bibleteacher.org: The Way Into The Holiest by F.B. Meyer

This Epistle bears no name of author, or designation of church. But it needs neither. In every sentence we can detect the Authorship of the Holy Ghost: and feel that it has a message not to one age, but to all; not to one community, but to the universal Church.

We do not therefore discuss questions which are amply treated in every commentary; but set ourselves at once to derive those great spiritual lessons which are enshrined in these sublime words.

And probably there is no better way of vindicating the authority of the Pentateuch than by showing that it lay at the basis of the teaching of the early Church; and that especially the Book of Leviticus was the seed-plot of New Testament Theology.

There are two strong tendencies flowing around us in the present day: the one, to minimize the substitutionary aspect of the death of Christ; the other, to exaggerate the importance of mere outward rite. To each of these the study of this great Epistle is corrective. We are taught that our Lord's death was a Sacrifice. We are taught also that we have passed from the realm of shadows into that of realities.

These chapters are altogether inadequate for the treatment of so vast a theme; but such as they are, they are sent forth,in dependence on the Divine Blessing, in the fervent hope that they may serve to make more clear and plain to those who would find and enter it,the Way into the Holiest of all.

F.B. MEYER.

Editors note.

I have endeavored to remain true to the original manuscript as was delivered to me. I did, however, make some punctuation correction so as to make it more readable to the computer audience. Namely,I replaced a few hyphens where I saw them confusing the text. I also corrected a couple of obvious errors found in the original printing. If these changes cause any confusion I, alone, take full responsibility;please e-mail me at rlarryh@teleport.com and I will make any corrections necessary.

Larry Hendrickson

The original THML document can be found at CCEL by clicking on their link, above. This document is taken from the original document and modified to conform to the layout of this site. Spelling has been checked and corrected with commercially available software. If errors are introduced as a result of posting this document on site, please contact Pastor David.

I. THE WORD OF GOD.

"GOD-who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." HEBREWS i. 1,2.

GOD." What word could more fittingly stand at the head of the first line of the first paragraph in this noble epistle! Each structure must rest on him as foundation; each tree must spring from him as root; each design and enterprise must originate in him as source. "IN THE BEGINNING-GOD," is a worthy motto to inscribe at the commencement of every treatise, be it the ponderous volume or the ephemeral tract. And with that name we commence our attempt to gather up some of the glowing lessons which were first addressed to the persecuted and wavering Hebrews in the primitive age, but have ever been most highly prized by believing Gentiles throughout the universal Church. The feast was originally spread for the children of the race of Abraham; but who shall challenge our right to the crumbs? In our endeavor to gather them, be thou, God, Alpha and Omega, First and Last. In the original Greek, the word "God"is preceded by two other words, which describe the variety and multitudinousness of his revelation to man. And the whole verse is full of interest as detailing the origin and authority of the Word of God, and as illustrating the great law which appears in so many parts of the works of God, and has been fitly called the law of VARIETY IN UNITY.

That law operates in Nature. The earliest book of God. No thoughtful man can look around him without being arrested by the infinite variety that meets him on every side. "All flesh is not the same flesh; . . . there are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one; and the glory of the terrestrial is another. . . . One star differeth from another star in glory." You cannot match two faces in a crowd; two leaves in a forest; or two flowers in the woodlands of spring. It w~ld seem as if the molds in which natural products are being shaped are broken up and cast aside as soon as one result has been attained. And it is this which affords such an infinite field for investigation and enjoyment, forbidding all fear of monotony or weariness of soul.

And yet, amid all natural variety, there is a marvelous unity. Every part of the universe interlocks by subtle and delicate links with every other part. You cannot disturb the balance anywhere without sending a shock of disturbance through the whole system. Just as in some majestic Gothic minster the same idea repeats itself in bolder or slighter forms, so do the same great thoughts recur in tree and flower, in molecule and planet, in diatom and man. And all this because, if you penetrate to Nature's heart, you meet God. "Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things." "There are diversities of operations; but it is the same God which worketh all in all." The unity that pervades Nature's temple is the result of its having originated from one mind, and having been effected by one hand, the mind and hand of God.

That law also operates throughout the Scriptures. There is as great variety there as in Nature. They were written in different ages. Some in the days of "the fathers"; others at "the end of these days" for us. In the opening chapters, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, Moses has embodied fragments of hallowed tradition, which passed from lip to lip in the tents of the patriarchs; and its later chapters were written when the holy city, Jerusalem, had already been smitten to the ground by the mailed hand of Titus.

They were written in different countries: these in the deserts of Arabia; those under the shadow of the pyramids; and others amid the tides of life that swept through the greatest cities of Greece and Rome. You can detect in some the simple pastoral life of Palestine; in others the magnificence of Nebuchadnezzar's empire. In one there is the murmur of the blue Aegean; and in several the clank of the fetter in the Roman prison-cell.

They were written by men belonging to various ranks, occupations, and methods of thought.. Shepherds and fishermen, warriors and kings; the psalmist, the prophet, and the priest; some employing the stately religious Hebrew, others the Chaldaic patois, others the polished Greek-every variety of style, from the friendly letter, or sententious proverb, to the national history, or the carefully prepared treatise, in which thought and expression glow as in the fires--but all contributing their quota to the symmetry and beauty of the whole.

And yet, throughout the Bible, there is an indubitable unity. What else could have led mankind to look upon these sixty-six tractlets as being so unmistakably related to each other that they must be bound up together under a common cover? There has been something so unique in these books that they have always stood and fallen together. To disintegrate one has been to loose them all. Belief in one has led to belief in all. Their hands are linked and locked so tightly that where one goes all must follow. And though wise and clever men have tried their best, they have never been able to produce a single treatise containing that undefinable quality which gives these their mysterious oneness; and to lack which is fatal to the claims of any book to be included with them, or to demand the special veneration and homage of mankind.

The world is full of religious books; but the man who has fed his religious life upon the Bible will tell in a moment the difference between them and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The eye can instantly detect the absence of life in the artificial flower; the tongue can immediately and certainly detect the absence or presence of a certain flavor submitted to the taste; and the heart of man, his moral sense, is quick to detect the absence in all other religious books of a certain savor which pervades the Bible, from Genesis, the book of beginnings, to the Apocalyptic announcements of the quick coming of the King.

And in the possession of this mysterious attribute, the Old and new Testaments are one. You cannot say there is more of it in the glowing paragraphs of the Apostle Paul than in the splendid prophecies and appeals of the great evangelic prophet, Isaiah. It is certainly in the Gospels; but it is not less in the story of the Exodus. Throughout, there is silence on topics which merely gratify curiosity, but on which other professed revelations have been copiously full. Throughout, there is no attempt to give instruction on science or nature; but to bend all energy in discussing the claims of God on men. Throughout, the crimson cord of sacrifice is clearly manifest, on which the books are strung together as beads upon a thread. And throughout, there is ever the subtle, mysterious, ineffable quality called Inspiration: a term which is explained by the majestic words of this opening verse, "God, having spoken of old to the fathers, hath at the end of these days spoken to us."

Scripture is the speech of God to man. It is this which gives it its unity. "The Lord, the mighty God, hath spoken, and called the earth." The amanuenses may differ; but the inspiring mind is the same. The instruments may vary; but in every case the same theme is being played by the same master-hand. We should read the Bible as those who listen to the very speech of God. Well may it be called "the Word of God."

But the Scripture is God's speech in man. The heavenly treasure is in vessels of earth. "He spake unto the fathers in the prophets. . . He hath spoken unto us in his Son." It is very remarkable to study the life of Jesus, and to listen to his constant statements as to the source of his marvelous words. So utterly had he emptied himself, that he originated nothing from himself; but lived by the Father, in the same way as we are to live by him. He distinctly declared that the words he spake, he spake not of himself; but that words and works alike were the outcome of the Father, who dwelt within. Through those lips of clay the eternal God was speaking. Well might he also be called "the Word of God"!

And here the words of the prophets in the Old Testament are leveled up to the plane of the words of Jesus in the New. Without staying to make the least distinction, our writer tell us, beneath the teaching of the Spirit, that he who spake in the one spake also in the others. Let us then think with equal reverence of the Old Testament as of the New. It was our Savior's Bible. It was the food which Jesus loved, and lived upon. He was content to fast from all other food, if only he might have this. It was his one supreme appeal in conflict with the devil, and in the clinching of his arguments and exhortations with men. And here we discover the reason. The voice of God spake in the prophets, whose very name likens them to the up-rush of the geyser from its hidden source.

As God spake in men, it is clear that he left them to express his thoughts in the language, and after the method, most familiar to them. They will speak of Nature just as they have been accustomed to find her. They will use the mode of speech whether poem or prose which is most habitual to their cast of thought. They will make allusions to the events transpiring around them, so as to be easily understood by their fellows. But, whilst thus left to express God's thoughts in their own way, yet most certainly the divine Spirit must have carefully superintended their utterances, so that their words should accurately convey his messages to men.

In many parts of the Bible there is absolute dictation, word for word. In others, there is divine superintendence guarding from error, and guiding in the selection and arrangement of materials: as when Daniel quotes from historic records; and Moses embodies the sacred stories which his mother had taught him beside the flowing Nile. In all, there is the full inspiration of the Spirit of God, by whom all Scripture has been given. Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, . . . searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify" (2 Tim. iii. i6 ; 2 Pet. i. 20, 21 ; 1 Pet. i. ii).

We need not deny that other men have been illuminated; but the difference between illumination and inspiration is as far as the east is from the west. Nor do we say that God has not spoken in other men, or in these men at other times; but we do say that only in the Bible has God given the supreme revelation of his will, and the authoritative rule of our faith and practice. The heart of man bears witness to this. We know that there is a tone in these words which is heard in no other voice. The upper chords of this instrument give it a timbre which none other can rival.

The revelation in the Old Testament was given in fragments (or portions). This is the meaning of the word rendered in the Old Version sundry times, and in the Revised divers portions. It refers, not to the successive ages over which it was spread, but to the numerous "portions" into which it was broken up. No one prophet could speak out all the truth. Each was entrusted with one or two syllables in the mighty sentences of God's speech. At the best the view caught of God, and given to men through the prophets, though true, was partial and limited.

But in Jesus there is nothing of this piecemeal revelation. "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He hath revealed the Father. Whosoever hath seen him hath seen God; and to hear his words is to get the full-orbed revelation of the Infinite.

The earlier revelation was in many forms. The earthquake, the fire, the tempest, and the still small voice-each had its ministry. Symbol and parable, vision and metaphor, type and historic foreshadowing, all in turn served the divine end; like the ray which is broken into many prismatic hues. But in Jesus there is the steady shining of the pure ray of his glory, one uniform and invariable method of revelation.

Oh the matchless and glorious Book, the Word of God to men-to us; revealing not only God, but ourselves; explaining moods for which we had no cipher; touching us as no other book can, and in moments when all voices beside wax faint and still; telling facts which we have not been able to discover, but which we instantly recognize as truth; the bread of the soul; the key of life; disclosing more depths as we climb higher in Christian experience: we have tested thee too long to doubt that thou art what Jesus said thou wast, the indispensable and precious gift of God.

II. THE DIGNITY OF CHRIST

"Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Being made so much better than the angels." HEBREWS i. 3, 4.

SON.-" He hath spoken unto us in his Son." God has many sons, but only one Son. When, on the morning of his resurrection, our Lord met the frightened women, he said, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." But, as he used the words, they meant infinitely more of himself than they could ever mean of man, however saintly or childlike. No creature-wing shall ever avail to carry us across the abyss which separates all created from all uncreated life. But we may reverently accept the fact, so repeatedly emphasized, that Jesus is "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" (John i. i8). He is Son in a sense altogether unique.

This term, as used by our Lord, and as understood by the Jews, not only signified divine relationship, but divine equality. Hence, on one occasion, the Jews sought to kill him, because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God (John v. i8). And he, so far from correcting the opinion-as he must have done instantly, had it been erroneous, went on to confirm it and to substantiate its truthfulness. The impression which Jesus of Nazareth left on all who knew him was that of his extreme humility; but here was a point in which he could not abate one jot or tittle of his claims, lest he should be false to his knowledge of himself, and to the repeated voice of God. And so he died, because he affirmed, amid the assumed horror of his judges, that he was the Christ, the Son of God. "He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God." It was his right.

His dignity is still further elaborated in the words which follow. He is THE BEAM OF THE DIVINE GLORY, for so might the word translated effulgence be rendered. We have never seen the sun, but only its far-traveled ray, which left its surface some few minutes before. But the ray is of the same constitution as the orb from which it comes; if you unravel its texture, you will learn something of the very nature of the sun; they live in perpetual and glorious unity. And as we consider the intimacy of that union, we are reminded of those familiar words, which tell us that though no man hath seen God at any time, yet he has been revealed in the Word made flesh. We hear our Master saying again the old, deep, mysterious words: "I and my Father are one. We will come and make our abode." And we can sympathize with the evening hymn of the early Church, sung around the shores of the Bosphorus:

"Hail! gladdening Light, of his pure glory poured,

Who is the Immortal Father, Heavenly, Blest."

He is also THE IMPRESS OF THE DIVINE NATURE. The allusion here is to the impression made by a seal on molten wax; and as the image made on the wax is the exact resemblance, though on another substance, of the die, so is Christ the exact resemblance of the Father in our human flesh. And thus he was able to say, "He that bath seen me hath seen the Father." The Life of Jesus is the Life of God rendered into the terms of our human life; so that we may understand the very being and nature of God by seeing it reproduced before us, so far as it is possible, in the character and life of Jesus. These two images complete each other. You might argue from the first, that as the ray is only part of the sun, so Christ is only part of God; but this mistake is corrected by the second, for an impression must be coextensive with the seal. You might argue from the second, that as the impression might be made on a very inferior material, so Christ's nature was a very unworthy vehicle of the divine glory; but this mistake is corrected by the first, for a beam is of the same texture as the sun. Coextensive with God, of the same nature as God; thus is Jesus Christ.

He is, therefore, superior to angels (ver. 4).-Lofty as was the esteem in which Hebrew believers had been wont to hold those bright and blessed spirits, they were not for a moment to be compared with him whose majestic claims are the theme of these glowing words.

He surpasses them in the glory of Divine Nature. Turn to Psalm ii. -one of the grandest miniature dramas in all literature. Probably composed on some marked episode in the reign of David, there is a glow, a sublimity, in the diction which no earthly monarch could exhaust. We are not, therefore, surprised to find the early Church applying it to Christ (Acts iv. 25). In reading it, we first hear the roar of the mob and the calm decision of the throne; and then our attention is centered on him who comes forward, bearing the divine autograph to the decree which declares him Son. Nothing like this was ever said to angel, how-ever exalted in character or devoted in service. It is only befitting, then, that the unsinning sons of light should worship him; and as we hear the command issued, "Let all the angels of God worship him," we are still further impressed by the immense distance between their nature and his.

Do we worship him enough? During his earthly life he was constantly met by expressive acts of homage, which, unlike Peter in the house of Cornelius, he did not repress. The almost instinctive act of the little group, from which he was parted on the Mount of Olives in his ascension, was to worship him (Luke xxiv. 52). And no sooner had he passed to his home than there burst from the Church a tide of adoration which has only become wider and deeper with the ages. The Epistles, and especially the Book of Revelation, teem with expressions of worship to Christ. And the death-cries of martyrs must have familiarized the heathen mind with the homage paid to Christ by Christians. Of the worship offered him in catacombs, or in their secret meetings, amongst dens and caves, paganism was necessarily ignorant. But the behavior and exclamations of the servants of Jesus, arraigned before heathen tribunals, and exposed to the most agonizing deaths, were matters of public notoriety.

Some years ago, beneath the ruins of the Palatine palace, was discovered a rough sketch, traced in all probability by the hand of a pagan slave in the second century. A human figure, with the head of an ass, is represented as fixed to the cross; while another figure, in a tunic, stands on one side, making a gesture which was the customary pagan expression of adoration. Underneath this caricature ran the inscription, rudely written, Alexamenos adores his God. But what a tribute to the worship paid in those early days to our Savior, amidst gibes and taunts and persecution!

The hymns which have come down to us ring with the same spirit. Pliny writes to tell the Emperor that the Christians of Asia Minor were accustomed to meet to sing praise to Christ as God. As each morning broke, the believer of those primitive days repeated in private the Gloria in Excelsis, as his hymn of supplication and praise: "Thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord; thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father." The early Church did not simply admire Christ, it adored him.

Is not this a great lack in our private devotions? We are so apt to concentrate our thoughts on ourselves; and to thank for what we have received. We do not sufficiently often forget our own petty wants and anxieties, and launch down our tiny rivulet, until we are borne out into the great ocean of praise, which is ever breaking in music around the person of Jesus. Praise is one of the greatest acts of which we are capable; and it is most like the service of heaven. There they ask for naught, for they have all and abound; but throughout the cycles of glory the denizens of those bright worlds fill them with praise. And why should not earthly tasks be wrought to the same music? We are the priests of creation; it becomes us to gather up and express the sentiments which are mutely dumb, but which await our offering at the altar of God.

Let a part of our private and public devotion be ever dedicated to the praise of Jesus; when we shall break forth into some hymn, or psalm, or spiritual song, singing and praising Christ with angels and archangels and all the hosts of the redeemed. On that brow, once thorn-crowned, let us entwine our laurels. Upon that ear, once familiarized with threats and scorn, let us pour the fullness of our adoring devotion. So shall we gain and give new thoughts of the supreme dignity of the Lord Jesus. "Thou art worthy to receive...honor."

III. THE GLORY OF CHRIST'S OFFICE

"He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name." Hebrews i. 4.

APART from Scripture, we should have been disposed to infer the existence of other orders of intelligent and spiritual beings besides man. As the order of creation climbs up to man from the lowest living organism through many various stages of existence, so surely the series must be continued beyond man, through rank on rank of spiritual existence up to the very steps of the eternal throne. The divine mind must be as prolific in spiritual as it has been in natural forms of life.

But we are not left to conjecture. From every part of Scripture come testimonies to the existence of angels. They rejoiced when the world was made, and they are depicted as ushering in with songs that new creation for which we long. They stood sentries at the gate of a lost paradise; and at each of the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem an angel stands (Rev. xxi. 12). They trod the plains of Mamre, and sang over the fields of Bethlehem. One prepared the meal on the desert sands for Elijah; another led Peter out of gaol and a third flashed through the storm to stand by the hammock where the Apostle Paul was sleeping (Acts xxvii. 23,24).

But in the mind of the pious Hebrew the greatest work which the angels ever wrought was in connection with the giving of the law. The children of Israel received the law "as it was ordained by angels" (Acts vii. 53, R.v.). It was necessary, therefore, in showing the superiority of the Gospel to the Law, to begin by showing the superiority of him through whom the Gospel was given, over all orders of bright and blessed spirits, which, in their shining ranks and their twenty thousand chariots, went and came during the giving of the decalogue from the brow of Sinai (Psalm lxviii. 17).

It is not difficult to prove the Lord's superiority to angels. It is twofold: in Nature and in Office.

In Nature. "He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they" (ver. 4). In verse 7, quoted from Psalm civ. 4 (R.v. marg.), where they are distinctly spoken of as messengers and ministers, they are compared to winds and flames.-winds, for their swiftness and invisibility; flames, because of their ardent love. But how great the gulf between their nature, which may thus be compared to the elements of creation, and the nature of that glorious Being whom they are bidden to worship, and who is addressed in the sublime title of Son! (Heb.i.6; Psalm xcvii. 7.)

In Offce. In verse 14 they are spoken of as ministering spirits, "sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation" (R.v.). This liturgy of service is a literal fact. When struggling against overwhelming difficulties; when walking the dark, wild mountain-pass alone; when in peril or urgent need-we are surrounded by invisible forms, like those which accompanied the path of Jesus, ministering to him in the desert, strengthening him in the garden, hovering around his cross, watching his grave and accompanying him to his home. They keep pace with the swiftest trains in which we travel. They come unsoiled through the murkiest air. They smooth away the heaviest difficulties. They garrison with light the darkest sepulchers. They bear us up in their hands, lest we should strike our foot against a stone. Many an escape from imminent peril; many an unexpected assistance; many a bright and holy thought whispered in the ear, we know not whence or how-is due to those bright and loving spirits. "The good Lord forgive me," says Bishop Hall, "for that, amongst my other offenses, I have suffered myself so much to forget the presence of his holy angels." But valuable as their office is, it is not to be mentioned in the same breath as Christ's, which is set down for us in this chapter.

He Is The Organ of Creation. "By whom also he made the worlds." To make that which is seen out of nothing, that is creation: it is a divine work; and creation is attributed to Christ. "By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth." "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (Col. i. 16; John i. 3). But the word here and in xi. 3 translated worlds means ages. Not only was the material universe made by him, but each of the great ages of the world's story has been instituted by Jesus Christ.

When genius aspires to immortality, it leaves the artist's name inscribed on stone or canvas: and so Inspiration, "dipping her pen in indelible truth, inscribes the name of Jesus on all we see-on sun and stars, flower and tree, rock and mountain, the unstable waters and the firm land; and also on what we do not see, nor shall, until death has removed the veil-on angels and spirits, on the city and heavens of the eternal world."

This thought comes out clearly in the sublime quotation made in verse 10 from Psalm cii. That inspired poem is obviously inscribed to Jehovah: "Thou, Jehovah, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands." But here, without the least apology, or hint of accommodating the words to an inferior use, it is applied directly to Christ. Mark the certainty of this inspired man that Jesus is Jehovah! How sure of the Deity of his Lord! And what a splendid tribute to his immutability!

Mark how the Epistle rings with the unchangeableness of Jesus, in his human love (xiii. 8), in his priesthood (vii. 24), and here in his divine nature (vv. 10-12). We live in a world of change. The earth is not the same today as it was ages ago, or as it will be ages on. The sun is radiating off its heat. The moon no longer as of yore burns and glows; she is but an immense opaque cinder, reflecting the sunlight from her disk. Stars have burnt out, and will. The universe is waxing old, as garments which from perpetual use become threadbare. But the wearing out of the garment is no proof of the waning strength or slackening energy of the wearer. Nay, when garments wear out quickest, it is generally the time of robustest youth or manhood. You wrap up and lay aside your clothes when they have served their purpose; but you are the same in the new suit as in the old. Creation is the vesture of Christ. He wraps himself about in its ample folds. Its decay affects him not. And, when he shall have laid it all aside, and replaced it by the new heavens and the new earth, he will be the same forevermore.

With what new interest may we not now turn to the archaic record, which tells how God created the heavens and the earth. Those sublime syllables, "Light, be!" were spoken by the voice that trembled in dying anguish on the cross. Rolling rivers, swelling seas, waving woods, bursting flowers, caroling birds, innumerable beasts, stars sparkling like diamonds on the pavilion of night-all newly made; all throbbing with God's own life; and all very good: but, mainly and gloriously, all the work of those hands which were nailed helplessly to the cross, which itself, as well as the iron that pierced him, was the result of his creative will.

He Is The God of Providence. "Upholding all things by the word of his power" (ver. 3). He is the prop which underpins creation. Christ, and not fate. Christ, and not nature. Christ, and not abstract impersonal law. Law is but the invariable method of his working. "In him all things live, and move, and have their being." "By him all things consist." He is ever at work repeating on the large scale of creation the deeds of his earthly life. And if he did not do them, they must be forever undone. At his word rainwater and dew become grape-juice; tiny handfuls of grain fill the autumn barns; storms die away into calm; fish are led through the paths of the sea; rills are sent among the mountains; and stars are maintained in their courses, so that "not one faileth."

All power is given unto him in heaven and on earth. Why, then, art thou so sad? Thy best Friend is the Lord of Providence. Thy Brother is Prime Minister of the universe, and holds the keys of the divine commissariat. Go to him with the empty sacks of thy need; he will not only fill them, but fill them freely, without money and without price; as Joseph did in the old story of the days of the Pharaohs.

He Is The Savior of Sinners. "He purged our sins." We shall have many opportunities of dwelling on this glorious fact. Jesus is Savior, Redeemer, and the High-Priest. This is his proudest title; in this work no angel or created spirit can bear him rivalry. In the work of salvation he is alone. No angel could atone for sin, or plead our cause, or emancipate us from the thrall of evil.

But notice the finality of this act. "He made purging of sins " (see Greek). It is finished; forever complete; done irrevocably and finally. If only we are one with him by a living faith, our sins, which were many, are washed out; as an inscription from a slate, as a stain from a robe, as a cloud from the azure of heaven. Gone-as a stone into the bottomless abyss! Gone-never to confront us here or hereafter! "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God; who also maketh intercession for us" (Rom. viii. 34).

He Is Also King. And on what does his kingdom rest? What is the basis of that Royalty of which we constantly sing, in the noble words of the primitive Church? "Thou art the King of Glory, Christ." It is a double basis.

He is King by right of his divine nature. "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." Well might Psalm xlv. Be entitled the poem of the lilies, as if to denote its pure and choice and matchless beauties. It celebrated the marriage of Solomon: but, after the manner of those inspired singers, its authors soon passed from the earthly to the heavenly; from the transient type of the earthly realm to the eternal and imperishable realities of the divine royalty of Christ.

He is also King as the reward of his obedience unto death. "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him" (Phil. ii. 8,9). Satan offered him sovereignty in return for one act of homage, and Christ refused, and descended the mountain to poverty and shame and death; but through these things he has won for himself a Kingdom which is yet in its infancy, but is destined to stand when all the kingdoms of this world have crumbled to dust.

As Christ emerged from the cross and the grave, where he had purged our sins, it seemed as if words were addressed to him which David had caught ages before: "The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool" (ver. 13; Psalm cx. I). This is the interpretation which the Apostle Peter, in the flush of Pentecostal inspiration, put upon these words (Acts ii. 34). And, accordingly, we are told, "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God " (Mark xvi. 19). "He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (ver. 3).

"He sat down." Love is regnant. The Lamb is in the midst of the Throne. Behold his majesty, and worship him with angels and archangels, and all the throng of the redeemed. Prostrate yourself at his feet, consecrating to him all you are and all you have. Comfort yourself also by remembering that he would not sit to rest from his labors in redemption, and in the purging away of sins, unless they were so completely finished that there was nothing more to do. It is all accomplished; and it is all very good. He has ceased from his works, because they are done; and therefore he is entered into his rest. And that word "until" is full of hope. God speaks it, and encourages us to expect the time when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power; and when death itself, the last enemy, shall be destroyed (1 Cor. xv. 24-26).