OUR state is that of travelers, and our attitude is that of expectants; and, knowing that we cannot enter either into the mansions prepared for us in the Father’s house, or on the promised glory of the kingdom with Christ until He come, we are looking for Him, and on the tiptoe of hope waiting for his advent (Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28)). If anyone had asked Moses and the exulting hosts of Israel when they were singing their triumph-song on the shores of the Red Sea, What is your profession? would they not have said, Jehovah’s good land, the promised Canaan, that all may be blessed there with all temporal blessings under the good hand of our great Deliverer, Jehovah of hosts? And if any ask us what we are holding fast and confessing—what is “our profession?” Would we not say, “Glory with Christ above.” “We are his workmanship”―the new, sanctified, saved, rescued “house” over which He as Son has been set, and which by His word and priesthood He is conducting through the world; and as He has “passed through the heavens” to the throne of God, and is there “crowned with glory and honor,” we expect erelong, at His glorious advent, also to pass with Him through these heavens to the perfection of the Father’s house, the crown and the kingdom. Glory with Christ in undying perfection has been promised, hence glory is “our profession;” nothing short of “the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:1010Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. (2 Timothy 2:10)). “His rest shall be glory” (Isa. 11:1010And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11:10)). That is the rest that remaineth to the people of God (Heb. 1:55For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? (Hebrews 1:5)).
It was no easy thing to get “Hebrews” who had been settled down in Jehovah’s land, and set up there in fullest temporal blessing, with a full equipment of “divine service,” the only favored nation with whom God had entered into covenant, to forsake every vestige of that old divine system, and confess a new divine system, with Jesus in the heavens as its center―a system, too, which gave nothing upon the earth and for sight; but placed all in the heavens and for faith, and made residenters in Canaan to become as really “strangers and pilgrims,” as their father Abraham in his day had been.
And if the Jews felt it hard to live purely on the faith-system with a tangible Levitical system of God ordained ordinances before their eyes, is it not as difficult for us to know, hold fast, and profess Christianity with the semblance of Christian churches, doctrines, and institutions before our eyes? Could we confess this thing called Christendom that we see all about us to be Christianity? No, indeed; but we shut the natural eyes upon all these simulations and imitations, and open the eyes of faith and exclaim “We see Jesus” through the new and living way, through the opened heavens, and we confess His name and see a new system of worship there which we are fitted and invited to share in; and having boldness “to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” we draw near with true hearts in full assurance of faith. Our great High Priest is there, the minister of the true sanctuary, which God hath pitched and not man at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. But do you not confess any other name? And do you not worship in places on the earth? “None other name,” no place of worship now is ours beneath these heavens. We go in with Jesus as far as He has gone inside the veil, and we go out with him as far as he went outside the lamp. That is Christianity―a religion of extremes; for we go as far as the Throne of God for our worship, and as far as the Cross―the place of judgment of man in the flesh—to reach the sphere of our witness. We confess now that our place and portion are with Christ where he is, and our place of witness-bearing, confessing His name, the Cross of Shame “outside the gate.” The system of Christianity is a perfect contrast―not a continuation of Judaism; for the one was for the cultivation of man in the flesh, the other association with the second man, and life with Him in the Spirit risen from the dead and now gone into heaven; while Judaism never placed its worshippers with perfected consciences within the veil, nor with a testimony to a rejected Jesus without the camp, Christianity does both. We confess to being the sanctified brethren of Jesus, the Son of God, who, in the day of His tender love and grace, was cast out by man and slain; and professing like Him a good profession (1 Tim. 6.) we will know whether or not persecution has ceased. “All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” As it is written, “For Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter”. (Rom. 8:3636As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (Romans 8:36)).
E. B. H.