Thoughts on Ephesians 4:11-13
Table of Contents
Thoughts on Ephesians 4:11-13: Part 1
Salvation is of God. This was held out from the first. The judgment pronounced upon the serpent was in view of salvation. By sin came death, and the first appearance of death was murder. But if the first death was a murder, the first soul that left the earth went straight up to heaven. Sin and death were there in terrible power, but God's mercy was there too. Self-righteousness, and its concomitants, hatred and murder, on the one side, and on the other, faith, righteousness, and divine grace. If Satan gave such early proof of the power he had acquired over man, God at the same time showed how salvation could come in long before the head of the serpent would be crushed. And all God's dealings with men shows that salvation is His purpose, though the fullness was necessarily not declared till Christ came. Man's utter ruin must first be proved; then was the due time. God is now declared to be a Savior God (see Epp. to Tim. and Titus): a name which has special reference to this present day, a day which began with the cross. He is saving, not judging. The world ignores this great fact, and is busy with its own purposes and plans, promising great things to itself, a millennium of its own making. Many of God's saints are occupied with its religious schemes and imagine they are promoting the happiness of the world, forgetting, and practically denying, that judgment already lies upon it. All Christians of course know that the unbeliever is eternally lost; but this regards only the individual. The truth is that the world as a system is judged and doomed to destruction; and God is now calling out and separating from it the heirs of salvation, i.e., all who believe. Hence His name—God our Savior.
Amid all the noise and bustle of men, the clashings of governments, the schemes of companies and of individuals, God is working quietly but certainly, and gathering souls for Himself out of every condition. Satan and men strive to hinder; but even as Jehovah has decreed that His anointed shall sit enthroned upon His holy hill of Zion, so also is it His purpose to have a redeemed people who are according to the same purpose called, justified, and glorified (Rom. 8:28-30). Let believers think of this and cease to be occupied with the advances of civilization and education, which are only a more refined way of committing sin, and very far from being a remedy (as some dream) for the evils of the world. On the contrary civilization and education bring their own special evils. Let us, consider this one great and immense fact—God is saving souls.
To be delivered from the wrath to come, through infinite grace, is only a part of God's salvation. The Salvation which we know is much more than being sheltered from the Judge by the blood sprinkled on the door-post, more even than the forgiveness of sins, though that is “according to the riches of His grace.” Forgiveness is only the first step in the career of glory to which we are predestinated. A far higher aspect in glory is the being conformed to the imago of His Son. And both the grace and the discipline of God are now in full activity in view of it. The inward man is renewed day by day; the Spirit's work in the soul is progressive, and so we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But one mighty word shall in an instant change these corruptible bodies into the likeness of Christ's body of glory; and so God's purpose concerning is will be accomplished.
It is now the daily renewal of the inward man, and for this not the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, but moral means and instruments according to His will and wisdom.
“And He gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
The greater gifts, apostles and prophets, have ceased. They were the foundations of the household of God, “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone (chap. 2:20). They were men inspired of God. The peculiar mark of an apostle was authority to act fully and finally in the church for Christ; as a prophet's was, revealing new truth, or applying the word already revealed to present facts and to events yet future. Paul was both, and also Peter and John. They stand foremost. In their writings both functions are manifest: authority, as when Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5; 2 Cor. 2); new truth, as in his Epistles to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4, &c) and in his other Epistles. So John in the Apocalypse. But if the foundation gifts are gone, others remain to carry on the building. Evangelists, pastors and teachers are the Lord's gifts, not to lay another foundation but to build upon that which is laid. “Other foundations can no man lay.” God's purpose in providing these workers. is for the perfecting of the saints individually, in ministerial work generally, and also that the body of Christ as a whole may be edified, till we all come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Pastors may be the least prominent and most rare, certainly not the least efficient and valued of the servants of Christ, nor the least needed. The pastor is a quiet and unobtrusive gift, his labor is with the individual saint, rather than with the assembly. He is qualified to enter into the more private sorrows and trials of saints. That which makes him a true pastor—one of the “gifts” is, that he is used of God to strengthen and administer comfort to the tried ones of the flock, and, also to rebuke where needed.
His is rather a secret work for the best part known only to the Lord, but which will have its public reward equally with the more prominent gifts.
Among teacher's are greater difference's than among pastors and evangelists.” The whole Word of God in its varied depths is their storehouse. Each according to His measure able to unfold and apply the word to the need of the assembly, braiding up in, faith, confirming hope, and raising the moral and spiritual tone of the Meeting. They who are thus used of God are truly His “gifts,” and the proof is that saints are edified and instructed; the church is consolidated by their ministry. Some are able to give the prophetic word its due place in the minds and hearts of the children of God. But we must remember that the Epistles are designated “prophetic writings” (Rom. 16:26). In a subordinate sense these might be called prophets, not as foretelling, nor as being “foundations,” but as helping believers to understand the drift and scope of the prophets, of the Old Testament as of the New. And the evidence of the Spirit's teaching in them will be that Christ is seen as the Object of all prophecy, His glory and exaltation the grand theme from first to last. Others teach in doctrine whether of the church and its calling and special hope, or of the first principles of our salvation. These last may be called teachers of the gospel; they are not necessarily evangelists. Nor is every talker in the meeting a teacher; the gift is known by the blessing which follows. So while there are some able to instruct in the higher truths (so to say) of revelation, there are others whose sphere is the unfolding of the simple gospel for the establishing of young converts, yea, sometimes also of old believers; and these are surely of not less, perhaps of more general, importance for assemblies—looking at their present condition—than those who soar higher in the region of revealed truth. But God suits His gifts according to the need of saints. He has one end in view, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature, of the fullness of Christ.”
Now the teacher of the gospel differs from the evangelist whose special field of labor is in the world among the unsaved. He is a fisher of men; the teacher of the gospel is for the feeding of the babes in God's household; and these, though closely allied, are distinct gifts, having different spheres. It not infrequently happens that the gospel teacher mourns on account of the absence of conversions when he addresses sinners, and similarly the pure evangelist has not his usual freedom when his hearers are for the most part believers. But each “gift” is for a special work, to which he is appointed. Let then the teacher wait on his teaching (see Rom. 12:4-8), and the evangelist on his preaching. Rarely do we see both functions in the same servant. Paul was a “gift” in whom all these offices and qualities were combined; he was at once apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor, and evangelist, and most prominent and zealous in each.
What then are the marks by which the evangelist, as a distinct “gift,” may be known? Not necessarily by accurate enunciations of doctrine. His intense zeal for souls that sometimes carries him beyond the ordinary limits of earnestness is not conducive to, though not incompatible with, doctrinal accuracy of expression. The love of God to a lost world, the certainty of salvation to them that believe are his staple themes. And in urging faith on the lost, repentance is sometimes apparently lost sight of. But there is no true saving faith without repentance, Faith (so-called) without self-judgment is nothing more than the mere assent of the natural mind, not a Spirit-formed faith in the heart (see Rom. 10:8). When the sun of tribulation arises, this kind of human belief withers away. Sorrowful instances of such cases recur to the writer's mind, as doubtless also to the reader.
Another mark of the earnest evangelist is his fearlessness; boldness in speaking to every one, as well in the public street as in private. What think you of a zealous preacher accosting a man “of reputation” in the common thoroughfare with, “If you were to die to night, where would you spend eternity?” Certainly the world will, and does, resent such interference with its ease and pleasure. But while all servants are told to be diligent, and “instant in season and out of season,” I doubt if such a case as is alluded to can find a warrant therein: especially when we have the example of Paul who spoke of full grace privately to them of reputation (Gal. 2:2) of course in the church. Yet who of us would forbid the preacher? What are social proprieties in view of eternity?
But not the burning zeal, not the ever readiness to speak, nor boldness, however great (and the Pentecostal church prayed for boldness for the Lord's servants, Acts 4:29), are the only, or even the essential, mark of the evangelist who is truly a “gift.” A man may have all these, be abundant in labors, and have a real love for souls, and yet not a “gift.” He who is, has souls for his hire, he is used for their conversion. He may be comparatively unready in speech, not over bold, not clear perhaps as to doctrine on many points (I do not refer to fundamental principles) but if men are brought to God through his preaching, he is a “gift” in the meaning of this scripture. God brings hundreds of men to hear him preach, and by the power of His own word gathers heirs from among them. In the judgment of men, yea, of saints, he may be accounted the weakest of preachers, but if God saves by his instrumentality, he is the one designated “evangelist” in the scriptural meaning of the word. There are preachers who are not evangelists.
The overflowing zeal which leads to a readiness to accredit the mere appearance of conversion, through his intense desire, unfits the evangelist in a measure to judge of the reality of conversions so as to bring souls into communion, and no one is more liable to be deceived than an evangelist in this. But receiving into fellowship is no part of the work of an evangelist, nor of any other “gift,” nor, of all the gifts combined. It is the assembly that must receive. It is the duty of the evangelist to bring those who have been converted to the church, that all, especially those best qualified, may judge, and that the assembly may receive into communion. The pastor, the teacher, and the evangelist, are of course part of the assembly, and have a voice as any other members. But the assembly, not the, evangelist, receives. Not even an apostle would receive or put away apart from the church. The apostle may, with the authority he has received from the Lord, command the assembly to put away or receive; and if Paul referred both these acts to the church at Corinth (see 1 Cor. 5, 2 Cor. 2) much more should a simple evangelist now defer to the judgment of the church. The Corinthian assembly was in a low condition, but it is commanded to act. Paul speaks by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit: we are bound no less. The ruin-state of the church does not enfeeble the duty.
This solemn responsibility which rests upon the assembly needs calm and spiritual discernment. How sorrowful if through haste one is brought in whom the Lord would not; nor less so when one whom the Lord would, is kept out through want of the power of discernment on the part of those who visit the newly converted! To visit such wisely is pastoral work, but not every visitor is a pastor. The one seeking fellowship may be so unintelligent as to appear very unsatisfactory; he feels the change wrought in his soul, but can only say he is happy; professes to know his sins are forgiven, but has not yet learned how to express it to meet the approbation of his visitor. The true pastor can discern where there is reality, where the unintelligent and undiscerning visitor sees nothing but human feeling produced by sentimental preaching, and on the other hand is ready to accredit one who has nothing more than intellectual knowledge of the truth. This is the defect of those who assume the functions of pastor without being a “gift.” These “visitors” cannot be ignored; but after due time given, unintelligent objections must not be allowed to overrule the voice of the spiritual and discerning.
These gifts are men of like passions, and the brightest has to watch lest the wily foe use the position of the “gift” against communion and singleness of eye in his service. The evangelist, for instance, may feel aggrieved if his converts are not received upon his own testimony. But this would be taking from the assembly what it is responsible for to the Lord. The evangelist may be sound in his judgment of any given case, and the assembly wrong: nevertheless he must bow to the assembly and not relax in diligent service. Let him spread the matter before the Lord, Who will, at the right moment, make all plain. (To be continued.)
Thoughts on Ephesians 4:11-13: Part 2
(Concluded from page 531.)
The men that worked in the quarry and fashioned the stones for Solomon's temple, where there was no sound of hammer or of ax (1 Kings 6:7), did not place the stones in their position—that was the business of the builders. Both were necessary, but the quarry-men prepared the stones, and the builders carried on the building. Perhaps the preparedness of the stones is a figure of the saints when we all come “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” i.e., when we are with Him in glory. There will be no sound of hammer or of ax in heaven; all the shaping and fitting will have been done. But we can use the same figure for a present, though subordinate, application to the functions of the evangelist, and of the pastor and teacher.
A better than Solomon's temple is now rising, built with living stones; which “fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord......for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” There are classes of workers, each with a separate function, but all in harmony, working together for one end, under the guiding power of the Holy Spirit. Evangelists are the Lord's quarry-men; as such they dig in the world's quarries, they preach the life-giving word. Faith comes by hearing, and quickened men receive salvation. The stones are ready for the builders. All are fitted together in the Spirit and the building increases.
For the edifying of the body of Christ.” The common idea of “edifying” is instruction of those within, and this is of equal importance to the Lord as the preaching of the gospel to the unsaved. When Peter was first called, the Lord said he would make him a fisher of men; when he was restored and had learned the much needed lesson of his own weakness, the Lord gave him a higher character of work. He said, “Feed my sheep.” But edification is a larger word than instruction. This excludes the evangelist; but he is a “gift” with others for the edifying of the body of Christ. The building up of the edifice of God is not only teaching for those within, but working for fresh souls to be brought—new material for the building. For how is the church to be added to if there be no evangelists?
“The unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.” Christ the Son of the living God is the object of faith, the one rock upon which the church is built. It is this knowledge which makes the unity of the faith. The “unity” and the “knowledge” go together. The possession of faith fits us for the knowledge, and again, the knowledge is the confirmation of faith; there is a reflex action, and each grows by the other. “I know Whom I have believed,” says Paul. He had believed, and therefore he says, “I know;” and because he knew, he is able to say, “and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” That is, his knowledge led on to the fullest confidence. The faith and the knowledge, and also the knowledge and the confidence could not be more clearly and tersely given in their reciprocal relation. This knowledge is not a mere taking in of truth, it is a personal acquaintance with, or rather a knowledge of, the Person of the Son of God; and moreover knowing Him not only as Savior, but as Son of God. The world will know Him as Judge and King, the Jew as Messiah; our special privilege is very far above their knowledge. To know Him as the Son of God takes in all His glories, and implies that we are able and fitted to understand what neither Israel nor the millennial saint can know. And we begin to have this knowledge while here, for the unity of the faith is bound up with this knowledge of the Son of God. Take any assembly, and where you discern among the saints any measure of this knowledge of the Son of God, there you may be assured is a proportionate measure of the unity of the faith.
All the errors that have troubled the saints of God, and marred His church, have had their root in the pretentious knowledge of the Son of God. Yea, the worst heterodoxies were always connected with a denial of some special glory of His person. It was so at the beginning, and was the occasion for the writing of John's Epistles. It has continued to the present day, and made its mark upon those who, after the first quarter of this present century, professed to have left the world-church and all its corruptions, and to have received grace to be separate from all their religious surroundings. The denial of His personal glory in this or that aspect cannot but divide the saints of God.
Sorrowful, shameful, as we feel this to be, we know it will—it must—cease. For the word says, “Till we all come.” Shall we all come to this unity and knowledge before the Lord come? When He comes, the unity of the faith will be perfect; will our knowledge of the Son of God be perfect? Yea, we shall know, even as also we are known. We shall be, we are, capable of learning indefinitely. Of some now it is said, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” He, Christ, the Son of God is the Truth; and we shall have it perfectly.
“To a perfect—full-grown—man.” Each of us may take this as the goal to which we are, or should be, continually pressing forward. “That I may know Him,” &c. Was the apostle's prayer for himself? Did he wish less for all saints? He looks forward to the time when we all come, and all together be the full-grown than. It is the church looked at in its several members, perfect unity of faith making them as one. Each and all together will be brought up to a certain standard, the stature of the fullness of Christ. The corporate union of the church with Christ, as members of the body with the Head is not the thought here. We have that in chap. i. 23., “Which is His body, the fullness [the complement] of Him that filleth all in all.” Here (chap. iv. 13) it is rather likeness (as in 1 John). Scripture does not speak of the corporate body in its union with Christ as being like Him. Likeness is said of distinct things; we could not say the body is like the head; but the word does say that the believer shall be like Christ. Each will bear the image of the heavenly, and have bodies like unto the body of His glory. The believer in his individuality will be like Him: it is the glory of each. The corporate church is His body, is part of Himself, both together the Christ (1 Cor. 12:12).
“To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” This exceeds our thought; it is not a partial likeness, but complete. Here in this life through grace the Holy Spirit produces likenesses in some things, and would in all were we obedient to His leadings. Alas! in how many things we are unlike. In the circumstances of this present time where we should manifest the meekness, the lowliness, the patience, and the faith of Christ, for it is only now that we have opportunities for showing these, how much of the contraries suddenly and frequently break out! “When He was reviled, He reviled not again;” “in Whose mouth was no guile,” Whose “meat was to do the will of the Father Who sent” Him. What cause we have for self-judgment! How very far short we come in following Him Who has not only saved us, but left us a pattern how we should walk!
With gladness we look on to the time when our likeness to Him shall be perfect. “The measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Can we add one word to this which would give a more complete idea of the perfection of the moral glory to which we all shall be brought, than those already given? The stature of the fullness of Christ! That is the goal in the mind of God for His church. There is nothing higher in glory possible for us. Again we say our minds fail to comprehend this fullness; not of course the fullness in Col. 1:19 and ii. 9, where the fullness of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—was pleased to dwell in the Man Christ Jesus, but His fullness as a perfect Man distinct from His Godhead, and apart from His glory as making atonement, a perfect and glorified Man, possessing every moral quality that can be the delight of God. He is the model before the mind of God to which we shall fully answer. We shall have a glory of position in the kingdom, kings and priests, reigning with Him over the world. The body too shall be glorified. But this glory—the stature of the fullness of Christ—is the moral glory of the soul, of the mind which is here renewed day by day; but there, when we have all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge least degree interfere with the blessing, common to one as well as the other, that they are priests unto God: “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father” (Rev. 1:6). “Ye are a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). The apostle Paul was a priest unto God, but not more than any of the individuals he salutes in his Epistles, or than the most uninstructed believer in the whole church. The diversities among the members, formed by the diverse gifts of the Spirit, must be carefully distinguished from their priestly equality. Our worship then is priestly worship, and consequently the heavenly courts are its sphere.
The fearful warning given by the apostle, which at one time or another has made every awakened soul tremble (Heb. 10:28, 29), is a warning against the fatal consequences of turning back to the old order of worship, as if it were to be the pattern of our worship, instead of the contrast unto it. True it is said (Heb. 9:23) that the ritual of the law was the pattern of things in the heavens, but surely in the way of contrast, as heaven is contrasted with earth—things made without hands, with things made with hands. To return, therefore, to the order of worship under the law, is to reject the heavenly order for a copy of the earthly. It marks the apostacy of Worship. And is not this the peculiar mark of the professing church It has followed the old pattern of the law, instead of the heavenly pattern. It has made again the difference between priests and people in its clergy and laity—a distinction unknown to the New Testament. Thus has the professing church put its priests in a place of comparative nearness to God, and its people at a distance—virtually making the clergy the church, when it is said of believers, “Ye are a spiritual house.”
And what is this but to trample under foot the Son of God? As if after all that He has suffered and done, we were at as great a distance as before, and as if with His priestly ministration we still needed the intervention of others in our approaches to God! God has cast out the outer court, and will not regard worship offered therein; but men have profanely sought to sanctify it, and in so doing have trodden under foot the Son of God. We have already noticed the command given to Moses to sanctify the people to meet God, and also that we by the will of God are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. But this return to the old form is characterized by the apostle as accounting the blood of the covenant wherewith we have been sanctified as an unholy thing—as that which would still keep us without, instead of that which entitles us to enter into the holiest of all, And what an insult to the Spirit of grace, Who witnesses to the soul of the wondrous grace of God, and of Christ, and Who is Himself in the once-purged worshipper the power of nearness of worship (for God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit)—what an insult to that blessed Spirit to put ourselves back to the distance in which this flesh must ever stand before God! Hence, therefore, this solemn warning, Take heed lest, after having received the knowledge of the truth with respect to your priestly standing and nearness to God, ye willfully sin. For to worship God as we think fit, is of the essence of willfulness. God leaves nothing to our choice in the matter of worship: it is not allowed us to choose whether we will go back to the old pattern; God has set it aside, and to return to it is to choose the place of judgment. For nothing can await the outside worshippers but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. There remains no more sacrifice for sin to bring you nearer or to make you accepted. Jesus is not waiting to offer that, for He has done it once for all, but waiting till His enemies be made His footstool.
But even the priest's service in the holy place, near as it was, is but partially the pattern of the service of the saints now. For now all relative nearness is done away with, and we take the sphere of the ministry of the high-priest himself to complete the pattern of our standing now.
While the first tabernacle was standing, the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest i.e. laid open: “The Holy Ghost signifying, that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing; which was a figure for the time then present” (Heb. 9:8). The priests, though able always to enter into the holy place, could proceed no further. The beautiful veil concealed from their eye the most holy place. The veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with its cunning work of cherubim, all open to their view might indeed tell them of the glories concealed behind it; but the golden altar, the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold, with the golden pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant, were all concealed from their sight. The immediate presence of Him who dwelt between the cherubim of the mercy-seat was unapproachable by them. That was accessible to the high-priest alone, and to him but once a year; and then not without blood, which he offered for himself and the errors of the people. Mark—the high-priest could not enter into the holiest of all at all times, as the priests could into the holy place; he could not enter there as a purged worshipper, for he went there on the very ground of sin not being put away forever.
But now all is laid open. By the blood of Christ the way is opened into the holiest of all. How significantly was this marked by the veil of the temple being rent in twain when Jesus hung upon the cross! Yea, Jesus Himself is the way, the living way. If there be a veil, He is that veil—not to conceal anything of God behind it, but to bring out all that may be known of God to view. And here the worshippers, once purged—have constant liberty to enter.
“Having therefore, brethren,” &c. The apostle does not take the stand of one in pre-eminent nearness himself to God, inviting others to draw nigh, as though he had been the priest and they the people, he on the inside, and they without; but he classes himself with those whom he addresses, calling them “brethren,” and three times repeating “Let us.” How different this from the order of old! Moses alone was to come near, the others were to worship afar off; but now it was equal nearness, equal liberty of access into the holiest of all.
What has the blood of Jesus left unaccomplished? In the shedding of it we have remission of sins. By the sprinkling of it we as lepers are pronounced clean, and sanctified as worshippers. And being carried into the holiest of all by Jesus Himself, it gives free access into heaven itself. There it ever is, on the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat; for by it Christ once entered in, having obtained eternal redemption. His thus entering in is not an annual solemnity, nor one ever to be repeated. The blood of the sin-offering, carried within the veil by Aaron on the great day of atonement was that he might “make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins” (Lev. 16:16). This has now been done once forever. The atonement for the holy place is “unto continuance “: it is as much once and forever purged as is the worshipper himself. Yea, no worshipper there need fear lest he should bring defilement there, because the blood that cleanseth all sin away is there forever before God. Why are we so distant in our hearts from God? Is it not because we have so little sense of the real power of the blood within the veil as the gracious provision of God Himself for our holy and unhindered communion with Him? “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
But mark the way of access. At Mount Sinai all was distance. “Thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, nor touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death” (Ex. 19). This distance ever characterized the worship under the law; there were constant bounds set, to pass which would have been death. Even Aaron himself could not pass the bounds of the veil at all times “lest he die.” The outside worshipping Israelite could not pass the bounds of the curtains which hung at the door of the tabernacle, “lest he die.” To see God and live was impossible under the law. But now Jesus is the way, the living way, into God's presence. To see Him is to see. God and live. He is not the barrier between us and God, but the way to God. All the distance and every bound is done away by Jesus. Did an Israelite on the outside gate on the beautiful curtain, and long to pass it? But death would have been his portion had he attempted it: let him look to Jesus Who says, “I am the door by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” Yes, the death of Jesus is become to us the living way into the holiest of all. But if, having proceeded within the curtains of the door, the veil seemed to forbid further entrance, let him again look to Jesus, and the veil, says the apostle, is His flesh. The very God with Whom we have to do is thus brought before us as fall of grace and truth. And if he perceived it rent, again let him look to Jesus and Him crucified, and the holiness of. God invited instead of forbade an entrance. What words of blessing to the once-purged worshipper— “By a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.”
But further—not only the work of Jesus and His character inspire confidence, but He Himself is the High Priest over the house of God. His ministry is never for a moment interrupted. He is in the holiest of all, on the very ground of atonement having been made both for the people and the place; and therefore the present is to us one continued season of worship. How needful is this promise to give us confidence in entering into the holiest! The High Priest has not to go into the house; He is there constantly, and has taken a place which Aaron never could take in the tabernacle; He is over the house of His own; He is Master of it; He openeth and no man shutteth.
The Lord pardon His saints for having so insulted His grace in the mode and character of their worship; and lead them by His Spirit into the only place of acceptable worship—the holiest of all.
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