5. Have we not at times been lifted, by an effort of thought and will, or in the fellowship of the saints, into what seemed the Holiest of all, and speedily felt that the flesh had entered there too? It was because we entered not by the new way of life—the way through death to life—the way of the rent veil of the flesh. O our crucified Lord! teach us what this means; give it us; be it Thyself to us.
6. Let me remember that my access into the Holiest is as a Priest. Let me dwell before the Lord all the day as an Intercessor, offering, unceasingly, pleadings which are acceptable in Christ. May God’s Church be like her of whom it is written, ‘She departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.’ It is for this we have access to the Holiest of all.
[13] So near, so very near to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For in the person of His Son,
I am as near as He.
[14] ‘Christ suffered, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit.’ ‘Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind.’ The flesh and the Spirit are antagonistic: as the flesh dies, the Spirit lives.
[p253]
Twenty-ninth Day.
[Contents]
HOLY IN CHRIST.
‘He chasteneth us for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Follow after sanctification, without which no man shall see the Lord.’—Heb. xii. 10, 14.
There is perhaps no part of God’s word which sheds such Divine light upon suffering as the Epistle to the Hebrews. It does this because it teaches us what suffering was to the Son of God. It perfected His humanity. It so fitted Him for His work as the Compassionate High Priest. It proved that He, who had fulfilled God’s will in suffering obedience, was indeed worthy to be its executor in glory, and to sit down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. ‘It became God, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.’ ‘Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, and having been made perfect, became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him.’ As He said [p254] Himself of His suffering, ‘I sanctify myself,’ so we see here that His sufferings were indeed to Him the pathway to perfection and holiness.