"The Holiest of ALL" part CXXIV

JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME FOREVER.
Hebrews 13:7 - 8   Remember them that had the rule over you, which spoke to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, Imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.

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

Now in the TWELFTH and the Last  SECTION
Hebrews 13:1-25
Love and Good Works.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Remember them that had the rule over you, and imitate their faith. The reference may be to teachers who had been with them for a time, and then had gone elsewhere, or to those who had been called away by death. The Hebrews are called to consider what was the issue, the result, of their life had been, the impression they had left, and to imitate their faith, as the power that brought forth their life. Happy the church where the Holy Life and manifest faith of the leaders can be pointed to, even more than their teaching. Happy the church that imitates and emulates the faith of its leaders. ( Especially when those leaders have been approved of God through their knowledge of God and the revelation of His Mysteries or the secret things hidden in scripture. Because these are the things that we're to teach those who have chosen the way into the Holiest of All. emphasis added)

We remember the contrast we had in chapter 7 between the priests who die and are succeeded by others, and the unchanging Priesthood of Jesus. The thought here of the loss of those who had taught them, but had now left them, appears to suggest the words that follow: Christ Jesus is the same yesterday and to-day, yes and forever. There may be loss and change of men who are beloved and of great worth as teachers. Jesus we can never lose,--- in Him there is no change. Christ Jesus is the same yesterday and to day, yes and forever. Through all the changes in the Church around us, through all the changes in the spiritual life within us, He changes not,--- He is ever the same. As our trust turns into His faith and then sees and seizes hold upon this, and rests upon Him as the same forever, it will participate in His unchangeableness; like Him it will know no change, but always be the same.

Throughout this Epistle we have now so often seen just what that the great defect in Christians is that there is no steadfast, certain progress, no holding fast firm to the end,--- they abide not continually. As with the Hebrews in the old covenant--- they continued not in it, they changed with each new high priest according to his direction of will and purpose. And the great difference of the New Covenant, the wonderful perfection of Christ's Redemption and Eternal Priesthood is to be, that now there is to be an end to sloth and backsliding. The New Life is no longer to be fitful and changing and intermittent; its measure and its power, its anchor within the veil is to be the unceasing action of Jesus the High Priest after the Authority and power of an Endless Life, maintaining all for us in Heaven, and within us in the heart, the free, undisturbed, abiding intercourse and fellowship with God. And, as we have more than once said, the only reason why so many young or earnest Christians never attain to this unchanging life is--- They do not Know Christ Jesus. They do not Know Him by simple trusting faith, as this Epistle has set Him before those who are pressing on to perfection--- as their High Priest forever, who ever lives to seek and pray, and therefore every moment will watch over and keep the soul that trusts Him for it. They do not know that what He has done for one day, or one hour, He will do every day and every hour, because yesterday and to-day, yes and forever, He always is the same, He changes NOT. (emphasis added)

All that He was yesterday, He is to-day. All that He was yesterday, in the past of the great Eternity, as the object of the Father's delight, and the bearer and dispenser of the Father's Life and Love, He is to-day. All that He was yesterday, in His life upon earth, with His meek and gentle and sympathizing heart, He is to-day. All that He has been on His Throne, in sending us the Holy Spirit, in working mighty things in and on behalf of His Church, in revealing Himself in joy unspeakable to trusting receptive souls, in meeting and blessing you who read this,--- He is to-day. All that He is, He can be to you to-day. And the only reason that you ever had to look back to a yesterday that was better than to-day, was that you did not Know, or that you failed to trust, this Christ Jesus, who was waiting to make each to-day a New Revelation and a larger experience of the Grace of yesterday.

The same yesterday and to-day, and forever. Yes, all that He has been He will be forever, even from henceforth, from the present moment, and forevermore. And all that He will be forever He is at this moment for you. Think of Him in the fullest revelation of His Glory, in the inconceivable closeness of the union with Him and His Love which shall be yours hereafter, and let trusting faith say, All that He ever will be, He is to-day, in me. In the external revelation there may be change and advance, but in the internal inspiration of Christ Jesus, Himself none. All that He can in eternity be He is in you to-day, right NOW,--- the same to-day and forever. Amid all the changes in the Church and the circumstances around us, or in our heart within us, in this one word is a strength and a joy nothing can take away: Christ Jesus, the same yesterday and to-day, yes and forever.

To-day! Even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day! Yes, To-day, claim and trust this unchanging Christ Jesus as your life. His unchangeableness enters into the faith that feeds upon it, and communicates itself to it; yes, imparts itself into the soul that clings to Him as such. Look not at yourself, your feelings or attainments, but at Him who changes not. In the power of the Holy Ghost, strengthening us with might in the inner man, He, this unchanging Christ, dwells in the heart by faith. Let the faith that worships Him on the Throne, the same forever, rejoice in Him as the indwelling Savior, who abides continually, who changes not. According to your trusting in His faith be it to you. Even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day! (Romans 3:22; Galatians 2:16, 3:22; Revelation 14:12)
 
1. Jesus Christ, forever the same. The power in which He gave His Blood, and rose again and entered Heaven, is the power in which He is working each moment in us. The reason we do not experience it is simply, because of our unbelief. Let us open wide our heart, the hidden depth of our inner life, to worship and receive and experience Him and His fullness.
2. Jesus Christ ever the Same: then my life, too, ever the Same; for Christ is in me and is therefore my life.
3. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit's teaching, let us turn inward in stillness of soul, that He may reveal In us this unchanging Savior as our life. There is no true Knowledge of Christ but through the life of Christ in us.
4. As the Holy Jesus is but one--- the same yesterday, to-day, and forever--- so His quickening, sanctifying Spirit in fallen man is but one, always working in one and the same power.