ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST
ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST
The antitype of the holiest is Christ in glory, and you are never in His presence but as the glorified One. As the hymn puts it, ‘His presence is our home.’ (12:4) Individually we enter the holiest, or the presence of Christ in glory, but we only know it fully in the assembly. We all can behold the Lord with unveiled face, but where it is individual the effect is limited to the individual, and is seen in his course of action. I mean that if I were in His presence, as the Queen of Sheba was in Solomon’s presence, I should be transformed into moral correspondence to Him in my individual path. But if I were in His presence in the assembly, where He is Son over God’s house — a great Priest over the house of God, I should be led, in concert with Himself, into His circle of interest.
In either case I must be fit for His presence. I consider that the washing of the feet in John 13 answers to the preparation for the holiest. You cannot be with Christ — have “part” with Him, unless every shade of defilement be removed. This must always be the case in order to be with Him. When you fail you turn to Him as the Advocate, but the conscience may be at rest, and yet the heart may not be free with Him. It is very plain that individually you are not enjoying company with Him, if there be any reserve between Him and you. Peter was in his conscience relieved in John 20, but his heart was not relieved until chapter 21. If you admit that you are not in company with Him individually until your feet are washed, you can at once see that you could not be with Him otherwise in the assembly — in the house of God.
Our individual failures we confess in our own room when we believe in the advocacy of Christ, but that must be over before we come into the assembly. In the assembly we seek for grace and wisdom to correct anything unworthy [p. 75] of His assembly. It is not so much confessing failure as seeking to remove it. Under the law, the clean person was to sprinkle on the unclean.
In the Lord’s supper it is Christ’s death which is before us, and the fact that He died for us only intensifies our remembrance of Him in death; we are in the full efficacy of His work.
Beholding the Lamb in Revelation is, as far as I see, more with relation to the earth than the assembly. The company there are associated with Christ as about to reign; at any rate, they are not the assembly. The more you love Him, and the better you know all He went through on your account, the more will you seek to be kept from any return to the flesh for which He suffered; and though His sufferings for you draw out your heart to Him, the real satisfaction of your heart is that you are united to Him in glory. Entrance into the holiest is a blessing peculiar to Christians. We do not read that the earthly saints are ever thus blessed. I hope I have made the subject clear to you. It has been said no one understands a divine truth until he is in it. The Lord lead you into it.