"The Holiest of All" part LXXXVIII

OUR BODY WASHED.
Hebrews 10: 22. Let us draw near . . . our body washed with pure water.

Continuing in the SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL.
Hebrews Chapters 10: 19 - 13: 25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation.

In the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 19-25.
Of Life in the Holiest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Man belongs to two worlds, the visible and the invisible. In his constitution, the material and the spiritual (Genesis 1: 26-27), body and soul, are wonderfully united (Genesis 2:7-8). In the fall both came under the power of sin and death (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:19 ); in redemption deliverance has been provided for both (Genesis 3:15, 21). It is not only in the interior life of the soul, but in that of the body too, that the power of redemption can be manifested.

In the Old Testament worship, the external was the more prominent. It consisted mostly in carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation ( correction or amendment of life, reformation of the age ). They taught a measure of truth, they exercised a certain influence on the heart, but they could not make the worshiper perfect. It was only with the New Testament that the religion [1] of the inner life, the worship of God in Spirit and Truth, was revealed. And yet we need to be on the watch lest the pursuit of the inner life lead us to neglect the external. It is in the body, as much as in the spirit, that the saving power of Christ Jesus must be realized. It is with this view that our Lord adopted one of the Jewish washings, and instituted the baptism with water. He that believed with the heart, came with the body to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. It was a token that the whole exterior physical life, with all its functions and powers, was to become His too. It was in this connection John wrote: There are three who bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood. The same Spirit who applies the Blood in power to the heart, takes possession and mastery of the body, then washing it with pure (that is to say Living) water. And where in Scripture the word and water are joined together (Ephesians 5:26; John 13:10; 15:3), it is because the word is the external manifestation of what must rule our whole outer life too.

( 1. Religion, as distinct from virtue, or morality, consists in the performance of the duties we owe directly to God, from a principle of obedience to His Will. Hence we often speak of religion and virtue, as different branches of one system, or the duties of the first and second tables of the Law. As distinct from theology, is godliness or real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all Known duties to God and our fellow men, in obedience to Divine command, or from love to God and His Law. God's Law here stated and elsewhere, don't get it confused with the Levitical Law, with its ordinances added by man, given through Moses to the Hebrews as found in Leviticus through Deuteronomy and elsewhere. God's New Law supersedes all the old as it  was done away with by the New Sealed by the Blood of the Eternal Life in Christ.)

It is in this connection the two expressions are used here: Our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water. The thought was suggested to our author by the service of the tabernacle. In the court there were only two things to be seen--- the brazen altar and the laver. At the one, the priest received and sprinkled the blood of animals; at the other, he found the water in which he washed, ere he entered the Holy Place. At the installation of the priests in their office they were first washed and then sprinkled with blood (Exodus 29: 4, 20). On the great day of atonement the high priest, too, had first to wash ere he entered into the Holiest with the blood (Leviticus 16: 4). And so the lesson comes to us that if we draw near with hearts Sprinkled from an evil conscience, we must also have the body washed with pure water. The liberty of access, the cleansing by the Blood gives, can only be enjoyed in a Life of which every action is cleansed by the word. Not only in the heart and the disposition, but in the body and the outer visible life, everything must be clean. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His Holy Place? He that has clean hands, and a pure heart. A heart Sprinkled with the Blood, a body washed with pure water from every stain,--- these God has joined together; let no man separate them. There have been some who have sought very earnestly to enter into the Holiest of All and have failed. The reason was that they had not clean hands, they were not ready to have everything that is not perfectly holy discovered and put away. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded--- is a word that always holds. The Blood of Christ has Unspeakable and Everlasting Power for the soul that, with a True heart, is ready to put away every sin. Where this is not the case, and the body is not washed with pure water, the perfect conscience which the Blood gives cannot be enjoyed.

Our body washed with pure water. It is not only in spirit, but with, the body too, we enter into the Holiest of All. It is on us here, where we are in the body, that the presence of God descends. Our whole life in the flesh is to be in that presence; the body is a very specially the Temple, and in charge of the Holy Spirit; in the body the Father is to be Glorified. Our whole being, body, soul, and spirit, is in the Power of the Holy Spirit, a Holy Sacrifice upon the altar (the cross of Christ), a Living Sacrifice for service before God. With the body, too, we live and walk in the Holiest. Our eating and drinking, our sleeping, our clothing, our labor and relaxation,--- all these things have more influence on our spiritual life than we know. They often interrupt and break the fellowship we seek to maintain. The heart and the body are inseparably joined--- a heart Sprinkled from an evil conscience needs a body washed with pure water.

When He came into the world He said, A body did You prepare for Me (Genesis 3:15). This word of Christ must be adopted by each of His followers. Nothing will help us to live in this world, and keep ourselves unspotted, but the Spirit that was in Christ, that looked upon His body as prepared by God for His service; that looks upon our body as prepared by Him too, that we might offer it to Him. Like Christ we too have a body, in which the Holy Spirit dwells. Like Christ we too must yield our body, with every member, every breath, every power, every action, to fulfill His Will, to be offered up to Him, to glorify Him. Like Christ we must prove in our body that we are holy to the Lord.

The Blood that is Sprinkled on your heart came from the body of Jesus, prepared by God, and, in His whole life, even to His one offering, given up to God. The object of that Blood Sprinkling is that your body, of which the is heart Sprinkled with the Blood is the Life, should, like His, be wholly given up to God. Oh, seek to take in this Blessed Truth, this Reality and to accept it fully. The heart Sprinkled from the evil conscience will then become an unbroken experience, and the Blood of the Lamb the everliving motive and power for a Life in the body, like Christ's, a Sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God.

1. I am deeply persuaded that in the self-pleasing which we allow in gratifying the claims of the body, we shall find one of the most frequent causes of the gradual decline of our fellowship with God. Do remember, it was through the body that Satan conquered in Paradise; It was in the body he tempted Christ and had to be resisted. It was in suffering of the body, as when He hungered, that Christ was perfected. It is only when the Law of self-denial is strictly applied to the body, that we can dwell in the Holiest.
2. He was tempted In all points, like as we are--- in His body very specially, and is able to succor us. Let the committal of our body into the keeping and the rule of Jesus be very definite and entire.
3. " If Miranda was to run a race for her life, she would submit to a diet that was proper for it. As the race which is set before her is a race for holiness and heavenly affection, so her every day diet has only this one end--- to make her body fitter for this spiritual life."

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXVII

OUR HEARTS SPRINKLED
Hebrews 10: 22. Let us draw near . . . our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

The SECOND HALF--PRACTICAL
Continuing with Chapters 10: 19- 13: 25.
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation

The NINTH SECTION  10: 19-25
Of Life in the Holiest

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

In verse 19 we had Boldness through the Blood of Jesus, as one of the four precious things prepared for us by God. It is that actual liberty or right which the Blood of Jesus gives, apart from any use we make of it. Along with the Opened Sanctuary, and the Living Way, and the great Priest, the Blood and our Boldness in it is a Heavenly Reality waiting our faith and acceptance. Here the Blood is mentioned a second time, and our being sprinkled with it as one of the things God asks of us. It is in the personal application and experience of the Authority and power of the Blood we are to draw near. This second mention of the Blood is in accord with what we had in chapter 9 of its twofold sprinkling. First, Christ entered with it into Heaven, to Cleanse the Heavenly things (to move the cloud or veil of offense that separated man and the Hebrews from God), and fulfill the type of the sprinkling on the mercy-seat. It proved its Power with God in putting away sins. And then we read of its Cleansing our conscience. The Blood which has had its mighty operation in Heaven itself has as mighty Power in our hearts. It makes us partakers of a Divine and Eternal Cleansing. In Heaven the Power of the Blood is proved to be infinite and immeasurable, Never-ceasing and Eternal, giving us Boldness to enter even as Christ did. As the soul learns to receive by way of inspiration this revelation it can accept and believe and rejoice in this Heavenly Power of the Blood, it will claim and receive the very same Power in the heart; as Jesus washes us in His Blood, we Know by faith what it is to have, in a Heavenly Reality, a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience.

There will ever be harmony between a home and those who dwell in it, between an environment and the life that is sustained by it. There must be Harmony between the Holiest of All and the soul that is to enter in. That Harmony begins with, and has its Everlasting Security in, the Blood of sprinkling. The Ever-living and Never-ceasing Energy of the Blood, ever speaking Better things than the blood of Abel and keeping Heaven Open for me, has a like effect on my heart. The Blood has put away the thought of sin from God; He remembers it no more forever. The Blood puts away the thought of sin in me too, taking away the evil conscience that condemned me. The Better things which the Blood speaks in Heaven, it speaks in my heart too; it Lifts me into that Heavenly sphere, that New State of Life and Intercourse with my God, in which an end has been made of sin, and the soul is taken in to the full and perfect enjoyment of the Love of God.

The action of the Blood in Heaven is Unceasing--- never a moment but the Blood is the delight of the Father and the song of the ransomed. Draw near when you will, the Blood is there, abiding continually; not a moment's interval. And even so will it be in the soul that enters in. The difficulty that staggers the trusting of many lies just here: they cannot understand how one who has to live amid the cares and engagements and companionship's of this daily life can every moment maintain a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience. They do not know that, if once, with a heart sprinkled they enter in, they are in an Inner Sanctuary, where Everything Acts in the Authority and Power of the Upper World, in the Authority and Power of an Endless Life. They breathe the inspiring (intuitive Word of Life ), the invigorating air of the Holiest of All; they breathe the Holy Spirit, and enjoy the Power of the Resurrection Life ( the Life rebirthed through the death of the old self life bond by sin and death which separated it from God's very presence ). The Minister of the Heavenly Sanctuary is also the Mediator of the New Covenant of  Eternal Life and Grace, the Eternal Life that is in the Blood NOW sprinkled in our hearts. All He does in Heaven He does each moment on earth in our hearts, if faith will Trust Him; for the Blood of sprinkling is the Blood of the New Covenant.
 
And what may be the reason that so few Christians can testify of the joy and the power of a heart at all times remains sprinkled from an evil conscience? The answer is, That in the apprehension of this, as of every other Truth, there are stages according to the measure of trusting faith and faithfulness. We can see it in the Hebrew children. There you have three stages. The Hebrews who entered the outer court saw the altar and the blood sprinkled there, and received such assurance of pardon as that could give him. The priest who was admitted to the Holy Place not only saw the blood sprinkled on the brazen altar, he had it sprinkled upon himself, and might see it sprinkled on the golden altar in the Holy Place. His contact with the blood was closer, and he was admitted to a nearer access. And the access of the high priest was still more complete; he might, with the blood for the mercy-seat, once a year enter within the veil. Even so there are outer-court Christians, who trust in Christ who died on Calvary, but Know very little of His Heavenly Life, or near access to God, or service for others. Beyond these there are Christians who are becoming (through training, trials and hardships or testings) Christ-like ones who Know that they are called to be priests and to live in the service of God and their fellow-men. They Know more of the Power of the Blood as setting apart for service; but yet their life is still without the veil. But then come those who Know what Christ's entering with His Blood implies and procures, and who experience that the Holy Spirit applies the Blood in such Power, that it indeed brings to the Life in the Inner Sanctuary, in the full and abiding joy of God's presence. These are those who have become acceptable to God and approved by God to be Christ-Like ones and priest after the order of Christ Jesus their High Priest-King, the true Israel of God's Love and Grace and the apple of God's eye. ( " The Blood contains Life (John 6: 53). The blood not only removes death (judicial and spiritual), but it gives and preserves life (judicial and spiritual). It quickens. We are not only to be sprinkled with it  outwardly, but we are to receive it inwardly, to drink it. As with the water, so with the blood, they are for inward as well as outward application." H. BONAR.)

1. " Wherein is the Blood of Jesus Better than the blood of goats and bulls, if it cannot free us from the spirit of bondage and the evil conscience, if it cannot give us a full glad confidence before God? What Jesus has perfected we can experience and enjoy as perfect in our heart and conscience. You dishonor your Savior when you do not seek to experience what He has perfected you as touching the conscience, and when you do not live with a heart entirely cleansed from the evil conscience." STEINHOFER.
2. A true heart--- a heart sprinkled: you see everything depends upon the heart God can do nothing for us from without, only by what He can put into the heart (What the old Israelites, Hebrews, could not receive because of unbelief and hardness of heart, the new Hebrews can NOW receive in like fashion as the Gentiles, their Salvation). Of all that Jesus is and does as High Priest in Heaven I cannot have the least experience, but as it is Revealed in the heart. The whole work of the Holy Spirit is in the heart. Let us draw near with a True heart, a Sprinkled heart, our inmost being entirely and unceasingly under the Heavenly Power of the Blood.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXVI

THE FULNESS OF FAITH.
Hebrews 10: 22. Let us draw near, In fulness of faith.

Continuing in the SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL.
Hebrews Chapters  10: 19 - 13: 25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation.

In the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 19-25.
Of Life in the Holiest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

This translation, the fulness of faith, is not only more correct than that of, full assurance of faith, but much more significant. Full assurance of faith refers only to the strength and confidence with which we believe. The truth we accept may be very limited and defective, and our assurance of it may be more an undoubting conviction of the mind than the Living apprehension of the heart. In both respects the fulness of faith expresses what we need,--- a faith that takes in objectively all that God offers it in its fulness, and subjectively all the powers of our heart and life in their fulness. Let us draw near, in fulness of faith.

Here, if anywhere, there is indeed need of fulness of faith, that we may take in all the fulness of the provision God has made, and of the promises that are waiting for us to inherit. The message comes to a sinful man that he may have his continual abode in the Most Holy; that, more real and near than with his nearest earthly friend, he may live in unbroken intimacy and fellowship with the Most High God. He is assured that the Blood of Christ can Cleanse his Conscience with such power that he can draw near to God with a perfect conscience and with undoubting confidence, in fulness of Faith and can ask and expect to live always in the unclouded Light of God's face. He receives the assurance that the power of the Holy Ghost, coming from out of the Holiest, can enable him to walk exactly in the same path in which Christ walked on His Way to God, and make that Way to him a New and Living Way (the Way of death of self interests of fleshy pleasures, of sins hold and his self pride, of death to the worlds deceptive sins emphasis added), with nothing of decay or weariness in his progress. This is the fulness of faith we are called to. But, above all, to look to Jesus in all the Glory in which He has been Revealed in the Epistles, as God and Man, as Leader and Forerunner, as Melchizedek, as the Minister of the Sanctuary (both in Heaven and mans New Heart, God's Temple, now Opened as a seed freshly planted and Newness of Life budding forth ) and Mediator of the New Covenant in--- one word, as our great Priest over the house of God. And, looking to Him, to claim that He shall do for us this one thing, to bring us near, and even on earth give us to dwell forever in the presence of God.

Faith ever deals with impossibilities. Its only rule or measure is what God has said to be possible to Him. When we look at our lives and their failures, at our bankruptcy, sinfulness and weakness, at those around us, the thought will come up--- Is it for me? Dare I expect it? Is it not wearying myself in vain to think of it or to seek for it? Soul! The God who Redeemed you, when an enemy, with the Blood of His Son--- what think you, this way? Would He not be willing thus to take you to His heart? He who raised Jesus, when He had died under the curse of your, our, sins, from the death of the grave to the Throne of His Glory, would He not be able to take you, too, and give you a place within the veil? (A veil that has been forever removed by the Blood of Christ.) Do believe this. He longs to do it; He is able to do it His home and His heart have room for you even now. Let US draw near in fulness of faith.

In fulness of faith. The word has also reference to that full measure of faith which is found when the whole heart is filled and possessed by it. We have very little idea of how the weakness of our faith is owing to its being more a confident persuasion of the mind with regard to the Truth of what God says, than the Living apprehension and possession of the Eternal Spiritual Realities of the Truth within the heart. The Holy Spirit asks us first for a true heart, and then at once, as its first exercise, for fulness of faith by way of our being receptive of His inspiration from within our true heart. There is a faith of insight, a faith of desire, a faith and depth of Trust in the Truth of the Word, (this is the Faith of Christ at work within a True Heart of His occupation by Way of our acceptance of Him) and a faith of personal acceptance. There is a faith of Love that embraces, a faith of Will that holds fast, and a faith of Sacrifice that gives up everything, and a faith of Despair that abandons all hope in self and the power of sin in the world to draw us back, and a faith of Rest that waits on God alone. This is all included in the faith of the true heart, the fulness of faith, in which the whole being surrenders and lets go of all else, and yields itself to God to do His work. In fulness of faith let us draw near.

In fulness of faith, not of thought or worst of unbelief. What God is about to do to you is supernatural, above what you can ask or think. It is a Love that passes Knowledge is going to take possession. God is the incomprehensible, the hidden unseen One. The Holy Spirit is the Secret, incomprehensibly working and the very presence of God. Do not seek to understand everything. Draw near--- it never says with a clear head, but with a true heart Rest upon God to do for you far more than you understand.( It is NOT found in the wisdom of man for God shows that wisdom to be but foolishness of man. His Ways are not learned in mans schools or systems and programs and methods but by a dependency of trusting His Faithfulness to do what and as He has promised by an Oath.)

In fulness of faith, and not in fulness of feeling or by any of our five senses. When you come, and, gazing into the opened Holiest of All, hear the voice of Him that dwells between the cherubim call you to come in; and, as you gaze, long indeed to enter and to dwell there, the word comes again, Draw near with a true heart! Your answer is, Yes, Lord; with my whole heart--- with that New heart You have given me. You make the surrender of yourself, to live only and always in His presence and for His service. The voice speaks again: Let it be To-day--- Now, in fulness of faith. You have accepted what He offers. You have given what He asks. You believe that He accepts the surrender. You believe that the great Priest over the house takes possession of your inner Life, and brings you before God. And yet you wonder you feel so little changed. You feel just like the old self you were. Now is the time to listen to the voice--- In fulness of faith, not of feeling! Look to God, who is able to do above what we ask or think. Trust His power. Look to Jesus on the Throne, Living there to bring you in. Claim the Spirit of the exalted One as His Pentecostal Gift Remember these are all Divine, Spiritual mysteries (Secrets) of Grace, to be Revealed in you and to you. Apart from feeling, without feeling, in fulness of faith, in bare, naked faith that honors God, enter in. Reckon yourself to be indeed alive to God in Christ Jesus, taken in into His presence, His Love, His very heart.


1. Be followers of those who, through faith and long-suffering, inherited the promises. Faith accepts and rejoices in the Gift; long-suffering waits for the full enjoyment; and so faith in due time inherits, and the promise becomes an experience. By faith at once take your place in the Holiest; wait on the Holy Spirit In your Inner life to reveal it In the power of God; your High Priest will see to your inheriting the Blessing.
2. In the fulness of the whole heart to accept the whole fulness of God's Salvation--- this is what God asks.
3. As in Heaven so on earth. The more I look at the fulness of Grace in Christ, the more the fulness of faith will grow in me. Of His fulness have we received, and Grace for grace.
4. A whole chapter is to be devoted to the exhibiting of what this fulness of faith implies. Let us go on to study it with the one object for which It is given--- our entering into that life in the Will and Love of God which Jesus has Secured for us.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXV

WITH A TRUE HEART
Hebrews 10: 22. Let us draw near with, a true heart.

Continuing with the SECOND HALF- PRACTICAL
Hebrews Chapters 10: 19- 13: 25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation

In the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 19-25.
Of Life in the Holiest

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

We have been looking at the four great Blessings of the New required form of worship by which God encourages us to draw near to Him. We shall now see what the four chief things are that God seeks for in us as we come to Him. Of these the first is, a true (pure) heart.

In man's nature the heart is the central power. As the heart is so, so is the man. The desire and the choice, the love and the hatred of the heart prove what a man already is, and decides what he is to become. Just as we judge of a man's physical character, his size and strength and age and habits, by his outward appearance, so the heart gives the real inward man his character; and " the hidden man of the heart " is what God looks to. God has in Christ given us access to the Secret Place of His dwelling, to the Inner Sanctuary of His presence and His heart; no wonder that the first thing He asks, as He calls us to Him, is the heart--- a true heart; our inmost being must in Truth be yielded to Him, True (in purity-open, receptive of) to Him.

True religion is a thing of the heart, an inward Life. It is only as the desire of the heart is fixed upon God, the whole-heart seeking for God, giving its love and finding its joy in God, that a man can draw near to God. The heart of man was expressly planned and created and endowed with all its powers, that it might be capable of receiving and enjoying God and His Love. God's great quarrel with His people is that their heart is turned from Him. In chapter 3 we heard Him complain of the hardening of the heart, the wandering heart, the unbelieving heart. No wonder that the first requisite for entering the Holiest of All should be a true heart. It is only with the heart that religion, that Holiness, Godliness or God-likeness, that the Love and the Will of God can be KNOWN. God can ask for nothing else and nothing less than the heart--- than a true heart.

What the word true means we see from the use of it made previously (8: 2 and 9: 24), the True Tabernacle, and, the Holy Place, which are figures of the True. The first tabernacle was only a figure and a shadow of the True. There was, indeed, a religious service and worship, but it had no real abiding power; it could not make the worshiper perfect. The very image, the Substance and Reality, of the Heavenly things themselves, were only brought by Christ. And God now asks that, to correspond with the True Sanctuary, there shall be a True Heart. The old covenant, with its tabernacle and its worship, which was but a shadow (an external or physical, fleshly, earthy and insufficient because of this, this is also true of our earthy body of flesh, the tent our true self occupies ), could not put the heart of the Hebrews right. In the New Covenant God's first promise is, I WILL write My Law in the heart: a New Heart will I give you.(Jeremiah 31:33 note its called the house of Israel or the house of God) As He has given His Son, full of Grace and Truth, in the Authority and power of an Endless Life, to work all in us as the Mediator of a New Covenant of God's Grace, to write His Law in our hearts, He calls us to draw near with a True Heart.

God asks for the heart. Alas, how many Christians serve Him still with the service of the old covenant? Mans Religion is a thing of times and duties and remains an external religion a religion of failure. There are seasons for Bible-reading and praying and church-going. But when one notices how speedily and naturally and happily, as soon as it is freed from restraint, the heart turns to worldly things, one feels how little there is of the heart in it: it is not the worship of a true heart, of the whole-heart. The heart, with its life and love and joy, has not yet found God for in God is its highest good. Religion is much more a thing of the head and its activities, than of the heart and its life, of the human will and its power, than of that Spirit which God gives within us. When He imparts His Spirit within us to awaken our spirit from its slumber and rest and causes it to receive Himself again our heart becomes a True Heart of His Love, Grace and Truth.

The invitation comes: Let us draw near with a True Heart. Come out from among them, Let no one hold back for fear, my heart is not true. There is no way for obtaining the true heart, but by receiving it. God has given you, as his child, a New Heart--- a wonderful Gift, if you but knew it. Through ignorance or unbelief or disobedience it has grown feeble and withered; its beating can, nevertheless, still be felt. The Epistle, with its solemn warnings and its blessed teaching, has come to bring arousing and healing. Even as Christ said to the man with the withered hand, Stretch forth, He calls to you from His Throne in Heaven, Rise, and come and enter in with a True Heart. As you hesitate, and look within to feel and to find out if the heart is true, and in vain to do what is needed to make it true, He calls again, Stretch forth your hand. When He spoke that to him with the withered arm, whom He had called to rise up and stand before Him, the man felt the power of Jesus eye and voice, and he stretched it forth. Do you, likewise. Stretch forth, lift up, reach out that withered heart of yours, that has so been cherishing its own impotence,--- stretch forth, and it will be made whole. Yes, in the very act of obeying the call to enter in, it will prove itself a true heart--- a heart ready to receive and Obey and to Trust its blessed Lord, a heart ready to give up all and find its life in the secret of His presence. Yes, Jesus, the great Priest over the House of God, the Mediator of the New Covenant of God's Grace, with the New Heart Secured in Him, calls, Draw near with a True Heart.

During these last years God has been rousing His people to the pursuit of Holiness--- that is, to seek the entrance into the Holiest, a life in full of intimacy and true fellowship with Himself, the Holy One. In the teaching which He has been using to this end, two words have been very much in the foreground--- Consecration and Faith (on our part simply trusting Him, taking Him at His word). These are just what are here put first--- a True Heart and the fulness of Trusting unto faith ( its Christ' demonstrated Faithfulness we are to trust ). The True Heart is nothing but true consecration, the spirit that longs to live wholly for God, that gladly gives up everything that it may live wholly for Him, and that above all yields up the heart, as the key of the life, into His keeping and rule. True religion is an inward Life, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us enter in into the inner Sanctuary of God's Grace, Truth and Love, and the Spirit will enter into the inner Sanctuary of our love, into our heart. Let us draw near with a true heart--- longing, ready, utterly given up to desire and receive the promised Blessing. 

1. If you look at your own constitution, you see how the head and the heart are the two great centers of life and action. Much thought and study make the head weary. Strong emotion or excitement affects the heart. It is the heart God asks--- the power of desire and affection and will. The head and the heart are in partnership. God tells us that the heart must rule and lead, that it is the heart He wants. Our religion has been too much that of the head hearing and reading and thinking. Let us beware of allowing these to lead us astray. Let them stand aside at times. Let us give the heart time to assert its supremacy, in newness of receptivity. Let us draw near with a true heart.
2. A true heart true--- in what it says that It thinks of itself; true in what it says that it believes of God; true in what it professes to take from God and to give to Him.
3. It is the heart God wants to dwell in. It is in the state of the heart God wants to prove His power to Bless. It is In the heart the Love and the Joy of God are to be Known. Let us draw near with a True Heart.

I might add that it is with a True Heart that we  hear God through the Spirit of His Son by way of inspiration of revelation of Himself and His Son. Emphasis added is ours.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXIV

A GREAT PRIEST OVER THE HOUSE OF GOD.
Hebrews 10: 21. And having a great Priest over the house of God; let us draw near.

Continuing with the SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL.
Hebrews Chapters 10: 19- 13: 25.
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation.

In the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews Chapter 10: 19-25.
Of Life in the Holiest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

We said before that in the symbols of the Mosaic worship there were specially four things that, as types of the mystery of the coming redemption, demand attention. These are--- the Sanctuary, the Blood, the Way into the Holiest, and the Priest. The first three, all Heavenly things, we have had; we now come to the fourth, the chief and the best of all--- a Living Person, Jesus, a great High Priest over the House of God. The Knowledge of what He has won for me and you, the entrance into the Holiest; of the work He did to win it, the shedding of His Blood; of the Way in which I and you are required to enter into the enjoyment of it all--- all this is very precious. But there is something Better still: it is this, that the Living, Loving, Son of God is there, personally to receive us and make us partakers of all the Blessedness that God has for us. This is the chief point: we have such a High Priest, who sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the Heavens. Wherefore, having a great Priest over the House (family of relationship) of God, let us draw near.

And what is now the work we need Jesus to do for us? Has it not all been done? The Holiest is Opened. Boldness through the Blood has been Secured. The Living Way has been dedicated to carry us in. What more is there that Jesus has to do for us? Nothing more; it has all been finished, Once and Forever. And why is it then we are pointed to Him as the great Priest over the House of God? And what is it we may expect of Him? What we need, and what we must look to Him for is this, so to work in us that the work He has done for us may be made Real, Alive, within us, as a personal experience of the Authority and power of an Endless Life in which He was constituted Priest. Because He Lives Forever, we read, He is able to save completely. Salvation is a subjective, experimental thing--- manifest in the Peace and Holiness of a heart that He gives. We, our life, our inner man, our heart, our will and affections, are to be delivered from the power and influence of sin, and to taste and enjoy the putting away of sin as a Blessed experience. In our very heart we are to find and feel the power of His Redemption. As deep and strong as sin proved itself to be in its actual power and its mastery within us, Jesus is to prove the triumph of Redeeming Grace within us by His power.


His one work as Priest over the House of God is to bring us into it, and enable us to Live there (a being part of God's family, like our earthly families as they are but symbols or types of His original). He does this by bringing God and the soul into actual harmony, sympathy, intimacy and fellowship with each other. As Minister of the Sanctuary He does all that is to be done in Heaven with God; as Mediator of the New Covenant He does all that is to be done here on earth, in our heart--- the one as effectually as the other. The two offices are united in the one great Priest; in each act of His He unites both functions, to the soul that knows what to expect, and Trusts Him. Every movement in the presence of God can have its corresponding movement in the heart of receptive man.

And how is this effected? In virtue of His union (being conjoined ) with us, and our union ( being conjoined) with Him. Jesus is the Second Adam; the new Head of the New race. He is it in virtue of His real humanity, having in it the Authority and power of true Divinity that fills all and is to be the all in ALL. Just as Adam was our forerunner into death (separation from God's presence emphasis added), and we have all the power of his sin and death working in us and drawing us on, so we have Jesus as our Forerunner into God's presence, with all the power of His death and the Authority and power of His resurrection-life working in us, and drawing and lifting us in with Divine energy into the Father's presence. Yes, Jesus with His Divine, His Heavenly Life, in the Authority and power of the Throne on which He is seated, has entered into the deepest ground of our being, where Adam, where sin, do their work, and is there unceasingly carrying out His work of lifting us Heavenward into God's very presence, and of making God's Heavenly presence here on earth our portion.

And why is it we enjoy this so little? And what is needed that we come to its full enjoyment? And how can Jesus truly be to us a great High Priest, giving us our actual Life in the Holiest of All? One great reason of failure is what the Epistle so insists on: our ignorance of the Spiritual Perfection-truth it seeks to teach, and especially of what the Holy Spirit witnesses of the Way into the Holiest. And what we need is just this, that the Holy Spirit Himself, that Jesus in the Holy Spirit, be waited on, Received and accepted, and Trusted to do the work in Divine power. Do keep a firm hold of this Truth, that when our great High Priest once for all entered the Holiest, and sat down on the Throne, it was the Holy Ghost sent in power into the hearts of His disciples, through whom the Heavenly High Priest became a present and an indwelling Savior; bringing with Him into their hearts the presence and the Love, Faith and Truth of God. That Pentecostal Gift (the true blessing that has been so miss understood because of wrong and even false teaching of man, because of presumptuous ignorance), in the power of the Glorified Christ, is the one indispensable channel of the Authority and power of Jesus' Priesthood. Nothing but the fulness of the Spirit in our daily life, making Jesus' present within us, abiding continually, can keep us in the presence of God as full experience. Jesus is no outward High Priest, who can save us as from a distance. No, as the Second Adam, He is nowhere "if" He is not in us. The one reason why the Truth of His Heavenly Priesthood is so often powerless, is because we look upon it as an external distant thing, a work going on in Heaven above and beyond us. The one cure for this evil is to Know that our great Priest over the House of God is the Glorified Jesus, who in the Holy Spirit is present in us, and makes all that is done in Heaven above for us to be done within us too by the Holy Spirit while we're yet here on earth.

He is Priest over the House of God, the place where God dwells; we are His House, His family. And as surely as Jesus Ministers in the Sanctuary above, He moment by moment Ministers in the Sanctuary within our heart. Wherefore, having, not only in Gift, not only in the possession of right and thought, but in our hearts, having a great Priest over the House of God, let us draw near.

1. Having a great Priest! You know a great deal of Jesus, but do you know this that His chief, His all-comprehensive work, is to bring you near, oh! so near, to God? Has He done this for you? "If" not, then ask Him, Trust Him for it.
2. It is Jesus Himself I want. Himself alone can satisfy me. It is In the Holy faith of Jesus, the compassionate sympathizer, in the Holy Love of Jesus who calls us brethren, that we can draw near to God. It is in a heart given up, with its reception; and Trust and Love and devotion of Jesus, that the presence of God will be felt.
3. We have such a High Priest! Yes, say, I have Him; in all His power and Love He is mine; and yield to Him to do His work in me.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXIII

THE NEW AND LIVING WAY
Hebrews 10: 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh;......Let us draw near.

Continuing with the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 19-25.
Of Life in the Holiest.

SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL.
Hebrews Chapters  10: 19 - 13: 25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

The Holiest of All is Opened for us to enter in and appear before God, to dwell and to serve in His very presence. The Blood of the One Sacrifice Forever, taken into Heaven to cleanse away all sin of man forever, is our title and our boldness to enter in. Now comes the question, What is the way that leads up and through the opened gate, and in which we have to walk if we are to enter in. This way, the only Way, the one infallible Way is, a New and Living Way, which Jesus dedicated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. The boldness we have through the Blood is the right or liberty of access Jesus won for us, when we regard His death as that of our Substitute, who did what we can never do--- made Redemption of transgressions, and put away sin Forever. The New and Living Way (which imparts the true Life of man back in him and thereby making man alive forevermore, as the original, again One with his maker.emphasis added), through the rent veil, that is, His flesh, has reference to His death, regarded as that of our Leader and Forerunner, who Opened up the path to God, in which He first walked Himself, and now draws us to follow Him. The death of Jesus was not only the dedication or inauguration of the New Sanctuary and of the New Covenant of His Grace, but also of the New Way into the Holy presence with our original intimacy and fellowship of God. Whoever in trust accepts, that is receives, of the Blood He shed has His boldness of entrance, must accept, too, of the Way He Opened up as that In which he also must walk.

And what was that Way? The Way through the veil, that is, His flesh. The veil is the flesh. The veil that separated man from God was the flesh, human nature under the power of sin. Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and dwelt with us here outside the veil. The Word was made flesh. He also Himself in like manner partook of flesh and blood. In the days of His flesh, He was tempted like as we are; He offered prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears. He learned obedience even to the death. Through the rent veil of His flesh (1Peter 2:24), His will, His life, was yielded up to God in death, He entered into the Holiest. Being made in likeness of men, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death. Wherefore also God Highly exalted Him. Through the rent veil He rose to the Throne of God. And this is the Way He dedicated for us. The very path in which, as our Substitute, He accomplished Redemption, is the path which He Opened for us to walk in, the path of Obedience unto death. "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps." Christ our High Priest is as literally and fully Leader and Forerunner as He is Substitute and Redeemer.

His Way is our way. As little as He could open and enter the Holiest for us, except in His path of suffering and obedience and self-sacrifice, as little can we enter in unless we walk in the same path. Jesus said as much of His disciples as of Himself: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abides alone (John 12: 24). He that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal (John 12: 25). Paul's law of life is the Law of Life for everyone who can receive unto belief. Bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the Life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body ( 2 Corinthians 4: 10). The way into the Holiest is the Way of the rent veil, the Way of Sacrifice and of death. There is NO other Way for our putting away sin from us but the Way of Jesus; whoever accepts and receives His finished work accepts and receives what constitutes its Spirit and its Authority and power; it is for every man as for the Master--- to put away sin by the Sacrifice of self. Christ's death was something entirely and essentially New, and so also His resurrection to Life; a Life out of death, such as never had been known before. This New death and New Life constitute the New and Living Way, the New Way of Living in which we draw near to God.


Even as when Christ spoke of taking His flesh as daily food, so here where the Holy Spirit speaks of taking the rent veil of His flesh as our daily life, many say: This is a hard saying; who can bear it? Who then can be saved? To those who become receptive and are the Willing and Obedient and believe, all things are possible, because it is a New and Living Way. A New Way. The word means ever fresh, a way that never decays or waxes old (8: 13) but always retains its first perfection and freshness. A Living Way. A way always needs a living man to move upon it; it does not impart either life or strength (the old way of Aaron's priesthood or that of mans own self efforts or works). This way, the Way of Obedience and Suffering of self-sacrifice and death, however hard it appears, and to nature utterly impossible, is the only Life imparting and Living Way. It not only opens a track, but supplies the strength to carry the traveler along and through. It acts in the Authority and power of the Endless Life, in which Christ was made a High Priest. We saw how the Holy Spirit watches over the Way into the Holiest, and how He, as the Eternal Spirit, enabled Christ, in opening the way, to offer Himself without spot to God; it is He whose mighty energy pervades this Way, and inspires it with Life Divine. As we are made partakers of His Life, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, takes possession of us, and in His strength we follow in the footsteps of Christ Jesus. The Way into the Holiest is the Living Way of perfect conformity to Jesus, wrought in us by His Eternal Spirit.

The New and Living Way through the rent veil into the Holiest. We now know what it is: it is the way of death. Yes, the way of death is the Way of Life. The only way to be set free from our fallen nature, with the curse and power of sin resting on it and in it, is to die to it. Jesus denied Himself, would do nothing to please that nature He had taken, sinless though it was in Him. He denied it; He died to it. This was to Him the path of Life (the secret hid in God from before creation). And this is to us the Living Way. As we Know Him in the power of His resurrection, He leads us into the conformity to His death. He does it in the power of the Holy Spirit. So His death and His life, the New death and the New Life of deliverance from sin, and intimacy with God, which He inaugurated, work in us, and we are borne along as He was to where He is. Having therefore Boldness, to enter in by the New and Living Way, let us draw near.

"Let us draw near with a true heart." A heart that truly desires to forsake everything, to dwell in "The Holiest"; forsaking everything, to possess God. A heart that truly abandons everything in order to yield itself to the Authority and power of the Blood. A heart that truly chooses "the New and Living Way" in order to go through the veil with Christ, by the rending of the flesh. A heart that truly and entirely gives itself to the indwelling and Lordship of Jesus. But who has a true heart? The New heart that God has given is a true heart. Recognize that. By the power of the Spirit of God, who dwells in that New heart, place yourself, by an exercise of your will, on the side of God against the sin that is still in your flesh, that does so easily beset us. Say to the Lord Jesus, the High Priest, that you submit, and cast down before Him every sin, and all of your self life, forsaking all to follow Him. And as regards the hidden depths of sin in your flesh, of which you are not yet conscious, and the malice of your heart-for them also provision is made. "Search me, O God, and know my heart." Subject yourself continually to the heart-searching Light of the Spirit. He will uncover what is hidden from you. He who does this has a true heart to enter into "The Holiest."

1. When first a receiver become a believer avails himself of the boldness He has in the Blood, and enters into the Holiest, he does not understand all that is meant by the New and Living Way. It is enough if his heart is right, and he is ready to deny himself and take up his cross. In due time it will be revealed what the full fellowship is with His Lord in the Way He opened up, of obedience unto death of all self-will.
2. The New and Living Way is not only the way for once entering in, but the way for a daily walk, entering ever deeper into God's Love and perfect Will.
3. The Way to Life is the Way of death. This fallen life, this self, is so sinful and so strong, there is no way of deliverance but by death. But, praise God! The way of death is the Way to His Life; in the power of Christ's resurrection and indwelling "IF" we dare to walk in it.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXII

BOLDNESS IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS.
Hebrews  10: 19-22  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter Into the Holy Place,(Holiest of ALL) by the Blood of Jesus;..... Let us draw near.

Continuing with the SECOND HALF PRACTICAL
Chapters  10: 19 - 13: 24

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY


Enter into the Holiest. This word brought us the message of the Epistle. Christ has in very deed Opened the Holiest of All for us to enter in and to dwell there. The Father would have His children with Him in His Holy Home of Love and intimacy, abiding continually all the time. This Epistle seeks to gather all in. Having boldness to enter, let us draw near!

It may be that some, as in the study of the Epistle the wondrous mystery of the Way into the Holiest now Opened was revealed to them, have entered in; they have said, in faith: Lord, my God; I come. Henceforth I would live in Your secret place, in the Holiest of All. And yet they fear. They are not sure whether the great High Priest has indeed taken them in. They know not for certain whether they will be faithful, always abiding within the veil. They have not yet grasped what it means--- having boldness to enter in.

( Paul as in all his other Epistles here is revealing the secrets or mysteries of God as each religion of the earth has secrets that only its priests know and understand as a requirement of priesthood. Our faith is based on our simple trust and this trusting requires unlike the others that all its members know and understand the mysteries or secret of their trusting in God faithfulness. By this means God's people are set apart from the other religions of the world as they retain their secrets from their membership.Under a veil or cloak of secrecy of darkness. God alone can impart within His faith as it is part of His very nature it is when we receive His faith that it is said that we have faith in His trustworthiness to do all that He has promised to us through Christ Jesus.emphasis added)

And there may be others, who have with longing, wistful hearts, heard the call to enter in, and yet have not the courage to do so. The thought that a sinful worm can every day and all the day dwell in the Holiest of All is altogether too high and lofty a thought for many. The consciousness of feebleness and failure is so strong, the sense of personal unfaithfulness so keen, the experience of the power of the world and circumstances, of the weakness of the flesh and its efforts, so fresh, that for them there is no hope of such a Life. Others may rejoice in it, they must even be content without it. And yet the heart is not content.

To both such, those who have entered but still are full of fears, and those who in fear do not enter, the Holy Spirit speaks--- To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts; Having Boldness in the Blood of Jesus to enter into the Holiest, let us draw near. The boldness with which we are to enter is not, first of all, a conscious feeling of confidence; it is the objective God-given right and liberty of entrance of which the Blood assures us. The measure of our boldness is the worth God attaches to the Blood of Jesus. As our heart reposes its confidence on that in simple trust, the feeling of confidence and joy on our part will come too, and our entrance will be amid songs of praise and gladness.

Boldness in the Blood of Jesus. Everything depends upon our apprehension of what this means. If the Blood be to us what it is to God, the Boldness which God means it to give us, will fill our hearts. As we saw in chapter 9, what the Blood has effected in rending the veil and cleansing the Heavens, and giving Jesus, the Son of Man, access to God, will be the measure of what it will effect within us too, making our heart God's Sanctuary, and fitting us for perfect fellowship (again we'll stress this words meaning: Frequency of intercourse, Communion; intimate familiarity emphasis added) with the Holy One. The more we honor the Blood in its infinite intrinsic worth, the more will it prove its mighty energy and efficacy, Opening Heaven to us and in us, giving us, in Divine power, the real Living (true Life imparting power of God's faithfulness to see it happen within us) experience of what the entrance into the Holiest is.

The Blood of Jesus. The Life is the Blood. As the value of this Life, so the value of the Blood. In Christ there was the Life of God; infinite as God is the worth and the power of that Blood. In Christ there was the Life of man in its perfection; in His humility, and obedience to the Father, and self-sacrifice, that which made Him unspeakably well-pleasing to the Father. That Blood of Jesus, God and man, poured out in a death, that was a perfect fulfillment of God's Will, and a perfect victory over all the temptations of sin and self, effected an Everlasting atonement for sin, and put it Forever out of the Way, Destroying death (the separation from God's presence ) and him that had the power of it. Therefore it was, that in the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant Jesus was raised from the dead; that in His own Blood, as our Head and Surety, He entered Heaven; and that that Blood is now forever in Heaven, in the same place of honor as God the Judge of all, and Jesus the Mediator ( 12: 24). It is this Blood, now in Heaven before God for us, that is our Boldness to enter in, even into the very Holiest of All. (The Everlasting Covenant is the New Covenant of God's Grace which writes God's Law in our hearts and on our minds when the Blood is applied by the Holy Spirit there to remain forever. emphasis added)

Beloved Christian! The Blood of Jesus! The Blood of the Lamb! Oh! Think what it means. God gave it for your Redemption. God accepted it when His Son entered Heaven and presented it on your behalf. God has it Forever in His sight as the fruit, the infinitely well-pleasing proof, of His Son's obedience unto death. God points you to it and asks you to receive it and then believe in the Divine Satisfaction it gives to Him, in its omnipotent energy, in its Everlasting Sufficiency. Oh, will you not this day receive that that Blood gives you, sinful and feeble as you were, liberty, confidence, boldness to draw near, to enter the very Holiest? Yes, believe it, Receive it as yours that the Blood and the Blood alone, brings you into the very presence, into the Living and abiding intimacy of the Everlasting God. And let your response to God's message concerning the Blood, and the Boldness it gives you be nothing less than this, that this very moment you go with the utmost confidence, and take your place in the most intimate fellowship with God. And if your heart condemn you, if coldness or unbelief appear to make a real entrance impossible, rest not till you become receptive and believe and prove to the full the power of the Blood indeed to bring you near. Having Boldness by the Blood of Jesus,--- what then--- let us draw near!

1. Which Is now greater in your sight: your sin or the Blood of Jesus? There can be but one answer. Then draw near, and enter in, Into the Holiest of All. As your sin has hitherto kept you back, let the Blood now bring you near. And the Blood will give you the boldness and the power to abide.
2. "One drop of that Blood, coming out of the Holiest on the soul, perfects the conscience, makes that there is no more consciousness of sin, and enables us to Live in the intimacy of God and His Son. Such a soul, sprinkled with the Blood, is able to enjoy the Heavenly Treasures, and to accomplish the Heavenly service of the Living God in the power of His Faith as it then becomes to us our faith."
3. And that Blood, such is its Heavenly cleansing power, can keep the soul clean. " If we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light," if we Live in the Holiest, in the Light of His countenance, " we have intimacy one with another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin," so that no sin touches us, whereby we lose the intimacy with the Father.
4. Understand how the Father's heart longs that His children draw near to Him boldly. He gave the Blood of His Son to secure it. Let us honor God, and honor the Blood, by entering the Holiest with great Boldness.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXXI

Now in the SECOND HALF-PRACTICAL
Hebrews 10: 19 - 13: 25
Of a Life in the Power of the Great Salvation

The Call to a Life in Harmony with the Glory of God's Revelation of Himself in the Son.
 
Beginning with the NINTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 19-25
Of Life in the Holiest of All.

It may help us the better to master the rich contents of this central passage, containing a summary of the whole Epistle, if we here give the chief thoughts it contains.

I. The four great Blessings of the new worship:
1. The Holiest Opened up.
2. Boldness in the Blood.
3. A New and Living Way.
4. The Great High Priest.

II. The four chief Marks of the true worshiper:
1. A True Heart.
2. Fulness of Faith.
3. A Heart sprinkled from an Evil Conscience.
4. The Body washed with Clean Water.

III. The four great Duties to which the Opened Sanctuary calls:
1. Let us draw nigh (in the fulness of faith).
2. Let us hold fast the profession of our hope.
3. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love.
4. Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

THE ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST.
Hebrews 10: 19, 22   Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holy Place (Holiest);..... Let us draw near.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Enter into the Holiest. With these words the second half of the Epistle begins. Hitherto the teaching has been mainly doctrinal ( in the spiritual side unlike the old which was mainly an external worldly or fleshly doctrine). The glory of Christ's person and Priesthood, of the Heavenly Sanctuary which He, through His own Blood, has Opened and Cleansed (by the removal of the cloud of witness against by mans sin, as witness against man's unrighteousness and the Hebrews unfaithfulness) and taken possession of for us, of the Way of Obedience and Self-sacrifice which led Him even to the Throne, has been unfolded. Now comes the practical part, and our duty to appropriate the Great Salvation that has been provided is summed up in the one thought: Having Boldness to enter into the Holiest; let us draw near. Access to God's presence in intimacy and fellowship, the right and the power to make that our abiding dwelling-place, to Live our life there, has been provided in Christ: let us draw near, here let us so abide.

Enter into the Holiest. It is a call to the Hebrews to come out of that life of unbelief and sloth, that leads to a departing from the Living God, and to enter into the promised land, the Rest of God, a New Life in His Intimacy and Grace. It is a call to all lukewarm, half-hearted Christians, no longer to remain in the outer court of the tabernacle, content with the hope that their sins are pardoned. Nor even to be satisfied with having entered the Holy Place, and there doing the service of the tabernacle, while the veil still hinders the full fellowship with the Living God and His love. It calls to enter in through the rent veil, into the place into which the Blood has been brought, and where the High Priest Lives, there to live and walk and work always in the presence of the Father, as a Christ-Like One a Disciple and priest. It is a call to all doubting, and unbelieving to become a hungry thirsting believer, who long for a Better Life than they have yet known, to cast aside their doubts and unbelief, and to receive by trusting that this is what Christ has indeed done and brought within the reach of each one of us: He has Opened the Way into the Holiest! This is the Salvation which He has accomplished, and which He Lives to apply in each of us, so that we shall indeed dwell in the full Light of God's countenance.

Enter into the Holiest. This is, in one short word, the fruit of Christ's work, the chief lesson of the Epistle, the one great need of our Christian life, the Complete and Perfect Salvation God in Christ, the Spirit of Christ gives us to enjoy.


Enter into the Holiest, What Holiest? To the reader who has gone with us through the Epistle thus far, it is hardly needful to say, No other than that very same into which Christ, when He had rent the veil in His death, entered through His own Blood, to appear before the face of God for us. That Holiest of All is the Heavenly place. But not Heaven, as it is ordinarily understood, as a locality, distinct and separate from this earth. The Heaven of God is not limited in space or time in the same way as a place on earth. There is a Heaven above us, the place of God's special manifestation. But there is also a spiritual heaven, as omnipresent as God Himself. Where God is, is Heaven; the Heaven of His presence includes this earth too, The Holiest into which Christ entered, and into which He Opened the Way for us, is the, to nature, inaccessible Light of God's Holy presence and Love, full union of intercourse and communion with Him. Into that Holiest the soul can enter by the trusting that makes us one with Christ. The Holy Spirit, who first signified that the Way of the Holiest was not yet open; through whom Jesus shed the Blood that Opened the Way; who, on the day of Pentecost, witnessed in the heart of the disciples, that it was now indeed Open; waits to testify to us what it means to enter in and to bring us in. He lifts the soul up into the Holiest; He brings the Holiest into the redeemed soul and awakens mans spirit to receive the Word of Truth and Grace as revealed in Jesus (John 1: 1-4, 9, 14, 17).

Enter into the Holiest. Oh, the glory of this message. For fifteen centuries the Hebrews had a sanctuary with a Holiest of All into which, under pain of death, no one might enter. Its one witness was: man cannot dwell in God's presence, cannot abide in His fellowship. And now, how changed is it all! As then the warning sounded: Enter not! So Now the call goes forth: Enter in!  The veil is rent; the Holiest is Open; God waits to welcome you to His bosom. Henceforth you are to live with Him. This is the message of the Epistle: Child! your Father longs for you to enter, to dwell, and to go out no more forever.

Oh! The Blessedness of a Life in the Holiest! Here the Father's face is seen and His Grace, Love and faithfulness is tasted. Here His Holiness is revealed and the soul made partaker of it all. Here the sacrifice of Love and worship and adoration, the incense of prayer and supplication, is offered in power. Here the releasing of the Spirit is Known as an ever-streaming, overflowing river, from under the Throne of God and the Lamb. Here the soul, in God's presence, grows into more complete Oneness with Christ, and more entire conformity to His likeness. Here, in union (conjoined to) with Christ, in His unceasing intercession, we are emboldened to take our place as intercessors, who can have power with God and prevail. Here the soul mounts up as on eagle's wings, the strength is renewed, and the Blessing and the power and the Love are imparted with which God's priests can go out to Bless a dying world. Here each day we may experience the fresh anointing, in virtue of which we can go out to be the bearers, and witnesses, and channels of God's Salvation to men, the Living instruments through whom our Blessed Priest- King works out His full and final triumph.

O Jesus! Our great High Priest, let this be our life!

1. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple." Here the prayer is fulfilled.
2. "Did not Jesus say, I am the door of the sheepfold? What to us is the sheepfold, dear children? It is the Heart of the Father, whereunto Christ is the gate that is called Beautiful and the promised Canaan lane of abundance. Children, how sweetly and how gladly has He Opened that door into the Father's heart, into the treasure-chamber of God!  And there within He unfolds to us the hidden riches, the nearness and the sweetness of companionship with Himself."--- quoted from TAULER.
3. We have read of a man's father or friends purchasing and furnishing a house for a birthday or a wedding gift. They bring him there, and, handing the keys, say to him: This is Now your House. " Child of God! the Father Opens to you the Holiest of All, and says: "Let this now be your home." What shall our answer be?

"The Holiest of All" part LXXX

THE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Hebrews 10: 15-18  And the Holy Ghost also bears witness to us: for after He has said, "This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord; I will put my Laws on their heart, and upon their mind also will I write them; then said He, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

Continuing with the last portion of the EIGHTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 1-18.
The New Way into the Holiest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY


The writer has concluded his argument. He has made clear that the Sacrifice of Christ, as the offering up of His body to the Will of God, has Opened for us the Way into the Holiest. Through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ we have been Sanctified. When He had offered One Sacrifice Forever, He sat down on the right hand of God. By One Offering He has Perfected forever them that are Sanctified. His Sacrifice is over, and has Everlasting power; in virtue of it He sits on the Throne, expecting His final triumph; those He has Sanctified are Perfected Forever. The Sacrifice is of infinite worth; it has Opened the entrance to a State of Perfection and Everlasting Holiness and Glory; nothing is now needed but our receptivity and obedience to rejoice and wait and see the King on the Throne applying and revealing the Authority and power of His finished work.

The writer appeals to the words of the institution of the New Covenant (8: 6-13), in support of what he has said. He does so with the words, And the Holy Ghost also bears witness to US. The words of Jeremiah (31: 33-34 and are repeated in Romans 11:27 where the writer is dealing with the Hebrews future) are to him the words of the Holy Spirit. He believes in a direct inspiration. It is God who knows the end from the beginning, who has planned all from the least to the greatest in the preparation of Redemption, who had revealed to Jeremiah the New Covenant that would be made centuries later. It was the same Holy Spirit who had inspired the first record of Melchizedek (found in Genesis 14 and 15), and the Psalm (110: 4) with the Oath of God, who had ordered the tabernacle and the veil to signify that the way into the Holiest was not yet open, and had watched over the first covenant, and its dedication not without blood, through whom the promise of the New Covenant was spoken and recorded. Our writer appeals to Him and His witness.
 
He does so as one who himself has the teaching of that Spirit. Anyone might read the words of the covenant, and of the death of Jesus; no one could connect and expound them in their Divine Harmony and their Everlasting Significance but one taught by the same Spirit. These men preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent from Heaven; the Spirit, from the King sat down upon the Throne, revealed in and to them the every Will of God, and the Eternal power of the One Sacrifice, to Open the Way into the Holiest.

And what is now the witness of the Holy Ghost in the New Covenant? The witness to the two Blessings of the Covenant in their Divine inseparable unity. I will put My Laws in their heart, and their sins will I remember no more. The complete remission of sins, the removal of sin out of God's sight and remembrance forever, was promised. Now, our writer argues, where remission of these are, there is no more offering for sin. The one offering has Perfected Forever them that are Sanctified. The death of Christ has Opened up and introduced us into a relationship of intimacy with God, a State of Life before Him, in which sin has been finally put away, and God Receives us into His fellowship (intimate familiarity or intercourse) as those who have been Sanctified in Christ. He Receives us into the Holiest of All through the Blood. The Blood that sprinkles the mercy-seat also Sprinkles and Cleanses our Conscience, bringing the full Remission, the full Deliverance from sin and its power, into our inmost being; and, fitting our heart to Receive that Spirit of Heaven which witnesses with the Blood, as a Spirit of Life, puts the Law within us, as the Law of our Life. (It might be well here to note that Paul in his epistles uses by the Holy Spirit the metaphor of a marriage and the marriage bed to express this revelation. The worldly miss use and miss quote and of course miss understand the hidden meaning of this metaphor and claim the Body of Christ to be His bride when this is not the case at all. His mystical Body can not be a bride, the true bride is still hidden from their eyes and understanding because they continue in their dependency of the external priesthood. emphasis added)

(It is just here that we need to understand this one word "Remission" the definition we'll use is taken from Webster's 1828 Dictionary: Release; discharge or relinquishment of a claim or right; as the remission of a tax or duty. Forgiveness; pardon; that is, the giving up of the punishment due to a crime; as the remission of sins. Mat 26. Heb 9. Not part of the original text. Emphasis added)

And so we enter into the finished work of Christ, and the Rest of God in it; enter the Perfection with which He Himself was Perfected Forevermore, and has Perfected us Forever; into that Holiest of All, into which God fulfills the promise, I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people (Jeremiah 31: 1, 33, 38). And the offering of the body of Christ once for all, the One Sacrifice Forever, becomes, in ever-growing Blessedness, the one thought, the one trust, the one joy, the one Life of the receiver becomes a true believer. His Salvation and Redemption are Finished and Eternal Realities, His Perfection and Sanctification too. Our one need is to believe and abide in and receive what our Priest-King on the Throne imparts through His Spirit: a full entrance into the no more offering for sin, with all that flows from Him, in the person and Throne and work of our Priest forever: this is the entrance into the Holiest.

And the Holy Ghost also bears Witness to us. It is easy to understand the Truth of the total forgiveness of sin as one of the elementary foundational Truths, of which we read in chapter 6:1. But if we seek to press on to Perfection, and to Know what the Fulness of Salvation is into which He leads, we may count upon the Holy Spirit to reveal it, to witness to it, in our inner life. He reveals it not to the mind, or as the reward of earthly study, but to the poor in spirit and them that are of a lowly heart. It is in the heart God sends forth the Spirit of His Son; the heart that longs for and chooses and loves and waits for this Life of perfect intimacy and continued fellowship with God more than its chief joy, shall have it witnessed by God's Spirit that the no more offering for sin is indeed the Opening up of the Holiest of All. The Holy Ghost who comes from Heaven, bears Witness of what is in Heaven. We can know nothing really of what takes place in Heaven but by the Holy Ghost in our heart. Dwelling in us He gives in our inmost life the full witness to all the efficacy of Christ's atonement and His enthronement in the presence of God.


1. The one central Truth to which the Holy Spirit testifies is this: that the old way of living and serving God is now completely and forever come to an end. Death and the devil are brought to nought; the veil is rent; sin is put away; the old covenant is disannulled, vanished away, taken away. A New System, a New Way, a New and Eternal Life has been Opened up in the power of Christ Jesus. Oh! to have our eyes and hearts opened to see and hear what is not merely a thought, a Truth for the mind, but a spiritual state of existence which the Holy Ghost can bring us into.
2. The Holy Ghost bears Witness. For this He came on the day of Pentecost out of the Heavenly Sanctuary and from our exalted Priest-King, to bring the Heavenly Life, the Kingdom of Heaven to the disciples, and make it real to them, as a thing found and felt in their hearts. Each one of us needs and may claim the Holy Spirit in the same Pentecostal power, and the New, the Eternal, the Heavenly Life will fill us too.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXIX

THE SANCTIFIED, PERFECTED FOREVER.
Hebrews 10: 14   For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are Sanctified.

Continuing with the EIGHTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 1-18
The New Way into the Holiest

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

This verse is in reality the conclusion of the doctrinal part of the Epistle. The four following verses are simply the citation of the words of the New Covenant to confirm its teaching with the witness of the Holy Spirit. The writer having, in the context, expounded the nature of Christ's Sacrifice, as showing what the Way into the Holiest is, sums up his proof of its worth and efficacy in the words: By one offering He has perfected forever them that are Sanctified. We find here five of the most important words that occur in the Epistle.

Sanctified. That looks back to the great purpose of Christ's coming, as we had it in chapter 2. Sanctified is cleansed from sin, taken out of the sphere and power of the world and sin, and brought to live in the sphere of Authority and power of God's Holiness in the Holiest of All. It looks back, too, to verse 10: In which will we are Sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ.

He has Perfected them that are Sanctified. It not only says that He has finished and completed for them all they need. The word points back to what was said of His own being made perfect (Matthew 3: 13-17). All He became was for us. In His one sacrifice He was not only perfected Himself, but He perfected us; He took us into the fellowship of His own perfectness, implanted His own perfect Life in us, and gave His perfected human nature to us what we were to put on, and to live in.


Forever. He has perfected us once for all and forever. His perfection is ours; our whole life is prepared for us, to be received out of His hand.

By sacrifice. The death, the Blood, the Sacrifice of Christ, is the power by which we have been alike Sanctified and Perfected. It is the Way which He Opened up, in which He leads us with Himself into what He is and does as the One who is perfected forevermore, and the Holiest of All.

By one sacrifice. One because there is none other needed, either by others or Himself; one Divine, and therefore sufficient and forever.

The chief thought of the passage is: He has forever Perfected them that are being Sanctified. The words in verse 10, In which Will (God's Will, verse 9) we have been Sanctified, speaks of our Sanctification as an accomplished fact: we are saints, holy in Christ, in virtue of our real (reconjoined ) union with Him, and His Holy Life planted in the center of our being. Here we are spoken of as being Sanctified. There is a process by which our New Life in Christ has to Master and to Perfect Holiness through our whole outer being. But the progressive sanctification has its rest and its assurance in the ONCE and FOREVER of Christ's work. He has Perfected forever them that are being Sanctified. (This is known as the working out of our Salvation....as we await His receiving of His mystical Body into the Heavens as it does not see the wrath that is to come on all rebelliousness, lawlessness, and wickedness of man. In other words those who choose not to believe or accept His revelation. emphasis added)

In chapters, 9: 9 and 10: 1 we read that the sacrifices could never, as touching the conscience, make the worshiper perfect, never make perfect them that draw near, so that they have no more conscience of sins. Our conscience is that which defines what our consciousness of ourselves before God should be: Christ makes the worshiper Perfect, as touching the conscience, so that there is no more consciousness of sins. He has perfected forever them that are Sanctified. At the close of the chapter on Christ's Priesthood we read of Himself ( 7: 28): He is a High Priest, a Son, Perfected forevermore. Here at the close of the unfolding of His work, it is said of His saints: He has Perfected them forever. The Perfection in both cases is one and the same. As the Son of Man, as the Second Adam, who lives in all who are His, He Perfected Himself for them, and them in Himself. His Perfection and theirs are one.

And wherein His perfection consists we know too. (See in 2: 10 and 5: 9.) A Leader in the Way of Glory, God made Him Perfect through suffering; Perfected in Him that humility and meekness and patience which mark Him as the Lamb, which are what God asks of man, and are man's only fitness for dwelling with God. Having offered up prayer, and having been heard for His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by what He suffered, and was made Perfect. His godly fear, His waiting on God in the absolute surrender of His Will, His submitting to learn obedience, His spirit of self-sacrifice, even unto death,--- it was by this that as man He was Perfected, it was in this He Perfects human nature, and Perfects His people too. In His death He accomplished a threefold work. He Perfected Himself, His own human nature and character. He Perfected our Redemption, perfectly putting away sin from the place it had in Heaven   ( 9: 23; Psalm 97: 2; Isaiah 44: 22; Lamentations 3: 44 ), and in our hearts (Genesis 3: 4-12, 6: 5, 8: 21). He Perfects us, taking us up into His own Perfection, and making us partakers of that perfect human nature, which in suffering and obedience, in the body prepared for Him (Genesis 3: 15 ), and the Will of God that was accomplished in it, He had wrought out for us. Christ Himself is our Perfection; in Him it is complete; abiding in Him continually is Perfection.

Let us press on to perfection, was the call with which we were led into the higher-life teaching of the Epistle. Here is our goal. Christ, by one offering, has Perfected us Forever. We know Him as the Priest forever, the Minister of the New Sanctuary, and the Mediator of the New Covenant, who by His Blood entered into the Holiest; there He Lives forever, in the Authority and  power of an Endless Life, to impart to us and maintain within us His Perfect Life. It is the walk in this path of Perfection, which as our Leader He Opened up in doing the Will of God, which is the New and Living Way into the Holiest.

1. The work of Christ Is a perfect and perfected work. Everything is finished and complete forever. And we have just by faith to behold and enter In, and seek and rejoice, and receive out of His fulness Grace for Grace. Let every difficulty you feel in understanding or claiming the different Blessings set before you, or in connecting with them, find its solution in the one thought--- Christ has perfected us forever; trust Him, cling to Him, He will do all, as He fills us all in All.
2. One sacrifice forever. We perfected forever. And HE who did it all, HE forever is seated on the Throne. Our Blessed Priest-King, He Lives to make it all ours. In the Authority and power of an Endless Life, in which He offered Himself to God, in which He entered the Holiest, He now Lives to give and be in our hearts all He has accomplished. What more can we need ? Wherefore, Holy brethren! Partakers of a Heavenly calling, consider Jesus.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXVIII

ONCE AND FOREVER.
Hebrews 10: 11-14  And every priest indeed stood day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, those which could never take away sins: But He, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet. For by one offering He had perfected forever them that are sanctified.

Continuing with the  EIGHTH SECTION
Hebrews  10: 1-18.
The New Way into the Holiest.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

In the last verses of chapter 8, where the Eternal Priesthood of Jesus had been set forth, He was spoken of as one who need not daily to offer, for this He did Once for all, when He offered up Himself--- a Son, perfected Forevermore. And so in chapter 9, with its teaching of the efficacy of His Blood, we had the thought repeated, Christ entered in Once for all. Not that He should offer Himself often, else must He have often suffered; now once had He been manifested; Christ once offered shall appear a second time. The contrast is put as strongly as possible between the sacrifices ever repeated, and the offering of Christ Once for all. So, too, in the beginning of our chapter the impotence of the sacrifices year by year continually is proved from the fact, that the conscience once cleansed would need no new sacrifice; as a fact, they only renewed the remembrance of sins. And now, in the concluding verses of the argument, the thought is summed up and pressed home anew. The priest stood day by day offering oftentimes; Christ offered one sacrifice forever. By one offering He had perfected forever them that are sanctified. The Once of Christ's work is the secret of its being forever: the more clear the acceptance of that Divine Once for all, the more sure the experience of that Divine forever, the continually abiding working of the Authority and power of the Endless Life.

Once and Forever: see how the two go together in the work of Christ in its two principal manifestations. In His death, His Sacrifice, His Blood-shedding, it is Once for all. The propitiation for sin, the bearing and the putting away of it, was so complete that of His Suffering again, or offering Himself again, there never can be any thought. God now remembers the sin no more forever. He has offered one Sacrifice forever; He has Perfected us forever. No less is it so in His resurrection and ascension into Heaven. He entered Once for all through His Blood into the Holiest. When He had offered one Sacrifice forever, He sat down on the right hand of God. The once for all of His death is the secret of the forever of the power of His Sacrifice. The once for all of His entering through the Blood, the power of the forever of His sitting on the Throne.

What is true of Christ is true of His people (the mystery Israel of God and the apple of His eye, those who live by trusting in His Faithfulness emphasis added). The Law of His Life is the Law of theirs. Of the Once for all and the Forever of His work on earth and in Heaven, their lives and spiritual experience will feel the power and bear the mark. See it in conversion. How many have struggled for years in doubt and fear, simply because they did not apprehend the once for all of Christ's atonement. They could not understand how it was possible for a sinner once for all to receive and then believe and be saved. No sooner was it made plain to them that the punishment was borne, that the debt was paid, once for all, all becomes clear and they counted it their duty and joy at once to receive and accept what was so finished and so sure. And they could see, too, how the once was forever--- the Authority and power of the Endless Life bearing them on into the forever of God's presence.

And no otherwise is it with the believers entering within the veil, into a life of unclouded and unbroken intimacy with its accompanying fellowship. We saw in Christ's work the two manifestations of the once and the forever. It was not only in the death and Blood-shedding, but in the entering into the Holiest and the Blood-sprinkling in Heaven. To many it appears at variance with all the laws of growth and development, that there should be a once for all of an entrance within the veil. And yet there are witnesses not a few who can testify that when the once of Christ's entering in was revealed in its infinite power as theirs, all doubts vanished, and not only Boldness but the Authority and power of access was given, which brought them into an experience of the Eternal and unchanging power of the Heavenly Priesthood, and of the Kingdom within as set up and kept by the Holy Spirit, which they never had thought of. And that once was followed by the forever of the continually abiding, which the Priesthood of Jesus was and is meant to secure.

But He, when He had offered one Sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet. We have said before, the Epistle would fill us with the thought of a Heavenly Christ; nothing less than the Knowledge of that can enable us to live as the partakers of a Heavenly calling. Let us fix our eyes here again upon Christ as Lord and Priest- King. The once of Sacrifice and death issues in the forever of the nearness and the Authority with its power of God. The once of our entrance into the death of Christ and His life, brings us back to the intimacy and fellowship with Christ in the Love the Authority and power of the Father in Heaven. His forever is one of Victory, and of the Blessed expectation of its full manifestation in the subjugation of every enemy. Our life within the veil may be one too of possession and expectation combined; the enjoyment of the overcoming life, with the going on from strength to strength in the Victory over every foe. Between these two pillars--- on the one hand, this ONCE FOR ALL, on the other this FOREVER, the Way into the Holiest passes and brings us to the Throne of God and of the Lamb.


1. The time when the long and patient preparation was perfected in this once for all was in God's hands. Christ waited on the Father. Even so, our full participation in it is not something we can count a thing to be grasped; in the faith of it we bide God's time, seeking each day to live in a redemption that is perfected and eternal. Through faith and longsuffering we inherit the promises.
2. Once for all. That covers my past completely--- my past not only of guilt and shame, but of sin with all its consequences. Forever. That covers my future, with all its possible needs. Between these two, in the present moment, the Now of daily life, I am saved with an everlasting Salvation; the To-day--- of the Eternal Spirit, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day--- mates the Once and the forever a daily present reality.

"The Holiest of All" part LXXVII

LO, I AM COME TO DO THY WILL.
Hebrews 10: 8-10  Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You would not, neither had pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the Levitical Law), Then has He said, Lo, I am come to do Your Will (Genesis 3: 15; Psalm 40: 7). He toke away the first, that He may establish the second. By which Will we have been Sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Continuing with the EIGHTH SECTION
Hebrews 10: 1-18
The New Way into the Holiest

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

On the word, A body did You prepare for Me (Genesis 3:15; Psalm 40:7), as the expression of God's claim, there follows now in the Psalm that other on the surrender to that claim--- Lo, I am come to do Your Will (Psalm 40: 8). In this, the doing of God's Will, we have the destiny of the creature, the Blessedness of Heaven, the inmost secret of Redemption. In this consists the worth of Christ's Sacrifice, and this alone is the reason why His Blood prevails. The path He Opened up to God, the path He walked in and we are required to walk in, to enter the Holiest, is--- I am come to do Your Will. It is only through God's Will alone we enter into God Himself. The central Blessing, Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant of God's Grace, gives us, when He gives us Himself, is a heart in which the Will of God Lives.

We have more than once spoken of the two aspects of Christ's death--- substitution with the atonement it wrought, and fellowship ( in intimacy of being now conjoined) with the conformity it brings ( the infusion of the Father's nature in us). The two are inseparably connected. As long as we look to the substitution simply as an act accomplished outside of us ( as the ministry of the priesthood of Aaron's effect upon both man and the nation of the Hebrews could only do), without seeking to Know its inner nature (the Israel of God as they are the true apple of God's eye the object of all His affection and Love emphasis added) and meaning, the intimacy, the fellowship and conformity of Christ's death will be an impossibility. But as we enter into the real meaning of the death for us and in our stead, to that which constituted its Divine Life and its Authority and power, we shall find that death and the Life out of death becomes ours in Truth, laying hold of us, and bringing us into the True Life-intimacy (being conjoined) with our Blessed Leader and Forerunner; we shall see and experience that what was to Him the Way into the Holiest will be to us the only but the certain, the Living Way thither (the father or more distant side).

Lo, I am come to do Your Will, God. " He humbled Him self, and became obedient--- therefore God has highly exalted Him." Because God is the all-perfect fountain of Life and goodness and Blessing, there can be no Life or goodness or Blessing but in His Will. The whole evil and ruin of sin is that man turned from God's Will to do his own thing. The redemption of Christ had no reason, no object, and no possibility of success, except in restoring man to do God's Will. It was for this Jesus died. He gave up His own will; He gave His life, rather than do His own will. It was this that gave value to His bearing our sins, with their curse and consequences, to His tasting death for every man. It was this that gave such infinite worth to His Blood. It was this that made Him a real propitiation for the sins of the world. And it is this we are made partakers of--- first, as an obedience for the sake of which we are made Righteous; but, further also, in the intimacy and fellowship of the very spirit of the death and the life in which He entered the presence of God. I come to do Your Will, is the only Way into the Holiest, for Him and for us. This is to be our acceptance of living Words for ourselves as well, by our response to His calling out, Yes Lord!

By which Will we have been Sanctified. By which Will, as willed by God, as done and fulfilled by Christ in His one offering, as accepted by us in trusting Him who is the Faithful One. When we accept Christ, the Will of God wrought out in Christ on our behalf, is accepted by us too; it becomes the Authority and the power that rules in our life by the Holy Spirit. In which Will, not as a dead past transaction, or as the mere performance of a certain work ( of religious Laws, customs, ceremonies and rituals with there base on the externality of man's opinion and attitudes ) to be done, but as a Living Eternal Reality restoring man into God's Will in Living New Life power--- this it is in which we have the New and Living Way to God.

In which Will we have been Sanctified. Sanctification in this Epistle is a word of larger meaning than what is meant by that title in ordinary Church doctrine. It includes all that is implied in bringing us into Living fellowship or intimacy with God. He is the Holy One. His Life is His Holiness. The Inner Sanctuary to which we enter in, is the Holiness of Holinesses. In chapter 2 we read: Both He that Sanctifies, and they who are Sanctified are all of one. Our Sanctification is rooted in our oneness with Jesus. In the which Will we are Sanctified, delivered from the power of sin and this evil world, brought into intimacy with the Holy One, and fitted by His working in us for entering the Holiest of All.

In the which Will we have been Sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. His offering has such power, because it was the doing of the Will of God, the entering into the Will of God, and through it into the Holiness of God, into the very Holiest of All. And now, as no one but Christ had power of Himself to say, Lo, I am come to do Your Will, so no one can speak thus, or live thus, but because the Divine nature of Christ is Truly born and formed within him, and is become the Life of his life and the Spirit of his spirit. It is thus that His Priesthood manifests His power to bring us near to God.(Psalm 40:8, Jeremiah 31:33; 2Corinthians 3:3; Romans 8:29)

Fellow-Christian! Have you learned to believe into receptivity and to regard yourself as Sanctified in the Will of God as done by Jesus, admitted to the fellowship and intimacy of the Holy One? Is not this possibly the reason that you have not yet entered the Rest of God within the veil, because you have never, in accepting Christ, accepted that which really constitutes Him the Christ? He is the Christ who came to do the Will of God --- this constitutes Him a Savior. Oh, come and receive that this is what He did for you and on your behalf, that you might be able to do it too. The New and Living Way into the Holiest, which Jesus as Leader and Forerunner has Opened up, is the Way of a body prepared for me by God, a body offered to Him, and a life given to do His Will. As I say with Jesus, I am come to do Your Will, I have no other object in life, for this alone I live, I shall with Him abide in God's presence.


1. The only Way to God is through the Will of God. A Truth so simple and self-evident! And yet so deep and spiritual that but few fully apprehend it. Yes, this is the Way, the only Way, the New and Living Way into the Holiest which Jesus Opened up. Let us follow Him, our Leader and Forerunner, walking in His footsteps, in the Will of God.
2. Be not afraid to say Yes, my God, here am I, absolutely given up in everything to do the Will of God; by Your Grace and Holy Spirit, to make every part of my being a doing of the Will of God! So help me, God!
3. For the penitent convert it is enough to Know the beginning of the doctrine of Christ, His obedience has atoned and makes me Righteous. The believer who seeks to grow and become conformed to the Image of the Son, seeks and finds more. The obedience that gave the sacrifice its power in Heaven, exercises that power in his heart. The adorable Substitute becomes the beloved Leader and Brother, the High Priest in the Authority and the power of the Heavenly Life, bringing us near to God by leading us and keeping us in His Will.