THE HEAVENLY CALLING (TWO ADDRESSES AT NEWTON ABBOT)

^[p. 205] THE HEAVENLY CALLING (TWO ADDRESSES AT NEWTON ABBOT)

Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 3:2; Hebrews 4:14-16

I have read these scriptures that we may see the place Christ has as Priest in relation to the heavenly calling. We are “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling”, and it is as such that we are exhorted to “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus”. We are “holy brethren” because we have been sanctified by Christ. “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Hebrews 2:11. Jesus was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death. He came into death in order to set us apart from all the stain and reproach of sin, and from everything that characterised us morally as children of fallen Adam.

How this exalts Him before our eyes! If we see all the greatness and majesty of Christ as the Son, and then see the place He came into in humiliation and death in order to sanctify us, the effect must be that He appears before our hearts crowned with glory and honour. On the one hand God has crowned Him with glory and honour, and on the other, when we see the way that He has taken in order to sanctify us, it crowns Him with glory and honour in the estimation of our hearts. It is a fine moment in our history when we come to see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. Peter was greatly impressed on the mount of transfiguration. “We... having been eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, such a voice being uttered to him by the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my ^[p. 206] delight; and this voice we heard uttered from heaven, being with him on the holy mountain”, 2 Peter 1: 16 - 18. One may safely say that that was a wonderful moment for the three disciples. And it is a wonderful moment for any of us when we are taken up to a moral elevation where Christ appears to our hearts as crowned with glory and honour. In getting an apprehension of Him in this way we are taken quite outside the world and lifted above the earth, and prepared to perceive the nature of the heavenly calling.

The heavenly calling is set forth in a glorified Christ. God is “bringing many sons to glory”, and the Leader of our salvation has reached glory. His place and acceptance determines ours. Aaron was the representative of all the people, for he carried their names on his shoulders and in his breastplate before Jehovah. Christ appears in the presence of God for us; He is the representative of the whole company of “many sons”. He has entered for us within the veil as the Forerunner. The heavenly calling is set forth in the Priest, and it is maintained in Him so that it never falls below its own proper level. We can only learn the heavenly calling by considering Christ. Practically, it often takes us a long time to learn that we have to turn from our feelings and experiences and fix our eyes wholly on Christ in order to learn the blessedness of the heavenly calling.

In these early chapters of Hebrews Christ is presented as Priest in relation to the heavenly calling. He is a “merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God”. We are still in the wilderness — the place of testing — and every influence here tends to carry our hearts away from the apprehension and joy of the heavenly calling. I believe that the temptation which is alluded to in chapter 2, verse 18 and in chapter 4, verse 15 refers to all the influences which tend to move us away from the true state of those who are “partakers of the heavenly calling”.

^[p. 207] Two things mark the Priest. He is merciful and faithful. Merciful to our weakness, and faithful in dealing with our will. He will succour us in any degree of weakness, but He will not tolerate any action of will. In chapter 3 we are very solemnly warned against things which indicate the action of will. There are three downward steps contemplated. First we may have an erring heart, then an evil heart, and last of all a hardened heart. It is in this direction that will works. We are responsible, as holy brethren, to watch with the utmost diligence lest there should be with us the action of will. The Priest is faithful; He will not tolerate the action of will. In the case of a self-willed believer the intercession of Christ would probably be answered by the discipline of God. God would bring in something to check the activity of will so that, in result, the believer might become a partaker of God’s holiness.

On the other hand, the Priest is infinitely merciful to weakness. He is able to furnish all the succour and support that our weakness needs. A saint may come under severe discipline and his hands may hang down and his knees become feeble under God’s chastening. Then he will prove how merciful is the Priest to “lift up the hands that hang down, and the failing knees”, Hebrews 12: 12.

“Himself has suffered, being tempted”, Hebrews 2: 18. Christ has been in the place of temptation. Satan sought by all means to divert Him from the spirit and path of obedience and dependence. But Satan’s suggestions found no response in Him; they only produced holy suffering. When the christian walks with the Spirit ungrieved the presentation of any suggestion to turn aside from the will of God only produces suffering. He suffers as feeling the evil of what is proposed. Such were the sufferings of Christ when tempted. For us to suffer in like manner requires a very lowly walk in the Spirit. We, alas! more often suffer ^[p. 208] from having yielded to temptation than from feeling with holy sensitiveness the evil of what is suggested to us.

He was “tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart”. I should like to touch briefly on the four points in which the Lord was tempted, and which really cover the whole ground of temptation. (See Luke 4: 1 - 13; Luke 22: 39 - 46).

The first temptation was a natural one. The Lord was in wilderness circumstances, and He was hungry. Satan proposed that He should relieve Himself by an independent exercise of His power, by using His own resources without reference to the will of God. In answer to this the Lord replied, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”. He would not be turned aside from a path which was altogether determined by the word of God. He confided in the Father’s care, and would not depart from the path and spirit of obedience.

It was said of the children of Israel, “They always err in heart; and they have not known my ways”, Hebrews 3: 10. They did not hearken to the word of God, and therefore they erred in heart. They were occupied with their hunger and thirst, and with the circumstances and difficulties of the wilderness, instead of living by every word of God. God had said that He would bring them “unto a good and spacious land, unto a land flowing with milk and honey”, Exodus 3: 8. If they had lived upon this word, as no doubt Joshua and Caleb did, they would have had implicit confidence in God’s care over them in the wilderness. He had said that He would bring them in, and if they had hearkened to His word and lived upon it they would have known His ways. They would have been sure that His ways would be perfectly consistent with His purpose, and they would have trusted Him in the wilderness. But they ^[p. 209] erred in their heart, and said that He had brought them out to perish in the wilderness.

The more distinctly we have the heavenly calling in view, the more simple will be our confidence in God as to the circumstances and needs which arise here. The Lord Jesus would succour us by giving us the knowledge of the Father’s purpose and the Father’s care. “Fear not, little flock, for it has been the good pleasure of your Father to give you the kingdom”, Luke 12: 32. Will He then lose sight of our need in the wilderness? No, “your Father knows that ye have need of these things”. Luke 12: 22 - 32 is priestly comfort and succour, assuring our hearts of God’s care in the wilderness, and nourishing our souls with the thought of His purpose concerning us. Thus succoured and encouraged it is our privilege to be at rest in the goodness and love of God, so as not to be diverted from the joy of our heavenly calling by anxious care about circumstances here.

The second temptation was a worldly one. The devil offered the Lord all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if He would do homage to him. But the great world system with its glory had no attraction for Christ, because He viewed it in relation to God. God has no place in the world; all its glory is based upon the exclusion of God. There is not a thing that has greatness and glory in the world that would not be displaced if the rights of God were established. Therefore a man cannot have the world or its things without “turning away from the living God”. To go in for things of the world is the outcome of “a wicked heart of unbelief”.

The Lord’s answer to this temptation was “It is written, Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve”. He was not one bit attracted by the world kingdoms, nor would He in any way acknowledge their prince. The world with its glory was a judged thing ^[p. 210] for One who set Jehovah always before Him. And now as we find ourselves in presence of temptations of the same kind — though not of the same magnitude — as this, the Lord would succour and strengthen as against them by confirming our souls in the knowledge of Himself and the Father so that we might overcome the world. His rejection and death have shown the true character of the world, and proved that none of its things are of the Father. And as the love of the Father is in us we shall not love the world or its things. We may be sure that if the world gets a place in our hearts we shall be altogether diverted from the heavenly calling.

The third temptation was more subtle than the two preceding ones. One might regard it as a religious temptation. The devil would have Christ to assume publicly the distinctions and privileges that belonged to Him as Messiah. But the time had not come for that. It was no part of the Lord’s intentions to assume distinction in the present order of things. To do so would be to tempt God, and with the quotation of the scripture which forbade this the Lord made His final reply to the tempter.

No device of Satan has proved more successful in diverting Christendom from the heavenly calling than the temptation to assume religious position and privilege in the present order of things. But the place for us is not the pinnacle of the temple, but “without the camp”. It must have been a hard struggle for Jews to give up their place of religious distinction on earth, and it is not less difficult now for those who are identified with a christian profession which has become great and influential on earth. Hence the heavenly calling is practically unknown at the present day to many believers. They are more intent upon maintaining some kind of religious position here than upon being acquainted with the heavenly calling. Christ would succour His saints by presenting Himself to their ^[p. 211] hearts outside everything here, so that they might be held by affection for Himself so as not to desire any religious place in the world where He died.

Then the temptation in the garden was of an entirely different order. Satan was allowed to bring before Him all the terrors that lay in the path of obedience. But this only served to bring out His entire devotedness to God. I have no doubt that saints are often diverted from the will of God by considering the consequences that may come upon them. But Christ can succour us in this matter also in His priestly grace.

Every temptation has a tendency to move us away from the heavenly calling, and we very much over-estimate our own spiritual strength if we think we can stand unaided in the moment of temptation. We need the succour and grace of the Priest if we are to be maintained in brightness and freshness of soul. It is all a question of the place Christ has in our hearts. He succours and strengthens us by bringing Himself before us. The heavenly calling is set forth in Him, and we are kept in the truth of it, and in the brightness and joy of it, as we consider Him who is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. It is from Christ that Satan ever seeks to divert us. And it is to bring us increasingly under the attraction and influence of all that is set forth in Himself that the priestly grace and succour of Christ are exercised towards us. In presence of all the powerful influences of evil we have resources that cannot break down. Divine Persons are for us, and we have a Priest at the right hand of God. In the consciousness of this may we be increasingly set with purpose of heart to hold fast our confession.

There are two things connected with Christ as a “high priest according to the order of Melchisedec” — salvation and blessing. “Though he were Son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered; and having been perfected,

^[p. 212] became to all them that obey him, author of eternal salvation; addressed by God as high priest according to the order of Melchisedec”, Hebrews 5: 8 - 10. That blessed One came here in flesh and took up that which was the perfection of the creature. It was creature perfection to obey, and He, the Son, took it up and learned it. He whose prerogative it had ever been to command was pleased to become the obedient One on earth. He learned in His holy pathway right down to death all that was involved in obedience in a world where the self-will of a fallen creature had brought ruin and death upon everything. His obedience was greater than that which might have been possible in the Eden of man’s innocence, or that which will be seen in the millennial age when Satan is bound. It was obedience in the midst of a world of self-will and Satan’s power, obedience in a lowly and holy path that was uncheered by earthly smiles and led only to the cross. Having thus learned obedience from the things which He suffered, He is qualified now to command us so that in obeying Him we may find salvation from all that is evil here. Present salvation is found in obeying Christ. Obedience to Him is the grand preservative from all the evil influences that obtain in the world.

Then, on the other hand, all blessing flows from Him. Melchisedec “blessed” Abraham, Hebrews 7: 1 - 6. Christ is “high priest of the good things to come”. All the wealth of God’s blessing for man is treasured up in Christ, to be brought forth by Him in a coming day for the joy of the whole earth and for God’s glory and praise. That wealth of blessing does not yet shine forth in any public way in the world, but Christ is known by our hearts as the Priest of it all while He is yet “within the veil”. What He will bring forth in priestly grace when the glory of God shines out into this world is a present reality to the hearts of those ^[p. 213] who know Him where He is. The “good things” have come for our hearts, and Christ is Priest of them.

We see an illustration of this on the resurrection day. The “good things” — “the sure mercies of David” — had come, and were all established in the risen Christ. But the dawn of that “morning without clouds” did not break in the hearts of His own; they did not know the good things that had come in Himself as risen from the dead, apart from His service in priestly grace. To Mary with her sorrowing heart, to Simon with his soiled conscience, to the two disciples whose straying feet were on the road to Emmaus He became the Priest of those “good things”. Each heart was tenderly and faithfully touched according to its state and need, but the gracious service of that wondrous day ceased not until the disciples were together, knowing the risen One, and discerning in Him the fulfilment of all the Scriptures. He blessed them by introducing their hearts to the knowledge of Himself and of all that was established in Him. And as thus blessed by Him they did Him homage; they had “great joy”, and were continually “praising and blessing God”, Luke 24: 53. It is as being in the good of this priestly salvation and blessing that we are fitted for approach to God.