THE MINISTER OF THE SANCTUARY
[p. 153] THE MINISTER OF THE SANCTUARY
The ministry is the proper function of Christ as Priest; His sympathy with us is incidental to our present condition as being down here. But the service of the sanctuary is the proper function of the priest. Ministry is the service of God in the sanctuary. But if people do not understand the covenant, it is impossible that they could be up to the ministry, that is, to the service of God. Approach to God all through Scripture is according to the covenant made. Abraham had more access to God than the people had under the law. God made known in a covenant what His disposition was towards Abraham, and his liberty followed and flowed from the knowledge of God’s disposition towards him. The people under the law were made to feel the extreme difficulty of approach to God; they were made to feel the distance between them and God; and for this reason, that the order of the covenant for the time being was law.
The present covenant is set forth in the death of Christ; and therefore you get “the new covenant in my blood”. In proportion as you understand the meaning of the covenant, you will understand the ministry. The Lord in the Supper brought before the disciples what was God’s disposition towards them; and the effect of it is to bring us into the place of worshippers.
Christ is the expression of the covenant. If you want to know the disposition of God towards you, you must see it as set forth in Christ. The two points in the covenant are righteousness and love, and these are set forth in the death of Christ; and that is to make nothing of us, we become nothing in the presence of divine love.
Righteousness comes first, because we have been actually in sin and we have to be assured that there is righteousness for us. Our sins and iniquities He remembers no [p. 154] more. We have no more conscience of sins; but that is not what God is towards me; what He is towards me is love — where righteousness is accomplished, love is revealed. So we get “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”.
In coming together in assembly the great thing is, that our hearts should be in the sense of the disposition of God towards us. The Lord’s supper thus comes in as introductory. We are called together by the Lord’s supper. I do not think there is very much power in the meeting until you get the Supper. It is a sad thing if in the church God does not get His part, that is, worship; but it flows from the sense of God’s disposition towards us. The secret of God getting His part is, that you know what it is to sit before the Lord, with the consciousness that God has nothing for you but love. If a company came together in the sense of that, I do not think they would care very much for the world; when we are sensible of God’s love we respond to it. God is going to have His people in heaven to satisfy His love, and when we go, one thing is certain, that we shall drop everything of this world, we shall retain only what is of God.
If God will have the satisfaction of His love in having us in heaven, He must have satisfaction in the gathering together of the saints now. If we were all under the influence and sense of the love of God, there would be a remarkable outflow of worship. Eternal life is very simple, it is Christ; and if we are near to Christ, we are in the region of life.
The sanctuary is a moral idea, it is a scene of supreme rest and glory — the scene where God has been pleased to reveal Himself; the light in which God has been pleased to make Himself known in Christ — that is the sanctuary; but for us, all that is moral.