"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXVII

PARTAKERS OF CHRIST.
Hebrews 3: 14-15 For we are become partakers of Christ, If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end; while It is said, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

The continuation of THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
September 1894

In the second chapter the twofold oneness of our Lord Jesus and His believing people was set before us. On the Divine side they are one, for both He that sanctifies, and they that are sanctified are all of one, that is, of God. Therefore He calls them brethren. On the other, the human side, they are one, because He became man, and took our nature upon Him. Since the children are sharers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same. There we have the same word as here. Just as truly as Christ became partaker of flesh and blood we become partakers of Christ. In partaking with us of flesh and blood, Christ entered into perfect fellowship with us in all we were, our life and our death became His. When we become partakers of Christ, we enter into perfect fellowship or intimacy with Him in all He was and is; His death and resurrected His Divine Life become ours.

We are become partakers of Christ! What a Mystery! What a Treasure! What a Blessedness! The whole object of the Epistle is to show what there is in the Christ of whom we are become partakers, and what He can do for us. But here at way to sloth or unbelief, believers are reminded of what their portion and possession is; they are become partakers of Christ. There is often dangers, as we listen to the teaching of  Scripture about Christ as our High Priest, of regarding Him as an outward person, and His work as something that is done outwardly for us in Heaven. This precious word reminds us that our Salvation consists in the possession of Himself, in the being One Life with Him, in having Himself as our own. Christ can do nothing for us but as an inward Savior. Himself being our life, personally dwelling and working in us. As truly and fully as Christ, when He became partaker of flesh and blood, was entirely and eternally identified with man and His nature, so that He and it were inseparably united in one life, so surely, when we become partakers of Christ, do we become indissolubly identified with Him in One Life. Since Christ became partaker of flesh and blood, He is known, and will be to all eternity, even upon the Throne, as the Son of Man. No less will we, when we Truly become partakers of Christ, will be known, even now and to all eternity, as One with Christ on the Throne of Glory. Oh, let us know ourselves as God Knows us--- partakers of Christ.

It is the one thing God desires. When God set forth His only begotten Son as the only possible Way of access to Himself, it meant that He can delight in or have fellowship with nothing in which the likeness of His Son is not to be seen. We can have no farther entrance into God's favour or good pleasure than He can see Christ in us. If God has called us to the fellowship of His Son, and made us participators of all there is in Christ, the sonship, and the Love, and the Spirit of the Father, let us live worthy of our privilege--- let us live as men who are.--- Oh! The riches of the Grace!--- Are become partakers of Christ!

And how can we know in full assurance that it is so, and ever rejoice in the blessed consciousness of all it implies. Just as it was said before, where our blessed relation to Christ was set forth in another aspect, we are His House, "if" we hold fast our Boldness and the glorying of our hope firm to the end, so we have the answer here again: "We are become partakers of Christ, "if" we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end." The beginning of our confidence must be held fast. We must not, as many think, begin with faith, and continue with works (the external reality of an inward Life of Christ). No, the confidence with which we began must be held fast firm to the end. We must see that when we are made partakers of Christ, that includes all, and that as at first, so all the way to the end, we can receive out of Christ only by faith and according to our faith. Apart from faith receiving Christ's strength, our works avail not. God works nothing but through Christ, and it is as by faith we live in our riches in Christ that God can work into us all there is in Him for us. It is this faith through which God can work all our works for us and in us.

For we are become--- note, not we shall become--- we are become, partakers of Christ, "if" we hold fast to the end. Our perseverance will be the seal of our being partaker of Christ. The faith by which, at conversion, we know at once that we have Christ, grows clearer and brighter, and more mightily effectual in opening up the Treasures of Christ, as we hold it fast firm to the end. Persevering faith is the witness that we have Christ, because through it Christ exercises His keeping and perfecting power. 

Believer! Would you enjoy the full assurance and the full experience that you are partaker of Christ? It is alone to be found each day in the Living fellowship with Christ. Christ is a Living person, He can be Known and enjoyed only in a Living personal intercourse. Christ is my Leader; I must cling to Him, I must receive Him, in His leading. Christ is my High Priest; I must let Him lift me into God's presence. Christ is the Living Son of God, our Life; I must live Him. I am His House; I can only Know Him as Son in His House as I yield myself to His indwelling by my receptivity.

But, all and only through faith, we are become partakers of Christ, "if" we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end. Begin each day, meet each difficulty, with the renewal of the confidence you reposed in Jesus, when first you came to Him; with a brightness that shines unto the perfect day you will know what Boundless Blessing it is to be a partaker of Christ.

1. When Christ became partaker of human nature, how entirely He identified Himself with It, that all could see and know It. I am become partaker of Christ: let me be so identified with Him that my whole life may be marked by it. So may all see and know that I am partaker of Jesus Christ.
2. How did Christ become partaker of our nature? He left His own State of Life, forsook all, and entered into our state of life. How do I become partaker of Christ? By coming out from my state of life, forsaking all, giving myself wholly to be possessed of Him and to Live His Life through me.
3. If we hold fast the beginning. Christ maintained His surrender to be Man firm to the end, even unto death. Let me maintain my surrender to Christ, Live One Life with Christ, at any cost.
4. Partaker of Christ, of His Life, His dispositions as man, His meekness and lowliness of heart; partaker of a Living Christ who will Live His Life out in me and through me.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXVI

EXHORT ONE ANOTHER DAY BY DAY.
Hebrews 3: 13  But exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called to-day, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

The Continuing of THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
September 1894

In the previous verse we read, "Take heed lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief." That is not only, let each one look to himself, but let all look to it that there be not in any one of you the evil unbelieving heart. The Church is one body; the sickness of one member is a danger to the whole body. Each one must live to care for those around him. Each member is entrusted by Christ to the love and care of his brethren, and is dependent on their help. Believers who are joined together in one house, in a neighborhood, in a church, are responsible for one another; they must take heed that there be not in anyone the unbelief that falls away from God. They are called to help and encourage each other so that all may at all times continue steadfast in the faith.

In our meditation on verse 6 we spoke of the painful fact that in so many cases the first boldness and joy of hope is not held fast firm to the end. Here is one cause. There is not the care and help for each other which the Lord intended. In caring only for ourselves, our brother not only suffers, but we lose much ourselves. The healthy life of the individual member is dependent on the life around him, and on the part he takes in maintaining that life. The warning has a deeper significance than we think: "Take heed lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief."

It is this thought our text seeks to enforce: But exhort one another day by day, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Christians are bound to exhort one another; it is their duty and their right. It is implied in the whole constitution of the body of Christ, that the members care for one another. Its life is entirely dependent on the Spirit of Christ, who pleased not Himself, and that Spirit is a love that seeks not its own, but has its very being in loving and blessing others. As each member humbly yields himself to be helped and to help, the safety and the vigor of all will be secured. The communion of saints in all our Church circles must be proved in the cultivation of a practical ministering Love and Care for each other.

Exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day. We saw what solemn meaning there was in the Holy Spirit's call, To-day, "if" you hear His voice. We sought to apply that personally. Here we are taught that all the urgency that call implies must by each one of us be applied to our neighbor as well as ourselves. We must think of the danger of delay, of the time when it will be no longer To-day for those around us, who are forgetting it, and exhort them day by day. To-day! The work is urgent and must be done immediately. It may be difficult--- He who commands will enable. Our conscious unfitness must drive us to Him who can fill us with the Love and the Boldness, and the Wisdom we need. Day by day. The work is slow, and must be done unceasingly, "so long as it is called To-day." The Spirit of Jesus can give us Grace and Patience and Faith to persevere. "In due time we shall reap if we faint not."

Day by day. This word of the Holy Spirit is the complement of that other To-day. The To-day of the Holy Spirit must day by day be afresh accepted and obeyed. It is only as we are ready, every day without one exception, to live fully in the obedience to the voice of God and the faith of Jesus, that our life can grow. What has once, or for a time, been done, will not avail; day by day, our fellowship with Jesus, our consecration to Him, our service for Him, must be renewed. So shall we in our care for others, as much as in our personal walk, hold fast our boldness firm to the end.

"Exhort one another, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." We heard the warning, Harden not your hearts. Here is its exposition, Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. All sin is deceit, its promised pleasures are all a lie. But there are some sins that are open and unmistakable. There are others that are specially deceptive. Where the sanction of the Christian world, or the force of habit and custom, or the apparent insignificance of what we do, makes us think little of the sin, it has a terrible power to deceive the professing Christian. And through this deceitfulness of sin, be it worldliness, or unlovingness, or pride, or want of integrity, hearts are hardened, and become incapable of hearing the voice of God. What a call to all who are awake to their own danger to listen, "Exhort one another day by day, lest any one of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

Let me press upon everyone who would study this Epistle, the solemn obligation resting upon him to care for those around him--- not only the outcast, but those with whom he is associated in church fellowship, very specially any who are in danger of being hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. The Christ to whom we are to grow up in all things is the Christ "from whom all the body, fitly framed and knit together, through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in its measure of each several part, makes the increase of the body to the building up of itself in love." Our connection with the head, the power of our growth unto Him in all things, must be maintained in our love to the members of His body around, however feeble or backward. And if we would know where the Grace for this work is to be found, the answer is not far to seek. It is in  Jesus Christ our Head and in His Love shed abroad in our hearts. As in this Epistle we study the compassion of Jesus, as our High Priest and Leader, let us believe that He makes us partakers of His Spirit He forms us in His own likeness, He leads us in His footsteps, He makes each of us what He was, a Priest with a priestly heart ready to live and die for those around us. Therefore, brethren, exhort one another day by day.

1. This work is most difficult. But strength for it will come as for any other work. First of all, accept the command; get the heart filed with the sense of obligation; yield yourself to your Master in willing obedience, even though you see not the slightest prospect of doing it. Then wait on Him for His Light and Strength for Wisdom to know how to begin, for Boldness to speak the Truth in Love. Present yourself to God as one alive from the dead, and your members as Instruments of righteousness in His hands. Let the fire within the heart be kept burning: the Grace of Obedience will not be withheld.
2. This Epistle is an exposition of the inner life, the life of faith. But with this, work is considered as a matter of course that needs no vindication. Let every Christian give himself to his Lord to watch over others: let all the fresh Grace and the deeper Knowledge of Jesus we seek be for the service of those around us. Exhort one another daily.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXV

AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF.
Hebrews 3: 12  Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be In any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the Living God.

Continuation of THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

The great practical aim of the Epistle is to call us to faith. It is with this view that it will show us what a sure ground we have for it in the word and Oath of God, in the person and power of our Heavenly High Priest. It will remind us how unbelief has been the cause of all falling away from God, and all failing of entrance into the enjoyment of His Promise and His Rest, as faith has in all ages been the one power in which God's saints have lived and worked. It has already spoken of "holding fast our Boldness and the Glorying of our hope firm to the end"; it here uses the word "believe" for the first time in the call to beware of an evil heart of unbelief. (In this case the word "receive" may have been a better word as we are to become receptive of the Living Word [Rhema]. We are to be willing to receive all that the first Adam had lost by faith or simply trusting God or the taking of Him at His Word through inspiration within our heart at first then to our understand or brain matter which at times may be defective of that receptivity. In other wards we are to be teachable, trainable and learn discipline. Emphasis added)

An evil heart of unbelief. Think a moment of what the expression means. And note first the place the heart takes in religion. We have heard the warning (verse 7), Harden not your hearts. It is in the heart God speaks, and where He longs to give His Blessing. On that there followed God's complaint, "They do always err in their heart; they did not know My ways." It is a heart that goes wrong that cannot know God's ways. And so here again, it is the evil heart that cannot believe, that falls away from the Living God. Do let us, in our study of the Epistle and in our whole religious life, beware of rejoicing in beautiful thoughts and happy feelings, while the heart, with its desire and will and love, is not wholly given up to God. In our intercourse with God, everything depends on the heart. It is with the heart man believes and receives the Salvation of God.

An evil heart of unbelief. Many think and speak of unbelief as a frailty; they wish to believe, but do not feel able; their faith, they say, is too weak. And of course they have no sense of guilt or shame connected with it: not being able to do a thing is counted a sufficient excuse for not doing it. God thinks differently. The Holy Ghost speaks of the evil heart of unbelief. The heart is the organ God created in man for holding fellowship (intimacy) with Himself. Faith is its first natural function; by faith and love it lives in God. It is the ear that hears the voice of God, the eye that can ever see Him and the unseen world; the capacity for knowing and receiving all that God can communicate. It begins as trust in the word spoken; it grows into fellowship (intimacy) with the Person who speaks; its fruit is the reception of all God has to bestow. Sin turned the heart from the unseen to the seen, from God to self, and faith in God lost the place it was meant to have, and became a faith in the visible world and its goods. And now unbelief, whether avowed and definite, or more secret and unconscious, is the great mark of the evil heart, the great proof of sin, the great cause of everlasting darkness and damnation. There is no warning the professing Christian Church needs to have sounded more loudly than this one to the Hebrews: Take heed lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the Living God.

In falling away from the Living God. This is the terrible evil of unbelief; it incapacitates a man for holding fellowship (intimacy) with God as the Living One. The expression, the Living God, occurs four times in the Epistle. In the Old Testament it contrasted God with the dead idols, who could not hear or speak or help. Alas, how often professing Christians have, instead of a graven image, the more dangerous idol of a thought-image--- a conception of the mind to which they bring their worship. The Living God, speaking in His Son, hearing them when they speak, working out in them His mighty Salvation--- the Living God who Loves and is loved,--- Him they know not. With all their Christian profession and religious exercises there is an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the Living God.

Let us take the warning. Ere we come to the deeper Truth the Epistle has to teach us, let us learn well our first lesson: the one thing God looks to, the one thing we need to receive, the fulness of Blessing our great High Priest has for us and waits to bestow, is a heart of faith--- a true heart drawing nigh to God in fulness of faith (10: 23). Take heed--- we ought to give more abundant heed--- lest there be in any of us, even for a moment, an evil heart of unbelief. Let us cast out everything that can cause or can strengthen it, whether it be worldliness or formality, too little Knowledge, or too much head-knowledge of God's word, too little looking to the state of our heart or too much preoccupation with self; let us take heed lest there be at any time in us an evil heart of unbelief. Let a tender heart, hearkening to His voice, Listening to and Trusting His word, ever be the sacrifice we bring Him.

With the heart man believes, whether in God or the world. As our heart is, so is our faith, and so our life. Our enjoyment of Christ, our spiritual strength and fruitfulness, our nearness to God, and our experience of His working in us, all depend, not upon single, isolated acts of faith, but upon the state of the heart. Therefore God breathes into us the Spirit of faith, to keep our heart ever tender and open towards Him. Oh, let us above everything beware of an evil heart of unbelief.

And if we would know how true living faith is to be obtained and increased, note the connection. As unbelief falls away from the Living God, so faith draws nigh to Him and is fed and nourished in His presence. Practice the presence of God in deep humility and stillness of heart. Thirst for God, the Living God. "My soul, be silent before God: for my expectation is from Him". He is the Living God. He sees and hears and feels and loves. He speaks and gives and works, and reveals Himself. His presence wakens and strengthens and satisfies faith. Bow in lowly meditation and worship before the Living God, and faith will waken up and grow into Boldness and the glorying of hope. He is the Living God, who makes alive, out of whom Life comes into them that draw near to Him: tarry in His presence--- that, and nothing else, but that, most surely, will free you from the evil heart of unbelief.

1. Unbelief and falling away from the Living God: remember with holy fear the close connection. They act and react on each other.
2. The faithfulness of Jesus fills the heart with the fulness of faith. You remember the lesson? Here It Is the same again: drawing nigh to the Living God will fill the heart with Living faith. And the Epistle is going to teach us how God draws nigh to us in Jesus, and how in Jesus we draw nigh to God.
3. Never speak or think of unbelief as a weakness, but always as the sin of sins, the fruitful mother of all sin.
4. The Living God in Heaven, and the believing heart on earth: these are the two powers that meet and satisfy each other. Let your faith know of no other measure or limit than the Living God. Let it be Living faith in a Living God. 

(Though not part of this Epistle the book of Revelation can best come to light as a Living faith of things taking place first in Heaven then on earth or first on earth then in Heaven as scenes in a modern day movie. Emphasis added)

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXIV

TO-DAY.
Hebrews 3: 7  Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

Continuing with THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
13th September 1894.

These words are generally applied to the unconverted; the Psalm in which they occur, and the context in which they stand in this Epistle, both prove that they are meant for God's people. In all the dealings of the Holy Ghost with believers, be they weak and erring, or strong and glad, His great word to them is, To-day.

The Holy Ghost said, To-day. What does this mean? God is the Eternal One. With Him there is no yesterday or to-morrow; what we call past and future are with Him an ever-present Now; His Life is an ever-Blessed, never-ending To-day. One of the great words of this Epistle in regard to Christ and His Salvation is the word Eternal, For ever. He has become the Author of Eternal Salvation--- that is, a Salvation which bears the character of Eternity; its chief mark is that it is an ever-present Now that there is not a moment in which Christ, who ever Lives to pray for us, is not able to maintain us in it in the power of an endless Life.

Man is the creature of a moment; the past has gone from him, and over the future he has no control; it is only the present moment that is his. Therefore it is that, when he is made partaker of Christ, a High Priest for ever, and the eternal Salvation He imparts, God's great word to him is To-day. In Christ all the Blessedness of the great Eternity is gathered up in an ever-present Now: the one need of the believer is to know it, to respond to it, and to meet the To-day, the Now, my child! of God's Grace with the To-day, the Even now, my Father! of
his faith.

If you would understand the meaning of this Divine To-day, look at it in its wondrous setting. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day. Satan's word is ever To-morrow, man's favorite word, too, To-morrow. Even with the child of God the word of unbelief is too often To-morrow; God's demand is too great for to-day; God's Promise too High; we hope it will come easier later on. The Holy Ghost says, To-day. That means that He who is the mighty power of God is Himself ready to work in us all that God Wills and Asks; it is He who is each moment pleading for immediate surrender, for a present trust, because He bears with Him the power of a present Salvation.

To-day! It is a word of wonderful promise. It tells that To-day, this very moment, the Wondrous Love of God is for us it is even now waiting to be extended into your heart; that To-day, all that Christ has done, and is Now doing in Heaven, and is able to do within us--- this very day, it is within our reach. To-day the Holy Ghost, in whom there is the power to Know and Claim and Enjoy all that the Father and the Son are waiting to bestow, to-day the Holy Ghost is within you, sufficient for every need, equal to every emergency. With every call we find in our Bible to full and entire surrender; with every promise we read of Grace for the supply of temporal and spiritual need; with every prayer we breathe, and every longing that rules in our heart, there is the Spirit of promise whispering, To-day. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.

To-day! It is a word of solemn command. It is not here a question of some higher privilege which you are free to accept or reject. It is not left to your choice, O believer, whether you will receive the fulness of Blessing the Holy Spirit offers. That To-day of the Holy Ghost brings you under the most solemn obligation to respond to God's call, and to say, Yes, To-day, Lord, complete and immediate submission to all Thy will; To-day, the surrender of a present and a perfect Trust in all Thy Grace. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.

To-day! A word, too, of earnest warning. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts. They shall not enter into My Rest. There is nothing so hardening as delay. When God speaks to us, He asks for a tender heart, open to the whispers of His voice of Love. The believer who answers the To-day of the Holy Ghost with the To-morrow of some more convenient season, knows not how he is hardening his heart; the delay, instead of making the surrender and obedience and faith easy, makes it more difficult. It closes the heart for to-day against the Comforter, and cuts off all hope and power of growth. O believer, Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day, so when you hear His voice, open the heart in great tenderness to listen and obey; Obedience to the Spirit's To-day is your only certainty of power and of  Blessing.

To all Christians whose life has been one of feebleness and of failure, who have not yet entered into the Rest of faith, into God's own Rest, this word To-day is the key to all their disappointments and to all their failures. You waited for strength, to make obedience easier; for feeling, to make the sacrifice less painful. You did not listen to the voice of God breathing through every word. He speaks that wondrous note, even through the Living Word, Jesus Christ, that wondrous note of hope, To-day. You thought it meant for the sinner a call to immediate repentance; you did not know that it means for the believer, each time he hears the voice, immediate, whole hearted submission to all God says, immediate trustful acceptance of all He gives. And yet just this is what it does mean. (A change from a simple believer and follower to that of a trusting child a receiver of all that God is, as a disciplined disciple a son of God. Emphasis added)

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we have a very wonderful exhibition of what Christ, as a High Priest at the right hand of God, can do for us in the power of an endless Life. The entering into the Rest of God, the perfect cleansing of the conscience in the blood through which He entered into the presence of God, our access within the veil into the presence of God, the being brought close to the very heart of God, the being taken up and kept in Christ in the Love of God, these Blessings are all ours. And over each of them is written the words, Now is the accepted time. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.

1. Brother, let you and me bow in great stillness before God to hear this wonderful message: the Holy Ghost whispering, To-day, To-day. Let our whole heart open up to take it in. Let all fear and unbelief pass away as we remember: it Is the Holy Ghost Himself, the giver of strength, the dispenser of Grace, the revealer of Jesus, who says To-day.
2. Let our faith simply listen to God's voice, until it rings through our soul day by day, and all the day. We shall take God's word To-day, and make it our own. We shall meet this wonderful To-day of God's Love with the confident To-day of our faith. And it will become to us a foretaste of that eternal To-day In which He dwells.
3. The Holy Spirit's To-day, accepted and lived in, will be within us the power of an endless Life, the experience of an eternal Salvation, as an ever-present, never-ceasing reality. "Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day."
4. Just yesterday I heard a servant of God testify that at his conversion he was led to say: I am going to do the Will of God to-day, without thinking of to-morrow; and he found the unspeakable blessing of it. Let anyone begin to live a whole-hearted life, by (in) the Grace of God, for one day; for to-morrow will be as to-day, and still better.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXIII

EVEN AS THE HOLY GHOST SAID
Hebrews 3: 7. Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day "If" you shall hear His voice.

THE SECOND WARNING continued
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

In quoting the words of the 95th Psalm the writer uses the expression, Even as the Holy Ghost said. He regards that Psalm as simply the language of the Holy Spirit He looks upon the Scriptures as truly inspired by God, God-breathed, because men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Tim. 3: 16, 2 Pet. 1: 21). He regards them as the very voice of God, and attaches to the words all the weight of Divine Authority, and all the fulness of meaning they have in the Divine mind. It is on this ground that he sees in them a deeper meaning than we would have looked for, and teaches us to find in the words, enter into My Rest, the Revelation of a deeper Spiritual Mystery and a Prophecy of what Christ should bring. As it was the Holy Spirit who of old first gave the word, so it was the same Spirit who taught the Apostle to set forth to us its Spiritual meaning and lessons, as we have them in the fourth chapter. And even now it is that same Spirit alone who can reveal the Truth Spiritually within us, and make it Life and power in our experience. Let us wait on Him as we meditate on these words, Even as the Holy Ghost said. The words of the Holy Ghost need the Holy Ghost as their interpreter. And the Holy Ghost interprets only to those in whom He dwells and rules.

In the opening words of the Epistle we were told that it was the same God, who had spoken to the fathers in the prophets, who has now spoken to us in His Son. The inferiority of the Old Testament did not consist in this that the words were less the words of God than in the New. They are equally the words of the Holy Spirit. But the superior excellence of the New Dispensation lies in this that, in virtue of the mighty Redemption wrought out by Christ, taking away the veil between God and us, and the veil from our eyes and heart (Heb. 10: 20, Is. 25: 7, 2 Cor. 3: 16), the word can enter more fully into us with its Life-giving power. The Son of God, as the Living Word, dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, brings the Truth and the power of the Word as a Divine reality into our living experience. The Old Testament was as the bud; in the New the bud has opened and the flower is seen. Even as the Holy Ghost said. This word assures us that the Holy Spirit will Himself unfold in the New what He had hidden in the words of the Old.

This brings us to a lesson of the very deepest importance in our spiritual life: that what the Holy Ghost has spoken, He alone can make plain. He uses human words and thoughts, and, as regarded from the human side, human reason can understand and expound them. But even in one who may be a true Christian, this does not bring him farther than the Old Testament, the preliminary stage: "The prophets sought and searched diligently what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto" (1 Pet. 1: 2). Beyond this, to the real possession and experience of the redemption they proclaimed, they did not come. It was only when Christ was glorified, and the Spirit was given as an indwelling fountain of Light and Life, that the Divine meaning and power could be known. And so it is with ourselves; to understand the words of the Holy Spirit I must have yielded myself to be led by the Spirit, I must be living in the Spirit. It is only one who knows Hebrew who can expound a Hebrew writing; it is only the Spirit of God who knows the mind of God and can reveal it to us. Take, for instance, what is said of entering into the Rest of God, anyone who will take trouble, and study it carefully, will be able to form some conception of what it means. But truly to know the Rest of God, to enter into it, to enjoy it in Living power,--- none but the Holy Spirit can teach us this by inspiration of revelation.

Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day "If" you shall hear His voice, harden not your heart. Here is the first lesson the Holy Spirit teaches. He calls us not to harden or close the heart, but to hearken to the voice of God there; the Holy Spirit cannot possibly lead us into the power and the Blessing of God's Word unless with our whole heart we hearken to the voice. The Holy Spirit can teach in no way but in a heart that is given up to hearken and obey. When the Son came into the world He said: "Lo, I am come to do Your Will, God." The proof of the Spirit's presence in Him, the sacrifice in the power of the Eternal Spirit, the way to the receptivity of the Spirit, was that of Hearkening and Obedience. The first message of the Holy Spirit, and the condition of all further teaching is ever, "If" you hear His voice, harden not your heart. God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our heart; God asks us to yield our whole heart to His leading; it is as the indwelling Spirit that He will call us and fit us to listen to God's voice.

We are commencing the study of an Epistle of which the keynote is, God speaks to us now in His Son. The wonderful Truths of the Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord Jesus, and of our access into the Holiest of All by the blood, to dwell and worship there, and there in God's presence to be made partaker of the full union with Christ, are to be unfolded. Let us seek a deeper sense of the need, and also the certainty, of the teaching of the Spirit within us: Let us pray "that the Father give us the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the Knowledge of Christ." Let us hear God's voice in meekness and tenderness of heart. Let us in deep humility yield ourselves to the Spirit's guidance. We can count upon Him that the same Spirit who first of old inspired the words of the Psalm, who then in this Epistle revealed their fulness of meaning, will reveal to us in power all the Light and Truth they are meant to bring into the receptive believing heart.

1. God speaking to us in His word, and In His Son, Is all by the Holy Spirit. Everything depends upon our right relation to the Spirit. Let the word be as a seed In which the Life of God dwells. Let us receive the word, in the faith that the Holy Spirit will open It, and make it work mightily, In us who are receptive and believe.
2. And as we wait on the Spirit to open the word, we shall through the word be led to and receive the Spirit of Heaven, as the Divine seal of our faith in the Word.
3. So shall we learn to speak the word In the power of the Spirit. The disciples, however much they knew of Jesus through His Intercourse and teaching, and as the witnesses of His death and resurrection, were not allowed to go and preach Him, until they received the Spirit from on High. The Spirit-breathed word, the Spirit-opened word, must also be a Spirit-spoken word; we, too, must speak out of a Living communication of the Spirit from the Throne of the Glorified Christ. From beginning to end, everything connected with God's word must be in the power of the Holy Spirit.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXII

ON HEARING- THE VOICE OF GOD.
Hebrews 3: 7-11 Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, wherewith your fathers tempted Me by proving Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was displeased with this generation, and said, "They do alway err in their heart: But they did not know My ways; As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter into My rest.'"

THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.
 
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
13th September 1894.

The writer has such a deep impression of the low and dangerous state into which the Hebrews had sunk, that, having mentioned the name of Moses, he makes a long digression to warn them against being like their fathers and hardening themselves against Him who is so much more than Moses. From Ps. 95. he quotes what God says of Israel in the wilderness, hardening its heart against Him, so that He swore that they should not enter into His rest. The words of the quotation first point us to what is the great privilege of God's people; they hear His voice; then, to their great danger, hardening the heart against that voice. Not to the unbelieving Jews, but to the Christian Hebrews are these words of warning directed. Christians in our day have no less need of them. Let us take more abundant heed to the word: "Even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, "if" you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

When God spoke to Israel, the first thing He asked of them was a heart that did not harden itself, but that in meekness and gentleness, in tenderness and docility turned itself to listen to His voice. How much more may He claim this, now that He speaks to us in His Son. As the soil must be broken up by the plough and softened by the rain, so a broken, tender spirit is the first requisite for receiving blessing from God's word, or being in truth made partakers of God's Grace (Acts 16:14). As we read in Isaiah, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite heart, and trembles at My word." (Isaiah 66:2) When this disposition exists, and the thirsty  heart truly waits for Divine Teaching, and the circumcised ear opens to receive it, God's voice will bring real Life and Blessing, and be the power of living fellowship of intimacy with Himself. Where it is wanting, the word remains unfruitful, and we go backward, however much head and mouth be filled with Bible truth (we remain spiritually dead and undiscerning,1Corinthians 14). Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, "If" you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

It is not difficult to say what it is that hardens the hearts. The seed sown by the wayside could not enter the soil, because it had been trodden down by the passers-by. When the world, with its business and its interests, has at all times a free passage, the heart loses its tenderness. When we trust too much to the intellect of  religion, and very great care is not taken to take each word as from God into the heart, into its life and love, the heart gets closed to the living voice of God. The mind is satisfied with beautiful thoughts and pleasant feelings; but the heart does not hear God. When we are secretly content with our religion, our sound doctrines and Christian life, unconsciously but surely the heart gets hardened. When our life does not seek to keep pace with our knowledge, and we have more pleasure in hearing and knowing than obeying and doing, we utterly lose the meekness to which the promise is given, and, amidst all the pleasing forms of godliness, the heart is too hard to discern the voice of the Spirit. More than all, when unbelief, that walks by sight, and looks at itself and all around in the light of this world, is allowed to have its way, and the soul does not seek in childlike faith to live in the invisible, as revealed in the word, the heart gets so hardened that God's word never enters it. Yes, it is an unspeakably solemn thought, that with a mind occupied with religious truth, and feelings stirred at times by the voice and words of men, and a life apparently given to  religious works, the heart may be closed to the humble, direct intercourse with God, and a stranger to all the Blessing the Living word can bring. Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, "If" you hear His voice, harden not your heart.

Let all who would seek the blessing to be found in this Epistle, beware of studying it simply as an inspired treatise on divine things. Let it be to us a personal message, the voice of God speaking to us in His Son. Let us, under a sense of the spiritual mystery there is in all Divine Truth, and the impotence of the human mind rightly to apprehend spiritual things, open our heart in great meekness and docility to wait on God (by receptivity sitting under God listening). The whole of true religion, and the whole of true Salvation, consists in the state of the heart. God can do nothing for us, in the way of imparting the Blessings of Redemption, but as He does it in the heart. Our knowledge of the words of God will profit nothing but as the heart is opened to receive Himself to fulfill His words in us. Let our first care be, a meek and lowly heart, that waits on Him. God speaks in His Son, to the heart, and in the heart. It is in the heart that the voice and the Son of God must be received. The voice and the word have weight according as we esteem the speaker. As we realize the Glory and the Majesty of God, His Holiness and perfection, His Love and tenderness, we shall be ready to sacrifice everything to hear what He speaks, and receive what He gives. We shall bid all the world around us, all the world within us, farewell to be silent that we may hear aright the voice of the Divine Being speaking to us in the Son of His Love.

1. Salvation will be found In these two things--- God speaking to me In His Son, and my heart opening to hear His voice. It is not only in order to Salvation, as a means to an end that is something different and higher, that He speaks. No, His speaking gives and is true Salvation, the Revelation of Himself to my soul. Let the work of my life be to hearken with a meek and tender spirit.
2. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia to give heed to the things which were spoken. This is what we need. God Himself will draw our heart away from all else, and open It to take heed. Let us ask this very earnestly.
3. Nothing so effectually hinders hearing God's voice as opening the heart too much to other voices. A hear too deeply interested In the news, the literature, the society of this world, can not hear the Divine voice. It needs stillness, retirement, concentration, to give God the heed He claims.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXI

IF WE HOLD FAST OUR BOLDNESS FIRM TO THE END.
Hebrews 3: 6. Whose house we are, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

The conclusion of  
THIRD SECTION
Hebrews 3:1-6.
Christ Jesus more than Moses,


BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Among the Hebrews there were not a few who had gone back and were in danger of falling away. They had given way to sloth, and had lost the joy and confidence of their first faith. The writer is about ( 3: 7~ 4: 13.) to sound a note of solemn warning, to call them to beware of that evil heart of unbelief, which departs from the Living God. As the transition he writes, making the words as it were the text for what follows, Whose House we are, "IF" we hold fast our boldness, and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

Holding fast firm to the end. Steadfastness, perseverance this is indeed the great need of the Christian life. There is no question that exercises the earnest minister of the Gospel in our days, as in early times, more deeply than what may be the reason that so many converts grow cold and fall away, and what can be done that we may have Christians who can stand and conquer. How often does it not happen, both after times of revival and special effort, and also in the ordinary work of the Church, that those who for a time ran well, got so entangled in the business or the pleasure of life, the literature, or the politics, or the friendships of the world, that all the life and the power of their profession or confession is lost. They lack steadfastness; they miss the crowning Grace of perseverance.

The words of our text teach us what the cause of backsliding is, and whence the want of power to stand comes, even in those who strive after it. They show us at the same time what the secret is of restoration, as well as of strength to endure unto the end. Whose house we are, he says, "If" we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. Or, as it is expressed a few verses further on (verse 14) "If" we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end. A boldness and confidence that make us abound in hope, that make us glory in hope of the Glory of God, and glory in tribulation too, this it is that makes us strong to resist and overcome. Nothing can make us conquerors but the bold and joyful spirit that day by day glories in the hope of what God will do.

It is in this that so many fail. When first they found Peace they learn that they were saved by faith. They understood that pardon and acceptance and Peace and Life all come by faith alone. But they did not understand that we can only stand by faith; that we must always walk by faith; that ever and increasingly we must Live by faith; and that every day and every hour nothing can help us but a clear, definite, habitual faith in God's power and working, as the only possibility of growth and progress. They sought to hold fast the Light and Blessing and the Joy they had found; they knew not that it was their boldness of faith, the glorying of their hope, the beginning of their confidence,--- that this it was they needed to held fast, firm to the end. And even when they learned something of the need of faith and hope, they did not know how indispensable the Boldness of faith and the Glorying of hope were. No one can conquer without the Spirit of a conqueror. The powers of sin and Satan, of the world and the flesh, are so great, only he who is Bold and Glories in his hope upon what God will do will have strength to resist them. And he only can be Bold to face the enemy who has learned to be Bold with God, and to glory in Him. It is when faith becomes a joy, and hope is a glorying in God, that we can be more than conquerors.

The lesson is one of the most important the Christian has to learn. We shall see later on how our whole Epistle has been written to teach us that Boldness is the only root of steadfastness and perseverance, and therefore the true strength of the Christian life; and how, too, its one object is to show what abundant ground for the boldness we have in the work and person and glory of our Lord Jesus.

Whose House we are, if we hold fast our Boldness and the Glorying of our hope firm to the end. Would you know the blessedness of all it means, Whose House we are, Christ as a Son is faithful in His House, see here the open gate. In spite of all the enemies that surround you, yield your self boldly to Jesus Christ as His your heart a home for Him to dwell in. Glory in the hope of all that He has promised to perfect in you. Hold fast the beginning of your confidence firm to the end. Was not that beginning this, that you confessed yourself to be nothing, and Christ to be all? Did you not just cast yourself on His mighty saving power? Hold fast this beginning with the greatest confidence. He will each moment guard and keep His House, and maintain His work within it. Claim boldly and expect confidently that Christ the Son will be faithful over His House as Moses the servant was over his. And when the difficulty arises: But how always to maintain this Boldness and Glorying of hope, just remember the answer the Epistle gives, Consider Jesus, who was faithful. Yes, just consider Jesus! How faithful, even unto death, He was to God in all that He had given Him to do for us. Let that be to us the assurance that He, who is still the same Lord, will be no less faithful in all the blessed work He can now do in us, "IF" we hold fast our Boldness and the Glorying of our hope firm to the end.

1. Faith Is the mother of Hope. How often a daughter can be a help and a strength to her mother. So, as our hope reaches out to the future and Glories In It, our faith will grow into the Boldness that can conquer all.
2. Hold fast together what this passage has joined: the faithfulness of Jesus and the Boldness or Confidence of our faith. His faithfulness Is our security.
3. The Glorying of our hope. Joy is not a luxury or a mere accessory In the Christian life. It Is the sign that we are really Living In God's wonderful Love, and that that Love satisfies us. "The God of hope fill you with all joy In believing, that you may abound In hope through the Power of the Holy Ghost."
4. Christ is faithful as a Son over His House: how confidently I may Trust Him to keep charge and rule in it.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XX

CHRIST AND MOSES.
Hebrews 3: 1-6  Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a Heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus. Who was faithful to Him that appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by some one; but he that built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken:  But Christ as a Son, over His house (Genesis 1:7; 2:6-7); whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

THIRD SECTION continued
Hebrews 3: 1-6.
Christ Jesus more than Moses,


AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

The writer had just spoken (2:17) of Christ as a merciful and faithful High Priest. Later ( 4: 14~ 5: 7), he will speak again of Him as merciful. Here he wishes first to set before us His faithfulness. To this end he compares Him to Moses, of whom God Himself had spoken (Num. 12:7): "My servant Moses, who is faithful in all My house." But he goes on at the same time to prove that Christ the Son is more than Moses the servant We have seen that Christ is more than the angels through whom the law was given (Genesis 2:15-17); we shall yet see that He is more than Aaron, through whom the law was ministered; He is more than Moses too, the mediator of the law, the servant in the house of God. In every aspect the New Testament has more Glory than the Old.

Moses and Aaron together represented God in Israel; the one as apostle or messenger, the other as high priest. In the person of Jesus the two offices are united. As High Priest He is merciful as Aaron; as Apostle of our profession He is faithful as Moses. Moses was the great apostle or messenger of God, the Old Testament type of Christ as prophet. He had access to God, and brought the word of God to the people. Christ is the great Apostle or Prophet of the New Covenant. He even spoke of Himself as the one whom the Father had sent; in Him, the Son, God speaks to us. As Apostle He is God's Representative with us, making God known to us; as High Priest, our Representative with God, bringing us into His presence. As High Priest He stands linked to us by His mercy and compassion, as He now, having died for us, helps us in our trials, tribulations and temptations and weakness; as Apostle He pleads for God with us, and proves Himself entirely faithful to Him. We need to consider Christ Jesus, not only as a High Priest in His mercy, but as the Apostle of our profession who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also was Moses in all his house. Faithfulness is trustworthiness. As we see Jesus faithful to Him who appointed Him, our faith and trust will rise into perfect and joyful assurance that He will indeed most faithfully fulfill all God's promises in us, that in us too He will be faithful as a Son over His own house. Nothing gives such strength to faith as resting on the faithfulness of Jesus. The Glory of Jesus is the Glory of Christianity; is the strength and glory of the Christian life.

Moses was in every respect a type of Christ. In what he suffered from his very brethren; in his rejection by his brethren; in his zeal and his sacrifice of all for God; in his willingness to die for his people; in his fellowship with God; we see the marks of an apostle, as they were to be perfectly revealed in Christ Jesus. And yet it was all only a shadow and a prophecy, a testimony of things to come. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by some one; but He that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterwards to be spoken; but Christ, as a Son over His house. Moses was himself but a part of the house: Jesus Christ is the builder. Moses was a servant in the house; Jesus was a Son over His own House. (Genesis 1:27-28 Man as a spirit in the image and likeness of Yehovah his creator; 2:6-7 Yehovah creates a house or body, for His spirit-man formed in His image and likeness, from the earth or dust of the ground to which he is to return.)

Whose house we are. The True House, the True dwelling of God, is His people. In Christ we are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. Of the Church, as His Body, of the individual souls, Christ says: "We will come and make our abode." It is the characteristic of Spiritual things that each part is also a Living whole. Collectively and individually we are Christ's House: he that would know the faithfulness of Christ in His house, must yield himself to be His House (occupancy or access is through death of all that is self  centered), must allow Christ as Son over His House to be Master, to have the keys alone, to hold undisturbed possession and rule over and in His House.

Whose house we are. Later on we shall see how the great work of Christ, as the great High Priest over the House of God, is to open the Way into the Holiest of God's dwelling, His Living, Loving presence. The word we have here to-day tells us beforehand that the Holiest is not only with God, and that we must enter into it; it is also with us, and God will come in to us too. God's heart is our habitation; our heart is God's Habitation. When Jesus spoke, "Abide in me, and I in you," He taught us that mutual relationship, or intimacy. The more my heart goes out to Jesus and lives in Him, the more He comes to Live in me.

Whose house we are. Would you have the full experience of all that means and brings? Holy brethren, partakers of the Heavenly calling, consider Jesus, who is faithful to Him that appointed Him, as a Son over His House. Yield yourself to Him as His House, and Trust His faithfulness to do His work. And, remember, as the Epistle teaches us the spiritual meaning of the external symbols of the Old Testament, that we must not seek their fulfillment again in other external things, however much we conceive of them as infinitely higher and greater, but in that inward spiritual experience which comes when Jesus dwells in us as His House. It is as the Indwelling Savior that He does His work, whether it be Prophet, Priest, or King. Whose house we are.

1. Faithful to God. This Is the Spirit of God's House, the mark of being of His Household. It was so with Moses the servant. It was so with Christ the Son. It must be so through the whole Household. Be it so with us: Faithful to God.
2. Whose house we are. Not like a house of stone and wood, in which the indweller has no living connection with it. No, Christ dwells in us as a Life within a life, inspiring us with His own temper and disposition. Our moral and spiritual being, our power of willing and living and acting, within these He comes and dwells in us a Divine, hidden, but mighty power and operation.
3. Faithful as Son over His House. But He must be Master in His own House. Not only an honored guest, while you have the keys and the care. So it is with many Christians. So It may not be. No, give Him the keys; give Him entire control over the whole being: as Son over His House. He will blessedly prove how faithful He is to God and to you.
4. Consider well the faithfulness of Christ: this will work in you the fulness of faith.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XIX

CONSIDER JESUS.
Hebrews 3: 1. Wherefore, Holy brethren, partakers of a Heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus.

THIRD SECTION
Hebrews 3: 1-6.
Christ Jesus more than Moses

AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Consider Jesus! This is the central thought of the verse, and of the passage of which it is a part, as it is indeed of the whole Epistle. It is the one aim of the writer to persuade the Hebrews that, if they but knew  aright the Lord Jesus as the faithful, compassionate, and almighty High Priest in Heaven, they would find in Him all they needed for a life such as God would have them lead. Their life would be in harmony with their faith, in harmony with the life of Him whom their faith would apprehend. The words might have been taken as the title of my book: Consider Jesus! Is indeed the keynote of the Epistle.

The word consider, from the root of the Latin word for Star, originally means to contemplate the stars. It suggests the idea of the astronomer, and the quiet, patient, persevering, concentrated gaze with which he seeks to discover all that can be possibly known of the stars which the object of his study are (this is what was told Abraham when told to number the stars of heaven if he could in Genesis 15:5). And Jesus, who is God, who became man, and perfected our human nature in His wonderful life of suffering and obedience, and now dwells in Heaven to communicate to us its Life and Blessedness--- oh, what reason there is for saying, Consider Jesus. Gaze upon Him, contemplate Him. For some increased knowledge of the stars what devotion, what enthusiasm, what sacrifices are ofttimes witnessed. Oh, let the study and possession of the Son of God waken our devotion and our enthusiasm, that we may be able to tell men what beauty and what glory there is in Jesus.

Holy brethren! Thus the Hebrews are now addressed. In the previous chapter the word brethren had been used twice. He is not ashamed to call them brethren. It behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren. The sacred name is now applied personally: Christ's brethren are brethren in Christ. And the heart of the writer warms to them personally, as he seeks to urge them to what with him is indeed the one aim of the Epistle--- Consider Jesus.

Holy brethren! The word Holy had also been just used. He that Sanctifies, makes Holy, and they who are Sanctified, made Holy, are all of one. We saw how Holiness is the common mark of Christ and His people: their bond of union, and the great object they both aim at. One of the great Mysteries the Epistle is to reveal to us is that our great High Priest has opened the Way for us into the Most Holy Place or the Holiest of All. In Hebrew it is the Holiness of Holinesses. There we have Boldness of access, there we are to have our dwelling encircled by the Holiness of God. We must know that we are Holy in Christ; this will give us courage to enter into the Holiness of Holinesses, to have God's Holiness take complete possession, and fill our whole being. It is Jesus who makes Holy: it is we who are to be made Holy: what more natural than that the thoughts should be coupled together: Holy brethren, consider Jesus.

Holy brethren! partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus! What is elsewhere spoken of as a holy calling is here named a Heavenly calling. That does not only mean a calling from Heaven, or a calling to the Heaven, whence the call proceeds. No, there is much more in it. Heaven is not only a place, but a state, a mode of existence, the life in which the presence of God is revealed and experienced in its unhindered power. And the Heavenly calling is that in which the power of the Heavenly Life works to make our life Heavenly. When Jesus was upon earth the Kingdom of Heaven was nigh at hand; after He had ascended and received the Kingdom from the Father, the Kingdom of Heaven came to this earth in power, through the descent of the Holy Spirit. Christians, at Pentecost, were people who by the New Birth (birth means that which is breathed into us by the Divine God, Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7) entered into the Heavenly Kingdom or state of Life. And the Kingdom entered into them. And they were partakers of a Heavenly calling, because the Spirit and the Life and the power of Heaven was within them.

It is to such men the invitation comes. Holy brethren! Partakers of the heavenly calling! Consider Jesus! If you would know what it is to be Holy and to Live Holy, consider Jesus who makes Holy! If you would Know the privileges and powers that belong to you as Partakers of a Heavenly calling, consider Jesus! He is God, the King of Heaven! He is Man who has ascended to Heaven as your Priest and Savior, has opened it for you, and can communicate its Life and Blessedness. Oh, consider Jesus! Set your heart on Him; He will make you Holy and Heavenly.

There is more than one of my readers who mourns that he knows so little what it is to live a Holy and a Heavenly Life. Listen, God's word speaks to you Holy brethren, partakers of a Heavenly calling! Consider Jesus! This is your weakness: you have looked at yourself and your own strength; you have not studied Jesus! This will be your cure: each day, each hour, consider Jesus, and in Him you will find all the Holiness
and the Heavenliness you need.

1. In the latter part of the Epistle all the Glory of Jesus as He entered Heaven, and opened It for us, as He became a minister of the Heavenly Sanctuary, and leads us to dwell in the Father's presence, will be opened to us. But let us even now, from the commencement, hold fast the Truth that the Knowledge of Jesus seated in Heaven is the power of the Heavenly calling and the Heavenly Life.
2. Do not think that you know all that can be told about Jesus. Believe that there are wonders of Heavenly joy to be revealed to you "If" you Know Him better: His Divine nearness and oneness with you, His ever-present indwelling to succor (aid) and lead you, His power to bring you into the Holiest of All, Into the Father's presence and Love, and to keep you there, will be revealed.

The Holiest of All" part XVIII

A HIGH PRIEST ABLE TO SUCCOR.
Hebrews 2: 16-18  For verily not of angels did he take hold, but he toke hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore it behooved him In all things to be made like unto his brethren (mankind), that he might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor (aid or help) them that are tempted.
SECOND SECTION
Hebrews 2: 5-18.
Jesus as man more than the Angels.
The Reasons of His Humiliation.

Written by Pastor Andrew Murray
13th September 1894.

In the first chapter we saw the writer quoting text after text from the Old Testament, in order that he might bring us to the full apprehension of the Truth and the meaning of our Lord's Divinity. In this chapter we see him in the same way, time after time, reiterating the fact of our Lord's humanity, lest we should not fully realize all that it means. So it is here. He had just said, Since the children were sharers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same. It is as if He feels the insufficiency of the words, and therefore once again repeats and confirms his statement: For truly none of angels did He take hold, but He toke hold (became) of the seed of Abraham. Man may have been made lower than the angels, but this honor have they not, that He took hold of them--- He toke hold (became) of the seed of Abraham.

And how does He take hold? There is no way in which God can take hold of a creature other than by entering into him with His Life and Spirit, so imparting His own goodness and power, and bringing him into union (conjoined) with Himself. So did Jesus take hold of man. He entered into humanity and became one with it. And so He takes hold of individual souls by entering within each into personal union in intimacy and fellowship.

Wherefore, being thus minded to take hold of man, it behooved Him, it was Divinely right and proper, and, in the nature of things, an absolute necessity, as a consequence of His purpose, it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren. The laying hold implied His identifying Himself with them (to become like them), and this again was impossible without being made like them in all things. So only could He save them. It was indeed needful, that so He might become a merciful and a faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Had He not been in Adam in the beginning this would not have been possible as the second Adam.
 
Here we have, for the first time, the word High Priest--- a word which is used in no other book of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus, but in this Epistle is its central thought. We shall see later (chapter 5) how inseparably His Divine Sonship and His Priesthood are linked. Here we are taught that His real humanity is just as much essential to it. It is one of the remarkable things in the Epistle that it unfolds so wonderfully the value of the personal development in our Lord's life. It ever connects the person and the work as inseparable.

See it here. The work He had to do was--- to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Sin had incurred the wrath of God, and His Love could not flow forth towards men till the sin had been covered up, atoned for, taken away. In fulfillment of all that had been taught us in the Old Testament sacrifices, Christ came to do this. He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and obtained everlasting Redemption. Of this the Epistle will speak later on. What it here seeks to press on us, is that Christ became Man, not merely to die and atone, but that in doing this, He might be a faithful and merciful High Priest. His relation to us is to be a personal one. He must Himself minister to us the Salvation He worked out. Everything would depend upon His winning our confidence, getting possession of our heart and love, and as a Living Leader guiding us into the path (the Way) to God. It is this which makes His human life on earth so intrinsically precious to us. It proved Him faithful: we dare fully Trust Him. It finds Him merciful: we need not fear coming to Him. He was made in all things like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest.

For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor (aid) them that are tempted. The work of our High Priest does not only consist in His atonement, nor even in the advocacy and intercession which is the fruit of that atonement. But above all, as the result of all these, in that personal charge of our spiritual life which He takes, in that never-ceasing succor which He is able to give in every temptation. This is the greatest and most blessed part of His work in bringing us to God, that, as the Leader in the path of suffering and perfection, He inspires us with His own dispositions, and, by the mighty operation of His Spirit within us, gives us His help in every time of need. The one thing we need is, to Know and Trust Him fully. To know Him as High Priest who not only has opened a Way to God for us to walk in, and not only in Heaven prays for us, but who undertakes to keep us so in fellowship with Himself, and under the covering of His power, and in the experience of His full Redemption, that temptation can never conquer us. His Divinity secures to us His unfailing and increasing presence. His humanity assures us of His sympathy and compassion. More ever-present and more mighty than the temptation, His unfailing Love is always near to give the victory. He can and will do it. Our High Priest is a Living, faithful helper: let us Trust Him. Salvation is not a thing He gives us apart from Himself. Full Salvation is nothing but Jesus Himself, most compassionately and most faithfully watching over us in daily life, most really and fully giving and Living His Life in us. The abiding, indwelling presence of Jesus, able to succor, is the true secret of the Christian life. Faith will lead us into the experience that Jesus is and does all that is said of Him.

1. What a chapter! Jesus Crowned with Glory and Honor. Our Leader, our Sanctifler, our Brother, made like to us, our merciful and faithful High Priest, tempted as we are, our helper in temptation. What a Savior!
2. No member of my body can be hurt without my feeling it and seeking to guard it. No temptation can touch me without Jesus feeling it at once, and giving succor. Is not the one thing we need to Know Him better, in faith to realize His ever-present nearness, and to count on His help?
3. The Knowledge of Jesus that sufficed for conversion will not suffice for Sanctification. For the Growth of the spiritual life it is essential that we enter more deeply into the Knowledge of all that Jesus is. Jesus is the bread of Heaven, the food of our spiritual life; Knowing Him better is the only way to feed upon Him.
4. Learn to regard every temptation as the Blessed opportunity for Trusting and realizing the succor of your ever-present High Priest.

"The Holiest of All" part XVII

THAT HE MIGHT BRING TO NAUGHT THE DEVIL.
Hebrews 2:14-15  Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.


Section Section continued
Hebrews  2:5-18
Jesus as man more than the angles.
The reasons of His Humiliation

The previous verses spoke of the oneness of Jesus and His brethren from the Divine side: they are all of One. Here we have it put before us from its human side: Since the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He Himself in like manner partook of the same. We have already said that for this, Christ becoming man, there was more than one reason. The first, that, as our Leader, He might Himself be perfected, and so prepare a way--- a Way or state of Living, a Nature, a Life, in which we might draw nigh to God. The second, that He might deliver us from the power of death and the devil. The third, that in all His work for us and in us, He might be a merciful High Priest in things pertaining to God, able to understand and sympathize with us, and ready to bear and to succor (aid, help in due time of need). Here it is the second of these three aspects of Christ's incarnation that is brought out: He became man that He might meet and conquer and destroy the power of death and the devil. (Because of the curse that Adam placed all mankind under by his disobedience and the results of the {law with a curse or penalty for not obeying it} Word God spoke to him as revealed in Genesis 2:15-18. Emphasis added)

Since the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same. However familiar the thought of the incarnation is, let us again seek to realize fully all that it means. As Adam never could have brought us under the power of sin and death, if he had not been our father, communicating to us his own nature, so Christ never could save us, except by taking our nature upon Him, doing in that nature all that we would need to do, had it been possible for us to deliver ourselves, and then communicating the fruit of what He effected as a nature within us to be the power of a New, an Eternal Life. As a Divine necessity, without which there could be no salvation through redemption, as an act of infinite Love and condescension, the Son of God became a partaker of flesh and blood. So alone could He be the Second Adam, the Father of a New race.

That through death He might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Death is a power that has its sanction from God Himself. In the very nature of things it could not be otherwise than that man, when he turned from God, the fountain of Life, to Satan and to self, fell under the power of  death. He had yielded himself to Satan, and Satan had power over him. As the jailor keeps the prisoner under the authority of the king, Satan holds the sinner in the power of death so long as no true legal release is given. The only Way for us to come from under the power of Satan and death was, to lay off that fallen nature over which they (sin and death) had power, to come out of that sinful life by dying to it, and, in dying, to be entirely freed from it. We had no power to do this. Jesus entered into all the conditions of our fallen humanity. He entered into our death, and endured it as the penalty of sin, and, enduring it, Satisfied the law of God. And so, because the law had been the strength of sin, He took from sin and the devil the power of death over us (Genesis 2: 17). He endured death as the end of the life of the flesh, in full acknowledgment of God's Righteous judgment, yielding up His spirit to the Father. Death, as the penalty of the law, death as the end of the life of nature, death as the power of Satan over man, was destroyed, and he that had the power of death was brought to naught. And now, as little claim or power as death has on Him, has it on those who are in Him, on those in whom the power of His Life now works. He also Himself partook of flesh and blood, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.

And might deliver all them who, through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. The power of death and the devil has been so completely broken that there is now perfect deliverance from that fear of death which keeps so many in bondage. Under the Old Testament, life and immortality had not yet been fully brought to light. No wonder the older saints often lived and spoke as those subject to bondage. But how sad that the Redeemed of Jesus Christ, His brethren, so often prove that they know but little of the Reality and Power of His Deliverance, or of the song of joy: "Death is swallowed up in victory. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

My brother! Are you living in the full experience of this Blessed Truth? Because you share in flesh and blood, Christ came and likewise partook of the same, that there might be perfect oneness between Him and you. Do you Live in this Oneness? By His death He destroyed the devil, that you might be entirely freed from out of his power. Is your life in this liberty? He delivers from the fear of sin and death and the bondage it brings, changing it into the Joy of the hope of Glory. Is this joy your portion? Let us believe that He, who is now Crowned with Glory and Honor, is indeed able to make all a reality in us, so that, as those who are one with Him by the double bond of the birth from God, and the birth in flesh and blood, we may be His ransomed, His Sanctified ones, His beloved brethren. He gave Himself to be wholly like us and for us--- shall we not give ourselves to be wholly like Him and for Him?

1. "Through death destroyed him that had the power of death." Death had its power from the law, there was no way of conquering it but by fulfilling its claim. Through death He destroyed death. This is the Way for us too. As I give myself up to death, as I give up the sinful life, and die to self in the power of Christ's death, the Power of His Deliverance or Redemption will work in me.
2. Through death to life. This is the law of nature, as seen in every corn of wheat. This is the law of the life of Christ, as seen in His resurrection. This is the law of the Life of faith, to be felt and experienced every day, as the Power of the New Death which Christ died, and the New Life He Lives, works in us.
3. The first chapter revealed to us the Divinity of Christ, as the foundation of the Gospel, that we might know that all that He accomplished in His humanity has been effected in Divine Reality, and works in us in Divine creative power.

Written by Pastor Andrew Murray

"The Holiest of All" part XVI

JESUS CALLS US BRETHREN.
Hebrews 2: 11-13 For both He that Sanctifies and they that are Sanctified are all of (out of) One: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying (Ps. 22: 23), I will declare Your name to My brethren, In the midst of the congregation will I sing their praise. And again, I will put my Trust in Him (Isa. 8: 17). And again, be hold, I and the children which God has given Me (Isa. 8: 18).

Continuing the SECOND SECTION.
Hebrews 2: 5-18.
Jesus as man more than the Angels.
The Reasons of His Humiliation.

By Author and Pastor Andrew Murray

We have here the reason of what precedes. Why was it that it was needful for God, in leading many sons to Glory, to make the Leader of their Salvation perfect through suffering? Or, how was it, that making Him perfect could perfect them, and bring Salvation to them? The answer is, He that sanctifies, that is, Jesus, and they who are sanctified, God's sons, are all out of One, that is, of God. In proof of this three texts are quoted, in which Jesus calls us brethren, takes His place with us in Trusting God, and speaks of us as the children God
has given Him. It is because Jesus, the firstborn Son, and the sons He leads to Glory, are one in their being begotten of God, that His perfection secures their Salvation through redemption. It is the oneness of Jesus with us that fits Him to be the Leader of  our Salvation.

This oneness has its root in the Truth of the Divine Life. Both He that sanctifies, and they that are sanctified are all out of One. Jesus is the only begotten, the eternal Son, one with the Father in His Divine Being and Majesty. We are sons of God, as we partake of the Divine Life through and in Him. Notwithstanding the difference between His Sonship and ours, His being original and ours derived, they are at root one; the life of both has its origin in the Life of God (Genesis 1:27, 2:7). It is this oneness of Christ with us in origin, that made it possible for Him to become one with us in our humanity, and so to be the Leader of our Salvation. It is this oneness that makes it possible for Him to communicate to us that perfection, that perfect meekness and delight in God's Will, which was wrought out in His human nature through suffering, that Holiness of His with which we must be made Holy.

For both He that sanctifies, and they that are sanctified are all of One. Jesus is the Sanctifier, we are the sanctified. The object for which Christ became the Leader of our salvation, the great work He has to do for us, the bond of union (intimacy) between the Son and the sons of God, the proof of their bearing His image and likeness, and the mark of their real oneness, is Holiness.

The word Holy is one of the deepest in Scripture. It means a great deal more than separated or consecrated to God. The Triune God is the Thrice-Holy One: Holiness is the deepest Mystery of His Being, the wondrous union of His Righteousness and His Love. To be Holy is to be in intimacy of fellowship with God, possessed of Him. Therefore the Spirit specially bears the name of Holy, because He is the bearer to us of the Love of God, and the maintenance of the Divine intimacy of fellowship is His special work. Jesus is the Holy One of God, who makes us Holy in filling us with His Holy Spirit. ( Here and throughout the Epistle the word Holy and Sanctify includes much more than is ordinarily meant by the doctrine of sanctification."Sanctify here
includes all that God does for our restoration, as He calls, justifies, and glorifies" Rieger in Lange on 10: 10 (comp. 9: 13, 14; 10: 10, 14, 29; 13: 12). ) The difference between Jesus and us is great--- the oneness is greater. He and we are of one, together partakers of God's Life and God's Holiness. Let us give abundant heed to so great our Salvation.

This oneness finds its manifestation in the Brother-name which Jesus gives us. For which cause He is not ashamed to call them Brethren, saying, I will declare Your name to My brethren. The writer had spoken of our inner oneness with Jesus. But oh, what a difference in actual life, such a terrible difference that He might well be ashamed of us! Yes! Before angels as well as before the world, how often His saints have put Him to shame, have given Him reason to be ashamed of His relationship! But--- blessed be His name--- His becoming man was an act of condescension, which had its root in the sense of His oneness with us as being one with Him out of God, which had its strength in the Love as of an elder Brother.

Three texts are now quoted; the one from Ps. 22: 23, in which the suffering Messiah promises to make known the Father's name to His brethren; the second and third from Isa. 8: 17, 1 8, in which, in prophetic types, His fellowship with all His people in the life of faith and trust, and His place at the head of those whom God has given Him as children, find expression.

What wonderful thoughts! We, as truly as Jesus, are of God! It is in the Light of this Truth that Jesus looks on us, and Loves us, and deals with us! It is in the Light of this Truth we must look on Jesus, and love Him, and deal with Him. And in the Light of this Truth let us look on ourselves too. This is the life of faith ---to see Jesus and ourselves as He sees us, to think as He thinks, to live in His heart. Then will the promise be fulfilled in us, "I will declare your name to My brethren," "that the Love wherewith You have Loved Me may be in  them." As we bow in lowly, waiting silence before Him, the soul will hear Him say: My Brother! Let me reveal to you the Father. And the name and the Love and the nearness of the Father will have new meaning when I can say, Jesus calls me His brother! God has spoken to me in His Son! And I shall understand that, to faith, the incomprehensible reality of intimacy in oneness with Jesus becomes the Blessed, conscious experience of the soul in its daily life.

1. Union/intimacy with Jesus in being born of God, in being Holy, in being acknowledged by Him as a
brother! What a Blessed life! What a full Salvation!
2. "He that does the Will of God, the same is My brother." Would that we would know the Holy Joy of Jesus saying to us, Brother! Let your life be what His was the doing of the Will of God . It was in this He was perfected in suffering. It is in this that His Spirit and Life in us will manifest itself, and the Brother-name will be the index not only of His compassion but of the oneness in Spirit and the likeness in conduct which prove you a son of God.
3. Sanctification, Holiness, is nothing more than a Life in union/intimacy with Jesus. Nothing more, and nothing less. He that Sanctifies, and they who are Sanctified, are all of One. To Live in that oneness, to have Jesus Living in us, is the Way to be Holy.
4. "And again, I will put my Trust In Him." Jesus lived by faith in God. He is the Leader and Perfected of faith. He opened up to us the path of faith and Leads us in it.

"The Holiest of All" part XV

FOR WHOM AND THROUGH WHOM ARE ALL THINGS.
Hebrews 2: 10. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing (leading)  many sons to Glory, to make the Author (Leader) of their Salvation perfect through sufferings.
SECOND SECTION continued
Hebrews 2: 5-18.
Jesus as man more than the Angels.
The Reasons of His Humiliation.

Written By Pastor Andrew Murray

For whom are all things. God is the final Cause of all that is. It exists with the one purpose of showing forth His Glory. Every object in nature has its only reason of existence in this that the wondrous goodness and power of God may shine out through it. Above all, man was created that the adorable Being, whose very nature is Love, might have the opportunity of proving in Him how freely and how fully he would make him partaker of the riches of His Grace and Glory.

For whom are all things, that in them His Glory and goodness may be made known. "Worthy are You, O our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You did create all things; and because of Tour Will they are and were created."

Through whom are all things. God is the efficient cause of all that is. God is the end and aim of all things, because He is their beginning and origin. All must return to Him because all came from Him and exists only through him. There is no life or goodness or beauty, which does not rise up to Him again, its only fountain and source. "There is one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we to Him"; "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all."

The Apostle might have written: "It became God to make the Leader of our Salvation perfect through suffering." Not without good reason does he introduce here the character in which God acted in perfecting the Son as Leader of our Salvation. When man sinned and fell from God, he lost together the two blessed Truths in which his relation to God had stood. His Holy allegiance to God, having all things for Him, his blessed dependency on God, having all things through Him; instead of these came the reign of self, with its life for self and through self.

It was from this life of self Jesus came to Redeem us, to bring us back to God, to know and honor Him as the God and Father, for Whom are all things and through Whom are all things. In doing this he opened again the only Way which could lead to Glory. He did it first by showing us in His life, as Man, how men ought to live for God and through God. And then by delivering us through His death from the dominion of sin and death, and winning for us the power of the Heavenly Life.

For Whom are all things, and through Whom are all things. It was in this character that God perfected Christ through sufferings. It was in this character that Christ revealed and honored God in His sufferings. It is to win and bring us to Know and Love and serve God in this character that Jesus is Saviour.

For Whom are all things. Throughout His whole life there is nothing that Jesus sought to impress more distinctly on His disciples than this, that He was the Father's messenger and servant; that there was no thought of doing His own will or seeking His own honor; that He only sought and did what would be for the Father's pleasure and Glory. He gave us the example of a man on earth living absolutely and entirely for God in Heaven. His life on earth was the exhibition here in the flesh, the translation into human language, of the Divine claim---"All things for God" His allegiance to God was absolute. He proved to us that man's destiny and blessedness and everlasting glory are to be found in this: Living wholly for God.

Through Whom are all things. Of this too Christ's life was the exposition. He was not ashamed continually to say that He could do nothing of Himself, and that only as the Father showed Him or spoke to Him, could He work and speak. He counted this His blessedness and His strength--- not to be able to do anything of Himself, but in continual dependency to wait on God and His working in Him. He knew and taught us that the man who has said in whole-hearted devotion to God, "All things for God," may confidently say too, "All things through God."

"All for God,"; "All through God." Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to make these our watchwords. In all aspirations after a closer walk with God, in all efforts after a purer, truer, higher life, they are the two poles between which the soul ought to move. They are the sure marks of that True Scriptural Mysticism, which has such attractions for all hungry souls, who long to know and please God perfectly.

All for God! Absolutely, without a moment, a thought, a word, a person, a possession, excepted; wholly for God, this becomes the soul's one desire. It has seen that God is worthy of this, that He claims it, and that in the very nature of things, nothing less can satisfy the heart God made to be filled with Himself.
All through God! The clearer the aim becomes to be all for God, and the deeper the soul sinks into its own emptiness and impotence, under the conviction that with man it is impossible, the sooner does faith rise to see that we can not only say, but that we do dare to say, All for God! Because we may also say, All through God! God Himself will work it in us.

This is the God who has revealed Himself to us in His Son. It became Him, for Whom all things and through Whom are all things, to make the Leader of our Salvation perfect through sufferings. Let us worship Him! Let us adore Him! Let us offer Him the sacrifice of full allegiance and child like dependency, as the words ring through heart and life ALL FOR GOD ! ALL THROUGH GOD ! GOD is ALL.

1. The practice of the presence of God is a most needful and most blessed spiritual exercise. As the soul bows in stillness and lowliness, and worships in silence, it gets into the right spirit for recognizing its own nothingness, and realizing that God is all that all is for Him, and all through Him.
2. All for God: that is consecration. All through God: that is faith. This was the spirit in which Christ yielded Himself to God: consecration and faith.
3. This was the God who perfected Christ. To know and honor God in this character is the secret of perfection, for in such He can do His work. This is the God who is leading many sons to Glory; to know and honor Him is the path to Glory. To reveal this God and His claims, to show how to give up everything to Him, this was what Christ came for. This is the life He brought us, the path He opened, the Salvation He gives.

"The Holiest of All" part XIV

THE LEADER OF OUR SALVATION.
Hebrews 2: 10. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing (leading) many sons unto Glory, to make the Author (Leader) of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

SECOND SECTION
Hebrews 2: 5-18.
Jesus as man more than the Angels.
The Reasons of His Humiliation.


BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

We have seen that there is more than one reason for the humiliation of the Lord Jesus, even unto the suffering of death. Here we have the first: that as the Leader of our Salvation, through whom God leads His sons to Glory, He might open up the path, the Way of Life, in which we are to go. For this He needed to be made perfect through suffering and death. So only could He become a Leader, ( "The Leader-in-Chief." The translation "Leader" makes more clear the connection with what precedes: "God leading (agagori) makes the Leader-in-Chief (Archegos) perfect." Of Captain in A.V. and Author, R.V., Westcott says: "Neither word gives the fulness of sense. The Archegos Himself first takes part in that which He establishes." In 12: 1 he adopts the word "Leader" in his translation Jesus the Leader and Finisher of faith.) in the true and full sense of the word. In suffering, His will was perfected, His character fashioned, His dependence on God and delight in His Will was confirmed and made manifest. In suffering, His obedience unto death opened up the Living Way in which alone the creature can reach the Creator the deepest humility and entire surrender. As Leader He opened up the path of Life, a mode of living and acting, in which we are to follow.

It is this that we also spoke of as the second aspect of Christ's death. That death is not only atonement but fellowship with intimacy. It is only in suffering, in being crucified and dead with Christ, that we know Christ and His Salvation. Christ was made perfect through suffering that He might be a Leader, that in conformity to Him, and in partaking of His Spirit and likeness, we might find the path to God and to Glory.

The work of a leader supposes three things. The first: He must Himself lead the way, passing through all its difficulties and dangers, knowing and showing it to those who follow. The second: those who follow must yield themselves wholly to His guidance, walking even as He walked. The third: He must take charge of His followers, seeing that all hindrances are removed, and providing for all their needs. Let us see how Blessedly all this is fulfilled in Jesus, and what a comfort it brings us to know that Jesus bears this name too: the Leader of our Salvation.

The leader must walk in the very path his followers have to go.--- The path way we have sought in vain was one that could bring us out from under the dominion of sin, both in its guilt as transgression against God, and its power as death to all that is holy and good. There was no possible way out of this state of sin and guilt and  death, but by the submission to the judgment of God, and by giving proof, in bearing that judgment, of entry and willing surrender to God's Will. There was no way to come put of fallen nature, with the power of self and selfwill ruling it, but by entirely dying to it; (the willful surrender of all self sufficiency) suffering anything rather than let it have its way. This was the Way in which Jesus would have to lead us. And He had to walk in it Himself. It became God, in leading many sons to Glory, to make the Leader of their Salvation perfect through suffering. Christ was perfect from His birth; every wish and inclination was as it should be; but only as a disposition, as a power, that needed to be tested and developed and strengthened by trials and tribulations. What the suffering and the death effected in Christ personally, in perfecting His character, is the groundwork of what it effected on our behalf. It was needful that God should make Him perfect through suffering; the perfectness that comes through suffering is meekness and gentleness, patience and perfect resignation to God's Will. It was because of the humility and meekness and lowliness of heart, which the Lamb of God showed here upon earth, that He is now the Lamb on the Throne. Through suffering He was made perfect, and found worthy to be our High Priest.

A leader must be followed.--- His followers must walk in the very path in which he walks (John 14: 6). Jesus came and was made like us: we must come and be made like Him. His suffering and death is not only substitution and atonement. It is that, thank God! but it is much more too. It calls to fellowship (my way of intimacy) and conformity. The substitution rests on identification: out of that conformity has its growth and strength. The Lamb of God has no salvation and no perfection to give us but His own meek Spirit of entire dependency and absolute submission to God. The meekness and humility that it was needful God should perfect in Him are as needful for us. We must suffer and be crucified and die with Him. Death to self and the world, at the cost of any suffering or self-denial, this is the only path Way to Glory the Leader of our Salvation has opened up to us.

A leader cares for his followers.--- He does not say, Follow me, who can. He watches over everyone, the very feeblest. Remember what care Stanley took in darkest Africa to gather in the stragglers to leave the feeble ones provided in camp, and then to wait for their coming up. Jesus is a Leader, compassionate and sympathetic, and most faithful: with all the faithfulness and steadfastness with which He walked that path Himself on earth, will He help everyone, who will only in meekness Trust and Obey Him, to walk in that Way to the end.

My brethren! Do you understand what it means that the Father, in leading you to Glory, has made Jesus the Leader of our salvation. Jesus is responsible for you. Take Him and Trust Him as your Leader. The great need in one who follows a leader is a tender, teachable spirit. Rejoice that you have such a Leader, Himself made perfect in meekness and submission through suffering, that He might lead you in the Blessed path that brought Him, and will bring you as surely, to the Glory of the Father.

And remember who this Leader is--- the Son of God, the Divine Maker and Upholder of all things. Not only the Son of Man as a Leader outside of us, influencing us by example and instruction, by authority and kindness does He guide us. No, but as the Son of God who works in us by His Spirit, yes who Himself dwells within us. Even as it was God who worked in Him and perfected Him, will He, as God, now work in us and perfect us. (The answer to the missing piece of the puzzle that seems to elude so many because they do not know to sit patiently waiting to hear God's voice through His Son in them.)

1. Christ came to give us an entirely new conception of what True Life is, to show us a New Way of thinking and Living, to teach us that a Heavenly Life consists in giving up every thing that has the slightest connection with sin for the sake of pleasing the Father perfectly. This is the New and Living Way He opened up through the rent veil of the flesh. (1Peter 2:24)
2. "It became God to perfect Him." All that Christ wrought, and all that was wrought in Him, was wrought by God. He yielded Himself to God: He did nothing of Himself: He allowed God to do all in Him. This is the path of perfection, the path to Glory, in which Jesus leads. His Divinity is inexpressibly precious to us for what He can be and do in us. But as Inexpressibly precious His humanity, showing us how He was perfected, how God worked in Him, what we must be, what through Him we can most surely become.
3. Seek to get very clear hold of the Truth that He is only a Savior as He is a Leader. Salvation is being led by Him.