Prophetically, the very first emotions of man recorded in the Bible (Gen. 3:7-10) are shame and fear. They were both the instant fruit of sin. And sin and shame and fear have been the unchanging problem of the human race ever since. We meet them in the daily papers, in the thronging mission fields, in our own hearts. The Bible, too, is filled with the same inevitable problem. Yet here, suddenly, towards the end of Hebrews, we come upon this tremendous invitation: “Brethren . . . enter into the Holiest” (Heb. 10:19), an invitation to enter fearlessly into the very presence of God.
Early in the pages of God’s record of the race, there comes a doomful sentence (Gen. 3:24), “So He drove out the man.” Yes, the God of love, who had sought in the garden for His creature’s fellowship, drove out the man He had made. It was inevitable, for He was “of purer eyes than to behold . . . iniquity.” Yet no sooner had He driven out the man than His heart of love began to make a way to bring the man in again to Himself. And thenceforth the Bible is preoccupied with a second subject, that of man’s growing access to a holy God. Such access began with the very simplest ritual and relationship through an animal sacrifice and substitute. Yet in Hebrews 11:4, we have the clearest declaration that even at the beginning the one and only and unchanging basis of approach to God has always been “by faith.” “By faith Abel offered unto God a . . . sacrifice.” Yes, always and only “by faith” which implies a yielded will and a childlike trust.
Later came further revelations of God, which culminated in the elaborate worship of the Tabernacle, as outlined in Hebrews 9. There we read (v. 2) of an outer “sanctuary, ” and “after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all.” “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle . . . But into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood.” It is all a tremendous picture, deeply impressive, of the holiness of God. There was the still and darkened chamber; for in it were no windows, no external light; the shekinah glory of God was its sufficient light. There was no sound, no voice heard, for over it from year to year brooded deep silence. Yet into that dread stillness once a year, through the heavy veil which excluded the world of sin, there stepped a man, a man of the fallen race.
Yet he came not in his own merit. He bore in his hands the blood of sacrifices without which even his own life was forfeit. Silently that blood was sprinkled on and before the mercy seat, and the man again withdrew. Once more the room was still. And for another year that shed blood was a continual mute appeal to God for mercy on the race, a silent witness that His people had come in His own appointed way. So passed century upon century the unending witness of the blood appealing to a holy God. But there was no progress, no greater access, no increasing, nearness. The high priest still came alone, and as quickly went, out from the Presence, while for another year the jealous veil excluded from God’s face the world of fallen men. But why? Why was God so exclusive?
Men were coming in His own appointed way fulfilling His own ordinances, offering His prescribed sacrifices, and yet He kept them all at arms’ length, excluded by the veil. Why could not the high priest stay in the holiest; he only came once a year; why could not all men come? To these and all other bewildering questions there is an all-sufficient answer given in verse 4 of chapter 10: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.
Then was there a mistake somewhere? Were all these elaborate sacrifices unavailing? Was God’s provision inadequate? What practical value had the “atonement” they were so often commanded to make? A clear intimation of the purpose of God is given in the Passover. There in Exodus 12, they were told: “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” This did not mean pass by you, and not smite the first-born, but pass over you to cover and protect you. This comes out more clearly in verse 23, the word “pass over” meaning, hover over you. like a bird protecting its young. The same thought is clear in the word “atonement,” which in the Old Testament does not mean “at-one-ment, “but again is merely kaphar, to cover. So we have continually the thought of sins not taken away, but merely covered. What then was the aim, the design of God in these covering sacrifices?
So we have the arresting fact that the sins of all the Old Testament saints and worthies, of Noah and Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah, were merely covered for the time being. The only value of all the animal sacrifices was to allow man’s faith in God to be exhibited, and to enable God to go on with a guilty people in anticipation of some more effective sacrifice.
And then at last, in the triumphant language of Galatians 4, “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son . . . to redeem them that were under the law.” Here is a “better” word, a new and adequate concept. It is not cover now, but take away, “as far as the east is from the west.” And in the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice of Himself, the “Lamb of God,” slain, in the purpose of God, all the sacrifices of all the centuries found their final and sufficient fulfillment.
And now for the practical response to God’s gracious invitation to enter the Holiest. Positionally, we are all “made nigh.” Yet experimentally, we all need to “draw nigh.” In seeking to draw near to God, there are two main obstacles.
1. Although God rent the veil and thereby abolished the whole system of animal sacrifices, which now became merely “the Jew’s religion” (Gal. 1:13), we know that the rent veil was joined up again by the priests, and the Jewish sacrifices were persisted in for more than thirty years. Still from the altar, abandoned and left “desolate” by Christ, the smoke from the sacrifices of the sin offering rose forlornly to heaven. It rose in vain. Still the high priest entered the holiest once each year and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. Yet that blood appealed to God in vain. For “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7). At last God in righteous anger blotted out the whole mocking system at the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The temple was burned; Jewish sacrifices were abandoned.
But that joining up of the veil by the Jewish priests, and the consequent excluding of men from God is typical of what has been done since. Almost every heresy, in its last analysis, does just this. It interposes a veil between needy man and a waiting God; it hinders or prevents communion. All the trappings of ceremonialism, all that panders to a sensual religion, these are man-made obstacles which tend to distract the worshipper, and detract from the One worshipped, hindering that free communion of the humblest believer with God.
A professional priestly class, apart from the priesthood of all believers (1 Pet. 2:9), always interposes barriers between the soul and God. We have the motive for such interference stated in 2 Peter 2:3–“they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” In this way, even the simple ordinances, as they become overlaid with man’s tradition, are changed from helps into hindrances, and become veritable veils. God clears away all such veils from our hearts, and gives us boldness to deal directly with Himself.
2. But there is a still graver obstacle, not of ignorance, but of knowledge, the natural distaste of the human heart for intimate communion with God. Deep down there is a dread of coming to close quarters with God. In Exodus 20:18, the people beholding the signs of God’s presence “removed and stood afar off; and they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.” That is typical with many believers. They come into the Holiest, even to the Lord’s Supper, yet when they leave the table, they leave, too, His presence, and have little real fellowship with Him during the week. Like the high priest, their visits are all too infrequent and all too brief.
Then, too, we are only thus invited into the holiest on the condition of a “sprinkled” heart, coming, “in full assurance of faith.” How different this is to the self-assurance in which so many attempt to approach the holiest. There are many hands stretched out to take the bread and wine, which, because of some ancient feud, are not stretched out to clasp each other. There are hearts opened to the Lord, but fast closed to each other by some old “root of bitterness.” If we will not let Him put His hand into our hearts to take out all that offends Himself or His own, then no more can He let us put our hands into His bounty, to take out what we want, in prayer, and still less to enter into His holiest. God give us all grace, abandoning all else but Himself, to enter and abide in closest intimacy and union, and so to realize His most gracious plans for our lives.