How to find the Holiest of All

For sometime now we've been sharing from the book written by Andrew Murray titled "The Holiest of All" on our Facebook site. Doing so we've found within the Epistle to the Hebrews that Paul through another writers hand revealed the key to the mysteries that Paul wrote of in His prison Epistles and the Church Epistles. And because our Blog title tells us that God has only one Way into His Rest we feel that we should also share here the book "The Holiest of All". Then as the Lord leads add to the passages and chapters shared. Andrew Murray is not the only author that we've found expounding on the hidden Way or the secret often hidden within plain sight and so we may also share from them from time to time.

"THE HOLIEST OF ALL"

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

PREFACE
WHEN first I undertook the preparation of this exposition in Dutch for the Christian people among whom I labor, it was under a deep conviction that the Epistle just contained the instruction they needed. In reproducing it in English, this impression has been confirmed, and it is as if nothing could be written more exactly suited to the state of the whole Church of Christ in the present day. The great complaint of all who have the care of souls is the lack of whole-heartedness, of steadfastness, of perseverance and progress in the Christian life. Many, of whom one cannot but hope that they are true Christians, come to a standstill, and do not advance beyond the rudiments of Christian life and practice. And many more do not even remain stationary, but turn back to a life of worldliness, of formality, of indifference. And the question is continually
being asked, What is the want in our religion that, in so many cases, it gives no power to stand, to advance, to press on unto perfection? And what is the teaching that is needed to give that health and vigor to the Christian life that, through all adverse circumstances, it may be able to hold fast the beginning firm to the end.

The teaching of the Epistle is the divine answer to these questions. In every possible way it sets before us the Truth that it is only the full and penect knowledge of what Christ is and does for us that can bring us to a full and perfect Christian life. The knowledge of Christ Jesus that we need for conversion does not suffice for growth, for progress, for sanctification, for maturity. Just as there are two dispensations, the Old Testament and the New, and the saints of the Old, with all their faith and fear of God, could not obtain the more perfect Life of the New, so with the two stages in the Christian life of which the Epistle speaks. Those who, through sloth, remain babes in Christ, and do not press on to maturity, are ever in danger of hardening their heart, of coming short and falling away. Only those who hold fast the beginning firm to the end, who give diligence to enter the Rest, who press on to perfection, do in very deed inherit and enjoy the wonderful New Covenant blessings secured for us in Christ. And the great object of the Epistle is to show us that if we will but follow the Lord fully, and yield ourselves wholly to what God in Christ is ready to do, we shall find in the gospel and in Christ everything that we need for a Life of joy and strength and final victory.

The cure the Epistle has for all our failures and feebleness, the one preservative from all danger and disease, is the knowledge of the higher Truth concerning Jesus, the Knowledge of Him in His Heavenly Priesthood. In connection with this Truth, the writer has three great mysteries he seeks to unfold. The one is that the Heavenly Sanctuary has been opened to us, so that we may now come and take our place there, with Jesus in the very presence of God. The second, that the New and Living Way by which Jesus has entered, the Way of self-sacrifice and perfect obedience to God, is the Way in which we now may and must draw nigh. The third, that Jesus, as our Heavenly High Priest, is the minister of the Heavenly Sanctuary, and dispenses to us its blessings, the spirit and the power of the Heavenly Life in such a way that we can live in the world as those who are come to the Heavenly Jerusalem, and in whom the Spirit of Heaven is the Spirit of all their life and conduct; the Heavenly Priesthood of Jesus, Heaven opened to us day by day, our entering it by the New and Living Way, and Heaven entering us by the Holy Spirit. Such is the Gospel to the Hebrews the Epistle brings, such is the Life to which it reveals the Way and the strength. The Knowledge of the Heavenly character of Christ's person and work is what alone can make Heavenly Christians, who, amid all the difficulties and temptations of life on earth, can live as those whom the superior power of the upper world has possessed, and in whom it can always give the victory.

In offering these meditations now to a wider circle of readers, I do so with the prayer that it may please God to use them to inspire some of His children with new confidence in their blessed Lord, as they learn to Know Him better and give themselves up to expect and experience all that He is able to do for them and in them. I have not been afraid of continually repeating the one thought: Our one need is, to Know Jesus better; the one cure for all our feebleness, to look to Him on the Throne of Heaven, and really claim the Heavenly Life He waits to impart.

Just as I was about to write the Preface to the Dutch issue, in the first week of last year, I received from my beloved colleague as a New Year's text, with the wish that it might be my experience, the words: "Jesus takes with Him Peter and James and John, and brings them into a high mountain, apart by themselves, and He was transfigured before them." I at once passed the word on to my readers, and I do so again. May the
blessed Master take us with Himself into the high mountain, even the Mount Sion, where He sits as Priest-King upon the Throne in power, each of us apart by himself, and prepare us for the blessed vision of seeing Him transfigured before us, seeing Him in His Heavenly Glory. He will then still be to us the same Jesus we know now. And yet not the same; but His whole Being, bright with the Glory and the power of the Heavenly Life which He holds for us, and waits to impart day by day to them who forsake all to follow Him.

 In humble trust and prayer that it may be so, I commend all my readers to His blessed teaching and guidance.
ANDREW MURRAY.
13th September 1894.

This is the Preface of Andrew Murray's book with little or no editing by us and where used to bring the word or phrase up to our common day usage only and so this will be our standard throughout the text that is to follow.

FIRST HALF-DOCTRINAL.
Hebrews Chap. 1- 10: 18
The Son of God the Mediator of a Better Covenant.

THE THEME. Chapter 1: 1-3.
The Glory of the Son in His Person and Work.

 THE SON IN WHOM GOD HATH SPOKEN.
Hebrews 1: 1-2 God, having of old time spoken to the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, has at the end of these days spoken to us in His Son.

Now we'll show a more modern version of the (AV, KJV) from the CEV or Contemporary English Version:
Hebrews 1:1-2 Long ago in many ways and at many times God's prophets spoke His message to our ancestors. But now at last, God sent His Son to bring His message to us. God created the universe by His Son, and everything will someday belong to the Son.

God has spoken! The magnificent portal by which we enter into the temple in which God is to reveal His Glory to us! We are at once brought into the presence of God Himself. The one object of the Epistle is to lead us to God, to reveal God, to bring us into contact with Himself. Man was created for God. Sin separated man from God. Man feels his need, and seeks for God. This Epistle comes with the Gospel message of redemption, to teach us where and how to find God. Let all who thirst for God, for the Living God, draw nigh and listen.

God has spoken! Speaking is the vehicle of fellowship. It is a proof that the speaker considers him he addresses as capable of fellowship with himself; a token that he longs for that fellowship. Man was created for fellowship/intimacy with God. Sin interrupted it Nature speaks of God and His work, but of Himself, His heart, and His thoughts of Love towards us as sinners, nature cannot tell. In his deepest misery man seeks for God but how often, to all appearance, in vain. But, God be praised, not for always. The silence has been broken. God calls man back to fellowship/intimacy with Himself. God has spoken!

God has spoken! For a time, imperfectly and provisionally in the prophets, in preparation for the more perfect revelation of Himself. But now at length the joyful tidings are heard God has spoken in His Son! God, the infinite, incomprehensible, unseen One, has spoken! And that in His Son! Oh, the joy and the glory! who can measure it? "Hear! O heavens, and give ear! O earth, for the Lord has spoken."

God has spoken! When man speaks it is the revelation of himself, to make known the otherwise hidden thoughts and dispositions of his heart. When God, who dwells in Light that is inaccessible, speaks out of the heights of His Glory, it is that He may reveal Himself. He would have us know how He Loves us and longs for us, how He wants to save and to bless, how He would have us draw nigh and live in fellowship and intimacy with Himself.

God has spoken in His Son! The ministry of angels and prophets was only to prepare the way; it never could satisfy the heart either of God or man; the real power of the Life of God, the full experience of His nearness, the True deliverance from sin, the shedding abroad of the Love in the heart, this could not be communicated by the ministry of creatures. The Son Himself had to come as the Word of God to us, the
bearer of the Grace and Truth the Life and Love of the Father. The Son Himself had to come to bring us into living contact with the divine Being, to dwell in our heart, as He dwells in God's heart, to be in us God's Word as He is in God, and so to give us the Living experience of what it means that God speaks to us.
God has spoken! The words of a man carry weight according to the idea I have of his wisdom, his veracity, his power, his love. The words of God! Oh, who can express what they ought to be worth to us! Each word carries with it all the Life of God, all His saving power His Grace and Love. God speaking in His Son! Surely they who have begun to Know Him will be ready to cast aside everything for the sake of hearing Him.

God has spoken! The words of men have often exerted a wonderful and a mighty influence. But the Words of God they are creative deeds, they give what they speak. "He spoke, and it was done." When God speaks in His Son, He gives Him to us, not only for us and with us, but in us. He speaks the Son out of the depth of His heart into the depths of our heart. Men's words appeal to the mind or the will, the feelings or the passions. God speaks to that which is deeper than all, to the heart, that central depth within us whence are the issues of life. Let us believe the mighty, quickening power God's Word will have.

God has spoken! Speaking claims hearing. God asks but one thing; it is so simple and right; that we should
listen. Shall we not hearken, in holy reverence and worship, with whole-hearted attention and surrender, to what He would say to us in this Epistle too? We too shall know what the power and the joy is of God speaking to us in His Son. God is a Spirit. As such He has no other way of communicating to us His Life or His Love, but by entering our spirit and dwelling and working there. There He causes Christ to dwell, and there He speaks to us in Christ Words of redeeming Love and power which bring Life to us. The words of Christ can bring us no profit, except as they unfold to us what God is working in us, and direct us to what is to be revealed in our heart. It is the heart God wants; let us open the whole heart to listen and to long.

God has spoken in His Son! The Living Jesus, come forth from the fiery furnace of God's Holiness, from the burning glow of everlasting Love, He Himself is the Living Word. Let us seek in the study of this Epistle, in which His Glory is so wondrously revealed, to come into contact with Him, to receive Him into our hearts, to take Him as our life, that He may bring us to the Father. In the beginning God spoke: "Let there be light! and there was Light." Even so now He speaks with creative power in His Son, and the presence and the Light of Christ become the Life and the Light of the soul.

1. What trouble people take to learn a foreign language, to have access to its writers. Let no trouble be too great to understand the language of God, His Word, His Son. To learn a foreign language I get someone who knows it to teach me. The language of God is Heavenly, Spiritual, supernatural altogether divine; only the Holy Spirit can teach me to understand it, to think God's own thoughts. Let me take Him as my teacher.
2. "And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him." As personally and directly, even more wonderfully and effectually, will God speak to me in His Son; but deep, holy reverence, and an intense desire to know what God says, must be the spirit in which I study the Epistle and hearken to the blessed Son.
3. "Heavenly truth is nowhere spoken but by the voice of Christ, nor heard but by the power of Christ, living in the hearer." "He that is of God hears God's words." It is only he who yields himself to the New nature who can truly know what God's speaking in Christ is.
4. During Christ's life the Word of God was thrice heard. Each time it was: "This is My beloved Son: hear Him." "I have glorified Him." Let us allow God to speak this one word into our hearts My beloved Son. My God! speak to me in Your Son. Oh, speak that one word out of the depth of Your heart into the depth of my heart.
This is now the end of the first chapter and the preface of introduction, may we all grow in the Knowledge of Him as we've been in instructed to do. May God increase our Knowledge of Himself and the Lord Jesus Christ.