set free from every hindrance, our hearts may overflow and rise to God the Father in that worship that is so grateful to His heart.
May we be in the power of these things more and more.
W. Bramwell Dick.