HERE is a theme that might well occupy volumes printed in gold, but how little it is understood. Victory in the homeward way depends entirely upon the grace and mercy ministered from the throne on which He sits.
The great High Priest is Jesus, the Son of God. Does not the heart swell with holy exultation at the thought of His greatness? The service to which He devotes Himself in this character is that of bearing up His pilgrim saints in intercession before God, and He does this with truest compassion and deepest sympathy. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities — marvelous thought! It means that every pang in every heart that loves Him is felt by Him. We may not be able to understand it: we are not asked to do so — it is too great for our small minds, but He asks us to believe it, and if we don’t we grieve that heart that loves above all things to be trusted. He would have us to believe that He is serving us every hour because He loves us: yes, loves us with the same love that led Him to Calvary for us. The birth pangs do not exhaust the mother’s love for her babe: she would be willing to lay down her life for it at any time.
“Yet she may forgetful prove,
He will never cease to love.”
How could He cease to love? He is JESUS. And what does that name mean to us? It tells us of the love that brought Him from the eternal throne to Bethlehem’s manger: it tells us of a life of suffering-service that led through sorrow and shame and loss to the cross of Calvary: it tells us how His love declared itself there. The waves of death uplifted their awful crests and rolled upon Him to engulf Him: the billows of Satan’s power roared about Him to destroy Him, and He went down beneath the deep waters of God’s judgment against sin on our behalf. But though He stood for us where all the seas met upon Him, yet was His love not quenched. It burned with a fervent flame amidst the fierce waters, and shed its wondrous light in the darkness of that awful hour, and there it triumphed―and now the Lord is risen: He lives upon the throne of God for us: and
“We stand beyond the doom
Of all our sins through Jesu’s empty tomb.”
His love has not changed one whit: it is as deeply interested in our welfare today as it was when it bore our sins on the tree. Were it otherwise, Jesus would no longer bear that precious name for us, and we should have neither Saviour, Priest, nor home.
But Jesus is the Son of God, for so our text presents Him, and while “Jesus” carries us in thought down to the very depths of the humiliation into which His love carried Him, “THE SON OF GOD” presents His glory, His magnificent greatness, the unmeasured splendor of His Person and inheritance. But there are other thoughts than these in the bringing together of these names and titles that should talk eloquently to our hearts. “Jesus” tells us of His preciousness to us. “The Son of God” tells us of His preciousness to God. “JESUS” TELLS US THAT, SINCE HE LOVES US SO WELL, THERE IS NOTHING THAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR US THAT HE WILL NOT ASK FOR US WHEN HE INTERCEDES BEFORE GOD FOR US: AND “SON OF GOD” TELLS US THAT GOD WILL NOT DENY HIM ANY REQUEST THAT HE MAKES. So that the fact of Jesus the Son of God being our great High Priest means that we are put into contact with the eternal and infinite resources of God, and that eternal and infinite love sets these resources in motion for us, for God loves His Son and Jesus loves us, and Jesus is the Son of God.
He has passed through the heavens from the very lowest point of suffering and shame: He has gone to the highest point in glory, and no watchful sentry rang out the challenge, “Halt!” for every gate was thrown open wide for Him to pass triumphantly through, and He is our Forerunner as well as our Priest. He has passed into the glory which is our HOME before us, and for us, and the welcome that He received is the welcome that awaits us. There is not a difficulty or hostile power that He has not met in the way that we travel as we follow Him. He was tempted in all points as we are, apart from sin. And now He lives in the glory to succor us with gracious help from thence.
THE THRONE OF GRACE is available for us. We may come boldly to it and when we do we shall discover that our best Friend sits upon it, and there we shall obtain mercy and find grace for seasonable help.
Here are some of our resources, and as we draw upon them we shall hold the full assurance of hope unto the end, and THE END IS HOME.