"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."