(The Substance of a Bible Reading)
Israel, though so highly favoured in a past dispensation, never had access to the presence of God. They could approach the door of the tabernacle, and behold the glory of Jehovah, but only the priests could enter the holy place, and only the high priest could enter the holiest, and that once a year on the day of atonement. Even with Aaron there was not boldness in entering God's presence, for Jehovah said, "Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place … that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat" (Lev. 16:2). Indeed, we are specifically told in Hebrews 9:8 that "the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing."
In the Son of God made flesh there was the revelation of God as Father, the full revelation of God in His nature and in the relationship in which His Son was with Him. God was thus revealed that the way into His presence might be opened up to those whom He had chosen to be the companions of His Son, though access to the Father awaited the accomplishment of the work of the cross. Apart from the coming of the Son, we never could have known the Father or have entered His holy presence, and of this the Son spoke to His disciples, saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).
The Son was the way into the Father's presence, and the truth concerning the Father was perfectly seen in Him, and the life that He manifested, of which He was Himself the true and full expression, was the life in which His own would know the Father and be able to come to Him. How wonderful it is that each individual saint of God can enter the presence of the Father in company with the Son who, having finished the work the Father gave Him to do, has returned to the Father that we might know the joys of the Father's presence while waiting for the Son to come and take us to the prepared place in the Father's House. The feet washing of John 13 is needed for the practical enjoyment of part with the Son in the Father's presence.
God, in His sovereign goodness, has quickened us with Christ, raised us up, and set us down in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:1-6), and this in view of the display of His manifold grace and kindness in a coming day. We have been formed into "one new man," and "one body," and every distinction between the believing Jew and the believing Gentile has been for ever done away in the cross of Christ. Added to all these wonderful blessings is this supreme privilege of the present time, that through the Son, "we both have access by one Spirit to the Father" (Eph. 2:18).
We never could have enjoyed this high and holy privilege if the Son, who died for us, had not come in the Gospel to preach peace, so that our spirits might be at rest before God and the Father; but the Holy Spirit has also been given to us as the power by which we could enter God's presence; and here, the whole Trinity is involved in bringing us before the Father. In the presence of the Father we learn His purpose in communion with Him, and it is there we worship in spirit and in truth.
Having learned something of God's "eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:11), it is little wonder that we should have boldness and confidence in entering the presence of God. According to that purpose God has made us His heirs, brought us into union with Christ as His body, and made us "partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel" (verse 6). If God has so richly blessed us, we might well be assured that He delights to have us in His presence.
This boldness and confidence (verse 12) is "by the faith" of Christ in whom all the blessings are. When the eye rests upon Christ in the presence of God, and we have the knowledge of what God has blessed us with in Him, it would be strange if there was the lack of boldness or confidence in God. The sense of God's love in the heart, made known in what He has done for us in Christ, drives from us every bit of dread that we once had for the presence of God.
In Ephesians we have been occupied with the exalted place that God has given to us in Christ, so that He might have us in the present enjoyment of communion with Him in the assembly. At the end of Hebrews 4 we are seen in the wilderness in our infirmities, but as having a High Priest who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Our High Priest once passed through the wilderness, but having made purification for sins, He passed through the heavens, and is now seated at God's right hand.
God's throne, which on account of man's sin became a throne of judgment, through the shedding and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus has become a throne of grace; and we are exhorted to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16). This ministry of Christ is to sustain us in the trials of the wilderness, to keep us from failing; and we can come at all times into God's presence to receive from Christ the mercy and grace to support and succour in every sorrow and testing.
Although we are passing through the wilderness, we can be worshippers in the presence of God, the feet treading the sands of the desert, the spirit occupied with the things of God and Christ in heaven. In Hebrews 10, as God's people, we have no more con-science of sins, the one sacrifice of Christ upon the cross having taken away all our sins, so purging us from an evil conscience. In addition we have been set apart for God's will through "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ" in that one atoning sacrifice.
The shedding and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus gives us title and boldness to enter God's presence as worshippers. In the holiest we see what God is in Christ, and this produces worship from our hearts. It is there we learn God's thoughts of the precious blood; it is there we behold the cloud of glory and are covered in the cloud of incense that brings before us the savour of Christ's Person to God; it is there we discern the gold of the mercy seat, of the ark, and of the cherubim of glory, and view the variegated colours of the curtains and the veil, which bring before us the different glories of Jesus as Son of God, Son of Man and Son of David.
If the rending of the veil is not mentioned, it is because the tabernacle is before us as the type, not the temple, and it was the temple veil that was rent. The veil surely tells us that Israel's place is still without, but saints today pass into God's presence through the veil. Both the humanity and the death of Christ were necessary for us to have access into the immediate presence of God. All the truth connected with a rent veil, God's coming out in the death of Jesus, the setting aside of the old economy of Judaism, and the way into God's presence made known, are all brought before us in the precious and efficacious death of the Lord Jesus in this and the previous chapter.
To be found in the presence of God there must needs be the moral suitability of soul that is indicated in "a true heart, and full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22). The least defilement of conscience would keep us out of God's presence, so that we must have the conscience right before God regarding our walk and ways, the heart in this way answering true to the holy nature of God's presence. Moreover, we must have the full assurance that faith in God gives. Defective teaching, or ignorance of God's grace and Christ's work, will deprive us of the full assurance that God gives to those who rest in His word and on the finished work of Christ.
There is also the divine work that answers to the priestly ceremony on the day of consecration, "our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." As having come under the efficacy of the blood of Jesus, we are fitted for priestly service in the presence of God; and we have been "washed all over" (John 13:10), cleansed from the moral pollution that belonged to us as derived from Adam.
Solomon's temple was built of stones in which there was not life, but God's house is a spiritual house composed of "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5), and those who are stones in the spiritual house are also "an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God by Christ Jesus." What was indicated in the material sacrifices of the Levitical system is secured in the spiritual sacrifices of the saints of this day. There was no real pleasure for God in the death of the animals offered in sacrifice, but the spiritual sacrifices are "acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."
Those who compose the spiritual house and offer the spiritual sacrifices have come to Christ, the Living Stone, the One who is "chosen of God, and precious"; and those who have believed in Him have learned of the preciousness that is in Christ, and their spiritual sacrifices are what they present of Christ to God. Of old, the priests presented the blood, the wave breast, the heave shoulder, and all that was "the food of the offering" to Jehovah, and we are enabled, in worshipping God, to speak to Him of the preciousness of the blood, the wonderful love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and the strength of Christ that sustained Him while bearing the divine judgment to accomplish the will of God in His death. All Christ's deep perfections that we have learned in some little way, we can present to God who knows them in perfection, but who delights in hearing His own sneak of Him.
In the holy priesthood there is a divine system of worship that answers to the heart and mind of God.
All that flows back to God in worship has come from Him in the Person of the Son, who is the "Chief corner stone" in this divine system, where everything speaks of Him. The more we know of our privileges as holy priests, the better able shall we be to exercise our royal priesthood in showing "forth the praises of Him who hath called" us "out of darkness into His marvellous light."