There are two things that God employs in carrying us through the desert as spoken of in Hebrews 5. One is the Word of God and the other is the priesthood of the Lord Jesus.
The Word and Our Flesh
The Word of God is used for the detection and discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Whatever is flesh it cuts down mercilessly, and we thank God for it, because it is a hindrance to our blessing. The warning of which the Apostle speaks here, alluding to the history of Israel, is that their carcasses fell in the wilderness. They had got out of Egypt, and yet their carcasses fell in the wilderness. There is, of course, for us, the danger answering to that —a very real danger. No doubt God will keep His own to the end, but there is the principal danger, and if we are kept, it is through faith. Now that which tends to make us fall in the wilderness is the flesh, and the means that God uses that we should not fall in the wilderness is the Word that is sharper than any two-edged sword. Whatever is not a thought that comes from God and an intent that goes to God, the Word of God judges — that is, whatever springs naturally up in the heart of man, whatever comes from the flesh (which, of course, is everything in a mere natural man).
As regards acceptance with God, we can say the flesh is condemned already. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Thus, looked at as a question of righteousness in the cross of Christ, God has condemned sin in the flesh, and then, when we come to journey through the wilderness, the Word of God judges whatever is not according to that Word. The cross has dealt with the flesh already — whatever did not suit the death of Christ in a thought or act was thereby judged and condemned. The Word of God is one means for the practical carrying out of this. The second means employed is the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Priesthood and Our Need
The Word of God, we saw, judged the thoughts and intents of the heart, while the priesthood applies to all infirmities and failures. The moment it is a question of a thought or intent of the heart, it has to be judged as coming from the flesh, and this is done by the Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. On the other hand, looked at as regards trials and weakness, there you get the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God is the eye of God, judging everything in my soul that is not according to Himself. And then we have “a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.” Where it is a time of need and difficulty, it is the High Priest full of tenderness and mercy “that we may find grace to help in time of need.” It cannot be, evidently, anything inconsistent with the Word of God. It cannot be the one to cut and the other to spare the flesh, and therefore the priest must sustain us according to the blessing which is given us entirely out of reach of the flesh. And so it is that Christ becomes High Priest. He is gone up where the flesh cannot enter. That is the place in which we have to say to God, and therefore, as our High Priest, He has to carry on our affairs in that presence of God where nothing that defiles can enter. He lays the foundation of that in the sacrifice by virtue of which He can go there, so that this very priesthood of Christ is founded on our acceptance.
The Passage Through the Wilderness
As a figure, the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, which preceded all their journey in the wilderness, is here used. We have done with Egypt altogether. The Red Sea put death and judgment between the journeyers and Egypt, and so with the saint now. Death and judgment form the starting-point of the saint. There is that which goes before it in exercise of heart, and when a soul sets out to leave this world of ruin and condemnation, it often finds itself, as Israel did, on the banks of the Red Sea, the waters before and their enemies behind them. There they were completely shut in to this judgment, where Satan was driving them. But the moment they had passed over the Red Sea, all that was entirely and finally closed. What had been a barrier when Israel could go no farther was now left wholly behind and served as a barrier against Egypt. And to us, death and judgment are a securing barrier between us and all that are against us. It is not that there may be no conflict afterward —no weariness afterward — but there is no question of deliverance after that. If Israel was not faithful, they failed in gaining victories, but there was no question of God’s being against them.
Next comes this journey through the wilderness, the judgment of the flesh by the Word, and then the priesthood of Christ which is exercised for us. And when I come to see where Christ is, I find that it is the very One that has gone through the death and judgment that were due to me, and He has taken His place in the presence of God, where He is exercising His priesthood. He has settled the point where I belong — where I worship — and it is in the presence of God that is my place. All that belongs to me, as in the first Adam, is done with in my fellowship with God — not as regards conflict with it, but as regards my place with God. The old nature is there still, and the Word comes and judges all the movements of it that would hinder me in my path. But the place where Christ exercises His priesthood is out of the flesh altogether; it is in heaven. Israel had a place on earth and a priest on earth; we have a place in heaven and a priest in heaven.
J. N. Darby