ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST
[p. 220] ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST
The steps by which we enter in to God are the reverse to those steps by which God has come out. As to entering into the most holy place, to understand this you must know the way God has come out. He came out by Christ, and so He really came out by Himself; in that way He became His own testimony. I have pointed out before that where man ends there God began; the holiest is the highest, and there He began, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.
Christ came here in God’s fidelity to the promises, but that was not the height from which God was acting, but it is seen in reconciling the world to Himself. He was no longer testing man, but took a new course, that is, reconciling the world to Himself. It is seen in Luke 2 where the multitude of the heavenly host say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”.
That was the birth of Christ, but God draws even nearer still in the death of Christ. This shews His disposition toward us, it is seen in the new covenant. Then we get the proclamation, and next we get the entering into the holiest, and with this reconciliation, the two being intimately connected; but God started from the holiest, and that is where we find Christ now, where He abides in the holy love of God — the holiest.
There are three great steps in the progress of christians. The first great landmark is when you learn that you are married to Christ. The second great landmark is when you learn what it is to behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face and are changed. The third great landmark is when you draw nigh. If you turn to Romans 7: 4, every step we have to take is in contrast to what Israel had to go through. Christ has become law to us — [p. 221] we all need law, there is nothing lawless in nature, God never intended that we should be lawless: anarchists are no good, they are lawless. Christ is the only one standard morally; so we get the exhortation, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”, Galatians 6: 2.
Now in Romans 7 they are severed from the first husband that they might be married to another. A man will covet, he cannot help it, and the law only could condemn him for doing it; but as regards the christian we have the support of Christ by His Spirit: so the Lord said in Matthew 11, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; ... and ye shall find rest unto your souls”. No one ever brought forth fruit to God save by the Spirit. Severed from Him we can do nothing. We all ought to be exercised about bringing forth fruit to God, and by the Spirit only is it done.
Now I touch upon 2 Corinthians 3; we behold the glory of the Lord, we are privileged to be in the presence of glory unveiled. God is seen in holy splendour in the death of Christ; though it really was the darkest of moments, yet there God was glorified, and now we behold the glory of the Lord, and the practical effect is that we become like God and like one another.
Israel was tied to a husband that could not support them; how different in our case (Romans 7: 4), the Husband does support us, does help us.
Then we come to 2 Corinthians 5, if any man be in Christ it is new creation. If the word of reconciliation was committed to Paul, then evidently the reconciliation itself was there. You therefore get more even than when Christ was here.
The bearing of reconciliation is, that everything which is not of Christ must disappear. The application to us morally is, if any man be in Christ it is new creation; you cannot bear with or tolerate the inclinations of the flesh or will; now it is new creation; the meaning is that we might have boldness to enter the holiest.
[p. 222] In Old Testament times the priest had to wash his body with water ere entering; now all takes place in the mind of the christian, and if you are before God in the holiest the old things have passed away and all things become new, and all things are of God: the product of His own grace and His Spirit in the soul, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him — all was gold in the holiest, there the christian can be with no sense of the working of the flesh, that we might become so that God might have His delight in His people in the holiest. The great point of reconciliation is, that we should not receive the grace of God in vain, that is, we have our place in the world for the service of God.
As to the state of the mind, old things are passed away. It is a great thing to be before God, sprinkled as to our hearts from an evil conscience, and washed as to our bodies with pure water, then we can come out here in this world for God, we can turn God’s grace to good account down here.
You are before God for His perfect complacency; this is the third step, and it is a wonderful thing: old things are passed away. For God all is gone in the death of Christ, but it has to be recognised on our part that all for us has been terminated in the death of Christ.