Read Heb. 9.
The saints are always looked at as worshippers— “Him that did the service,” or in other words, him that worshipped. They came to present themselves before God. This is the great point which the apostle takes up in this epistle.
It is this side he takes of the law and priesthood: not the commandments, but the coming before God as worshippers. The commandments brought out failure, as the sacrifices whereby Israel approached to God referred to it. Though God, dwelling among the children of Israel, was to be worshipped, there was a need of the repetition of the sacrifices, showing sin was not put away, and that they could not make them that did the service perfect.
There are two things here to be considered. (1.) The repetition of the sacrifices demonstrated that sin was there uncleansed. (2.) Worship always detects the real condition of the worshippers.
This is true of the community of saints or an individual. Nothing shows more clearly a man’s state than his prayers. A person may have what is called “a gift of prayer”—great fluency of words; but his state is shown by the way he dwells on the truth of the gospel, whether he is at home with God, whether he is in a spiritual state or not. I say this is true of individuals as well as of saints brought together. A person may fancy that he has not been in God’s presence, also that he does not find an answer to his prayers, whilst, in fact, the very presence of God detects the state of the heart as carnal, and God meets them in their prayers, showing such what their true state is.
Another most important truth is, that when our worship is spoken of, it is as men brought into God’s presence, not out of it, but in it. If you bring a man to God you bring out the condition of his conscience. Salvation and the knowledge of it cannot be separated. When faith is really working, he cannot say, “I know the value of the blood of Christ, but have no peace.” No man has had the knowledge of the blood given to him, but he is brought to God, for God is not telling fables, when he tells us that “thereby we draw nigh to Him.” I know not, it is true, the value of the blood as He knows it; but I know that “thereby I come to God.” What is God seeking but worshippers—such as worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4) A person dreads God’s presence that has not found peace; but when the value of Christ’s blood is known there is really true peace with God.
Another blessed truth contemplated in this chapter is bringing man into God’s presence with perfectness in his conscience. The Word may be working on a man’s heart, drawing him to the Lord, but there is no actual going into God’s presence now but by going into the holiest. It was not so with the Jew; the vail was then standing, but the vail is now rent from the top to the bottom, and it can never be put up again. Before, the Jew could draw nigh but not see nor be in presence of the glory, but this cannot be now; a person coming must be purged clean by the blood of the Lamb. For we walk in the light as God is in the light, if we are with Him at all. Here we get the character of the knowledge of God. He could not reveal Himself to hide Himself again. He must have purged the conscience of the man absolutely. He is made perfect as concerns the conscience. Whenever, as approaching God, we get out of the condition of a purified worshipper, we are, unwittingly, perhaps, rejecting the gospel; we are quitting the only sacrifice, and there is no more sacrifice for sin. The holiness of the position of the worshipper and the settled peace of his conscience go together, —secured together in this one sacrifice. I do not say if our walk is wrong and we slip, God may not chasten us, but the gospel finds no further remedy for the conscience of sins as regards guilt. It is said “If we hold fast the confidence steadfast to the end,” also “there is no more sacrifice for sin.” If we get out of the character of a purged conscience, we are giving up the only foundation, for we know Christ cannot die over again.
The more we seek to know and to enjoy this privilege, to be standing in the presence of God, the more we shall be able to detect our sinfulness, our selfishness, our self-confidence, our self-importance, our self-righteousness, those subtle foes; for nothing sticks so closely to us as ourselves; and here is growth in Christian experience and in reverence, so to be brought out of ourselves and separated to God; for Christ will eclipse self. We may stumble in our walk, but there are no degrees of standing before God.
If faith lays hold on Christ’s blood, we can refer to our sins, without having them on our conscience, but not without shame and horror. Paul could tell Jesus of sins that made him “not meet to be called an apostle.” He could tell them all to Jesus in the fullest confidence of love. He could say, “I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee.” Peter could tell men of sins as ruining them which he had committed, not with any allowance for the sin (he knew the horror of sin), but with perfect peace of conscience, because he had been washed once and forever.
I never connect my walk with the blood of Christ in His presence for my acceptance. There is nothing about sin there. This I know when I have learned fully His holiness and my total emptiness. In my own thoughts I may be connecting my walk with my acceptance, and then I can have no peace, but in the presence of God I cannot do this. If I were always consciously there, I could not have a doubt of my acceptance.
Those worshippers who had to offer the sacrifices year by year continually, had not an abidingly cleansed conscience; but the work which enables me to come into the presence of God is an accomplished fact to be believed in. In analogy to the high-priest taking blood into the Holiest—Jesus Christ, by the power of the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself to God, and there my soul rests. Christ has offered Himself once and on that must I depend; it is accomplished! My soul rests by faith on that which is already clone. I present this sacrifice: that is communion. I may speak of this in praise, in communion with God, but no longer as having sin to be atoned for.
At the close of this chapter it is written, “Christ appears in the presence of God for us.” He is always in the holy place presenting the blood. He stands there as the representative of His people. I do not present the blood, but He appears there, and that is my acceptance—my never-varying position. If I go to worship God, it must be in the living power of Christ. Christ never moves; He is always there. In the strength of that we go. We cannot repeat the shedding of blood over and over again; that would be fresh suffering. If sin is imputed to me, it must be laid on someone, and Christ must suffer again. But where do you find that sin must be imputed again, and there must be a fresh sacrifice of Christ?
If there is anything that hinders the access of a Christian to God, there must be a fresh sacrifice; but we know that “Christ appears in the presence of God for us” —that “now once, in the end of the world, He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” —the end of the world morally at least it was, for all God’s moral dealings have been wound up. There has not been a single element in man that has not been brought out, and since man could not be mended, God brought in a new thing, even the sacrifice of Him upon whom His heart rested, the Son of His love. In every condition man has been tried—before the law, in giving the law, and then by His Son; as Christ said, “If I had not done among them the works which none ever did, they had not had sin, but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father.”
He long continued His long suffering, but now He must “put away sin” or the sinner, and “He dies to put away sin,” for the saving of the sinner, at the winding-up of the ages.
Supposing you had run riot with the antediluvians, or had built Babel, or in despite of God, had broken His law, or had even crucified the Son of God, all is put away in the blood of Christ for the believer, and man is brought in as a worshipper, with “no more conscience of sins.” All that requires death and judgment has been met; man’s natural appointment is death and judgment. Death ends the man here, and then comes the judgment. Up to death, man may go on without God, but when death has set his seal to his doom, God brings him into judgment for all these things. “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many,” all the sins due to the believer, and all the judgment, have been borne by Him; and he is at liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. But is the believer not to see Christ? Is Christ never to return since He comes no more as a sacrifice? Yes! He is to come, and I am looking for Him, not as coming in judgment, but as the One who has borne my sins. He comes “without sin.” He first came about sin, and, though perfectly holy, was, in perfect love and grace, “made sin for us.” “He appears the second time without sin unto salvation;” nothing to do with sin, that being already settled, having had it before by His grace imputed to Him, He comes to the saints for their full blessedness and entrance into glory.
Here is the contrast between man’s natural portion and the gift of God—the sinner’s portion, death and judgment; the saints portion, the sins borne and salvation, and glory. Faith looks to Christ, and Christ only; and there is for me no imputation of sin—none at all. God considers this not as a theory, but as a real thing to bring us into His presence; and there is not a more complete evidence of our sin being “put away,” than our being able to judge ourselves, and to use the language of Psa. 139, “Search me, O God, and try me,” thus willing to have purged out all that hinders communion, and therefore pray to be searched, because there is nothing in the conscience, being absolutely perfect in conscience in God’s presence. It would be madness for a man to be asking to be searched thoroughly, if he had not a purged conscience; but the saint can do this; and there is no such blessed evidence that the conscience is cleansed, as a thorough hatred of sin, and true desire that God may search.
Let us remember that the blood of Christ brings us into the presence of a holy God, and there we can look at ourselves as settled, and press after conformity to His will. There will be “reverence and godly fear,” for a purged conscience is a tender conscience, a conscience supple to the will of God.
May we enjoy these two things in their power—a conscience perfected forever by the blood of Christ, and God thus bringing us in to be worshippers in His presence. —MS. Notes.