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The Rent Veil
By
Horatius Bonar




PREFACE

The Epistle to the Hebrews was written by the eternal 
Spirit for the whole Church of God in all ages. It 
shows us on what footing we are to stand before God as 
sinners; and in what way we are to draw near as 
worshippers.
	It assumes throughout, that the present 
condition of the Church on earth is one continually 
requiring the application of the great sacrifice for 
cleansing. The theory of personal sinlessness has no 
place in it. Continual evil, failure, imperfection, 
are assumed as the condition of God's worshippers on 
earth, during this dispensation. Personal imperfection 
on the one hand, and vicarious perfection on the 
other, are the solemn truths which pervade the whole. 
There is no day nor hour in which evil is not coming 
forth from us, and in which the great bloodshedding is 
not needed to wash it away. This epistle is manifestly 
meant for the whole life of the saint, and for the 
whole history of the Church. God's purpose is that we 
should never, while here, get beyond the need of 
expiation and purging; and though vain man may think 
that he would better glorify God by sinlessness, yet 
the Holy Spirit in this epistle shows us that we are 
called to glorify God by our perpetual need of the 
precious bloodshedding upon the cross. No need of 
washing, may be the watchword of some; they are beyond 
all that! But they who, whether conscious or 
unconscious of sin, will take this epistle as the 
declaration of God's mind as to the imperfection of 
the believing man on earth, will be constrained to 
acknowledge that the bloodshedding must be in constant 
requisition, not (as some say) to keep the believer in 
a sinless state, but to cleanse him from his hourly 
sinfulness.[1]
	Boldness to enter into the holiest is a 
condition of the soul which can only be maintained by 
continual recourse to the blood of sprinkling, alike 
for conscious and for unconscious sin: the latter of 
these being by far the most subtle and the most 
terrible,--that for which the sin-offering required to 
be brought.
	"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." The presence 
of sin in us is the only thing which makes such 
epistles as that to the Hebrews at all intelligible. 
When, by some instantaneous act of faith, we soar 
above sin, (as some think they do) we also bid 
farewell to the no longer needed blood, and to the no 
longer needed Epistle to the Hebrews.
	"Through the veil, which is His flesh," is our 
one access to God; not merely at first when we 
believed, but day by day, to the last. The blood-
dropped pavement is that one which we tread, and the 
blood-stained mercy-seat is that before which we bow. 
In letters of blood there is written on that veil, and 
that mercy-seat, "I am the way, the truth, and the 
life; no man cometh to the Father but by me": and, 
again, "Through Him we have access, by one Spirit, 
unto the Father."
	Every thing connected with the sanctuary, outer 
and inner, is, in God's sight, excellent and precious. 
As of the altar, so of every other part of it, we may 
say, "Whatsoever toucheth it shall be holy" (Exo 
29:37). Or, as the Apostle Peter puts it, "To you who 
believe this preciousness belongs" (1 Peter 2:7, i.e., 
all the preciousness of the "precious stone").
	Men may ask, May we not be allowed to differ in 
opinion from God about this preciousness? Why should 
our estimate of the altar, or the blood, or the veil, 
if not according to God's, be so fatal to us as to 
shut us out of the kingdom? And why should our 
acceptance of God's estimate make us heirs of 
salvation? I answer, such is the mind of God, and such 
is the divine statute concerning admission and 
exclusion.
	You may try the experiment of differing from Him 
as to other things, but beware of differing from Him 
as to this. Remember that He has said, "This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Say what you 
like, He is a jealous God, and will avenge all 
disparagement of His sanctuary, or dishonour of His 
Son. Contend with Him, if you will try the strife, 
about other things. It may not cost you your soul. 
Dispute His estimate of the works of His hand in 
heaven and earth; say that they are not altogether 
"good," and that you could have improved them, had you 
been consulted. It may not forfeit your crown. Tell 
Him that His light is not so glorious as He thinks it 
is, nor His stars so brilliant as He declares they 
are. He may bear with this thy underrating of His 
material handiwork, and treat thee as a foolish child 
that speaks of what he knows not.
	But touch His great work, His work of works,--
the person and propitiation of His only-begotten Son, 
and He will bear with thee no more. Differ from Him in 
His estimate of the great bloodshedding, and he will 
withstand thee to the face. Tell Him that the blood of 
Golgotha could no more expiate sin than the blood of 
bulls and of goats, and He will resent it to the 
uttermost. Depreciate anything, everything that He has 
made; He may smile at thy presumption. But depreciate 
not the cross. Underrate not the sacrifice of the 
great altar. It will cost thee thy soul. It will shut 
thee out of the kingdom. It will darken thy eternity.

	The Grange,
Edinburgh, October 1874 
	



CONTENTS.


1.	Open Intercourse with God.

2.	How There Came to be a Veil.

3.	The Symbolic Veil.

4. 	The True Veil.

5.	The Rending of the Veil.

6.	The Removal of the First Sacrifice and the 
	Establishment of the Second.

7.	Messiah within the Veil.

8.	The Blood within the Veil.

9.	God Seeking Worshippers.

10.	God Seeking Temples.

11.	God Seeking Priests.

12.	God Seeking Kings.
	


CHAPTER 1

OPEN INTERCOURSE WITH GOD.



It does not seem a strange thing that the creature and 
the Creator should meet face to face, and that they 
should hold intercourse without any obstructing 
medium.
	We may not understand the mode of communication 
between the visible and the invisible, but we can see 
this, at least, that He who made us can communicate 
with us, by the ear or the eye or the touch. He can 
speak and we can hear; and, again, we can speak and He 
can hear. His being and ours can thus come together, 
to interchange thought and affection: He giving, we 
receiving; He rejoicing in us, and we rejoicing in 
Him: He loving us, and we loving Him. He can look on 
us, and we can look on Him; He "guiding us with His 
eye" (Psa 32:8), and we fixing our eye on His, as 
children on the eye of a father, taking in all the 
love and tenderness which beam from His paternal look, 
and sending up to Him our responding look of filial 
confidence and love. Not that He has "eyes of flesh, 
or seeth as man seeth" (Job 10:4); but He can fix His 
gaze on us in ways of His own, and make us feel His 
gaze, as really as when the eyes of friends look into 
each other's depths. "He that formed the eye shall He 
not see" (Psa 94:9). He who made the human eye to be 
"the light of the body" (Matt 6:22),--that organ 
through which light enters the body,--in order that He 
might pour into us the glory of His own sun and moon 
and stars,--can He not, through some inner eye which 
we know not, and for which we have no name, pour into 
us the radiance of His own infinite glory, though He 
be the "King invisible" (1 Tim 1:17),--He "whom no man 
hath seen nor can see" (1 Tim 6:16),--the "invisible 
God" (Col 1:15). He can touch us; for in Him we live 
and move and have our being:[2] and we can lay hold of 
Him, for He is not far from any one of us; He is the 
nearest of all that is near, and the most palpable of 
all the palpable. It would seem, then, that open and 
free and near intercourse with the God who made us 
arose from His being what He is, and from our being 
what we are: as if it were a necessity both of His 
existence and of ours.
	That He should be our Creator, and yet be 
separated from us, seems an impossibility; that we 
should be His creatures, and yet remain at a distance 
from Him, seems the most unnatural and unlikely of all 
relations. Intercourse, fellowship, mutual love, then, 
seem to flow from all that He is to us, and from all 
that we are to Him.
	We can conceive of no obstruction, no difficulty 
in all this, so long as we remained what He has made 
us. There could be nothing but the sympathy of heart 
with heart; a flow and reflow of holy and unobstructed 
love.
	Unhindered access to the God who made us seems 
one of the necessary conditions of our nature; and 
this not arising out of any merit or worthiness on the 
part of the creature, but from the fitness of things; 
the adaptation of the thing made to Him who made it; 
and the impossibility of separation between that which 
was made and Him who made it. The life above and the 
life below must draw together; heart cannot be 
separated from heart, unless something come between to 
put asunder that which had by the necessity of nature 
been joined together. Distance from God does not 
belong to our creation, but has come in as something 
unnatural, something alien to creative love, something 
which contravenes the original and fundamental law of 
our being.
	The tree separated from its root, the flower 
broken off from its stem, are the fittest emblems of 
man disjoined from God. Such distance seems altogether 
unnatural. The want of vital connection, in our 
original constitution, or the absence of sympathy, 
would imply defect in the workmanship, of the most 
serious kind,--and no less would it indicate 
imperfection on the part of the Great Worker.
	God made us for Himself; that He might delight 
in us and we in Him; He to be our portion and we His; 
He to be our treasure and we His.[3] He made us after 
His own likeness; so that each part of our being has 
its resemblance or counterpart in Himself: our 
affections, and sympathies, and feelings being made 
after the model of His own. We are apt to associate 
God only with what is cold and abstract and ideal; 
ourselves with what is emotional and personal. Herein 
we greatly err. We must reverse the picture if we 
would know the truth concerning Him with whom is no 
coldness, no abstraction, no impersonality. The 
reality pertaining to the nature of man, is as nothing 
when compared with the reality belonging to the nature 
of Him who created us after His own image. In so far 
as the infinite exceeds the finite, in so far does 
that which we call reality transcend in God all that 
is known by that term in man. We are the shadows, He 
is the substance. Jehovah is the infinitely real and 
true and personal: and it is with Him as such that we 
have to do. The God of philosophy may be a cold 
abstraction, which no mind can grasp, and by which no 
heart can be warmed; but the God of Scripture, the God 
who created the heavens and the earth, the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a reality,--a 
reality for both the mind and heart of man. It is the 
infinite Jehovah that loves, and pities, and blesses; 
who bids us draw near to Him, walk with Him, and have 
fellowship with Him. It is the infinite Jehovah who 
fills the finite heart; for He made that heart for the 
very purpose of its being filled with Himself. Our joy 
is to be in Him; His joy is in us. Over us He resteth 
in His love, and in Himself He bids us rest. Apart 
from Him creaturehood has neither stability nor 
blessedness.
	Free and open intercourse with the God who made 
us, is one of the necessities of our being. 
Acquaintanceship with Him, and delight in Him, are the 
very life of our created existence. Better not to be 
than not to know Him, in whom we live, and move, and 
have our being. Better to pass away into 
unconsciousness or nothingness, than to cease to 
delight in Him, or to be delighted in by Him.
	The loss of God is the loss of everything; and 
in having God we have everything. His overflowing 
fulness is our inheritance; and in nearness to Him we 
enjoy that fulness. He cannot speak to us, but 
something of that fulness flows in. We cannot speak to 
Him without attracting His excellency towards us. This 
mutual speech, or converse, is that which forms the 
medium of communication between heaven and earth. Man 
looketh up, and God looketh down: our eyes meet, and 
we are, in the twinkling of an eye, made partakers of 
the divine abundance.[4] Man speaks out to God what He 
feels; God speaks out to man what He feels. The finite 
and the infinite mind thus interchange their 
sympathies; love meets love, mingling and rejoicing 
together; the full pours itself into the empty, and 
the empty receiveth the full.
	The greatness of God is no hindrance to this 
intercourse: for one special part of the divine 
greatness is to be able to condescend to the 
littleness of created beings, seeing that creaturehood 
must, from its very nature, have this littleness; 
inasmuch as God must ever be God, and man must ever be 
man: the ocean must ever be the ocean, the drop must 
ever be the drop. The greatness of God compassing our 
littleness about, as the heavens the earth, and 
fitting into it on every side, as the air into all 
parts of the earth, is that which makes the 
intercourse so complete and blessed. "In His hand is 
the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all 
mankind" (Job 12:10). Such is His nearness to, such 
His intimacy with, the works of His hands.
	It is nearness, not distance, that the name 
Creator implies; and the simple fact of His having 
made us is the assurance of His desire to bless us and 
to hold intercourse with us. Communication between the 
thing made and its maker is involved in the very idea 
of creation. "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: 
give me understanding, that I may learn Thy 
commandments" (Psa 119:73). "Faithful Creator" is His 
name (1 Peter 4:19), and as such we appeal to Him, 
"Forsake not the work of Thine own hands" (Psa 138:8).
	Nothing that is worthless or unloveable ever 
came from His hands; and as being His "workmanship," 
we may take the assurance of His interest in us, and 
His desire for converse with us.[5]
	He put no barrier between Himself and us when He 
made us. If there be such a thing now, it is we who 
have been its cause. Separation from Him must have 
come upon our side. It was not the father who sent the 
younger son away; it was that son who "gathered all 
together and took his journey into the far country" 
(Luke 15:13), because he had become tired of the 
father's house and the father's company.
	The rupture between God and man did not begin on 
the side of God. It was not heaven that withdrew from 
earth, but earth that withdrew from heaven. It was not 
the father that said to the younger son, Take your 
goods, pack up and be gone; it was that son who said, 
"Father give me the portion of goods that falleth to 
me," and who, "not many days after, took his journey 
into the far country," turning his back on his father 
and his father's house.
	"O Israel! thou hast destroyed THYSELF" (Hosea 
13:9). O man! thou hast cast off God. It is not God 
who has cast off thee. Thou hast dislinked thyself 
from the blessed Creator; thou hast broken the golden 
chain that fastened thee to His throne, the silken 
cord that bound thee to his heart.
	Yet He wants thee back again; nor will He rest 
till He has accomplished His gracious design, and made 
thee once more the vessel of His love.
	


CHAPTER 2.

HOW THERE CAME TO BE A VEIL.



There was no veil in Paradise between man and God. 
There were three places or regions; the outer earth, 
Eden, and "the Garden of Eden," or Paradise; but there 
was no veil nor fence between, hindering access from 
the one to the other. There was nothing to prevent man 
from going in to speak with God, or God from coming 
out to speak with man.
	It was not till after man had disobeyed that the 
veil was let down which separated God from man, which 
made a distinction between the dwellings of man and 
the habitation of God.
	Before God had spoken or done aught in the way 
of separation, man betrayed his consciousness of his 
new standing, and of the necessity for a covering or 
screen. He fled from God into the thick trees of the 
garden, that their foliage might hide him from God and 
God from him. In so doing he showed that he felt two 
things,--

1. That there must be a veil between him and God; 

2. That, now, in his altered position, distance from 
God (if such a thing could be) was his safety.

	Even if God had said "draw near," man could not 
have responded "let us draw near," or felt "it is good 
for me to draw near to God." For sin had now come 
between, and until that should be dealt with in the 
way of pardon and removal, he could not approach God, 
nor expect God to approach him.
	There was a sense of guilt upon his conscience, 
and he knew that there was displeasure on the part of 
God; so that fellowship, in such circumstances, was 
impossible. Any meeting, in this case, could only be 
that of the criminal and the Judge; the one to 
tremble, and the other to pronounce the righteous 
sentence.
	God did come down to man; but not to converse as 
before; not to commune in love as if nothing had come 
in between them. He came to declare His righteousness; 
and yet to reveal His grace. He came to condemn, and 
He came to pardon. He came to show how utterly he 
abhorred the sin, and yet how graciously he was minded 
toward the sinner.
	Something then had now come in between the 
Creator and the creature, which made it no longer 
possible for the same intercourse to be maintained as 
before. Man himself felt this, as soon as he had 
sinned; and God declared that it was so.
	How was that "something" to be dealt with? It 
was of man's creation; yet man had no power to deal 
with it.
	Shall it be removed, or shall it stand? If it 
stands, then man is lost to God and to himself. For 
the sentence is explicit, "In the day thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die."[6] If it is to be 
removed, the barrier swept away, and the distance 
obliterated, God must do it, and He must do it 
immediately, before the criminal is handed over to 
final execution, and He must do it righteously, that 
there may be no uncertainty as to the thing done, and 
no possibility of any future reversal of the blessing 
or any replacement of the barrier.
	God, in coming down to man, said, "Thou hast 
sinned, and there is not now the same relationship 
between us that there was: there is a barrier; but I 
mean to remove it; not all at once; and yet completely 
at last." Man was not to be lost to God, nor to 
himself. He was too precious a part of God's 
possessions to be thrown away. He was too dear to God 
to be destroyed. "God loved the world" (John 3:16).
	Yet there must be a shutting out from God; and 
this was intimated from the beginning. God shuts 
Himself out from man; and He shuts man out from 
himself: for the way into the holiest for a sinner 
could not be prepared all at once. Not man only, but 
the universe, must be taught long lessons both in 
righteousness and in grace, before the new and living 
way can be opened.
	Law had said "The soul that sinneth it shall 
die" (Eze 18:4); Grace had said "I have no pleasure in 
the death of the wicked" (Eze 33:11); Righteousness 
had said "The wicked shall be turned into hell" (Psa 
9:17); Mercy had said "How shall I deliver thee up?" 
(Hosea 11:8). In what way are these things to be 
reconciled? Condemnation is just: can pardon be also 
just? Exclusion from God's presence was righteous, can 
admission into that presence be no less so?
	The solution of this question must be given on 
judicial grounds, and must recognise all the judicial 
or legal elements involved in the treatment of crime 
and criminals. For law is law, and grace is grace. The 
two things cannot be intermingled. What law demands it 
must have; and what grace craves can only be given in 
accordance with unchanging law. "The reign of grace" 
must be "the reign of law"; and the triumph of grace 
must be the triumph of law. The grace which alone can 
reach the case of the sinner is the grace of the 
LAWGIVER, the grace of the JUDGE.
	These were truths which man could not fully 
comprehend. They were new truths, or new ideas, which 
could only be thoroughly understood by long training, 
by ages of education. The method of instruction was 
peculiar, and such as suited man's special state of 
imperfect knowledge. It was twofold, consisting of a 
long line of revelations extending over four thousand 
years; and a long series of symbols increasing and 
becoming more expressive age after age.
	That there was free love in God for the sinner 
was a new truth altogether, and needed to be fully 
revealed, "line upon line." Reasoning from God's 
treatment of the angels, man would conclude that there 
was no favour to be expected for the sinner; nothing 
but swift retribution, "everlasting chains." God's 
first words to man were those of grace; intimating 
that the divine treatment of man was to be very 
different from that of the fallen angels: that where 
sin had abounded grace was to abound much more. 
Forgiveness, not condemnation, was the essence of the 
early promise.
	But this was only one-half of the great primal 
revelation. God having announced His purpose of grace, 
proceeds to show how this was to be carried out with 
full regard to the perfection of the law and the 
holiness of the Lawgiver.
	The unfolding of this latter part of His purpose 
fills up the greater part of the Divine Word.
	The announcement of God's free love was made on 
the spot where the sin had been committed and the 
transgressors arrested. But the unfolding of the plan, 
whereby that free love was to reach the sinner in 
righteousness, was commenced outside--at the gate of 
Paradise, where the first altar was built, the first 
sacrifice was offered, and the first sinner 
worshipped.
	The blood-shedding was outside, and Paradise was 
closed against the sinner:--Paradise the type of that 
heavenly sanctuary from which man had shut himself 
out. No blood was shed within; for the place was 
counted holy; and besides, man, the sinner, was 
excluded from it now, and blood was only needed in 
connection with him and his entrance to God.
	To shut out man the sword of fire was placed at 
the gate: teaching him not only that he was prohibited 
from entering, but that it was death to attempt an 
entrance. Paradise was not swept away; nay, man was 
allowed to build his altar and to worship at its gate; 
but he must remain outside in the meantime, till the 
great process had been completed, by which his nearer 
approach was secured,--not only without the dread of 
death, but with the assurance that there was life 
within for him.
	But the flaming sword said, "Not now; not yet." 
Much must be done before man can be allowed to go in. 
"The Holy Ghost this signified that the way into the 
holiest was not yet made manifest."
	In after ages there was no flaming sword at the 
gate. But the veil of the tabernacle was substituted 
instead of it. That veil said also, "Not now, not 
yet." Wait a little longer, O man, and the gate shall 
be thrown wide open. These sacrifices of yours have 
much to do in connection with the opening of the gate. 
Without them it cannot be opened; but even with them, 
a long time must elapse before this can be done; man 
must be taught that only righteousness can open that 
gate, and that this righteousness can only be unfolded 
and carried out by the blood-shedding of a substitute.
	Man had been driven out in one hour; but he must 
wait ages before he can re-enter. In that interval of 
patient waiting he must learn many a lesson, both 
regarding God and himself; both regarding sin and 
righteousness; both regarding the reason of his being 
excluded and the way of re-admission.
	For man is slow to learn. He cannot all at once 
take in new ideas as to God and His character. He must 
be fully "educated" in these; and this education must 
be one not of years but of ages.
	God then began to teach man by means of 
sacrifice. This method of teaching him concerning 
grace and righteousness widened and filled up age 
after age. For this fuller education the tabernacle 
was set up; and there God commenced His school. By 
means of it He taught Israel, He taught man. The text-
book was a symbolic one, though not without 
explanations and comments. It is contained in the Book 
of Leviticus. Not till man, the sinner, should master 
the profound and wondrous lessons contained in that 
book could the veil be removed and access granted. Not 
till He had come, who was to be the living personal 
exhibition or incarnation of all these lessons, could 
the sinner draw nigh to God.
	It seemed a long time to wait, but it could not 
be otherwise. The lesson to be taught was a lesson not 
for Israel merely, but for the world; not for a few 
ages, but for eternity; not for earth only, but for 
heaven.
	Every fresh sacrifice offered outside the veil 
was a new knock for admission, and a new cry, "How 
long, O Lord, how long." In patience the Old Testament 
saints waited on; assured that sooner or later the 
veil would rend or be swept away, and the way into the 
holiest be made manifest; the right of entrance to the 
mercy-seat seemed to the sinner for ever.

CHAPTER 3.

THE SYMBOLIC VEIL.


The veil of the tabernacle was hung between the holy 
place and the holiest of all. Inside of it were the 
Ark of the Covenant, the mercy-seat, and the cherubim; 
outside were the golden altar of incense, the golden 
candlestick, or lamp-stand, and the table of shew-
bread or "presence-bread," the twelve loaves that were 
placed before Jehovah.
	Properly there were three veils or curtains for 
the tabernacle.
	The outermost hung at the entrance of the 
tabernacle; and was always drawn aside, or might be so 
by any Israelite that wished to pass into the outer 
court, where the brazen altar and brazen laver were. 
That veil hindered no one, and concealed nothing. It 
was an ever-open door; at which any Israelite might 
come in with his sacrifice. It was at this door that 
the priest met the comer and examined his sacrifice to 
see if it were without blemish; for no blemished 
offering could pass the threshold; and the bringer of 
a blemished sacrifice must go back unaccepted and 
unblest. The Priest rejected him and his victim. He 
must go and get another bullock, or else bear his own 
sin.[7]
	The second veil hung at the entrance of the holy 
place. It allowed any one to look in; but it 
prohibited the entrance of all but Priests. "Now when 
these things were thus ordained (arranged or set up) 
the priests went always (were continually going) into 
the first tabernacle (what we usually call the 
second), accomplishing the service of God" (Heb 9:6). 
They fed at the royal table there; they kept the lamps 
burning; they put incense on the golden altar. But 
they could enter no farther. The way into the holiest 
was not yet opened; the time had not yet come when the 
three places should be made one; all veils removed; 
all exclusions cancelled; all sprinkled with one 
blood; open freely to each coming one: altar, laver, 
table, candlestick, incense-altar, ark, and mercy-seat 
no longer separated, but brought together as being but 
parts of one glorious whole; divided from each other 
for a season, for the sake of distinct teaching and 
for the exhibition of sacrificial truth in its 
different parts and aspects; but in the fulness of 
time brought together; as being but one perfect 
picture of the one perfect sacrifice, by means of 
which we have access to God and re-entrance into the 
Paradise which we had lost.
	The third veil hung before the holy of holies: 
hiding, as it were, God from man and man from God, and 
intimating that the day of full meeting and fellowship 
had not yet come. It said to Israel, and it said to 
man (for all these things had a world-wide meaning), 
God is within; but you cannot enter now. The time is 
coming; but it is not yet.
	In heathen temples there were veils hiding their 
holy places. But these pointed to no coming 
manifestation; no future unveiling of Him who was 
supposed to dwell within. These veils were but parts 
of the idolatry and darkness of the system; not 
proclamations of truth or promises of light. It was 
not so in the tabernacle. The veil that hid the glory 
was a promise of the revelation of that glory. In 
pagan shrines it was a signal of distress and despair; 
man's declaration that there was no hope of light; 
that the unknown must always be the unknown; nay, that 
the unknown was also the unknowable; and that the 
unapproached was also the unapproachable. In Israel's 
shrine the veil was a thing of light, not of darkness; 
it was a covering, no doubt, but it was also a 
revelation. It told what God was; where God was, and 
how God could be approached.
	That it was not a gate,--of iron or brass, of 
silver or of gold,--said much; that it was a veil of 
needlework, slight and moveable, said more. For it 
intimated that the hindrance in the way of the 
worshipper's nearer approach was slender and 
temporary. The nature of a tent intimated among other 
things its removeableness: "mine age is departed, and 
is removed from me as a shepherd's tent" (Isa 38:12). 
The nature of a veil in a tent intimates still greater 
slightness and removeableness. It was a thing which 
could easily be drawn aside, nay, which was, at the 
needed season, to be taken away. It was no wall of 
obstruction, but simply of temporary separation and 
exclusion, to be done away with in due time.
	But while it was slight it was very beautiful. 
It is thus described:-- "And thou shalt make a veil of 
blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen, 
of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made: and 
thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood, 
overlaid with gold: their hooks shall be of gold upon 
the four sockets of silver" (Exo 26:31,32). Of the 
veil made by Solomon for the temple on Moriah it is 
said, "He made the veil of blue, and purple, and 
crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims 
thereon" (2 Chron 3:14).
	The temple-veil seems to have been thicker and 
of course larger every way, than that of the 
tabernacle. It is said to have been about twenty feet 
in height, and as much in width, strongly wrought and 
finely woven. It was never drawn, or at least only so 
much of it was moved aside once a-year as to admit the 
High Priest, when he approached the mercy-seat with 
blood and incense. For ages it stretched across that 
awful entrance, a more immoveable barrier than brass 
or iron: no Priest, or Levite, or Israelite venturing 
within its folds. Torn down again and again in 
different centuries, by the Babylonian, Persian, 
Grecian, and Roman invader, it was often replaced, 
that it might hang there, to teach its wondrous 
lessons, till God's great purpose with it had been 
fulfilled.
	To the Jew of old there must have seemed 
something mysterious about that veil. It was not hung 
up merely to conceal what was within, as if God 
grudged to man the full vision of His glory, or had no 
desire to be approached. Many things connected with 
its texture and place showed that this was not the 
case. The unspiritual Jew of course was very likely to 
misjudge its use and import; and the historian 
Josephus is a specimen of that class. He seems to have 
had not the most distant idea of its use.[8] But the 
Israelite who had discernment in the things of God 
would see something far higher and nobler than this, 
though he might not understand it fully in connection 
with Messiah. Still he would see in that veil 
something glorious; something which both attracted and 
repelled; something which hid and revealed; something 
which spoke of himself and of his Messiah; for he knew 
that every thing pertaining to that tabernacle, and 
specially these on which cherubim were wrought, had 
reference to Messiah the Deliver, the seed of the 
woman, the man with the bruised heel.
	All the curtains of the tabernacle had more or 
less the same reference. For on all of them the same 
devices were wrought. "Thou shalt make the tabernacle 
with ten curtains of fine-twined linen, and blue, and 
purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work 
shalt thou make them" (Exo 26:1, 36:8). The cherubim-
figure was to be seen everywhere. That mysterious 
device which was first placed in Paradise, and which 
for ages had disappeared, was now reproduced in 
connection with the tabernacle. Since the garden of 
the Lord had been swept away (probably at the flood), 
the cherubim had not been seen; though doubtless 
tradition had handed down the memory of their 
appearance, and to Israel they were not strangers. 
Moses is now commanded to restore them. From Noah to 
Moses the Church had been a wanderer, with no 
sanctuary, only an altar to worship at. Yet, 
doubtless, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew well about 
the cherubim; and when Moses was instructed to replace 
them he does not require to have their nature 
explained. They are now to be inwoven into the 
sanctuary,--that sanctuary which symbolised nothing 
less than Messiah Himself; teaching us that (whatever 
these cherubim might mean) the cherubim and Messiah 
were all "of one." The Church is represented in the 
tabernacle as one with Christ, "members of His body, 
of His flesh, and of His bones." Israel was taught 
that "the Church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38) was as 
truly the body of Christ as the Church at Pentecost.
	But however vague might be the ideas of the old 
Jew regarding the veil, it could not but be viewed as 
very peculiar, something by itself; part of the 
tabernacle furniture no doubt, yet a singular and 
unique part of it; in texture, in position, and in 
use, quite peculiar: exquisite as a piece of 
workmanship,--every colour and thread of which it was 
composed being symbolic and vocal. But still it was 
the frailest part of the fabric,--a strange contrast, 
in after days when the temple was built, with the 
massive marble walls and cedar beams, with which it 
was surrounded. For the temple was in all respects 
magnificent,--even as a piece of architecture. Its 
enormous foundations were let in to the solid rock; 
its vast stones, each in itself a wall, rose tier 
above tier; its gates were of solid brass, so weighty, 
that one of them required twenty men to open and shut 
it. It thus presented a solid mass to view more like a 
part of the mountain than a mere building upon it.
	But the veil was a thing which a child's hand 
could draw aside; and it was hung just where we should 
have expected a gate of brass or a wall of granite,--
at the entrance into the holiest of all,--to guard 
against the possibility of intrusion. Its frail 
texture in the midst of so much that was strong and 
massive, said that it was but a temporary barrier,--a 
screen,--in due time to be removed. The worshipper in 
the outer court, as he looked towards it from the 
outer entrance of the holy place, would see something 
of its workmanship, and might perhaps get some 
glimpses of the glory within shining through its 
folds. He would learn this much, at least, that the 
way into the holiest was not fully opened; yet it was 
only stopped by a veil, no more. He would conclude 
within himself, that though shut out now he would one 
day be allowed to enter and worship at the mercy-seat, 
or at something better than that mercy-seat, at the 
heavenly throne, in the true tabernacle which the Lord 
pitched, and not man, when the High Priest of good 
things to come should arrive, and as his forerunner, 
lead him into the very presence of that Invisible 
Jehovah who was now by symbols showing how He was to 
be approached and worshipped.
	The veil! It hid God from man; for till that 
should be done which would make "grace reign through 
righteousness" (Rom 5:21), man could not be allowed to 
see God face to face. It hid man from God; for till 
this "righteousness" was established by the 
substitution of the just for the unjust, God could not 
directly look upon man. It hid the glory of God from 
man; it hid the shame of man from God. It so veiled or 
shaded both the shame and the glory, that it was 
possible for God to be near man, and yet not to repel 
him; and it was possible for man to be near God and 
yet not to be consumed.
	The veil! It was let down from above, it did not 
spring up from below. It originated in God, and not in 
man. It was not man hiding himself from God, but God 
hiding Himself from man, as His holiness required, 
until it should become a right for a holy God and 
unholy man to meet each other in peace and love.
	And it was sprinkled with blood! For though the 
expression "before the veil" (Lev 4:6) does not 
necessarily mean that it was sprinkled on the veil, 
yet the likelihood is that this was done. "The seven 
times, (says a commentator on Leviticus), throughout 
all Scripture, intimates a complete and perfect 
action. The blood is to be thoroughly exhibited before 
the Lord; life openly exhibited as taken, to honour 
the law that had been violated. It is not at this time 
taken within the veil; for that would require the 
priest to enter the holy of holies, a thing permitted 
only once a year. But it is taken very near the mercy-
seat; it is taken 'before the veil,' while the Lord 
that dwelt between the cherubim bent down to listen to 
the cry that came up from the sin-atoning blood. Was 
the blood sprinkled on the veil? Some say not; but 
only on the floor close to the veil. The floor of the 
holy place was dyed with blood; a threshold of blood 
was formed, over which the High Priest must pass into 
on the day of judgment, when he entered into the most 
holy, drawing aside the veil. It is blood that opens 
our way into the presence of God; it is the voice of 
atoning blood that prevails with Him who dwells 
within. Others, however, with more probability, think 
that the blood was sprinkled on the veil. It might 
intimate that atonement was yet to rend that veil; and 
as that beautiful veil represented our Saviour's holy 
humanity (Heb 10:20), oh, how expressive was the 
continual repetition of the 'blood-sprinkling' seven 
times. As often as the Priest offered a sin-offering, 
the veil was wet again with blood, which dropped on 
the floor. Is this Christ bathed in the blood of 
atonement? Yes, through that veil the veil was opened 
to us, through the flesh of Jesus, through the body 
that for us was drenched in the sweat of blood."[9]
	We speak of the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, and 
the blood-sprinkled floor, on which that mercy-seat 
stood; but let us not forget the blood-sprinkled 
pavement, the "new and living way" into the holiest, 
and the blood-sprinkled veil. For "almost all things 
under the law were purged with blood, and without 
shedding of blood is no remission."
	Nor let us forget Gethsemane, where "His sweat 
was as it were great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground." At His circumcision, at Gethsemane, at 
the cross, we see the blood-sprinkled veil. And all 
this for us; that the blood which was thus required at 
His hands should not be required of us.

CHAPTER 4.

THE TRUE VEIL.



All man's thoughts regarding the true meaning of the 
veil have been set at rest by that brief parenthesis 
of the Apostle Paul,-- "the veil, that is to say, His 
flesh" (Heb 10:20). The Holy Spirit has interpreted 
the symbol for us, and saved us a world of speculation 
and uncertainty. We now know that the veil meant the 
body of "Jesus."[10]
	Thus Christ is seen in every part of the 
tabernacle; and everywhere it is the riches of His 
grace that we see. Here "Christ is all and in all." 
The whole fabric is Christ. Each separate part is 
Christ. The altar is Christ the sacrifice. The laver 
is Christ filled with the Spirit for us. The curtains 
speak of Him. The entrances all speak of Him. 
Candlestick, and table, and golden altar speak of Him. 
The Ark of the Covenant, the mercy-seat, the glory, 
all embody and reveal Him. Everything here says, 
"Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the 
world."
	But the veil is "His flesh,"--His body, His 
humanity. As the lamb was to be without blemish, and 
without spot, in order to set forth His perfection; so 
the veil was perfect in all its parts, finely wrought 
and beautiful to the eye, to exhibit the excellency of 
Him who is fairer than the children of men. As the 
veil was composed of the things of earth, so was His 
body; not only bone of our bone and flesh of His 
flesh, but nourished in all its parts by the things of 
earth, fed by the things which grew out of the soil, 
as we are fed. Christ's flesh was perfect, though 
earthly: without sin, though of the substance of a 
sinful woman; unblemished in every part, yet sensitive 
to all our sinless infirmities. Through the veil the 
glory shone, so through the body of Christ the Godhead 
shone.
	As in the holy of holies the shekinah or symbol 
of Jehovah dwelt; so in the man Christ Jesus dwelt 
"all the fulness of the Godhead BODILY" (Col 2:9). He 
was "the Word made flesh" (John 1:14); "God manifest 
in flesh" (1 Tim 3:16); "Immanuel," God with us; 
Jehovah in very deed dwelling on earth, inhabiting a 
temple made with hands; and that temple a human body 
such as ours. For God became man that He might dwell 
with man, and that man might dwell with Him. In Jesus 
of Nazareth Jehovah was manifested; so that he who saw 
Him saw the Father, and he who heard Him heard the 
Father, and he who knew Him knew the Father.
	In Jesus of Nazareth was seen the mighty God. In 
the son of the carpenter was seen the Creator of 
heaven and earth. In the Man of sorrows was seen the 
Son of the blessed. He who was born at Bethlehem was 
He whose days are from eternity. He who died was the 
Prince of life, of whom it is written, "In Him was 
life, and the life was the light of men." Of these 
things the mysterious veil of the temple was the fair 
symbol. He who could read the meaning of that veil 
could read unutterable things concerning the coming 
Messiah,--the Redeemer of His Israel, the Deliverer of 
man; divine yet human, heavenly yet earthly, clothed 
with divine majesty, yet wearing the raiment of our 
poor humanity.
	In Him was manifested divine strength, residing 
in and working through a feeble human arm such as 
ours: divine wisdom, in its perfection, speaking 
through the lips of a child of dust; divine majesty 
seated on a human brow; divine benignity beaming from 
human eyes, and put forth in the touch of a human 
hand; divine purposes working themselves out through a 
human will; divine sovereignty embodied in each act 
and motion of a human organism; divine grace coming 
forth in human compassions and sympathies; and divine 
grief finding vent to itself in human tears.
	The perfection of His holy and glorious, yet 
true manhood is seen in that mysterious veil. Its 
materials, so choice, so fair, yet still earthly, 
spoke of Him who, though fairer than the children of 
men, is still bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. 
Its well-wrought texture and exquisite workmanship, of 
purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen, spoke of 
His spotless yet thoroughly human body, prepared by 
the Holy Ghost; while its embroidered or interwoven 
cherubim spoke of the Church in Him,--part of Himself; 
one with Him as He is one with them; for "both He that 
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of 
one."
	The "flesh of Christ" both revealed and hid the 
glory. It veiled and it unveiled Godhead: it 
proclaimed the nearness of Jehovah to His worshippers, 
and yet suggested some distance, some interposing 
medium, which could only be taken out of the way by 
God Himself. For that which had been placed there by 
God could not be removed by man. And yet man, in a 
certain sense, had to do with the removal. In the 
type, indeed, it was not so; but in the antitype it 
was. For no hand of man rent the veil; yet it was 
man's hand that nailed the Son of God to the cross; it 
was man that slew Him. And yet again, on the other 
hand, it was God that smote Him,--just as it was the 
hand of God that rent the veil from top to bottom. "It 
pleased the Lord to bruise Him and to put Him to 
grief" (Isa 53:10). The bruising of His heel was the 
doing of the serpent and his seed, yet it was also the 
doing of the Lord.
	There was the unbroken body, and the broken body 
of the Lord. The veil pointed to the former. It was 
the symbol of the unbroken body, the unwounded flesh 
of the Surety. It was connected with incarnation, not 
with crucifixion,--with life, not with death. We learn 
from it that mere incarnation can do nothing for the 
sinner. He needs far more than that,--something 
different from the mere assumption of our humanity. 
The veil said, that body must be broken before the 
sinner can come as a worshipper into the place where 
Jehovah dwells. The Christ of God must not merely take 
flesh and blood; He must take mortal flesh and die. 
Sacrifice alone can bring us nigh to God, and keep us 
secure and blessed in His presence. We are saved by a 
dying Christ.
	The veil was, as we have said before, to the 
holy of holies what the sword of fire was to the 
garden of the Lord. Both of them kept watch at the 
gate of the divine presence-chamber. The flaming sword 
turned every way; that is, it threw around the garden 
a girdle or belt of divine fire from the shekinah 
glory, threatening death to all who should seek 
entrance into the holiest, and yet (by leaving 
Paradise unscathed upon the earth) revealing God's 
gracious purpose of preserving it for the re-entrance 
of banished man, or rather of preparing for him a home 
more glorious than the Paradise which he had lost.
	Both the veil and the flame said, "We guard the 
palace of the Great King, that no sinner may enter." 
Yet they said also, the King is within, He has not 
forsaken man or man's world; you shall one day have 
unhindered access to Him; but for wise and vast 
reasons, to be shown in due time, you cannot enter 
yet. Something must be done to make your entrance a 
safe thing for yourself and a righteous thing for God.
	That veil then, unrent as it was, proclaimed the 
glad tidings; though it could not, so long as it was 
unrent, reveal the whole grace, or at least the way in 
which grace is to reach the sinner. That grace can 
flow out only by means of death. It is death that 
opens the pent-up fulness of love, and sends out the 
life contained in the "spring shut up, the fountain 
sealed." It is the rod of the substitute, the cross of 
the sin-bearer that smites the rock, that the waters 
may gush forth.
	The antitype of the unrent veil might be said to 
have been held before Israel's eyes from the time that 
the Son of God took our flesh. It is the unrent veil 
that we find at Bethlehem; it is the unrent veil that 
we find at Nazareth, and all the life long of the 
Christ of God. The miracles of grace wrought during 
His ministry were like the waving of the folds of that 
veil before men's eyes, and letting some of the rays 
of the inner majesty shine through. So were His words 
of grace from day to day. Men were compelled to look 
and to admire. "They wondered at the gracious words 
proceeding out of His mouth" (Luke 4:22, literally, 
"at the words of the grace proceeding out of His 
mouth"); "Never man spake like this man" (John 7:46); 
"He hath done all things well" (Mark 7:37); what were 
these things but the expressions of admiration at the 
unrent veil. It was so beautiful, so perfect! Men 
gazed at it and wondered. It was marvellously 
attractive; and it was meant to be so.
	Hence many were drawn to the person of Christ by 
His attractive grace without fully understanding 
either His fulness or their own great need. What they 
saw in a living Christ won their hearts; they 
acknowledged Him as the Saviour without fully 
understanding how He was to be such. The disciples 
would not admit any necessity for His dying. The 
unrent veil seemed to them enough. "That be far from 
Thee, Lord," were the words of Peter, repudiating the 
very idea of His Lord's death. He was content with a 
living Saviour. Death seemed altogether inconsistent 
with the character of Messiah.
	Let us mark the scene just referred to, and 
understand its meaning. "From that time forth began 
Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go 
to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and 
chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised 
again the third day" (Matt 16:21). It was as if 
standing in front of the holy of holies, and pointing 
to the veil, He was saying to them, That veil must be 
rent! "Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke him, 
saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be 
unto Thee" (v 22). What was this but saying, Lord, 
that is impossible; that veil must not and cannot be 
rent! "But He turned and said unto Peter, Get thee 
behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for 
thou savourest not the things that be of God, but 
those that be of men" (v 23). It was as if He had 
said, Peter, thou art speaking like Satan, and for 
Satan; he knows that unless the heel of the woman's 
seed be bruised, his head cannot be bruised; he knows 
that unless that veil be rent, thou canst not go in to 
God; and he speaks through thee, if it were possible, 
to prevent the rending; the veil must be rent; if I 
die not, thou canst not live; if I die not, I need not 
have come into the world at all.[11]
	If one might, by a figure, speak of the veil as 
living and sentient, might we not say that it dreaded 
the rending. What was the meaning of Christ's words, 
"Now is my soul sorrowful"? Was it not the expression 
of dread as to the rending? And still more, what was 
the meaning of the Gethsemane cry, "Father, if it be 
Thy will, let this cup pass from me"? Was it not the 
same? And yet there was the desire for its being rent, 
the longing for the consummation. "I have a baptism to 
be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be 
accomplished" (Luke 12:50).
	"A body hast thou prepared me" (Heb 10:5). That 
body was truly human as we have seen, and yet it was 
prepared by the Holy Ghost. "The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
overshadow thee; therefore also,[12] that holy thing 
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of 
God" (Luke 1:35). This body, thus divinely prepared 
out of human materials, was altogether wonderful. 
There had been none like it from the first: nor was 
there to be any such after it,--so perfect, yet so 
thoroughly human; so stainless, yet so sensitive to 
all the sinless infirmities of man. In this respect it 
differed from the body of the first Adam, which was 
perfect, no doubt, but not in sympathy with us. The 
kind of perfection in the first Adam unfitted him to 
sympathise with us, or to be tempted like as we are. 
The nature of Christ's perfection fitted Him most 
fully for sympathising with us, and for being tempted, 
like as we are, yet without sin.
	The colour and texture of the temple-veil seem 
all to have reference to the flesh or body; blue, and 
purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen. Jeremiah's 
description of the Nazarites may help us to see this: 
"Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter 
than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies; 
their polishing was of sapphire" (Lam 4:7, or "their 
veining was the sapphire's," as Blayney renders it). 
The bride in the Song of Solomon thus also speaks of 
the bridegroom, "My beloved is white and ruddy, the 
chiefest among ten thousand" (Song of Sol 5:10).
	All this corporeal perfection and beauty were 
produced by the Holy Ghost. Never had His hand brought 
forth such material perfection as in the body of the 
Christ of God. It was "without spot and blemish," 
worthy of Him out of whose eternal purpose it came 
forth; worthy of Him who so cunningly had wrought it 
as the perfection of divine workmanship; worthy of Him 
in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily.[13]
	


CHAPTER 5.

THE RENDING OF THE VEIL.


The symbolic veil was rent: and at the same moment the 
true veil was also rent. It is this that we have now 
to consider.
	The following are the words of the evangelist: 
"Behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain from 
the top to the bottom" (Matt 27:51). In considering 
them we must endeavour to realise the scene of which 
this is a part. The passage transports us to 
Jerusalem; it sets us down upon Moriah; it takes us 
into the old temple at the hour of evening sacrifice, 
when the sun, though far down the heavens, is still 
sending its rays right over turret and pinnacle, on to 
the grey slopes of Olivet, where thousands, gathered 
for the great Paschal Sacrifice, are wandering; it 
shows us the holy chambers with their varied furniture 
of marble and cedar and gold; it brings us into the 
midst of the ministering priests, all robed for 
service. Then suddenly, as through the opened sky, it 
lifts us up and carries us from the earthly into the 
heavenly places, from the mortal into the immortal 
Jerusalem, of which it is written by one who had gazed 
upon them both, "I saw no temple therein, for the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
	For we must take the earthly and the heavenly 
together, as body and soul. The terrestrial sun and 
the sun of righteousness must mingle their radiance, 
and each unfold the other. The waters of the nether 
and the upper springs must flow together. The Church 
must be seen in Israel, and Israel in the Church; 
Christ in the altar, and the altar in Christ; Christ 
in the lamb, and the lamb in Christ; Christ in the 
mercy-seat, and the mercy-seat in Christ; Christ in 
the shekinah-glory, and the shekinah-glory in Him, who 
is the brightness of Jehovah's glory. We must not 
separate the shadow from the substance, the material 
from the spiritual, the visible form the invisible 
glory. What God hath joined together, let no man put 
asunder.
	Even the old Jew, if a believing man, like 
Simeon, saw these two things together, though in a way 
and order and proportion considerably different from 
what our faith now realises. To him there was the 
vision of the heavenly through the earthly; to us 
there is the vision of the earthly through the 
heavenly. He, standing on the outside, saw the glory 
through the veil, as one in a valley sees the sunshine 
through clouds; we, placed in the inside, see the veil 
through the glory, as one far up the mountain sees the 
clouds beneath through the sunshine. Formerly it was 
the earthly that revealed the heavenly, now it is the 
heavenly that illuminates the earthly. Standing beside 
the brazen serpent, Moses might see afar off Messiah 
the Healer of the nations; standing, or rather I 
should say sitting, by faith beside this same Messiah 
in the heavenly places, we see the brazen serpent afar 
off. From the rock of Horeb, the elders of Israel 
might look up and catch afar off some glimpses of the 
water of life flowing from the rock of ages; we, close 
by the heavenly fountain, proceeding out of the throne 
of God and of the Lamb, look down and recognise the 
old desert rock, with its gushing stream. Taking in 
his hand the desert manna, Israel could look up to the 
true bread above; we, taking into our hands the bread 
of God, look downward on the desert manna, not needing 
now with Israel to ask, "What is it?"
	But let us look at
	The rending of the veil. This was a new thing in 
its history, and quite a thing fitted to make Israel 
gaze and wonder, and ask, what meaneth this? Is 
Jehovah about to forsake His dwelling?
	
	1. It was rent, not consumed by fire. For not 
its mere removal, still less its entire destruction, 
was to be signified; but its being transformed from 
being a barrier into a gate of entrance. Through it 
the way into the holiest was to pass; the new and 
living way; over a pavement sprinkled with blood.

	2. It was rent while the temple stood. Had the 
earthquake which rent the rocks and opened graves, 
struck down the temple or shattered its walls, men 
might have said that it was this that rent the veil. 
But now was it made manifest that it was no earthly 
hand, nor natural convulsion, that was thus throwing 
open the mercy-seat, and making its long-barred 
chamber as entirely accessible as the wide court 
without, which all might enter, and where all might 
worship.

	3. It was rent in twain. It did not fall to 
pieces, nor was it torn in pieces. The rent was a 
clean and straight one, made by some invisible hand; 
and the exact division into two parts might well 
figure the separation of Christ's soul and body, while 
each part remained connected with the temple, as both 
body and soul remained in union with the Godhead; as 
well as resemble the throwing open of the great 
folding door between earth and heaven, and the 
complete restoration of the fellowship between God and 
man.

	4. It was rent from the top to the bottom. Not 
from side to side, nor from the bottom to the top: 
which might have been man's doing; but from the top to 
the bottom, showing that the power which rent it was 
from above, not from beneath; that the rending was not 
of man but of God. It was man, no doubt, that dealt 
the blow of death to the Son of God, but, "it pleased 
the Lord to bruise him; He hath put him to grief." 
Beginning with the roof and ending with the floor, the 
rest was complete; for God, out of His own heaven, had 
done it. And as from roof to floor there remained not 
one fragment of the old veil; so from heaven to earth, 
from the throne of God, down to the dwelling of man, 
there exists not one remnant nor particle of a barrier 
between the sinner and God. He who openeth and no man 
shutteth has, with His own hand, and in His own 
boundless love, thrown wide open to the chief of 
sinners, the innermost recesses of His own glorious 
heaven! Let us go in: let us draw near.

	5. It was rent in the presence of the priests. 
They were in the holy place, outside the veil, of 
course, officiating, lighting the lamps, or placing 
incense on the golden altar, or ordering the shewbread 
on the golden table. They saw the solemn rending of 
the veil, and were no doubt overwhelmed with 
amazement; ready to flee out of the place, or to cover 
their eyes lest they should see the hidden glories of 
that awful chamber which only one was permitted to 
behold. "Woe is me, for I am undone; I am a man of 
unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean 
lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
Hosts" (Isa 6:5). They were witnesses of what was 
done. They had not done it themselves; they felt that 
no mortal hand had done it; and what could they say 
but that God Himself had thrown open His gates, that 
they might enter in to precincts from which they had 
been so long debarred.

	6. It was rent that it might disclose the mercy-
seat, and the cherubim, and the glory. These were no 
longer to be hidden, and known only as the mysterious 
occupants of a chamber from which they might not go 
out, and into which no man might enter. It was no 
longer profanity to handle the uncovered vessels of 
the inner shrine; to gaze upon the golden floor and 
walls all stained with sacrificial blood; nay, to go 
up to the mercy-seat and sit down beneath the very 
shadow of the glory. Formerly it was blasphemy even to 
speak of entering in; now the invitation seemed all at 
once to go forth, "Let us come boldly to the throne of 
grace." The safest, as well as the most blessed place, 
is beneath the shadow of the glory.

	7. It was rent at the time of the evening 
sacrifice. About three o'clock, when the sun began to 
go down, the lamb was slain, and laid upon the brazen 
altar. Just at the moment when its blood was shed, and 
the smoke arose from the fire that was consuming it, 
the veil was rent in twain. There was an unseen link 
between the altar and the veil, between the sacrifice 
and the rending, between the bloodshedding and the 
removal of the barrier. It was blood that had done the 
work. It was blood that had rent the veil and thrown 
open the mercy-seat: the blood of "the Lamb, without 
blemish, and without spot."
	8. It was rent at the moment when the Son of God 
died on the cross. His death, then, had done it! Nay, 
more, that rending and that death were one thing; the 
one a symbol, the other a reality; but both containing 
one lesson, that LIFE was the screen which stood 
between us and God, and death the removal of the 
screen; that it was His death that made His 
incarnation available for sinners; that it was from 
the cross of Golgotha that the cradle of Bethlehem 
derived all its value and its virtue; that the rock of 
ages, like the rock of Rephidim, must be smitten 
before it can become a fountain of living waters. That 
death was like the touching of the electric wire 
between Calvary and Moriah, setting loose suddenly the 
divine power that for a thousand years had been lying 
in wait to rend the veil and cast down the barrier. It 
was from the cross that the power emanated which rent 
the veil. From that place of weakness and shame and 
agony, came forth the omnipotent command, "Lift up 
your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye 
everlasting doors." The "It is finished" upon Golgotha 
was the appointed signal, and the instantaneous 
response was the rending of the veil. Little did the 
Jew think, when nailing the Son of the carpenter to 
the tree, that it was these pierced hands that were to 
rend the veil, and that it was their being thus 
pierced that fitted them for this mysterious work. 
Little did he suppose, when erecting a cross for the 
Nazarene, that that cross was to be the lever by which 
both his temple and city were to be razed to their 
foundations. Yet so it was. It was the cross of Christ 
that rent the veil; overthrew the cold statutes of 
symbolic service; consecrated the new and living way 
into the holiest; supplanted the ritualistic with the 
real and the true; and substituted for lifeless 
performances the living worship of the living God.
	9. When the veil was rent, the cherubim which 
were embroidered on it were rent with it. And as these 
cherubim symbolised the Church of the redeemed, there 
was thus signified our identification with Christ in 
His death. We were nailed with Him to the cross; we 
were crucified with Him; with Him we died, and were 
buried, and rose again. In that rent veil we have the 
temple-symbol of the apostle's doctrine, concerning 
oneness with Christ in life and death,-- "I am 
crucified with Christ." And in realising the cross and 
the veil, let us realise these words of solemn 
meaning, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
Christ in God."
	The broken body and shed blood of the Lord had 
at length opened the sinner's way into the holiest. 
And these were the tokens not merely of grace, but of 
righteousness. That rending was no act either of mere 
power or of mere grace. Righteousness had done it. 
Righteousness had rolled away the stone. Righteousness 
had burst the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the 
bars of iron. It was a righteous removal of the 
barrier; it was a righteous entrance that had been 
secured for the unrighteous; it was a righteous 
welcome for the chief of sinners that was now 
proclaimed.
	Long had the blood of bulls and goats striven to 
rend the veil, but in vain. Long had they knocked at 
the awful gate, demanding entrance for the sinner; 
long had they striven to quench the flaming sword, and 
unclasp the fiery belt that girdled paradise; long had 
they demanded entrance for the sinner, but in vain. 
But now the better blood has come; it knocks but once, 
and the gate flies open; it but once touches the sword 
of fire, and it is quenched. Not a moment is lost. The 
fulness of the time has come. God delays not, but 
unbars the door at once. He throws open His mercy-seat 
to the sinner, and makes haste to receive the banished 
one; more glad even than the wanderer himself that the 
distance, and the exclusion, and the terror are at an 
end for ever.
	O wondrous power of the cross of Christ! To 
exalt the low, and to abase the high; to cast down and 
to build up; to unlink and to link; to save and to 
destroy; to kill and to make alive; to shut out and to 
let in; to curse and to bless. O wondrous virtue of 
the saving cross, which saves in crucifying, and 
crucifies in saving! For four thousand years has 
paradise been closed, but Thou hast opened it. For 
ages and generations the presence of God has been 
denied to the sinner, but Thou hast given entrance,--
and that not timid, and uncertain, and costly, and 
hazardous; but bold, and blessed, and safe, and free.
	The veil, then, has been rent in twain from the 
top to the bottom. The way is open, the blood is 
sprinkled, the mercy-seat is accessible to all, and 
the voice of the High Priest, seated on that mercy-
seat, summons us to enter, and to enter without fear. 
Having, then, boldness to enter into the holiest by 
the blood of Jesus,--by a new and living way which He 
hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to 
say, His flesh, and having an High Priest over the 
house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in 
the full assurance of faith. The message is, Go in, go 
in. Let us respond to the message, and at once draw 
near. To stand afar off, or even upon the threshhold, 
is to deny and dishonour the provision made for our 
entrance, as well as to incur the awful peril of 
remaining outside the one place of safety or 
blessedness. To enter in is our only security and our 
only joy. But we must go in in a spirit and attitude 
becoming the provision made for us. If that provision 
has been insufficient, we must come hesitatingly, 
doubtingly, as men who can only venture on an 
uncertain hope of being welcomed. If the veil be not 
wholly rent, if the blood be not thoroughly sprinkled, 
or be in itself insufficient, if the mercy-seat be not 
wholly what its name implies,--a seat of mercy, a 
throne of grace; if the High Priest be not 
sufficiently compassionate and loving, or if there be 
not sufficient evidence that these things are so, the 
sinner may come doubtingly and uncertainly; but if the 
veil be fully rent, and the blood be of divine value 
and potency, and the mercy-seat be really the place of 
grace, and the High Priest full of love to the sinner, 
then every shadow of a reason for doubt is swept 
utterly away. Not to come with the boldness is the 
sin. Not to come in the full assurance of faith is the 
presumption. To draw near with an "evil conscience" is 
to declare our belief that the blood of the Lamb is 
not of itself enough to give the sinner a good 
conscience and a fearless access.
	"May I then draw near as I am, in virtue of the 
efficacy of the sprinkled blood?" Most certainly. In 
what other way or character do you propose to come? 
And may I be bold at once? Most certainly. For if not 
at once, then when and how? Let boldness come when it 
may, it will come to you from the sight of the blood 
upon the floor and mercy-seat, and from nothing else. 
It is bold coming that honours the blood. It is bold 
coming that glorifies the love of God and the grace of 
His throne. "Come boldly!" this is the message to the 
sinner. Come boldly now! Come in the full assurance of 
faith, not supposing it possible that that God who has 
provided such a mercy-seat can do anything but welcome 
you; that such a mercy-seat can be anything to you but 
the place of pardon, or that the gospel out of which 
every sinner that has believed it has extracted peace, 
can contain anything but peace to you.
	The rent veil is liberty of access. Will you 
linger still? The sprinkled blood is boldness,--
boldness for the sinner, for any sinner, for every 
sinner. Will you still hesitate, tampering and 
dallying with uncertainty and doubt, and an evil 
conscience? Oh, take that blood for what it is and 
gives, and go in. Take that rent veil for what it 
indicates, and go in. This only will make you a 
peaceful, happy, holy man. This only will enable you 
to work for God on earth, unfettered and unburdened; 
all over joyful, all over loving, and all over free. 
This will make your religion not that of one who has 
everything yet to settle between himself and God, and 
whose labours, and duties, and devotions are all 
undergone for the purpose of working out that 
momentous adjustment before life shall close, but the 
religion of one who, having at the very outset, and 
simply in believing, settled every question between 
himself and God over the blood of the Lamb, is serving 
the blessed One who has loved him and bought him, with 
all the undivided energy of his liberated and happy 
soul.
	For every sinner, without exception, that veil 
has a voice, that blood a voice, that mercy-seat a 
voice. They say, "Come in." They say, "Be reconciled 
to God." They say, "Draw near." They say, "Seek the 
Lord while He may be found." To the wandering 
prodigal, the lover of pleasure, the drinker of 
earth's maddening cup, the dreamer of earth's vain 
dreams,--they say, there is bread enough in your 
Father's house, and love enough in your Father's 
heart, and to spare,--return, return. To each banished 
child of Adam, exiles from the paradise which their 
first father lost, these symbols, with united voice, 
proclaim the extinction of the fiery sword, the re-
opening of the long-barred gate, with a free and 
abundant re-entrance, or rather, entrance into a more 
glorious paradise, a paradise that was never lost.
	But if all these voices die away unheeded,--if 
you will not avail yourself, O man, of that rent veil, 
that open gate,--what remains but the eternal 
exclusion, the hopeless exile, the outer darkness, 
where there is the weeping and wailing and gnashing of 
teeth? Instead of the rent veil, there shall be drawn 
the dark curtain, never to be removed or rent, which 
shall shut you out from God, and from paradise, and 
from the New Jerusalem for ever. Instead of the mercy-
seat, there comes the throne of judgment; and instead 
of the gracious High Priest, there comes the avenging 
Judge. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming, and with 
His awful advent ends all thy hope. He is coming; and 
He may be nearer than you think. In an hour when you 
are not aware He will come. When you are saying peace 
and safety, He will come. When you are dreaming of 
earth's long, calm, summer days, He will come. Lose no 
time. Trifle no more with eternity; it is too long and 
too great to be trifled with. Make haste! Get these 
affections disengaged from a present evil world. Get 
these sins of thine buried in the grave of Christ. Get 
that soul of thine wrapped up, all over, in the 
perfection of the perfect One, in the righteousness of 
the righteous One. Then all is well, all is well. But 
till then thou hast not so much as one true hope for 
eternity or for time.
	

CHAPTER 6.

THE REMOVAL OF THE FIRST SACRIFICE AND THE 
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SECOND.


The temple was not overthrown till about forty years 
after the Son of God died on the cross. The type was 
preserved for a season, that the antitype might be 
more fully understood. The shadow and the substance 
were thus for forty years exhibited together. The 
temple still, in its rites, proclaimed what the 
apostles preached. Every part of it spoke aloud and 
said, "Look on me, and look away from me; look to Him 
of whom I have been bearing witness for these many 
ages; behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin 
of the world."
	But in God's sight the first sacrifice was 
finished when Jesus died. Then the purpose for which 
the blood had been shed day by day was accomplished.
	Thus the apostle writes, "He taketh away the 
first that He may establish the second" (Heb 10:9).
	To a Jew this language must have sounded 
strange, if not profane; quite as much so as did the 
words, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will 
raise it up." A first and second what? Does he rightly 
hear the words?
	Is it a second temple, a second altar, a second 
priesthood; the first being set aside? That cannot be! 
Israel's service is divine; it is one and unchanging. 
Messiah, when He comes, will confirm, not destroy it. 
Israel's service is a first without a second. A second 
is an impossibility, a blasphemy.
	Yet the apostle, a Jew, writing to Jews, 
announces this incredible thing! He announces it as an 
indisputable certainty; and he expects to be believed. 
Had he announced a second sun or a second universe, 
rising out of the extinction of the first, he would 
not have been reckoned so outrageous in his statement 
as in declaring the abolition of Israel's present 
service, and the substitution of one more perfect, and 
no less divine.

	1. But what is this first? Speaking generally, 
it means the old temple and tabernacle service; the 
old covenant made with Israel in the desert, from 
Mount Sinai. But the special thing in this service to 
which he points is the sacrifice or sacrifices; the 
blood of bullocks and of goats, the morning and 
evening sacrifice of the lamb for the daily burnt-
offering, in which all the other sacrifices were wrapt 
up,--which was the very heart and soul of all the 
worship carried on in that sanctuary.

	2. By whom was this "first" taken away? By Him 
who set it up, and upheld it for so many ages; "He 
taketh away the first." He, the Lord God of Israel, 
the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It was not man 
who destroyed it, even as it was not man who 
established it. Long before the city was overthrown 
and the temple perished, the sacrifice had come to an 
end, the temple service had run its course.

	3. When was it taken away? On that afternoon of 
the passover when the Son of God died upon the cross; 
that awful hour when the sun was darkened, and the 
earth shook, and the rocks were rent. Then, at 
eventide, at three o'clock, the last Jewish sacrifice 
was laid upon the brazen altar. In God's reckoning 
that was really the last. No doubt, for years after 
this sacrifices continued to be offered up; but these 
could no longer be said to be of divine appointment. 
The number of burnt-offerings according to God's 
purpose was now complete; their end had been served; 
they passed away. From the day that Solomon laid the 
first lamb on the temple altar; from the day that 
Moses laid the first on the tabernacle altar; from the 
day that Adam laid his first upon the altar at the 
gate of Paradise, how many tens of thousands had been 
offered! But now God's great purpose with them is 
served. All is done. The last of the long series has 
been laid upon the altar.

	4. How was this first taken away? Simply by 
setting another in its place; making it give way to 
something better. Not by violence, or fire, or the 
sword of man. The altar sent up its last blaze that 
evening as brightly as ever. The blaze sank down, and 
all has since been dark. The great end was served; the 
great lesson taught; the great truth written down for 
man. Then and thus the fire ceased to burn, and the 
blood to flow. No more of such fire or such blood was 
needed. The first was taken away without the noise of 
axes or hammers, because its work was done.

	5. For what end did He take away the first? That 
He might establish the second. The first seemed 
steadfast; Israel reckoned on it standing for ever; it 
had stood for many an age. Yet it gives way, and 
another comes: one meant to be more abiding than the 
first; one sacrifice, once for all; yet that sacrifice 
eternal; the same in its results on the worshipper as 
if it were offered up every day for ever; the basis 
and seal of the everlasting covenant. It was to make 
room for this glorious second that the first was taken 
away; this glorious second through which eternal 
redemption was accomplished for us.
	Besides, it had come to be necessary, on other 
grounds, that the first should be taken away. It was 
beginning to defeat the very ends for which it was set 
up. Men were getting to look upon it as a real thing 
in itself; and to believe in it instead of believing 
in Him to whom it pointed. It was becoming an object 
of worship and of trust, as if it were the true 
propitiation; as if the blood of beasts could pacify 
the conscience, or reconcile God, or put away sin. It 
was becoming an idol; a substitute for the living God, 
and for His Christ, instead of showing the way of true 
approach and acceptable worship. As men in our day 
make an idol of their own faith, and believe in it 
instead of believing in the Son of God, so did the 
Jews of other days make the sacrifice their 
confidence, their resting-place, their Messiah. And as 
Hezekiah broke in pieces the brazen serpent when 
Israel began to worship it, so did God abolish the 
sacrifice.
	That sacrifice was not in itself a real thing, 
nor did it accomplish anything real. It was but a 
picture, a statue, a shadow, a messenger,--no more. It 
was but the sketch or outline of the living thing that 
was to come; and to mistake it for that living thing 
itself was to be deluded with the subtlest of all 
errors, and the most perilous of all idolatries. And 
what can be more dangerous for a soul than to mistake 
the unreal for the real; to dote upon the picture, and 
lose sight of the glorious Being represented? Ah, we 
do not thus deceive ourselves in earthly things! No 
man mistakes the picture of gold for gold itself, or 
the portrait of a loved face for the very face itself. 
Yet do we daily see how men are content with religious 
unrealities; the unrealities of a barren creed, or of 
a hollow form; the unrealities of doubt and 
uncertainty in the relationship between them and God. 
We find how many of those called religious men are 
satisfied with something far short of a living Christ, 
and a full assurance and a joyful hope.
	Nay, they make this unreality of theirs an idol, 
a god; not venturing to step beyond it, not caring to 
part with it. They have become so familiar with it, 
that though it does not fill their soul, it soothes 
their uneasiness; it gratifies the religious element 
in their natural man; it pleases their self-
righteousness, for it is something of their own; and 
it saves them from the dreaded necessity of coming 
into direct contact with the real, the living Christ, 
of being brought face to face with God Himself.
	Thus it comes to pass that a man's religion is 
often a barrier between his soul and God; the unreal 
is the substitute for the real; so that a man, having 
found the former, is content, and goes no farther; 
nay, counts it presumption, profanity to do so. To be 
told that the world, with its gay beauty and seducing 
smiles, comes between us and God, surprises no man; 
but to learn that the temple with its sacrifices, the 
Church with its religious services, does so, may 
startle some, nay, may exasperate them, as it did the 
Jews, to be told that their multiplied sacrifices and 
prayers were but multiplied barriers between them and 
God: not channels of communication, nor means of 
intercourse. The Jewish altar stood between the Jew 
and God; and that which was simply set as the ladder 
up to something higher became a resting-place. All the 
more, because it looked so real to the eye; while that 
to which it pointed was invisible, and therefore to 
sense unreal. But real as it looked, it was cold and 
unsatisfying. It was a real lamb, and a real altar of 
solid stone and brass; it was real blood and fire and 
smoke; and to take away these might seem to take away 
all that was substantial. But, after all, these were 
the unrealities. They could accomplish nothing for the 
filling of the heart, or the pacifying of the 
conscience, or the healing of the soul's deep wounds. 
Yet they pointed to the real; and their very unreality 
was meant to keep man from making them his home, or 
his religion, or his god. Men might admire the holy 
symbols and majestic ritual; but the true use of such 
admiration was to lead them to reason thus, If the 
unreal be so attractive, what will the real be; if the 
shadow thus soothes and pleases, what will not the 
divine substance do; if the picture of Messiah, thus 
sketched in these ceremonies, be so fair and goodly, 
how much fairer and goodlier will be the living Christ 
Himself; if the porch of the temple, or the steps 
leading to that temple, be so excellent, what must the 
inner sanctuary be; and who would stand ths, all a 
lifetime, shivering in the cold without, when the 
whole interior, with all its warmth and splendour and 
life and vastness was thrown open, and every man 
invited to enter and partake the gladness?
	Thus the "taking away of the first" was not the 
mere removal of what had done its work and become 
useless; but the abolition of that which had become an 
idol; a barrier between the Jew and God; quite as much 
as if the brazen altar had in the process of time 
become so enlarged as to block up the entrance into 
the holy place or the holiest of all. We read in 
Jewish history that once and again, during the 
seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, the gate of the temple 
was blocked up by the dead bodies of the worshippers. 
So did the access into the true tabernacle, not made 
with hands, become blocked up by the very sacrifices 
that were intended to point to the open door; and so 
in our day (long after that altar has been overturned 
and the fire quenched), is entrance into the holiest 
blocked up by our dead prayers, our dead works, our 
dead praises, our dead sacraments, our dead worship, 
our dead religion, quite as effectually as by our 
total want of these. A lesson hard for man to learn, 
especially in days when religion is fashionable and 
forms are exalted above measure. Greatly is that text 
needed amongst us, "If the blood of bulls and of goats 
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, 
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much 
more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience 
from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb 9:14).
	It is then through the "second," not the 
"first," that the conscience is purged and the man 
made an acceptable worshipper, capable of doing good 
works and doing them in the spirit of liberty and 
fearless gladness. It is with the second, not the 
first, that the sinner has to do in drawing near to 
God; and it is the second, not the first, that God has 
regard to in receiving the sinner, and receiving him 
on the footing of one whose sins and iniquities are 
remembered no more.
	How wide the difference, how great the contrast 
between the first and the second! The first drew the 
veil and shut out the sinner from the holiest; the 
second rent it and bid him enter. The first filled the 
sinner's soul with dread, even in looking on the 
holiest of all from without; the second emboldened him 
to draw near and go up to the mercy-seat. The first 
made it death to cross the threshold of that inner 
shrine, where the symbol of the glory dwelt; the 
second made it life to go into the very presence of 
God, and provided the new and living way. The first 
gave no certainty of acceptance and laid the 
foundation for no permanent assurance; the second 
said, "Let us draw near with a true heart in the full 
assurance of faith"; "let us come boldly to the throne 
of grace." The first was never finished, even after 
many ages; the second was finished at once. The first 
was earthly, the second heavenly. The first was 
temporal, the second eternal. The first was unreal, 
the second real. The first pacified no conscience; the 
second did this at once, purging it effectually, so 
that the worshippers once purged had no more 
conscience of sins. The first was but the blood of one 
of Israel's lambs; the second the blood of the Lamb 
without blemish and without spot,--the precious blood 
of Christ!
	Still there was much about that "first" to 
interest, to solemnise, to gladden. It was old and 
venerable, a true relic of antiquity, such as no 
modern Church can boast of. It was not one death, but 
many thousand deaths; not one victim, but ten thousand 
victims; each of them fulfilling a certain end, yet 
all of them unavailing for the great end,--complete 
remission of sin and the providing for the worshipper, 
a perfect conscience and reconciliation with the Holy 
One of Israel.
	And that last Jewish sacrifice, at the hour of 
the crucifixion, which ended the "first" and began the 
"second"; was there not something specially solemn 
about it? Was there not something peculiar about it as 
the last? Like the last cedar of Lebanon, the last 
olive of Palestine, the last pillar of a falling 
temple that has stood for ages, the last 
representative of an ancient race, it could not but 
have something sacred, something noble about it.
	An unbelieving Jew, worshipping in the temple, 
at the time would see nothing remarkable about it, 
save the unaccountable darkness which had for three 
hours covered Jerusalem, and the fearful earthquake, 
and the mysterious rending of the veil, the tidings of 
which would immediately spread both in the temple and 
the city. What can all this mean, he might say; but he 
knew not what they meant; nor that this was the last 
sacrifice, according to the purpose of the God of 
Israel. Not connecting the first with the second, nor 
the earthly with the heavenly, he would soon forget 
the darkness, and the earthquake, and the torn veil, 
coming next morning at nine o'clock to assist in the 
celebration of the morning-sacrifice. For the great 
break in the sacrifices was an invisible thing to him. 
To heaven it was visible, to angels it was visible, to 
faith it was visible; but not to unbelief. And 
unbelief would go on from day to day doting on the old 
sacrifice and admiring the old altar; till the Roman 
torch set fire to the goodly cedar of the holy places, 
and the Roman battle-axe shivered the altar in pieces, 
and brought to the ground porch, and tower, and wall,-
-gate and bar, in one irrecoverable ruin; not one 
stone left upon another.
	But how would a believing Jew view this last 
sacrifice? With mingled feelings in many ways; for as 
yet his eyes were but half opened; and though he might 
in a measure understand the first, he could not fully 
see the second, nor the first in connection with the 
second. It would still be to him sacred and venerable; 
though now he saw it, like the picture of a dissolving 
view, passing away and being replaced by another. Holy 
histories of his nation and precious recollections of 
his own experience would come up into view. From that 
sacrifice he had learned the way of forgiveness, 
perhaps from childhood. Often had the sight of it 
poured in happy thoughts and told him of the love of a 
redeeming God. Often had he stood at that altar with 
his little ones, and taught them from it the way of 
salvation through blood. Often had he seen the fire 
blazing and the smoke ascending, and the blood 
flowing, and he had mused over all these in connection 
with the first promise of Messiah's bruised heel, and 
the later prophecies of His pouring out His soul unto 
death. But now he was startled. That darkness, that 
earthquake, that rent veil; and in connection with all 
this, the scene in Golgotha now going on, seemed to 
say that sacrifice has done its work and must pass 
away. That has come at last which he had been long 
looking for; the better Lamb, the richer blood, the 
more perfect sacrifice. Now he sees the full meaning 
of the burnt-offering; now his faith lays its hand on 
the head of the true sacrifice; now he knows what John 
meant when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God"; and he 
can say with Simeon, "Lord, now lettest Thou thy 
servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy 
salvation."
	And with what thoughts must the Son of God have 
seen from the cross the smoke of that last burnt-
offering ascending? For it was at the ninth hour, our 
three o'clock, when the evening lamb was laid on the 
altar, that Jesus "cried with a loud voice, Eloi, 
Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Yes, when the Son of God, the 
true Sin-bearer, was uttering these words, Israel's 
last sacrifice was offered. It is finished, was the 
voice from the altar; it is finished was the voice 
from the cross. Now the last type is done; and Jesus 
sees it (for the altar-smoke would be quite visible 
from Golgotha); Israel's long lesson of ages has been 
taught; the type and Antitype have been brought face 
to face. How often had Jesus seen the morning and 
evening lamb offered up; and in gazing on it realised 
his own sin-bearing work. Now he sees all 
accomplished; sin borne, peace made, God propitiated; 
and in testimony of this the last burnt-sacrifice 
offered up. All is done. He sees of the travail of His 
soul and is satisfied. He can now tell Jew and Gentile 
that atonement has been made by the better blood. Life 
has been given for life; a divine life for a human. He 
can say, Look no longer on yon altar; its work is 
done. Look to me, of whom it spoke during so many 
ages; look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of 
the earth.
	And how does the Father view that last 
sacrifice? For four thousand years it had been the 
witness to the sin-bearing work of the coming Messiah. 
The Father had set it there to bear testimony to the 
propitiation of His Son. It said to Israel, and it 
said to the world before the days of Israel, The seed 
of the woman is to be man's deliverer. He is coming! 
He is coming to bear sin; to be wounded for our 
transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; to take 
the chastisement of our peace upon Him, and to heal us 
by His stripes. For ages that was the voice that came 
from the altar. It was the Father's voice foretelling 
the advent of His beloved Son. And now that voice from 
the altar is to die away. The testimony is to cease; 
for He to whom it was given is come. The ages of delay 
are over; the day of expectation has come to an end. 
The purpose of Jehovah is now consummated. The Father 
now delights in the accomplishment of His eternal 
design. Now grace and righteousness are one. So long 
as one burnt-offering remained unpresented, there was 
something awanting; something unfinished. But now the 
last of the long series has arrived. The type is 
perfected, the last stone has been laid; the last 
touch has been given to the picture; the last stroke 
of the chisel has fallen upon the statue. The 
imperfect has ended in the perfect, the unreal in the 
real; the first has become the last and the last 
first. Now divine love can take its unimpeded way; no 
drag, no uncertainty, no imperfection now. Grace and 
righteousness have become one. The Father's testimony 
to the finished work of His Son now goes forth to the 
ends of the earth. That last sacrifice on Israel's 
altar was the signal for the forthgoing of the world-
wide message of pardon,--righteous pardon,--to the 
guiltiest, the saddest and the neediest of the sons of 
men.
	And how is this last sacrifice viewed by the 
Church of God? Not with regret, nor with 
disappointment at the thought that there is no such 
altar now; but with rejoicing that the work has been 
at length consummated, and that there is no necessity 
for the repetition of the sacrifice. Whilst to a 
believing Jew there was satisfaction in each recurring 
sacrifice day by day, there could not but be a feeling 
of uneasiness at that very repetition. If the 
sacrifice is sufficient, why repeat it? Or will the 
multiplication of imperfections produce perfection? If 
insufficient, what is there to look to for the 
pacification of the conscience? But the termination of 
the series was an unspeakable relief. It was the 
winding up of a work which had been going on for four 
thousand years. Now, then, God is satisfied. Now there 
is the certainty of remission. Now the conscience is 
purged. Now the soul is at rest. And thus that last 
burnt-offering gave to the Church the assurance that 
the reconciliation was accomplished. No more offering 
for sin! No more blood! the foundation is now secure. 
On it she stands, in it she rejoices. The "good 
conscience" is now secured. Fear and shame in drawing 
near to God are at an end for ever. There is nothing 
but boldness now; for by one offering He hath 
perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Not by 
the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, 
He hath entered in once into the holy place, having 
obtained eternal redemption for us. By this blood He 
hath reconciled us to Himself. By this blood He daily 
cements the reconciliation, and keeps our souls in 
peace. By this blood He washes off the ever-recurring 
sins that would come between us and God, purging our 
consciences from dead works to serve the living God 
(Heb 9:12,13).
	Round the old altar on Moriah one nation 
gathered, for the worship of Jehovah, during a few 
earthly ages; but round the new altar is gathered the 
great multitude that no man can number, out of every 
nation and people; for we have an altar, whereof they 
have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle. The 
first has been taken away, but the second has been set 
up, to stand for ever. Here we worship now; here shall 
be the eternal worship; the Lamb slain is the centre 
of worship for the universe of God, whether on earth, 
or in heaven, or throughout the wide regions which the 
creating Word has filled with suns and stars. On this 
divine altar shall all creaturehood lay its 
everlasting praise. From this altar shall ascend the 
never-ending son. This altar shall be the great centre 
of unity between the multitudinous parts or units of 
universal being. Here heaven and earth shall meet; 
here redeemed men and angels shall hold fellowship; 
here the principalities and powers in heavenly places 
shall learn the wisdom of God; here shall be found the 
stability, not of manhood only, but of creaturehood as 
well, the divine security against a second fall, 
against any future failure of creation, against any 
future curse, against the possibility of evil or 
weakness or decay. He has taken away the first, but He 
has established the second; and with that He has 
linked the establishment of all that is good and holy 
and blessed in His universe for evermore.
	From this "second" also there goes forth the 
message of reconciliation; the announcement that peace 
has been made through the blood of the cross; the 
entreaty on the part of God, that each distant one 
would draw near, each wanderer re-enter his Father's 
house. To every one that is afar off, this great 
propitiation speaks, and says, RETURN! It bids you 
welcome, with all your worthlessness and unfitness, 
pointing to the ever-open door, and assuring you of 
reception, and pardon, and free love, without delay, 
without condition, and without upbraiding. From this 
centre the good news of God's free love to the 
unrighteous are going forth. In the simple reception 
of these by the sinner there is everlasting life; but 
in the non-reception of them there is eternal death; 
for that blood condemns as well as justifies. It 
speaks peace, but it speak trouble and anguish. It 
contains life, but it also contains death. It 
introduces into heaven, but it casts down to hell. He 
who receives it is washed, and sanctified, and 
justified; he who rejects it is undone,--doomed to 
bear his own guilt, without reprieve, for ever. For 
you, or against you, through eternity that blood must 
be.
	There has been a first, there is a second, but 
there shall be no third! The first could not suffice, 
either for salvation or for destruction; it did not 
save those who used it, nor did it ruin those who used 
it not, or who used it amiss. The second sufficed for 
both. It is able to save and to destroy, to forgive 
and to condemn. No third is needed, no third is 
possible. The second is established for ever. It is 
eternal. It is an everlasting sacrifice. It is an 
eternal ransom, an eternal redemption, an eternal 
salvation, an everlasting covenant, and an everlasting 
gospel. Its accompaniments and issues are everlasting 
life, everlasting habitations, everlasting 
consolation, an everlasting kingdom, an eternal 
inheritance, an eternal weight of glory, a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Yes; this 
second is established, and shall stand for ever. He 
who accepts it becomes, like it, established, and 
shall stand for ever; for it has the power of 
imparting its stability to every one who receives 
God's testimony concerning it. This is "the living 
stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, 
and precious; to which coming we, as living stones, 
are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to 
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by 
Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:4,5).
	There shall be no third! This is the security 
and the joy of all who receive it. He who has taken 
away the first has established the second. Heaven and 
earth may pass away, but it must remain; and with it 
remains our reconciliation, our sonship, our royalty, 
and our eternal weight of glory. Were it possible that 
this second altar could be overthrown, or crumble down 
through age; this second blood, and second covenant, 
and second priesthood become inefficacious or 
obsolete, then should our future be shaded with 
uncertainty. But all these being divine are eternal; 
and in their eternity is wrapt up that of every one 
who is now by faith partakers of them; in their 
eternity is wrapt up that of the inheritance, the 
city, and the kingdom, which become the possession of 
every one whom the blood has washed and reconciled.
	For the cross is never old. The wood, and nails, 
and inscription have indeed perished long ago; but the 
cross in which Paul gloried stands for ever. That 
cross is the axle of the universe, and cannot snap 
asunder. That cross is the foundation on which the 
universe rests, and cannot give way. The cross of 
Golgotha is, in this sense, everlasting; and each one 
who glories in it becomes partaker of its immortality. 
In itself blood is the symbol of death; in connection 
with the cross of Christ, it is the emblem and the 
pledge of life. It is by blood that all that is 
feeble, and corruptible, and unclean is purged out of 
creaturehood. It is by blood that this race of ours is 
preserved against the possibility of a second fall, 
and this earth against the contingency of a second 
curse. It is by blood that the Church of God has won 
her victory, and been made without spot, or wrinkle, 
or any such thing. It is the blood that has given such 
resplendent glory to the New Jerusalem, and made its 
light so pure, for "THE LAMB is the light thereof."
	And yet is it not on this very blood that the 
spirit of the age is pouring its contempt, as if it 
were the great disfiguration of Christianity, 
requiring to be explained and spiritualised, before it 
can be admitted to have any connection with a divine 
religion? Is it not against this blood that the tide 
of modern progress is advancing, to wash out every 
trace and stain of it? It is against the blood that 
unbelief is now specially declaring war, little 
supposing, in its blindness, what would be the 
consequences of success in this warfare. Take away 
that blood, and the security of the universe is gone. 
Take away the blood, and the gate of the glorious city 
closes against the sinner; nay, that city itself, with 
all its beauty, and purity, and splendour, passes away 
like a vision of the night, each stone of it vanishing 
into nothingness, and its light becoming darkness.
	


CHAPTER 7.

MESSIAH WITHIN THE VEIL.



We spoke of Messiah longing for the time when the veil 
should be rent, and when, through Himself, there 
should be unobstructed access to the innermost shrine 
of God. "How am I straitened till it be accomplished." 
We spoke also of His dreading this rending, this 
death,--so that "with strong crying and tears He 
prayed to Him who was able to save Him from death" 
(Heb 5:7).
	Let us now see Him looking beyond the veil, 
surveying the glory, and anticipating His own entrance 
into it, as our forerunner, the first fruits of them 
that slept, the first-begotten of the dead. "For the 
joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the 
shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God" 
(Heb 12:2). That to which He looked forward was not so 
much the rending of the veil, as the result of that 
rending,--both for Himself and for His Church, His 
body, the redeemed from among men.
	The veil was rent; rent "once for all"; rent for 
ever. Yet there was a sense in which it was to be 
restored, though after another fashion than before. 
Messiah could not be "holden" by death, because He was 
the Holy One, who could not see corruption. Death must 
be annulled. The broken body must be made whole; 
resurrection must come forth out of death; and that 
resurrection was to be life, and glory, and 
blessedness. Through the rent veil of His own flesh, 
He was (if we may so use the figure) to enter into 
"glory and honour, and immortality." Thus He speaks in 
the sixteenth Psalm:--

"Therefore my heart is glad,
Yea, my glory rejoiceth:
My flesh also shall rest in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
Neither wilt thou suffer thine 
Holy One to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life:
In thy presence is fulness of joy;
At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."

Let us dwell upon these verses in connection with 
Messiah's entrance within the veil.
	The speaker in this Psalm is undoubtedly Christ. 
This we learn from Peter's sermon at Jerusalem (Acts 
2:25). He is speaking to the Father, as His Father and 
our Father. He speaks as the lowly, dependent son of 
man; as one who needed help and looked to the Father 
for it; as one who trusted in the Lord and walked by 
faith, not by sight; as one who realised the Father's 
love, anticipated the joy set before Him, and had 
respect to the recompense of the reward.
	He speaks, moreover, as one who saw death before 
Him,-- "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell"; and 
looking into the dark grave, on the edge of which He 
was standing, just about to plunge into it, He casts 
His eye upwards and pleads, with strong crying and 
tears, for resurrection, and joy, and glory,-- "Thou 
wilt show me the path of life." For the words of the 
Psalm are the united utterances of confidence, 
expectation, and prayer; not unlike those of Paul, "I 
am now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand; henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness."
	He speaks too as one who was bearing our curse; 
as one who was made sin for us; and to whom everything 
connected with sin and its penalty was infinitely 
terrible; not the less terrible, but the more, because 
the sin and the penalty were not His own, but ours. 
The death which now confronted Him was one of the 
ingredients of the fearful cup, against which He 
prayed in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from me"; for 
we read that, "in the days of His flesh He made 
supplication, with strong crying and tears, unto Him 
that was able to save Him from death." In this Psalm, 
indeed, we do not hear these strong cryings and tears, 
which the valley of the Kedron then heard. All is 
calm; the bitterness of death is past; the power of 
the king of terrors seems broken; the gloom of the 
grave is lost in the anticipated brightness of the 
resurrection light and glory. But still the scene is 
similar; though in the Psalm the light predominates 
over the darkness, and there is not the agony, nor the 
bloody sweat, nor the exceeding sorrow. It is our 
Surety looking the king of terrors in the face; 
contemplating the shadows of the three days and nights 
in the heat of the earth; surveying Joseph's tomb, and 
while accepting that as His prison-house for a season, 
anticipating the deliverance by the Father's power, 
and rejoicing in the prospect of the everlasting 
gladness.
	The first thing that occupies His thoughts is 
resurrection. The path of death is before Him; and He 
asks that He may know the path of life;--the way out 
of the tomb as well as the way into it. Death is to 
Him an enemy; an enemy from which as the Prince of 
life His holy soul would recoil even more than we. The 
grave is to Him a prison-house, gloomy as Jeremiah's 
low dungeon or Joseph's pit, not the less gloomy 
because He approaches it as a conqueror, as bringing 
life and immortality to light, as the resurrection and 
the life. Into that prison-house He must descend; for 
though rich He has stooped to be poor; and this is the 
extremity of his poverty, the lowest depth of His low 
estate,--even the surrender of that, for which even 
the richest on earth will part with everything,--life 
itself. But out of that dungeon He cries to be 
brought; and for this rescue He puts Himself entirely 
into the Father's hands, "Thou wilt show me the path 
of life."
	Very blessed and glorious did resurrection seem 
in the eyes of the Prince of life, of Him who is the 
resurrection and the life. Infinitely hateful did 
death and the grave appear to Him who was the 
Conqueror of death, the Spoiler of the grave. He had 
undertaken to die, for as the second Adam He came to 
undergo the penalty of the first, "dust thou art and 
unto dust shalt thou return"; yet not the less bitter 
was the cup, not the less gloomy was the valley of the 
shadow of death; not the less welcome was the thought 
of resurrection.
	The next thing which fills His thoughts is the 
presence of God,--that glorious presence which He had 
left when He "came down from heaven." His thoughts are 
of the Father's face, the Father's house, the Father's 
presence. Earth to Him was so different from heaven. 
He had not yet come to the "Why hast Thou forsaken 
me?" but He felt the difference between this earth and 
the heaven He had quitted. There was no such 
"presence" here. All was sin, evil, hatred, darkness; 
the presence of evil men and mocking devils; not the 
presence of God. God seemed far away. This world 
seemed empty and dreary. He called to mind the home, 
and the love, and the holiness He had left; and He 
longed for a return to these. "Thy presence!" What a 
meaning in these words, coming from the lips of the 
lonely Son of God in His desolation and friendlessness 
and exile here. "Thy presence!" How full of 
recollection would they be to Him as He uttered them; 
and how intensely would that recollection stimulate 
the anticipation and the hope!
	Of this same Messiah, the speaker in the psalm, 
we read afterwards, "In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the 
same was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1); and 
elsewhere He speaks thus of Himself: "Jehovah 
possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His 
works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the 
beginning, or ever the earth was...I was by Him, as 
one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, 
rejoicing always before Him" (Prov 8:22,30); and 
again, He, in the days of His flesh, thus prayed: "O 
Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the 
glory which I had with Thee before the world was" 
(John 17:5). Thus we see that the "presence" or "face" 
of God had been His special and eternal portion. His 
past eternity was associated entirely with this 
glorious presence. No wonder then that in the day of 
His deepest weakness,--when the last enemy confronted 
Him with his hideous presence, He should recall the 
Father's presence; anticipating the day of restoration 
to that presence, and repossession of the glory which 
He had before the world was.
	"Thy presence," said the only-begotten of the 
Father looking up into the Father's face! He speaks as 
the sin-bearer, on whom the chastisement of our sins 
was laid, and between whom and heaven these sins had 
drawn a veil; He speaks as an exile, far from home, 
weary, troubled, exceeding sorrowful even unto death; 
He speaks as a Son feeling the bitterness of 
separation from His Father's presence, and of distance 
from His Father's house; He speaks as one longing for 
home and kindred, and the unimpeded outflowings of 
paternal love. "Thy presence," says the Man of sorrows 
looking round on an evil world;--oh, that I were 
there! "Thy presence," says the forsaken Son of man, 
for "lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and 
mine acquaintance into darkness";--oh, that I were 
there! "Thy presence," not this waste howling 
wilderness, this region of pain, and disease, and sin, 
and death, and tombs. "Thy presence," not these 
temptations, these devils, these enemies, these false 
friends; not this blasphemy, this reproach, this 
scorn, this betrayal, this denial, this buffeting, 
this scourging, this spitting, this mockery! "Thy 
presence,"--oh, that I were there; nevertheless, not 
my will but Thine be done.
	Only through death can He reach life, for He is 
burdened with our sin and our death; and death is to 
Him the path of life. He must go through the veil to 
enter into the presence of God. Only through the 
grave,--the stronghold of death, and of him who has 
the power of death,--can He ascend into the presence 
of God; and therefore, when about to enter the dark 
valley, He commits Himself to the Father's guidance, 
to the keeping of Him who said, "Behold my servant 
whom I uphold," the keeping of which He himself, by 
the mouth of David, had spoken: "Yea, though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear 
no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff 
they comfort me." Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, 
Capernaum, Gethsemane, Golgotha,--these were all but 
stages in His way up to "the presence"--the presence 
of the Father; and it is when approaching the last of 
these, with the consciousness of His nearness to that 
presence, only one more dark passage to wind through, 
that He gives utterance to this psalm,--His psalm in 
prospect of resurrection and glory,-- "I have set the 
Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, 
I shall not be moved: therefore my heart is glad and 
my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope; 
for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
Thou suffer Thine holy One to see corruption; Thou 
wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is 
fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore."
	Connected with this "presence," this glory 
within the veil, he speaks of "fulness of joy." On 
earth, in the day of His banishment here, He found 
want, not fulness. He was poor and needy; no house, no 
table, no chamber, no pillow of His own. His was the 
extremity of human poverty; though rich He had become 
poor; he was hungry, thirsty, weary, with no place to 
lay His head. Though He knew no sin, He tasted the 
sinner's portion of want and sorrow. He was in the far 
country, the land of the mighty famine; and looking 
upwards to the happy heaven which He had left, He 
could say, "How many servants in my Father's house 
have bread and to spare, and I perish with hunger." 
Drinking also of the sinner's deep cup of wrath, He 
was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It 
was as such that He looked up so often as we find Him 
in the Gospels doing, and as we find Him in this 
Psalm, with wistful eye reminding Himself of the joy 
He had left, and anticipating the augmented joy that 
was so soon to be His when, having traversed this vale 
of tears, and passed through the gates of death, He 
was to re-ascend to His Father, and re-enter the 
courts of glory and joy. "Fulness of joy" is His 
prospect; fulness of joy in the presence of God. 
Concerning this going to the Father He spoke to His 
disciples; and then added, "These things have I spoken 
unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that 
your joy might be full." It is of this same full joy 
that He speaks in our psalm; a joy which was to be the 
fulness of all joy; a joy which was to be His 
recompense for the earthly sorrow of His sin-bearing 
life and death; a joy which He was to share with His 
redeemed, and on which they too should enter, when 
they, like Him, had triumphed over death, and been 
caught up into the clouds to meet Him in the air; a 
joy which would be to them, in that wondrous day, 
infinitely more than a compensation for earthly 
tribulation; even as one of themselves has written, 
"Our present light affliction, which is but for a 
moment, worketh for us a far more eceeding and eternal 
weight of glory."
	This was "the joy set before Him," because of 
which He endured the cross; and here He calls it 
FULNESS OF JOY. That which He calls fulness must be 
so; for He knows what joy is, and what its fulness is; 
just as He knew what sorrow was and its fulness. The 
amount of joy sufficient to fill a soul like His must 
be infinite; it must be joy unspeakable and full of 
glory. The amount of joy reckoned by the Father 
sufficient as the reward of the sorrow of such a Son, 
must be infinite indeed. What then must that be which 
Messiah reckons the fulness of joy. What a day was 
that for Him when, death and sorrow ended, He entered 
on life and gladness! And what a day will that be, yet 
in store for Him and for His saints, when we, as His 
joint-heirs, shall enter on all that life and 
gladness; the day of His glorious coming, when that 
shall be fulfilled which is written, "Come forth, O ye 
daughters of Jerusalem, and behold King Solomon with 
the crown wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day 
of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of 
his heart."
	Besides the "presence" or "face" of God within 
the veil, Messiah sees the right hand; the place of 
honour and power and favour,--the right hand of the 
throne of the majesty in the heavens; and at that 
right hand there are pleasures for evermore; eternal 
enjoyments, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. 
For all the things on which Messiah's soul rests are 
everlasting; the life, the fulness, the joy, the 
presence, the pleasures,--all eternal! No wonder, 
then, that He who knows what eternity is,--an eternity 
of glory and gladness,--should feel that "the 
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be 
compared with the glory that shall be revealed"; and 
should, when going up to the cross, and down into the 
grave, say with calm but happy confidence, "Thou wilt 
show me the path of life, in Thy presence is fulness 
of joy, at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." 
Most mysterious are such words as these from the lips 
of Him who is the resurrection and the life; and yet 
it is just because they come from Him,--from this 
Prince of Life,--that they are so assuring, so 
comforting to us. His oneness with us, and our oneness 
with Him, account for all the mystery. His oneness 
with us, as our substitute and sinbearer, the endurer 
of our curse and cross and death, accounts for all 
that is mysterious in this Psalm. Our oneness with Him 
clears up all that is wonderful in such words as "I am 
the resurrection and the life, he that believeth on 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Blessed, 
thrice-blessed oneness,--mutual oneness; He one with 
us, we one with Him, in life, in death, in burial, in 
resurrection, and in glory. Now we can take up His 
words as truly meant for us, "Thou wilt show us the 
path of life"; for in believing God's testimony to the 
Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, we have become one 
with Him!
	In all this we have,
	
	1. Messiah's estimate of death. He abhors it. It 
is His enemy as well as ours. He came to conquer it, 
to destroy it for ever. He conquers it by being 
conquered by it; He slays it by allowing Himself to be 
slain by it. He crucifies it, kills it, buries it for 
ever. Death is swallowed up in victory. "O death," He 
says, "I will be thy plague; O grave, I will be thy 
destruction."

	2. Messiah's estimate of resurrection. He longs 
for it; both on His own account and His people's. It 
is the consummation of that which He calls life. It is 
the second life, more glorious than the first; the 
opposite extreme of being to that which is called "the 
second death." The Son of God came into the world as 
the Prince of Life; He came not merely that He might 
die, but that He might live; and that all who identify 
themselves with Him by the acceptance of the divine 
testimony concerning His life and death and 
resurrection, might not only have life, but might have 
it more abundantly. Resurrection is our hope, even as 
it was His; the first, the better resurrection; and as 
we toil onwards in our pilgrimage, burdened with the 
mortality of this vile body, and seeing death on every 
side of us, we take up Messiah's words of hope and 
gladness, "Thou wilt show me the path of life."

	3. Messiah's estimate of joy. He recognises it 
as a thing greatly to be desired, not despised; as the 
true and healthy, or, as men say, the "normal" 
condition of creaturehood. God Himself is the blessed 
one; and He formed His creatures to be sharers of His 
blessedness. Heaven is full of joy; and all its 
dwellers are vessels of gladness. Earth was not made 
for sorrow, but for joy; and, before long, that song 
shall be sung over the new creation, "Let the heavens 
rejoice, and let the earth be glad." For this day of 
joy Christ longed, anticipating it as the consummation 
of all that He had come to do. As the eternal Word 
which was with the Father, He knew what joy was; as 
the Man of sorrows, He knew what sorrow was. He was in 
the true condition and circumstances to take the 
proper estimate of joy. And here He tells us what that 
estimate was. He longed to be done with sorrow, which 
was as the shadow of hell; He "desired with desire" to 
enter into the joy set before Him, the joy of life, 
the joy of resurrection, the joy of God's presence and 
right hand for ever. Let our eye, like His, be fixed 
on that coming gladness,--that sunrise of eternity for 
which the Church is waiting and creation groans. That 
hope will cheer, will nerve, will liberate, will heal, 
will animate, will purify; will do miracles for us. As 
yet, the joy has not arrived. It doth not yet appear 
what we shall be. Not now; not here; not on this side 
of the grave! But the promise of its possession, and 
the assurance that when it does arrive, it will be 
great enough and long enough to make up for all trial 
and all delay, are sufficient to keep us ever looking, 
waiting, watching. Resurrection is coming, with all 
its light and joy; and then comes the world's second 
dawn, and the Church's long-expected dayspring; the 
cessation of creation's groans, the times of the 
restitution of all things; the new heavens and the new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

	4. Messiah's estimate of the Father's love. It 
is this love that is His portion; it is in this love 
that He abides and rejoices; for it is He who says, 
"Thy loving kindness is better than life." No one knew 
so well as He did the glorious truth, "God is love; 
and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God 
in him." The Father's love! Here His soul found its 
resting-place, in the midst of human hatred and 
reproach. The Father's love! It was with this that He 
comforted Himself, and with this it was that He 
comforted His Church, saying, "As the Father hath 
loved me, so have I loved you"; "Thou hast loved them 
as thou hast loved me"; "Thou lovedst me before the 
foundation of the world"; "that the love wherewith 
Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." Is 
that love to us what it was to Him? It was His rest, 
is it ours? It was into this hidden chamber, this holy 
of holies, that He retired, when the world's storms 
beat upon Him; is it in this that we take refuge in 
our evil days? It was sufficient for His infinitely 
capacious soul; it may well suffice for ours. Is, 
then, His estimate of the Father's love our estimate? 
Is this love our gladness? Is its sunshine the 
brightness of our daily life? And with simple 
confidence in it, like Messiah's, do we look into and 
look through the future, however dark, saying, "Thou 
wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is 
fulness of joy, and at Thy right hand are pleasures 
for evermore?"
	On all that light, and joy, and fulness, and 
love, Messiah has now entered. For eighteen hundred 
years He has been in that presence, and at that right 
hand, which He longed for; and though yet greater 
things are in store for Him in the day of His promised 
advent, yet He has now for ages been done with sorrow 
and death, with reproach and hatred. He has entered on 
His rest; He has passed into life; His blessedness is 
now without a shadow. And is not this a thought full 
of joy to us? He whom we love is happy! No second 
Gethsemane nor Golgotha for Him. Whatever may befall 
us, whatever of tribulation we may have yet to pass 
through, He is blessed; it is all well with Him. He 
has trodden the path of life; He has entered into that 
presence which He longed for; He has sat down at that 
right hand where there are pleasures for evermore. Is 
this not a joyful thought to us here, even in the 
midst of our weakness and sorrow? And was it not to 
this He referred when He said, "If ye loved me, ye 
would rejoice, because I said I go unto the Father"? 
and was it not with forgetfulness of this that He 
reproached His disciples, "Now I go my way to Him that 
sent me, and none of you asketh me, whither goest 
Thou? but because I have said these things unto you, 
sorrow hath filled your heart."
	Should we not rejoice in His joy? Should not the 
thought of His happiness be a continual source of 
consolation to us? Amid the dreariness of the desert, 
it was a cheering thought to Israel that there was 
such a region as Canaan, over which the barrenness of 
the waste howling wilderness had no power. Amid the 
griefs and cares of earth, it is a blessed thought to 
us that there is such a place as heaven, to which the 
storm reaches not, and where there has never been 
known, neither shall be, one cloud, one pain, one sin. 
So amid the troubles of our own troubled spirits, or 
the sorrows of those about us, it is a happy thought 
that there is one heart, once full of grief, that now 
grieves no more; one eye that often wept, which now 
weeps no more; and that this blessed One is none other 
than our beloved Lord,--once the Man of sorrows. He 
who loved us, He whom, not having seen, we love, is 
now for ever blessed; He has entered that presence 
where there is fulness of joy; He has taken His seat 
at that right hand, where there are pleasures for 
evermore.
	Does not this comfort and gladden us? What He 
now is, and what we so soon shall be,--this gives 
vigour and consolation. It lifts us almost 
unconsciously into a calmer region, and gives us to 
breathe the very air of the kingdom. It purifies, too, 
and strengthens; it makes us forget the things which 
are behind, and reach forward to what lies before.
	The prospect of resurrection and glory sustained 
the soul of our Surety here. This was the joy set 
before Him. Let us set it before ourselves, that we 
may not be moved. We have much to do both with the 
future and the past. In that future lies our 
inheritance, and we cannot but be seeking to pierce 
the veil that hides it. But in the past we find our 
resting-place. Christ has ascended on high, leading 
captivity captive; he has ascended to His Father and 
our Father, to His God and our God. The work is done. 
The blood is shed. The fire has consumed the 
sacrifice. It is finished! This is the testimony which 
we bring from God, in the belief of which we are 
saved. It needs no second sacrifice; no repetition of 
the great burnt-offering. That which saves the sinner 
is done. Another has done it all. Messiah has done it 
all; and our gospel is not a command to do, but simply 
to take what another has done. He who ceases from His 
own labours, and enters on these labours of another, 
has taken possession of all to which these labours 
entitled Him, who so performed them, even the Messiah 
of Israel, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.
	


CHAPTER 8.

THE BLOOD WITHIN THE VEIL.



The day of atonement brought the three courts of the 
tabernacle into one. On that day the high priest 
passed from the outmost to the innermost; implying 
that he had equally to do with all the holy places, 
and that they whom he represented had also to do with 
these.
	He carried the incense from the golden altar 
into the holiest; and he carried the blood from the 
brazen altar into the same. It was one blood, one 
incense, one priest for all the three.
	The blood, which was sprinkled on the mercy-
seat, was from without. The sacrifice was not slain in 
the inner courts, but in the outer. It was blood from 
without that was carried in the priestly basin within 
the veil, sprinkling the veil, the floor, the ark, the 
mercy-seat, and the feet of the cherubim as they stood 
upon the golden covering. In being carried within, it 
lost none of its expiating virtue and value: nay, it 
seemed to acquire more virtue and more value as it lay 
upon the furniture of the holy of holies.
	Its efficacy, when thus brought within the veil, 
was enhanced; and it did not the less speak to those 
without because itself was within. It had come from 
without, and its voice spoke to those who were 
without. It spoke but from one small point, yet it 
goes beyond the tabernacle, beyond Israel, beyond 
Palestine, to the men of every kindred and nation, and 
tongue and people. It contained a world-wide message, 
so that each one hearing of that atoning blood might 
at once say, Then God is summoning me back to Himself; 
He is saying to me, "be thou reconciled to me"; He is 
sending to me, from the altar and the mercy-seat, an 
invitation of mingled righteousness and grace.
	This propitiation rests on substitution. In all 
these symbolical transactions we have one vast 
thought,--the transference of guilt from one to 
another, legally and judicially; the presentation of 
one death for another, as perfectly valid for all ends 
of justice, and quite as suitable before God as the 
judge, to meet every governmental claim as the direct 
infliction of the appointed penalty on the actual 
transgressor.
	There are two things which the whole Levitical 
service assumes, and without which it is simple 
mockery of man, that Sin is reality, and that 
Substitution is righteousness.

	1. Sin is a real thing. Men do not think so, 
even when with their lips they utter the word. It is 
but a shadow to them, a mere name, no more.
	Sin is a sore evil. It is not felt to be so, yet 
it is not the less truly such. It is not hated, it is 
not shunned as an evil,--an evil whose greatness no 
one can measure or tell. When men speak of it they do 
so as painters speak of shade in a scene or picture; 
as rather a needful thing, nay, a thing of beauty in 
its own way. They have no due sense or estimate of it 
at all. It is not to them what it is to God. It is not 
by any means in their books what it is in the book of 
God.
	Yet, right views of sin are the key to the 
Bible, the key to the history of the world, and the 
key to God's purposes concerning it. He who does not 
know what sin is cannot understand the Bible. It must 
be a dark and strange book to him. He cannot solve the 
difficulties of the world's history. All is perplexed 
and contradictory. He cannot enter into God's purposes 
respecting it either in curse or in blessing, either 
in condemnation or redemption. Sin is not misfortune, 
but guilt; not disease, but crime; not an evil, but 
the evil, the evil of evils, the root of all evils; 
terrible in itself as fraught with all that we call 
"moral evil," and terrible in its judicial effects as 
necessarily and inexorably bound up with irresistible 
and irreversible condemnation.
	In spite of all the divine teaching, both in 
God's book and in the world's history, man refuses to 
believe that sin is what God has proclaimed it, and 
what its own development, in the annals of the ages, 
has shown that it really is.
	The first and fundamental lesson of the 
Levitical service is the infinite evil of sin. 
Sacrifice is God's declaration of His estimate of SIN. 
Strike this thought out of it, and sacrifice is simple 
barbarism,--a coarse emblem of the vengeance of a 
Jupiter, or a Moloch, or a Baal upon helpless 
creaturehood.

	2. Substitution is righteousness.--I do not 
argue this question; I merely indicate that scripture 
assumes this.
	Often has the doctrine of substitution been evil 
spoken of as a slander against God's free love. It has 
been called a commercial transaction, a bargain 
inconsistent with true generosity, a money-payment of 
so much love for so much suffering. Philosophy, 
falsely so called, has frequently, by such 
representations, striven to write down a truth for 
which it could not find a niche in its speculations, 
and of which the philosopher himself had never felt 
His need. With any book less buoyant than the Bible to 
float it up, this doctrine must long before this have 
been submerged under the weight of ridicule, which the 
wisdom of this world has brought to bear upon it.
	But it has been seen that the Bible and the 
truth of substitution cannot be sundered. They must 
sink or float together. The great philosophic puzzle 
with many, who were not prepared to cast off the 
Scriptures, was how to disentangle the two, so as to 
strike out the doctrine and yet preserve the old Book.
	This difficulty has been felt all the more, 
because in the Bible itself there are no indications 
of any misgivings as to the doctrine, no explanations 
meant to smooth angularities and make the doctrine 
less philosophically objectionable. As if unconscious 
of the force of any such objection, it makes use of 
figures, once and again, which are directly taken from 
the commercial transactions of life. Even if what is 
branded as the mercantile theology could be proved 
untrue, it is certainly very like what we find in the 
Bible; nor can one help feeling that if the above 
theology be untrue, it is rather strange that the 
Bible should lay itself so open to the suspicion of 
favouring it. For, after all, the strongest statements 
and most obnoxious figures are those of that Book 
itself. Eliminate these and we are ready to hear how 
philosophy can argue. We do not say "explain them," we 
say "eliminate them"; for our difficulty lies in the 
simple existence of such passages. Why are they there, 
if substitution and transference be not true? They are 
stumbling-blocks and snares. Let these passages 
themselves bear the blame, if blame there is. It is 
idle to revile a doctrine, yet leave the figures, from 
which it is drawn, untouched and uncondemned.
	Substitution may be philosophical or 
unphilosophical, defensible or indefensible; still it 
is imbedded in the Bible; specially in the sacrificial 
books and sacerdotal ordinances. Its writers may be 
credited or discredited; but no one can deny that 
substitution was an article of their creed, and that 
they meant to teach this doctrine if they meant 
anything at all. We might as well affirm that Moses 
did not mean to teach creation in Genesis, or Israel's 
deliverance in Exodus, as that he did not profess to 
promulgate Substitution in Leviticus. Substitution is 
in that book beyond all question; along with that book 
let it stand or fall.
	There is then substitution revealed to us beyond 
mistake in Scripture; revealed in connection with 
Israel's worship, Israel's tabernacle, and Israel's 
Messiah. The special thing in that service, in that 
sanctuary, and in that Deliverer, with which 
substitution is connected, is THE BLOOD. Hence it is 
with blood that we find atonement, expiation, and 
propitiation connected. For the blood is the life; and 
it is the substitution of one life for another that 
accomplishes these results, and brings with it these 
blessings to the guilty.
	Let me take two passages, one from the Old 
Testament, the other from the New, in illustration of 
what the blood is affirmed to be and to do. I give but 
a brief sketch of what I suppose they include; but it 
will suffice to show what Scripture teaches on the 
subject.
	The first is Zechariah 9:11, "As for thee also, 
BY THE BLOOD OF THY COVENANT I have sent forth thy 
prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Blood 
here is declared to be the cause of deliverance,--the 
blood of the covenant; as if without this covenanted 
blood-shedding there could be no setting free of the 
prisoner. The blood goes in, the prisoner comes out. 
The blood touches his chain, and it falls off. The 
blood drops on the prison-bar, and the gate flies 
open. It is blood that does it all; blood whose virtue 
is recognised by God; blood whose effects and results 
are embraced in the everlasting covenant; the covenant 
of peace, the covenant of deliverance, the covenant of 
liberty, the covenant of life. But let us look more 
closely at the language of the prophet.
	The words "as for thee also," or "thou also," 
are the very words of our Lord, when weeping over 
Jerusalem; "Even thou," thou, the guiltiest of the 
guilty, the most undeserving and unloveable of all. 
Thus our text starts with a declaration of the great 
love of God,--Messiah's love to Israel,-- "Yea, He 
loved the people." "God is love," runs through this 
whole passage; and "where sin abounded grace did much 
more abound."
	To this passage the apostle seems to refer in 
Hebrews 13:20, as to the bringing up Christ from the 
dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant. The 
prophet's words were fulfilled in Christ's 
resurrection, as Hosea's (11:1) were in his return 
from Egypt. (See also Psalm 18 and 40)
	The words of Zechariah shall yet be fulfilled in 
Israel. The day of deliverance for the beloved nation 
is surely coming. She shall know the power of the 
covenant-blood to protect, to deliver, to save, to 
bless. It is not simply "blood" expiating sin in 
general, but "covenant-blood," linking that expiation 
specially to Israel, and Israel to it. It is passover-
blood, bringing out of Egypt. Passing over this, 
however, let us take up the words in their widest 
sense. Let us see what the covenant-blood can do, not 
for Israel only, but for us.
	The blood finds us "prisoners," captives, 
"lawful captives," exiles. It finds us righteously 
condemned, sold to our enemies, under wrath. Let us 
see what it does for us.

	1. It removes the necessity for imprisonment. 
Such a necessity did exist. Law must take its course. 
Its claims must be satisfied. No leaving the prison 
till the uttermost farthing has been paid. The blood 
has made the satisfaction. It has met the claim. It 
has provided for the payment of the penalty. The 
necessity for the imprisonment no longer exists. The 
law consents.

	2. It makes it right for God to deliver. 
Deliverance must be the work of righteousness, not of 
Almightiness alone. It was righteousness that sent the 
sinner to prison, and barred the door against all 
exit. It is righteousness that must bring him forth; 
and this righteousness is secured by the blood of the 
covenant. It is now as unrighteous to detain the 
captive, as before it would have been unrighteous to 
bring him forth.

	3. It opens the prison-door. That door is 
locked, and barred, and guarded. No skill can open it, 
no force can unbar it, no money can bribe its guards. 
It cannot be opened by the earthquake, or the fire, or 
the lightning. Only righteousness can open it; and 
that prison-opening righteousness comes through the 
blood of the covenant; the great blood-shedding makes 
the prison-gates fly open; it rolls away the stone.

	4. It makes it safe for the prisoner to come 
forth. For the avenger stands without, on the watch. 
He has a right to be there. He has a right to seize 
the prisoner, and to take vengeance. But the blood 
stays all this. The covenant-blood conducts the 
prisoner forth, and the sight of it bids the avenger 
flee. That avenger was the executioner of guilt, and 
the guilt is gone. The blood has removed that which 
gave him power. He sees the blood, and withdraws his 
hand.

	5. It reconciles to God. It is the blood of 
propitiation, the blood of atonement. It makes up the 
variance between the sinner and God. It removes the 
ground of distance and dispeace. It brings nigh those 
that were afar off, by making distance no longer a 
righteous necessity, and nearness a thing of which the 
law approves, and in which God delights. It is 
reconciling blood.

	6. It redeems. "Thou hast redeemed us to God by 
Thy blood." It is the ransom or purchase-money. It was 
necessary that the sinner, sold and imprisoned, should 
be bought back again at a price such as would satisfy 
law and justice. And the blood has been found to be 
ample payment,--the very ransom needed by those whom 
death had made captive.

	7. It cleanses. We are washed from our sins in 
this covenant-blood; our robes are washed white in the 
blood of the Lamb. All that sin had done this blood 
undoes. All its pollution this blood washes away. It 
is purifying blood; and, as such, it fits for worship, 
for drawing near to God.

	8. It pacifies. It comes into contact with the 
sinner's conscience, and removes the sense of guilt,--
takes away the terror. The soul is at peace, and is 
kept in peace by this blood. "He has made peace by the 
blood of His cross."
	Let these things suffice to show the power of 
the covenant-blood. Such it was, such it is, such it 
will be.
	It is as efficacious as ever. It has lost none 
of its power. Age does not change it, nor repeated use 
weaken its efficacy. It can still do all it once did 
for the sinner. Its potency is divine.
	It is as sufficient, as suitable, as free, as 
near as ever. He whose blood it is comes up to each of 
us, and presents it to us in all its fulness and 
power. Take it as it is presented, and all the 
benefits of this covenant-blood forthwith become 
yours; and though you may be the unworthiest of the 
unworthy, you are reckoned by God clean every whit; a 
forgiven sinner, a delivered prisoner, a saved man.
	The second passage to which I would refer is 
Hebrews 10:19:-- "Having therefore, brethren, boldness 
to enter into the holiest (or literally 'the holies' 
'or holy places') by the blood of Jesus; by a new and 
living way which He hath consecrated for us, through 
the veil, that is to say his flesh; and having an High 
Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a 
true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our 
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our 
bodies washed with pure water."
	As in the former passage, so in this, it is only 
a brief sketch that I can here give; not attempting to 
expound the words or illustrate the argument, but to 
bring out the emboldening of which the apostle speaks 
in connection with the blood. Deliverance by the blood 
was the idea of the former passage; boldness by the 
blood is the idea of this. The boldness comes to us 
from what that blood reveals to us of God, and of the 
way in which He has met the sinner and provided for 
his entrance into the sanctuary as a worshipper.
	It is not so much doctrine that the apostle 
delivers to us in his Epistles, as "the fulness of 
Christ," that fulness as supplying the sinner's wants 
and as bringing him into that relationship to God, 
which God's purpose of redemption designed, and which 
was needful for the sinner's blessedness.
	God's full provision in Christ for us as sinners 
is continually brought before us; and we are invited 
to avail ourselves of it. The provision for the 
removal of wrath, for pardon, for reconciliation, for 
service, is fully detailed, that we may know the 
"manifold grace of God" and "the unsearchable riches 
of Christ." For instance:--
	In the Epistle to the Romans we have the 
provision in Christ fitting us for work:--viz., that 
righteousness of God which delivers us from 
condemnation and sets us free to serve or work for Him 
who hath delivered us: and in the last chapter of that 
epistle we have the list of a noble band of apostolic 
workers.
	In the Epistle to the Ephesians we have the 
provision for conflict:--viz, the being filled with 
the Spirit and His gifts, that we may wrestle against 
principalities and powers. The armour and weapons for 
the warfare are described in the concluding chapter.
	In the Epistle to the Hebrews we have the 
provision for worship. For God is seeking worshippers, 
and He has made provision for making such. It is to 
worship that He calls us in this epistle; and He 
points to that which enables us to become acceptable 
worshippers:--to that which, so soon as it is 
understood and believed, turns the chief of sinners 
and the farthest off of prodigals into an acceptable 
and happy worshipper.
	He assumes that "boldness" or "confidence" is 
essential to this: and this boldness has been 
provided. There is, 1. the open door of the sanctuary; 
2. liberty to enter; 
3. boldness in drawing near to God; 4. access to all 
the courts; for the expression is not simply "the 
holiest" but "the holy places"; as if we had the 
fullest right to every part of the sanctuary, the full 
range of the holy places.
	This boldness is the opposite of dread, and 
darkness, and suspicion, and uncertainty. It is not 
merely the reversal of Adam's flying from God into the 
trees of the garden, but it is the entire removal of 
all sense of danger, or fear of unacceptableness,--
nay, it is the importation of childlike and 
unhesitating confidence, in virtue of which we go in 
without trembling and without blushing; for God's 
provision is so ample that in going into His courts 
and going up to His throne we are neither afraid nor 
ashamed. All that would have produced such feelings 
has been taken away. This boldness is effected,

	1. By something without us. It is not anything 
within us,--our evidences, or experiences, or 
feelings; not even our regeneration, and our being 
conscious of the Spirit's work in us. It is entirely 
by something without us,--the blood of Jesus.

	2. By something in the heavens. It is into the 
heaven of heavens that we are to enter in worshipping 
God; and that which gives us boldness in entering 
there, must be something which has been presented 
there, as the apostle says,-- "the heavenly things 
themselves by better sacrifices than these." The blood 
was shed on earth, but presented in heaven; Christ 
entered in with His own blood.

	3. By something about which there can be no 
mistake. The question as to the existence of the blood 
or its being presented in heaven, is settled once for 
all on the authority of God. We need not reason about 
it. God has told us that it has been done. As to our 
own feelings there may be many mistakes; but as to the 
presentation of the blood, there can be no doubt and 
no mistake. It is a certainty; and on that certainty 
we rest.

	4. By something which shows that the ground of 
dread is removed. The dread arose from the thought, 1. 
I am guilty; 2. God must be my enemy; 3. I dare not 
come near him; 4. He must condemn me. The blood of 
Jesus meets these causes of terror, and shows the 
provision which God has made for the removal of them 
all. The sight of the blood dispels my terror and 
relieves my conscience, and says, Be of good cheer. 
For it shows the penalty paid by a substitute,--the 
full penalty; a divine life given in room of a human 
life, the wages of sin paid by the death of a divine 
substitute.

	5. By something which God has accepted. God has 
accepted the blood! He raised Him whose blood it is; 
and this was acceptance. He set Him on His throne at 
His right hand. This is acceptance. He presents him as 
the Lamb slain. This is acceptance. He has testified 
to His acceptance of it. It is blood which God has 
accepted for that pardon and cleansing and reconciling 
that we preach; blood by which law is magnified and 
righteousness exalted.

	6. By something which glorifies God. That blood-
shedding glorifies Him. The sinner's admission and 
entrance glorifies Him,--glorifies Him more than his 
exclusion and banishment and death. The blood by which 
God is thus glorified in receiving the sinner, must 
give boldness. I am going in to glorify God; and my 
going in will glorify Him, in consequence of that 
blood,--this cannot but embolden me.

	7. By something which tells that God wants my 
worship. God came down seeking worshippers. He wants 
your worship,--this is His message. That tabernacle 
says He wants you as a worshipper. That laver, blood, 
incense, mercy-seat, all say He wants you as a 
worshipper. He is in earnest in seeking you to worship 
Him. He wants you to come in and serve in His courts,-
-as a priest!
	We go in through the open gate, the rent veil: 
by the new and living way, the blood-dropped pavement. 
Personally we are sprinkled from an evil conscience; 
i.e., at the altar; our bodies are washed, i.e., at 
the laver. Thus there are such things as the 
following, resulting from all this.

	1. Liberty of conscience. I mean liberty of 
conscience before God. A "good conscience" comes to us 
through the blood upon the mercy-seat. A conscience 
void of offence before men we may have in other ways, 
but only in this can all have a conscience void of 
offence before the Searcher of hearts. It is the blood 
which purges the conscience from dead works, as did 
the water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer 
cleanse the Israelite who had touched a dead body. By 
the blood the "true heart" comes.

	2. Confident approach to God. Instead of flying 
from God, we turn to Him. Instead of trembling as we 
cross the threshold of His sanctuary, we lift up our 
heads like those who know that only here are they on 
secure ground,--like the flying manslayer entering the 
gate of the Refuge City. The blood removes the dread, 
and makes us feel safe even under the holy light of 
the glory. We are protected by the blood; we are 
comforted by the blood: for this blood casteth out all 
fear.

	3. Happy intercourse. A sinner's fellowship with 
God must be carried on through the blood. That blood 
was meant to remove everything that would have 
hindered communion; or that would have kept God at a 
distance from the sinner, and the sinner at a distance 
from God. But it is not merely that we are brought 
nigh by the blood of Christ; we are brought nigh in 
the fulness of a tranquil spirit, which feels that it 
can now unbosom itself to God, in the certainty of 
confiding love. Fear has been supplanted by joy. The 
intercourse is the intercourse of trusting happy 
hearts, pouring out their love into each other; and 
the Spirit bears witness to the blood in this respect, 
by imparting the childlike frame, and teaching us to 
cry Abba Father.

	4. Spiritual service. There seems nothing 
spiritual in the blood; and yet without the blood 
spiritual service is an impossibility. Abel's 
sacrifice seemed a more carnal thing than Cain's 
offering of the choicest fruits of Eden, yet it was in 
Abel's that God recognised the spirituality and the 
acceptable service. It is the blood which divests us 
of that externalism which cleaves to the service of 
the sinner,--which strips us of a hollow ritualism; 
which turns death into life, hollowness into 
substance, and unreality into truth. Spiritual service 
has ever been connected with the blood-shedding of 
atonement, which by its appeal to the inner man, draws 
out the whole spiritual being in happy obedience and 
willing devoted service.
	5. Holy worship. Holiness is not associated with 
darkness, or gorgeous rites, or glittering robes, or 
fragrant incense, or swelling music, or a magnificent 
temple, or an unnumbered multitude. All these may be 
unholy things, hateful to God. There may be the 
absence of all these, and yet there may be holy 
worship: the worship of holy lips; the worship of holy 
hands; the worship of holy knees; the worship of a 
holy soul. It is the blood that consecrates; whether 
it be man or place, whether it be voice or soul. That 
which is presented to God must have passed through the 
blood, else it is unholy, however imposing and 
splendid. If it has come through the blood, it is 
holy, however small and mean and poor. All worship is 
unclean save that which has been sanctified by the 
blood. All holy worship begins with the blood, and is 
carried on by means of the blood. We go within the 
rent veil to worship, not without blood. For it is the 
blood which sprinkled on the worshipper makes him 
first, and then his worship, acceptable. This is 
"entire consecration."	


CHAPTER 9.

GOD SEEKING WORSHIPPERS.



For ages before God sought a temple, He had been 
seeking worshippers. He could do without the former, 
but not without the latter.
	His first sanctuary was but a tent; and three 
thousand years had elapsed before He said, Build me a 
house wherein I may dwell. Yet all this time He was 
seeking for worshippers amongst the sons of men. By 
man's sin God had lost the worship of earth, and He 
had set Himself to regain it.

	1. He wants LOVE. Being the infinitely loveable 
God, He asks love from man--from every man; love 
according to His worth and beauty.
	
	2. He claims OBEDIENCE. For His will is the 
fountainhead of all law; and He expects that this will 
of His should be in all things conformed to.

	3. He expects SERVICE. The willing and living 
service of man's whole being is what He claims and 
desires,--the service of body, soul, and spirit.

	4. He asks for WORSHIP. He does not stand in 
need of human praise or prayer; yet He asks for these, 
He delights in these, He wants the inner praise of the 
silent heart. He wants the uttered praise of the 
fervent lip and tongue. He desires the solitary praise 
of the closet; and still more the loud harmony of the 
great congregation; for "the Lord loveth the gates of 
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob," (Psa 
87:2). True praise is a "speaking well of God", (1 
Peter 1:3), speaking of Him in psalms and hymns and 
spiritual songs, according to His excellency. "Bless 
the Lord, O my soul" (Psa 103:1), "Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph 1:3).
	It was of "worship" that the Lord spoke so much 
to the woman of Sychar. To Nicodemus He said nothing 
of this; nor indeed to any others. It was in regard to 
"worship" that the Samaritans had gone so far astray, 
therefore He speaks specially of this,--even to this 
poor profligate. He spoke to her of "the Father," and 
of "the worship of the Father" (John 4:21); reminding 
her that God was a spirit and that "they who worship 
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And then 
He adds these memorable words, "the Father seeketh 
such to worship Him."
	It was of the difference between outward and 
inward religion, between the real and the unreal, 
between the acceptable and the unacceptable, that He 
spoke to the woman. Samaria and Jerusalem, Gerizzim 
and Moriah, these were but external things. There was 
no religious virtue connected with them; God is not 
the God of the outward, but of the inward; not the God 
of places, but of living creatures; not the God of 
cities and mountains, but the God of hearts and souls. 
No rites, however numerous or gorgeous or beautiful, 
can be a substitute for the life and the spirit. The 
question is not intellectual, or aesthetic, or 
pictorial, but spiritual; not as to what gratifies our 
eye or ear, our sense of the great or the tasteful, 
but what is acceptable to God and according to His 
instructions.
	Where am I to worship God? man asks; but he 
answers it in his own way; as all false religions, and 
indeed some true ones, have done. On certain sacred 
spots, he says, where some man of God has lived, where 
some martyr's blood has been shed, where the footsteps 
of good men are recorded to have been, which have been 
consecrated by certain priestly rites,--there and 
there only must men worship God. God's answer to the 
question, Where am I to worship God? is, EVERYWHERE: 
on sea and land, vale or hill, desert or garden, city 
or village or moor,--anywhere and everywhere. For 
certain purposes God set apart Sinai for a season, and 
then Moriah; but not to the exclusion of other places. 
And even these consecrations are at an end. Sinai is 
but the old red granite hill,--no more,--where now no 
man worships. Moriah is but the old limestone 
platform, now desecrated by false worship. "Woman, 
believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in 
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the 
Father" (John 4:21).
	When am I to worship God? man asks; but he 
answers it in his own way also. Only at certain times, 
he says,--certain hours, and certain days, fixed and 
arranged by priestly authority, or ecclesiastical law, 
or traditional rule. God's answer is, "at all times 
and seasons": pray without ceasing. The naming of 
certain hours and days is necessary for the gathering 
together of the worshippers; but worship is to be 
perpetual, without restriction of times. All hours are 
holy; all days are holy, in so far as worship is 
concerned; only one day having been specially 
appointed of God, and that not for restriction but for 
order.
	How am I to worship God? man asks; and he has 
answered it also in his own way. In the gorgeous 
temple, in the pillared cathedral, with incense, and 
vestments, and forms, and ceremonies, and processions, 
and postures, he says.[14] But these performances are 
the will-worship of self-righteousness, not the 
obedient service of men worshipping God in ways of His 
own ordination. Man cannot teach man how to worship 
God. When he tries it he utterly fails. He distorts 
worship; he misrepresents God, and he indulges his own 
sensuous or self-righteous tastes. His "dim religious 
light" is but a reflection of his own gloomy spirit, 
and an ignorant misrepresentation of Him "who is 
light, and in whom is no darkness at all." God's 
answer to man's question is given in the Lord's words, 
"they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and 
in truth." The vestments may or may not be comely; 
that matters not. The music may or may not be fine: 
the knees may or may not be bent; the hands may or may 
not be clasped; the place of worship may or may not be 
a cathedral, or a consecrated fabric. These are 
immaterial things; adjuncts of religion, not its 
essence. The true worship is that of the inner man; 
and all things else are of little moment. As it is 
with love so it is with worship. The heart is 
everything. God can do without the bended knee, but 
not without the broken heart.
	It is of the Father that Christ is here 
speaking;--of Him whose name is not only God but 
Father,[15] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. As the fountainhead of all being in heaven and 
in earth, the paternal Creator, the Father of spirits, 
the great Father-spirit, the God of the spirits of all 
flesh, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, yet 
who visiteth earth in His fatherly love,--as such He 
is here spoken of by our Lord. He is a spirit, yet He 
is no vague or cold abstraction, no mere assemblage of 
what we call attributes, but full of life and love; 
with the heart of a Father, with the pity and power 
and care of a Father, and also with all a Father's 
resources and rights. Though we have broken off from 
that Father and gone into the far country, that does 
not change His paternal nature, though it alters our 
relationship to Him and the treatment we are to 
receive at His hands. He made the fatherly heart of 
man, and He did so after the likeness of His own. That 
fatherly heart yearns over His wandered family; "His 
tender mercies are over all His works."
	It is as Father that he is seeking worshippers, 
and seeking them here on earth among the fallen sons 
of men.
	He seeketh! That word means more than it seems. 
He is in search of something; of something which He 
has lost; of something which He counts precious; of 
something which He cannot afford to lose. Great as He 
is, there are many things which He cannot think of 
letting go. His very greatness makes Him needy for it 
makes Him understand the value, not only of every soul 
which He has formed, but of every atom of dust which 
He has created. When He misses any part of His 
creation He goes or sends in search of it; He will not 
part with it. Men of common souls, when they lose 
anything, are apt to say, Let it go, I can do without 
it. Men of great minds, when they lose anything, say, 
I must have it back again, I cannot afford to lose it. 
Much more is this true of the infinite Jehovah. It is 
His greatness that makes Him so susceptible of loss. 
Others may overlook the lost thing. He cannot. He must 
go in quest of it.
	It is the same kind of seeking and searching as 
the prophet Ezekiel, speaking in the name of Jehovah, 
declares,-- "I will search and seek," (34:11); and to 
which our Lord so often refers, when He represents 
Himself as "seeking the lost" (Luke 19:10); it may be 
the lost sheep, or the lost piece of silver, or the 
lost son.
	We must not dilute these expressions, and say 
that they simply imply that God is willing to have us 
back again if we will come; that He is willing to take 
us as worshippers if we will come. All that comes very 
far short of the meaning. And though we may say, what 
can the infinite Jehovah be in want of; what can He 
need, to whom belongs not only the heaven of heavens 
but the whole universe;--still we must see how anxious 
He is to show us His unutterable earnestness in 
seeking and in searching.
	Such is the attitude of God! He bends down from 
His eternal throne to seek; as if the want of 
something here on earth, on this old sinful earth, 
would be a grievous and irreparable loss. What value 
does He attach to us and to our worship!
	Yes, the Father seeketh worshippers! He is in 
search of many things of which sin has robbed Him; 
affection, homage, allegiance, reverence, obedience; 
but worship,--the worship of man, and of man's earth, 
He is specially seeking and claiming. He so created 
this world, that from it there should arise, without 
ceasing, wide as the universal air, that fragrance of 
holy worship, from the creatures which He had made and 
placed upon its surface. The command is not merely, 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," 
but "thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only 
shalt thou serve." Over this broken command He mourns; 
"it grieves Him at His heart"; and He seeks to have it 
restored in man. He loves worship from human hearts 
and lips, and He will not be satisfied without it. It 
might seem a small thing to lose the worship of a 
creature's heart, here on this low and evil earth. Can 
He not let it go? It will only be the worse for the 
creature, not for Him, who has the worship of heaven, 
and of ten thousand times ten thousand angels. No; He 
cannot lose that worship. It is precious to Him. He 
must have it back.
	O man, God speaks to you and says, "Worship me." 
He comes up to each sinner upon earth and says, 
"Worship me." If He does so, He must care for you and 
He must care for your worship. It is not a matter of 
indifference to Him whether you worship Him or not. It 
concerns Him, and it concerns you. Perhaps the thought 
comes up within you, what does God care for my 
worship? I may praise, or I may not, what does He 
care? I may sing, or I may blaspheme, what does it 
matter to Him? He cares much. It concerns Him deeply. 
He is thoroughly in earnest when He asks you to 
worship Him. He wants these lips of yours, that tongue 
of yours, that heart of yours. He wants them all for 
Himself. Will you give Him what He wants?
	You say He has enough of praise in heaven, what 
can he want on earth? He has angels in myriads to 
praise Him, does He really desire my voice? Will He be 
grieved if I refuse it? Yes, He desires your voice, 
and He will be grieved if you withhold it. He has many 
a nobler tongue than yours, but still He wants yours. 
He has many a sweeter voice than yours, still He is 
bent on having that poor sinful voice. Oh come and 
worship me, He says.
	This answers the question so often put by the 
inquiring, What warrant have I for coming to God. God 
wants you. Is not that enough? What more would you 
have? He wants you to draw near. He has no pleasure in 
your distance. He wants you to praise Him, to worship 
Him. He is seeking your worship. Do you mean to ask, 
What warrant have I for worshipping God? Rather should 
you ask, What warrant have I for refusing to worship 
Him? Is it possible that you can think yourself at 
liberty not to worship Him; nay, think that you are 
not under any obligation to worship Him, until you can 
ascertain your election, or feel within you some 
special change which you can consider God's call to 
worship Him?
	His search for worshippers is a world-wide one. 
It goes over the whole earth; and His call on men to 
worship is equally universal. He made man to worship 
and to love; can He ever forego such claims, or can 
man ever be in a position in which that claim ceases, 
or that obligation is cancelled? Can his sinfulness or 
unworthiness exempt him from the duty, or make it 
unwarrantable in him to come and worship Jehovah?
	Let us hear how He speaks to the sons of men, 
Jew and Gentile:--

"Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands!
Sing forth the honour of His name,
Make His praise glorious." (Psa 66:1)

	Again He speaks,--

"O sing unto the Lord a new song;
Sing unto the Lord, all the earth!
Sing unto the Lord,
Bless His name!
Show forth His salvation from day to day." (Psa 96:1)

	Again He speaks,--

"Praise ye the Lord!
For it is good to sing praises unto our God;
For it is pleasant;
Yea, praise is comely." (Psa 147:1)

	Nay, He calls on all nature to praise Him. He 
claims the homage of the inanimate creation.

"Let the heavens rejoice,
And let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.
Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein;
Then shall the trees of the wood rejoice
Before the Lord." (Psa 96:11-13)

	Thus is God seeking for worshippers here on 
earth. And what is His gospel but the proclamation of 
His gracious search for worshippers? He sends out His 
glad tidings of great joy, that He may draw men to 
Himself and make them worshippers of His own glorious 
self.
	The shepherd loses one of his flock; and he 
misses it. The shepherd misses the sheep more than the 
sheep misses the shepherd. The sheep is too precious 
to be lost. It must be sought for and found; whatever 
toil or peril may be in the way. Even life itself is 
not to be grudged in behalf of the lost one, "The good 
Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep," as if the 
life of the sheep were more valuable than that of the 
Shepherd.
	The woman loses one of her ten silver pieces, 
she cannot afford to lose it. She must have it back 
again. She seeks till she find it. It does not miss 
her, but she misses it. She seeks and finds!
	The father loses his son; and is troubled. The 
son may not miss the father, but the father misses the 
son; nor can he rest till he has taken him in his arms 
again, and set him down at his table with gladness and 
feasting.
	But the passage we are considering brings before 
us something beyond all this. It is not the shepherd 
seeking his sheep, nor the woman her silver, nor the 
father his son; it is Jehovah seeking worshippers! and 
He is in earnest. He wants to be worshipped by the 
sons of Adam. He desires the worship of earth no less 
than that of heaven. He has the praise of angels, but 
He must have that of men. Such is the value He sets 
upon us, and such is His love?
	But it is spiritual worship, and spiritual 
worshippers that He is seeking: "The Father seeketh 
such to worship Him." The outward man is nothing, it 
is the inner man He is in quest of. The worship must 
come, not from the walls of the temple, but from the 
innermost shrine. It must be something pervading the 
man's whole being, and coming up from the depths of 
the soul; otherwise, it is but as sounding brass or a 
tinkling cymbal. Forms, sounds, gestures, dresses, 
ornaments, are not worship. They are but
	"Mouth-honour breath, 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not."

	Instead of constituting worship, these outward 
things are often but excuses for refusing the inward 
service. Man pleases himself with a sensuous and 
theatrical externalism, because he hates the spiritual 
and the true. God says, "Give me thine heart." Man 
says, "No; but I will give you my voice." God says, 
"Give me thy soul." Man says, "No; but I will give 
Thee my knee and my bended body." But it will not do. 
"God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must 
worship Him in spirit and in truth."
	But what provision has God made for all this? It 
is not enough to say to us, "Be worshippers,"--this 
might be said to the unsinning, and they would at once 
comply. "Let all the angels of God worship Him." But 
say this to a sinner, and he will ask, "How can I, a 
man of unclean lips and unclean heart, approach the 
infinitely holy One? It would not be safe in me to 
come, nor would it be right in God to allow me to 
approach." There must be provision for this;--
something which will satisfy the sinner's conscience, 
remove the sinner's dread, win the sinner's 
confidence, on the one hand, and satisfy God, 
vindicate righteousness, magnify holiness, on the 
other.
	For this there is the twofold provision of the 
blood and the Spirit. The blood satisfies God's 
righteousness and the sinner's conscience. The Holy 
Spirit renews the man, so as to draw out his heart in 
worship. It is the blood that propitiates, and it is 
the Spirit that transforms. God presents this blood 
freely to the sinner; God proclaims His desire to give 
this Spirit freely.
	"May I use this blood?" perhaps one says. Use 
it! Certainly. Thou fool, why shouldst thou ask such a 
question? Use it! Yes; for thou must either use it, or 
trample on it. Which of these wilt thou do?
	"May I expect the Spirit?" some one may say. 
Expect Him! What! art thou more willing to have the 
Spirit than God is to give Him? Art thou so willing, 
and God so unwilling? Thou fool, who has persuaded 
thee to believe such a lie?
	God has come to thee, O man! saying, "I want 
thee for a worshipper": wilt thou become one? 
Remember, thou must either be a worshipper or a 
blasphemer; which wilt thou be?
	


CHAPTER 10.

GOD SEEKING TEMPLES.


God began with seeking worshippers, but he goes on to 
seek temples; or rather, in the sense which we are now 
to consider, in seeking worshippers he was seeking 
temples; and in preparing worshippers, he was 
preparing temples.
	The Church is the great temple. Each saint is a 
temple. In His Church, and in each member of that 
Church, Jehovah dwells. "Ye are builded together for 
AN HABITATION OF GOD through the Spirit" (Eph 2:22).
	Man was made for God to dwell in. Man thrust God 
out of His dwelling-place, and left Him homeless; 
without a habitation on earth. The universe was His; 
every star was His; every mountain was His: but none 
of these did He count fit to be His habitation. Only 
in the human heart would He be satisfied to dwell.
	Man thrust out God from His dwelling, but God 
would not be thus driven away. He must return; and He 
must return in a way which would make it impossible 
that He should ever be thrust out again; and He must 
return in a way such as will show not only the 
hatefulness of man's sin in thrusting Him out, but the 
largeness of His own grace, and the perfection of His 
righteousness.
	Jehovah is bent upon returning to His old 
dwelling-place. He might have created others, and 
dwelt in them. But He has purposed not to part with 
His old ones. It is as if He could not afford to lose 
these, or could not bear the thought of casting them 
away. "I will return," He says. He casts a wistful eye 
upon the ruins of His beloved dwelling-place, and He 
resolves to return and rebuild, and re-inhabit.[16]
	When the Son of God was here, He had no place to 
lay His head. He was a homeless man in the midst of 
earth's many homes. But still He did come, seeking a 
home, both for Himself and for the Father. The home 
that He sought was the human heart; and He came with 
this message from the Father,-- "I will dwell in 
them." To this closed heart He comes, in loving 
earnestness, seeking entrance, that He may find for 
Himself and for the Father a home. Thus He speaks: 
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man 
hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto 
him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev 
3:20); and again He speaks, "We will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). So that 
this is our message to the sons of men,--the Father 
wants your heart for His dwelling,--the Son wants your 
heart for His dwelling.
	But it is for more than dwelling that God is 
seeking. It is for a temple. To dwell in us, in any 
sense, would be infinite honour and blessedness. But 
to take us for His temples, to make us His Holy of 
Holies, His shrine of worship, His place of praise, 
His very heaven of heavens, is something beyond all 
this. Yet it is temples that God is now seeking among 
the sons of men; not marble shrines, nor golden 
altars, with fire, and blood, and incense, and 
gorgeous adornings; but the spirit of man, the broken 
and the contrite heart.
	The Church is God's temple. "In whom ALL THE 
BUILDING, fitly framed together, groweth into AN HOLY 
TEMPLE in the Lord" (Eph 2:21). Each saint is God's 
temple. "Ye are the temple of God" (1 Cor 3:16). Our 
body is God's temple. "Know ye not that your body is 
the temple of the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor 6:19).[17]
	God is seeking temples on earth,--living 
temples, constructed of living stones, founded on the 
one living stone,-- "built up a spiritual house" (1 
Peter 2:5).
	Of this temple God is Himself the Architect, and 
the Holy Spirit is the BUILDER. It is constructed 
after the pattern of heavenly things, according to the 
great eternal plan, which the purpose of the God, only 
wise, had designed for the manifestation of His own 
glory. As both the Architect and Builder are divine, 
we may be sure that the plan will be perfect, and that 
it will be carried out in all its details without 
failure, and without mistake. It will be beauty, 
completeness, and perfection throughout,--a glorious 
Church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; in 
size, in symmetry, in ornament, in majesty, in 
stability, altogether faultless,--the mightiest and 
the fairest of all the works of Jehovah's hands.
	In another sense, hereafter, when all things are 
made new, "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb" are the 
temple (Rev 21:22). But we also are the temple; both 
now and hereafter. Both things are true. He in us, and 
we in Him. We are God's temple, and He is ours for 
ever.
	The foundation is Christ Himself (1 Cor 3:11; 
Isa 28:16; 1 Peter 2:4-6). He is the rock on which we 
are builded; He is no less the foundation-stone which 
bears up the building, and knits its walls together. 
In the eternal plan of the divine Architect, this 
foundation-stone is grandly prominent,--the chief part 
of God's eternal purpose; framed by God; laid by God 
in the fulness of time; laid in Zion; laid once for 
all: a sure foundation, a tried stone; one, without a 
rival and without a second. It was this stone, laid by 
God, which the apostle (if we may carry out the figure 
which he uses in connection with his own ministry) 
carried about with him from place to place, when he 
went through the gentile world founding churches. 
"According to the grace of God which is given unto me, 
as a wise master-builder, I have laid THE 
FOUNDATION...For other foundation can no man lay than 
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 3:10,11). 
On this foundation each soul rests. From the first 
saint, downward to the last, it has been and it shall 
be so. There is but one foundation for Old Testament 
saints as well as for new. On this, too, the Church of 
God rests; the one Church from the beginning, the one 
body, the one temple, filled with the one Spirit, for 
the worship of the one Jehovah. Not two foundations, 
nor two temples, nor two bodies, nor two Churches; but 
ONE, only one, made up of the redeemed from among men, 
bought with the one blood, justified with the one 
righteousness, saved by the one cross, expectants of 
the one promise, and heirs of the one glory.
	The stones are the saints, (1 Peter 2:5) "Unto 
whom coming as unto a living stone, ye also as lively 
(living) stones, are built up a spiritual house." Of 
the quarrying, the hewing, the polishing, the 
building, of these living stones I cannot here write. 
But each has a history of his own. Though dug out of 
one rock, hewn, polished and fitted in by one Spirit, 
yet each has come to be what he is by means of a 
different process, some longer, some shorter, some 
gentler, some rougher. But on the one foundation, they 
are all placed by the one hand, one upon the other, in 
goodly order, according to the one eternal plan in 
Christ Jesus our Lord; forming the one glorious temple 
for Jehovah's worship and habitation. Many stones, one 
temple; many members, one family; many branches, one 
vine; many crumbs, one loaf. They are "BUILDED 
TOGETHER for an habitation of God through the Spirit." 
The "unity of the faith," (Eph 4:13), from the 
beginning is the pledge of the unity of the temple; 
and as this faith has been one since the day of the 
announcement of the woman's seed, so has this temple 
been; the multitude of stones not marring but 
enhancing the unity. The "unity of the Spirit," too, 
(Eph 4:3), is both the pattern and the pledge of the 
temple's unity. It has been one spirit and one temple 
from the beginning; not two spirits and two temples, 
but only one. "There is one body and one spirit, even 
as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of 
all, who is above all, and through all, and in you 
all." Thus all the "building fitly framed together 
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" (Eph 2:21). 
God is now seeking these stones for His temple among 
the lost sons of Adam. Worthless and unfit in 
themselves for use in any divine building, they are 
sought out and prepared by the great Builder for their 
place in the eternal building. Yes, God is in search 
of these stones now; just as He has been these many 
ages, since Adam, and Abel, and Seth, and Enoch, and 
Noah, were sought out nd fitted in to form the 
glorious line or row of stones lying immediately above 
the foundation-stone. God is coming up to each son of 
man, degraded as he may be, an outcast, and saying, 
"Wilt thou not become a stone in my temple? I seek 
thee: wilt thou prefer thy degradation, and reject the 
honour which I present to thee."
	The temple is holy (1 Cor 3:17; Psa 93:5). It is 
set apart for God; it is to be used for sacred 
purposes; it is pure in all its parts; its vessels, 
its walls, its gates, its furniture. It is not yet 
perfect, but it shall one day be so. Into it nothing 
that defileth shall enter. And even now God, the 
inhabitant of the temple, is seeking holiness of all 
who belong to it. "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
	Let us dread the defilement of His temple; for 
it is written, "If any man defile the temple of God, 
him shall God destroy" (1 Cor 3:17). For God will not 
be mocked, nor allow His throne to be polluted. Yet do 
we not defile it by sin, by worldliness, by vanity, by 
formality, by profanity, by our unfragrant incense, 
our impure praises and prayers?
	Let us rejoice in the honour of being living 
temples, living stones, consecrated to the service of 
the living God. Let us walk worthy of the honour,--the 
honour of being filled with God, penetrated by His 
light, perfumed by His sweetness, gladdened by His 
love, and glorified by His majestic presence and 
indwelling fulness.	

CHAPTER 11.

GOD SEEKING PRIESTS.



If God has a temple, He must have priests; else were 
there no song, no service, no worship.  In His eternal 
plan, priesthood is provided for; a priesthood not of 
angels but of redeemed men; of those who seemed the 
least likely to fulfil such an office in such a 
temple.
	It is a "holy priesthood" that he has provided 
(1 Peter 2:5). It is a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 
2:9); for He has made us kings and priests. It is a 
heavenly priesthood like that of His own Son.
	As such we minister at God's altar, we tread His 
courts, we eat His shew-bread, we kindle and trim His 
lamps, we offer His sacrifices, we burn His holy 
incense.
	God is seeking priests among the sons of men. A 
human priesthood is one of the essential parts of His 
eternal plan. To rule creation by man is His design; 
to carry on the worship of creation by man is no less 
part of His design.
	He is now in search of priests; and He has sent 
His Son to prepare such for His temple. In order to 
their being such, He must redeem them; He must 
reconcile them; He must cleanse them; He must clothe 
them with the garments of glory and of beauty. All 
this He does. "The Son of man came to seek and to save 
that which was lost."
	The embassy of peace which is going forth from 
the cross is an embassy in quest of priests. His 
ambassadors of peace beseech men to be reconciled to 
God in order to their becoming priests. God Himself in 
His glorious gospel comes up to the sinner and asks 
him to become a priest to Him.
	And what does this priesthood mean? What does it 
embrace? Let us consider this.
	Priesthood is the appointed link between heaven 
and earth; the channel of intercourse between the 
sinner and God. God and man can only come together on 
the ground of mediatory priesthood. Such a priesthood, 
in so far as expiation is concerned, is in the hands 
of the Son of God alone; in so far as it is to be the 
medium of communication between Creator and creature, 
is also in the hands of redeemed men,--of the Church 
of God.
	Sin had broken up all direct or open 
intercourse, as we have seen; and the veil declared 
this. All access to God was to be debarred till a new 
medium should be provided, such as should secure the 
ends of righteousness; such as should make it 
honourable for the Holy One to receive the 
unrighteous; and such as should make it safe for the 
unholy to stand in the presence of the Holy.
	Priesthood is the link between the sinner and 
God, between earth and heaven,--earth, where all is 
vile; heaven, where all is pure. Without priesthood, 
God and we are at awful and unremoveable distance from 
each other. Without priesthood, there can be no 
transference of guilt, no remission of sin, no 
reconciliation to God, no restoration either to 
fellowship or blessing. Priesthood involves and 
accomplishes all these, because it is through it that 
the substitution of life for life is effected. It is 
the conducting medium through whose agency the 
exchange is brought about between the sinner and the 
Surety. In nothing less than this does its purpose 
terminate, and wherein it falls short of this, it is 
but a pretext or a name. If priesthood be not the 
living link between God and the sinner, it is nothing.
	All this was exhibited in symbolic rite under 
the former law. It was through priesthood that all 
intercourse with God was carried on. It was the priest 
that led the sinner into God's presence, that 
presented his offering, that transacted the business 
between him and God, and that received the blessing 
from God to bestow upon the sinner. God set up the 
Aaronic priesthood on very purpose to exhibit this; to 
let men know what His idea of priesthood was, and what 
He intended a priest to be.
	True, this ancient priesthood had only to do 
with the flesh; it pertained but to the outward person 
of the sinner, and the mere visible courts of God. It 
could not reach the inner man; it could not take hold 
of the conscience; it could not lead the worshipper 
into the true presence of the invisible Jehovah. It 
fell short of these ends, and thus far was defective. 
Still, it did fully accomplish its end as a medium of 
communication, in so far as the outward man and the 
material courts were concerned. It was complete 
according to its nature; and in so far as it went, it 
established intercourse between the sinner and God.
	In so doing, it brought out most fully God's 
idea of priesthood, as if to prevent the possibility 
of any mistake upon the point. It showed God's 
ultimate design in regard to this; His intention of 
bringing in a perfect priesthood in His own time and 
way. His object was not to show men how to construct 
and set up a priesthood of their own, but to tell them 
what He Himself meant to do, so as to hinder their 
attempting such a thing. His object was to teach them 
the true meaning of priesthood, in order that when He 
brought in His own High Priest, they might fully 
understand the nature of His work, and the end to be 
accomplished. It was a new and a great idea that He 
sought to teach them, an idea which would never have 
occurred to themselves; an idea which it required long 
time to unfold to them; an idea most needful for them 
fully to grasp, as upon it depended the new 
relationship which grace was to introduce between them 
and God.
	But then when the old priestly ritual had thus 
served its ends, it was of no more use. It behoved to 
be taken down, as being more likely to hinder than 
help forward the sinner's intercourse with God, as 
being certain to confuse and perplex, and lead to 
innumerable mistakes in the great question of approach 
and acceptance. It was not to be imitated, for any 
imitation would but mislead men from the true 
priesthood. It was not to be set up in another form, 
for every part of it was merged, and, as it were, 
dissolved irrecoverably in the priesthood of the Son 
of God. The High Priest of good things to come had 
absorbed it all into Himself, so that any attempt to 
reconstruct it in any form is undoing what God has 
done; restoring what He Himself has taken to pieces; 
committing sacrilege with His holy vessels; nay, 
profaning with irreverent touch what He has removed 
out of sight, and forbidden to be handled or used.
	So far, then, is the old ritual from being a 
model or example for us now, that it forbids the 
attempt to imitate its rites. Its very nature, so 
purely symbolic and prospective, forbids such an 
attempt. Its abolition still more strongly prohibits 
this. For that abolition is God's proclamation that 
its ends are served, and its time accomplished. But 
specially its abolition, through fulfilment in the 
person of Messiah, declares this. Before it was cast 
away, everything in it that was of value was gathered 
out of it, and perpetuated in Him. Every truth that it 
contained was taken from it, and embodied in Him. It 
did not pass away simply because its time had come, 
but because the need for it had ceased; it had been 
superseded by something infinitely more glorious in 
its nature, and more suitable to the sinner. Who 
thinks of preserving the sand when the gold that it 
contained has been extracted? or who misses the 
beacon-light when the sun has risen?
	The coming of the Son of God, the Great High 
Priest, thus involves the abolition of priesthood in 
the old sense, for He has taken it wholly upon 
Himself: it is now centred in Him. All the ends of 
priesthood are fully met by Him. There is not one 
thing which we need either as sinners or as 
worshippers which we have not in Him. So that the 
question arises, What end can it serve to set up 
another priesthood apart from His? Has He left 
anything incomplete which ought to be completed by us? 
Has He left any of the distance unremoved between us 
and God? Has He left the work of atonement, and 
mediation, and intercession, in such a state of 
imperfection, that we require a new priestly order to 
perfect it? If not, then is it not strange profanity, 
as well as perversity in man, to insist upon setting 
up what is so wholly unnecessary, and what cannot but 
cast dishonour upon the divine priesthood of Messiah 
as being imperfect in itself, and as having failed in 
its ends?
	In the present age, then, there are none on 
earth exercising priestly functions. There is 
ministry, but not priesthood. The apostles were not 
priests. They never claimed the office, and never 
sought to exercise it in the Church. Nor did they 
enjoin their successors to claim it, nor give them the 
slightest hint that, as ministers, they were priests. 
They taught them that priesthood had passed away; that 
the priestly raiment had been rent in pieces; that 
there was no longer any temple, or altar, or sacrifice 
needed upon earth under this dispensation. The epistle 
to the Hebrews gives the lie to all priestly 
pretensions, and the epistles to Timothy and Titus 
show how totally different ministry is from 
priesthood.
	Yet we read of the "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 
2:9); we read of "kings and priests"; we read of those 
who claimed to themselves the priestly name even here. 
But these were not apostles, nor prophets, nor 
evangelists, but simply saints. As saints, they were 
priests. As one with the Great High Priest, they were 
entitled to this name. As those who were called to 
share with Him the future honours of the throne and 
altar, they are the "royal priesthood." Other priests 
upon earth there are none. Usurpers of the name and 
office there are many. Of true, God-chosen priests, 
there are none save these.
	Their priesthood is still in abeyance, so far as 
the actual exercise of it is concerned. They are 
priest-elect; but, at present, no more. Their title 
they have received, when brought into the Holy of 
Holies by the blood of Christ; but on the active 
functions of priesthood they have not entered. It doth 
not yet appear what they shall be. They wear no royal 
crown; they are clothed with no priestly raiments; 
their garments for "glory and for beauty" are still in 
reserve among the things that are "reserved in heaven, 
ready to be revealed in the last time." Both their 
inheritance and their priesthood are as yet only 
things of faith; they are not to be entered on till 
their Lord returns; they are priests in disguise, and 
no man owns their claim. Yet it is a sure claim; it is 
a Divine claim; it is a claim which will before long 
be vindicated. The day of the MANIFESTATION of those 
priests is not far off. And for this they wait, 
carefully abstaining from usurping honours and 
dignities which God has not yet put upon them.
	The High Priest whom they own is now within the 
veil; and till He come forth, they repudiate all 
priestly pretensions, knowing that at present all 
sacerdotal office, and authority, and glory, are 
centred in Him alone. To attempt to exercise these 
would be to rob Him of His prerogative, to forestall 
God's purpose, and to defeat the end of the present 
dispensation.
	Their priesthood is after the order of 
Melchizedek. The King of Salem and priest of the Most 
High God is he whom they point to as their type. Their 
great Head is the true Melchizedek; and they, under 
Him, can claim the office, and name, and dignity. 
Melchizedek's unknown and mysterious parentage is 
theirs, for the world knows them not, neither what nor 
whence they are. Melchizedek's city was Salem; theirs 
is the New Jerusalem, that cometh down out of heaven 
from God. His dwelling was in a city without a temple, 
and He exercised His priesthood without a temple; so 
their abode is to be in that city of which it is said, 
"I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty 
and the Lamb are the temple of it." Distinct from 
Abraham, and greater than he, though of the same 
common family of man, was Melchizedek; so they, "the 
church of the first-born," distinct from Israel, and 
greater than they, yet still partakers of a common 
nature, are to inherit a kingdom more glorious and 
heavenly than what shall ever belong to the sons of 
Abraham according to the flesh.
	It is in the age to come that they are to 
exercise their royal priesthood. They are the kings, 
while the dwellers on earth are the subjects. They are 
priests, and, as such, carry on the intercourse 
between earth and heaven.
	For priesthood is not merely for reconciliation, 
but for carrying on intercourse after reconciliation 
has been effected. It is not merely for securing 
pardon, but for forming the medium of communication 
between the pardoner and the pardoned. Thus priesthood 
may exist after all sin has passed away, and the curse 
has been taken from sky and earth, and all things have 
been made new.
	For this end shall priesthood exist in the 
eternal kingdom, both in the person of Christ Himself, 
and of His saints. A link is needed between the upper 
and the lower creation; between heaven and earth; 
between the visible and the invisible; between the 
Creator and the created. That link shall be the 
priesthood of Christ and His redeemed. They shall be 
the channels of communication between God and His 
universe. They shall be the leaders of creation's song 
of praise; from all regions of the mighty universe 
gathering together the multitudinous praises, and 
presenting them in their golden censers before 
Jehovah's throne. Through them worship shall be 
carried on, and all allegiance presented, and prayer 
sent up from the unnumbered orbs of space, the far-
extending dominions of the King of kings.
	Whether the kingly or priestly offices are to be 
conjoined in each saint, as in Christ Himself, or 
whether some are to be priests and some kings, we know 
not. The separation of the offices is quite compatible 
with the truth as the Church forming the Melchizedek 
priesthood: for the reference may be to the Church as 
a body, and not to each individual. And is it not 
something of this kind that is suggested to us by the 
four living ones and the four-and-twenty elders in the 
Revelation? Do not the former look like priests, and 
do not the latter look like kings?
	Yet it matters not. In either way, the dignity 
is the same to the Church; in either way will the 
"royal priesthood" exercise their office under Him who 
is the Great Priest and King.
	Our priesthood, then, is an eternal one. There 
will be room for it, and need for it hereafter, though 
the evils which just now specially call for its 
exercise shall then have passed away. We greatly 
narrow the range of priesthood when we confine it to 
the times and the places where sin is to be found. 
Such, no doubt, is its present sphere of exercise; and 
it is well, indeed, for us that it is so. Did it not 
extend to this, where should we be? Were it not now 
ordained specially for the alienated and the guilty, 
to restore the lost friendship, and refasten the 
broken link between them and God, what would become of 
us? But having accomplished this, must it cease? Has 
it no other region within which it can exercise 
itself? Has it not a wider range of function, to 
which, throughout eternity, it will extend, in the 
carrying out of God's wondrous purposes? And just as 
the humanity of Christ is the great bond of connection 
between the Divine and the human, the great basis on 
which the universe is to be established immovably for 
ever, and secured against a second fall, so the 
priesthood of Christ, exercised in that humanity, 
shall be the great medium of communication, in all 
praise, and prayer, and service, and worship of every 
kind; between heaven and earth; between the Creator 
and the creature; between the King Eternal, Immortal, 
and Invisible, and the beings whom He has made for His 
glory, in all places of His dominion, whether in the 
heaven of heavens, or in the earth below, or 
throughout the measureless regions of the starry 
universe.
	

CHAPTER 12.

GOD SEEKING KINGS.



One great part of God's eternal purpose in creation 
was to rule His universe by a MAN. "Unto the angels 
hath He not put in subjection the world to come, 
whereof we speak; but one in a certain place 
testifieth, What is MAN, that Thou art mindful of him, 
or the SON OF MAN that Thou visitest him?" (Heb 
2:5,6).
	To Adam therefore He said, "have dominion," or 
"rule." After the words of blessing, conveying 
fruitfulness to man, "be fruitful and multiply," there 
are three words added, conveying earth over to man as 
his possession and his kingdom, so that he might 
exercise authority in it by "divine right." 1. 
Replenish or fill. 2. Subdue. 3. Rule.
	Adam's unfaithfulness, by which dominion was 
forfeited, did not make the great purpose of none 
effect. That purpose has stood and shall stand for 
ever. Instead of the first Adam God brings in the 
"last Adam," the "second Man," the Lord from heaven, 
as His King, and He introduces His offspring as kings 
under Him, to fill, subdue, and rule the earth.
	He has found His King, and has put all things 
under His feet: placing on His head the many crowns, 
and setting Him on the throne of universal dominion,--
though as yet we see not all things actually put under 
Him. He says, "Yet have I set my King upon my holy 
hill of Zion": and He gives Him the heathen for His 
inheritance and the uttermost ends of the earth for 
His possession. He is the great Melchizedec,--the 
priestly King,--into whose hands all things have been 
put.
	But under Him, or associated with Him, are other 
kings. These are the redeemed from among men,--the 
chosen according to the good pleasure of His will: by 
nature, sons of the first Adam, but created anew and 
made sons of the second.
	From the ranks of fallen men God is selecting 
His kings. He has sent His Son to deliver them from 
their death and curse. He has sent His Spirit to 
quicken them and to transform them, not merely into 
obedient loving subjects, but into kings, heirs of the 
great throne. "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy 
children, whom thou mayest make PRINCES in all the 
earth" (Psa 45:16).
	These kings, though by nature mortal men, become 
heirs of immortality, and at the resurrection of the 
just, put on all that is to fit them for their 
everlasting reign. Everything connected with them is 
of God.

	1. God elects them. It is by His will that they 
are what they are. He finds the race of Adam in the 
horrible pit, and out of that ruined mass He chooses 
some,--not only to salvation but to glory and 
dominion. These kings are the chosen of God.

	2. He redeems them. They are found in the low 
dungeon, captives and prisoners in the hands of the 
great oppressor. God sends redemption to them,--
redemption through Him who takes their captivity upon 
Him, that they may be set free; who enters their 
prison-house, and takes their bonds upon Him that they 
may be unbound. In Him they have redemption through 
His blood.

	3. He consecrates them. Their consecration is by 
blood. It is the blood of the covenant that sets them 
apart for their future work and honour. Sprinkled with 
the precious blood they are "sanctified" for 
dominion;--for that holy royalty to which they have 
been chosen.

	4. He anoints them. With that same anointing 
with which Christ was anointed, they are anointed 
too,--anointed for royal rule,--priestly-royal rule. 
The Holy Spirit, dwelling in them, as in their Head, 
coming down on them, as on their Head, fits them for 
the exercise of dominion. The wisdom needed for 
government is a holy wisdom, and this holy wisdom they 
receive by means of the unction from the Holy One.

	5. He crowns them. They are, as yet, only kings-
elect. Their coronation-day is yet to come. Yet the 
crown is already theirs by right; and He who chose 
them to the throne will before long put the crown upon 
their head.
	Not out of the ranks of angels is He seeking 
kings. This would not suit His purpose, nor magnify 
the riches of His grace. Fallen man must furnish Him 
with the rulers of His universe. Human hands must 
wield the sceptre, and human heads must wear the 
crown.
	To this honour He is calling us. He is sending 
out His ambassadors for this end; and the gospel with 
which they are intrusted is the glad tidings of a 
kingdom. And this in a double sense. There is a 
kingdom into which they are to enter and be partakers 
of its glory: and yet, in the same kingdom, they are 
to be God's anointed kings. It is a kingdom doubly 
theirs. They not only "see the kingdom of God" (John 
3:3); they not only "enter into the kingdom of God"; 
but they occupy its thrones. "The kingdom, and the 
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the 
whole heaven, is given to the people of the saints of 
the Most High, and they possess the kingdom" (Dan 
7:22,27). "I appoint unto you a kingdom," says our 
Lord, "that ye may sit on thrones" (Luke 22:28). "To 
him that overcometh will I give to sit on my throne, 
even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father 
on His throne" (Rev 3:21). Hence they sing the song, 
"Thou art worthy, for Thou hast redeemed us by thy 
blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and 
priests: and we shall reign on the earth" (Rev 5:9). 
Not to be reigned over, but to reign, is the honour to 
which they are called. "They shall REIGN for ever and 
ever" (Rev 22:5).
	O sons of men! This is the honour to which God 
is calling you. It is for the end of making you His 
kings that He is seeking you. To deliver you from 
wrath is the beginning of His purpose concerning you; 
to set you on His throne is the end. Nothing short of 
this. Think what the riches of His grace must be, and 
His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus our Lord! 
Where sin has abounded grace has abounded more. Herein 
is love! Behold what manner of love the Father has 
bestowed on us, that we should not only be called sons 
but kings; that we should not only be lifted to a 
place in His family, but to a seat upon His throne! To 
make us in any way or in any sense partakers of His 
glory and sharers in His dominion is much but to make 
us "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ," is 
unspeakably more. A throne such as man can give and 
take away seems to many a worthy object of ambition; 
how much more the kingdom which God gives, the kingdom 
which cannot be moved.
	And if any one asks, How may I share this 
royalty and win this crown? we answer in the well-
known words, "As many as received Him, to them gave He 
power (right) to become the sons of God"; for what is 
true of the sonship is true of the kingship too. We 
obtain it by receiving the Son of God. He that takes 
Christ receives a kingdom, and becomes a king. His 
connection with the King of kings is His security for 
a throne. Oneness with Christ gives him the royal 
inheritance. To be washed in His blood, to be clothed 
with His raiment, to be quickened with His life, to be 
gladdened with His love, to be crowned with His 
crown,--these are some of the steps of honour, up 
which He leads those who believe in His name.
	For it is a throne that cannot be bought. It is 
THE GIFT of "the King eternal, immortal, and 
invisible"; and He giveth it to whomsoever He will. 
The invitation which the Son of God gives to us in His 
gospel is an invitation to a throne and crown. He 
holds it up and bids us look at it. He holds it out 
and bids us take it.
	I know not if all this were ever better 
described than by John Bunyan, in the beginning of the 
"Pilgrim's Progress," in the dialogue between 
Christian and Pliable:--

	"Pli.--Come, neighbour Christian, since there 
are none but us two here, tell me now further what the 
things are, and how to be enjoyed, whither we are 
going.
	"Chr.--I can better conceive of them with my 
mind, than speak of them with my tongue: but yet, 
since you are desirous to know, I will read of them in 
my book.
	"Pli.--And do you think that the words of your 
book are certainly true?
	"Chr.--Yes, verily; for it was made by Him that 
cannot lie.
	"Pli.--Well said; what things are they?
	"Chr.--There is an endless kingdom to be 
inhabited, and everlasting life to be given us, that 
we may inhabit the kingdom for ever.
	"Pli.--Well said; and what else?
	"Chr.--There are crowns of glory to be given us, 
and garments that will make us shine like the sun in 
the firmament of heaven.
	"Pli.--This is very pleasant; and what else?
	"Chr.--There shall be no more crying, nor 
sorrow: for He that is owner of the place will wipe 
all tears from our eyes.
	"Pli.--And what company shall we have there?
	"Chr.--There we shall be with seraphims and 
cherubims, creatures that will dazzle your eyes to 
look on them. There also you shall meet with thousands 
and tens of thousands that have gone before us to that 
place; none of them are hurtful, but loving and holy; 
every one walking in the sight of God, and standing in 
His presence with acceptance for ever. In a word, 
there we shall see the elders with their golden 
crowns; there we shall see the holy virgins with their 
golden harps; there we shall see men that by the world 
were cut in pieces, burnt in flames, eaten of beasts, 
drowned in the seas, for the love that they bare to 
the Lord of the place, all well, and clothed with 
immortality as with a garment.
	"Pli.--The hearing of this is enough to ravish 
one's heart. But are these things to be enjoyed? How 
shall we get to be sharers thereof?
	"Chr.--THE LORD, THE GOVERNOR OF THE COUNTRY, 
HATH RECORDED THAT IN THIS BOOK; THE SUBSTANCE OF 
WHICH IS, IF WE BE TRULY WILLING TO HAVE IT, HE WILL 
BESTOW IT UPON US FREELY."

	Thus very simply and beautifully does Bunyan put 
the manner of our obtaining the glory. Some would call 
this too free. Some would say, Here is the way made 
far too easy, without any preparatory alarms and 
repentance. But there stands John Bunyan's idea of the 
way of a sinner's entrance into the kingdom; and let 
him who can improve or correct it do so. "The Lord, 
the Governor of the country, hath recorded that in 
this book; the substance of which is, If we be truly 
willing to have it, He will bestow it upon us freely."
	Bunyan's soundness of doctrine is well known. 
His Calvinism was of a very decided kind. His views of 
Christ's redemption-work were very precise. His belief 
as to the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work was 
undoubted; yet he delighted to set forth the gospel in 
all its scriptural simplicity, unencumbered with 
preparatory exercises and processes intended to make 
the sinner "fit for receiving Christ," and fit for 
having the peace of the gospel dispensed to him; and 
never did he state that free gospel more freely, that 
simple gospel more simply, than when, in the manifest 
fulness of his heart, he wrote the above sentence, and 
put it into the lips of his pilgrim:--

"IF WE BE TRULY WILLING TO HAVE IT.
HE WILL BESTOW IT UPON US FREELY."

	Such a sentence shines like a star; yes, like a 
star to a tempest-tossed sinner in his night of 
darkness. He asks, How may I be saved? how may I be 
made a worshipper? how may I become a temple? how may 
I be taken into the royal priesthood? God's answer is 
not, works, and pray, and wait, and get convictions, 
and bring yourself under the stroke of the law; but 
believe and live; believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved. Likest in its naked 
simplicity to these divine utterances is that star-
like sentence of the Puritan dreamer. It is but 
another form, in language all his own, of the 
concluding message of gladness dropped from heaven, as 
the great book of truth was about to be closed and 
sealed:--

"WHOSOEVER WILL,
LET HIM TAKE THE WATER OF LIFE FREELY."

	Too free! Too easy! Too simple! It will only 
make skin-deep professors! Another gospel! So say some 
whose idea of the gospel seems to be that of a work to 
be done by the sinner, not of a work which Christ has 
already done; whose exhortations to the inquirer are, 
Wait, pray, seek, wrestle, labour on, and possibly God 
may drop salvation into our lap; whose theory of a 
sinner's approach to a Saviour turns all upon the 
necessity of some long, laborious preliminary 
seekings, repentances, convictions,  terrors, by which 
he is so humbled and broken, as to be at length in a 
right frame for Christ to bless him, in a right 
condition to be trusted with rest of soul;--whose 
largest grasp of the glorious gospel extends only to 
this, that it is good news for the qualified, for 
those who have been ploughed deep enough and long 
enough by the law.[18]
	Well: go to; go to, we say to such. Away and 
dispute the matter not with us, but with the Master. 
Ask Him why He "received sinners" at once, without 
preliminary work, or qualification, or preparation, or 
delay; why He said to the hardened profligate of 
Sychar, "Thou wouldst have asked, and He would have 
given"; to Zaccheus, "Make haste and come down, for 
today I must abide at thy house"; to the adulteress, 
"Neither do I condemn thee"; to the thief upon the 
cross, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
Upbraid Him with allowing three thousand of Jerusalem 
sinners, at one bound, and under one single message, 
to pass into the kingdom, instead of keeping them 
"waiting at the pool," or tortured by the law into 
gloomy fitness for the glad tidings: express your 
astonishment that He should have set such an example 
of rearing churches out of heathen idolaters in a 
single day,--Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, Thessalonica, 
Philippi, without waiting for years before calling 
their members "saints," or permitting them to sit down 
at the table of the Lord; set up your foolishness 
against His wisdom, your presumption against His 
lowliness, your traditions against His commandments, 
your love of darkness against His joy in light; 
proclaim your amended gospel, the gospel of Galatia, 
"Except ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you 
nothing"; but what will be the result of those 
amendments and restrictions on Christ's free gospel? 
What will all this wood, and hay, and stubble come to 
in the great day of the Lord? What will be thought of 
all these barriers which human self-righteousness has 
reared to check the speed of the flying manslayer, and 
keep him from too easy and too swift an entrance into 
the city of refuge, when "the breath of the Lord, like 
an overflowing stream" (Isa 30:28), shall sweep these 
barriers and their builders clean away.



FOOTNOTES:

[1]	I intended to have said something more upon this 
point; but room fails me. I meant to have noticed the 
Seventh of the Romans in connection with some recent 
opinions. But I content myself with the following 
letter, which appeared in the London Record of October 
19th, to show the extreme lengths to which some are 
prepared to go in advocating their tenets. Rather than 
reconsider their own opinions, they will affirm that 
the Apostle Paul fell from grace, went into heresy, 
and that the Seventh of the Romans is the confession 
of his fall and heresy. An English Clergyman thus 
writes to the London Record:--
	"I am surprised that in dealing with Mr. 
Pearsall Smith's errors, no one, so far as I know, has 
yet called attention to his tract, 'Bondage and 
Liberty,' on the Seventh of Romans.
	"He asserts that St. Paul 'fell from grace,' and 
became entangled in the Galatian heresy! That there 
may be no kind of mistake, I give his own words:--
	"'But having begun in the Spirit, he had sought 
to be made perfect by the activities of the flesh, the 
consequences of which were that sin revived and "he 
died," or lost his full communion with Christ, and 
victory through faith over sin.
	"'You have had now to travel along with Paul in 
the Seventh of Romans, in this passage which is 
manifestly the experience of a Christian, though not a 
true Christian experience. After having once 
exclaimed, "How shall we that are dead to sin live any 
longer therein?" you have been deceived, mistaking 
your own efforts to keep God's law for the walk of 
faith; and the result has been that sin has been--not 
conquered, but to a sad extent manifested.
	"'It is this agonising experience of yours of 
failure in your inward and outward walk that was 
shared by Paul in this parenthesis--following his 
declaration of the death of believers to sin and to 
the law--to which he here limits the pronoun "I," as 
the acknowledgment of how a Christian may fail, rather 
than as belonging to the proper experience of a 
Christian. It was this experience that made him so 
zealous in warning the Galatians against legalism in 
their walk. It was the agony of this "falling from 
grace" and coming "under law" in his practical ways 
that brought out the cry of despair, "O wretched man 
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?"
	"'But, brother Paul, thy agony is ended when, as 
in a moment, and with a sudden joy that precludes 
explanation, thou again beholdest Jesus dawning on thy 
soul as a Deliverer, not only from wrath, but from 
sinning. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."'
	"As may be supposed, there is much nonsense and 
confusion in the little book from which the above is 
taken, but I submit whether there is not something 
worse, and which calls for vigorous treatment at the 
hands of faithful, sensible, Evangelical men?"

[2]	1. It is interesting to notice the way in which 
the negative particle is used in the different 
designations of God. He is called invisible,--He who 
cannot be seen, He who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) 
incorruptible (Rom 1:23; 1 Tim 1:17) He who cannot be 
tempted (James 1:13): He who only hath immortality (1 
Tim 6:16). In connection with the things of God, and 
of Christ, we have a similar use of the same negative 
particle:--Thus, "His eternal power and Godhead" (Rom 
1:20); unfading (1 Peter 1:4); immutability (Heb 
6:17); without repentance (Rom 11:29); undefiled (Heb 
7:26); past finding out (Rom 11:33); unchangeable (Heb 
7:24). These instances will illustrate the truth that 
very much of what we express of God, is expressed in 
the form of a contrast to the things of man.

[3]	John Howe thus writes on this point, in his 
treatise on "Delighting in God":--"The most excellent 
portion, in whom all things that may render Him such 
do concur and meet together; all desirable and 
imaginable riches and fulness, together with large 
bounty, flowing goodness, every way correspondent to 
the wants and cravings of indigent and thirsty souls. 
How infinitely delightful is it to view and enjoy Him 
as our portion...every way complete and full, it being 
the all-comprehensive good which is this portion, God 
all-sufficient...making His boundless fulness overflow 
to the replenishing of thirsty longing souls."

[4]	"How pleasant to lose themselves in Him; to be 
swallowed up in the overcoming sense of His boundless, 
all-sufficient, everywhere flowing fulness! By this 
dependence they make this fulness of God their own. 
They have nothing to do but to depend; to live upon a 
present self-sufficient good, which alone is enough to 
replenish all desires. How can we divide the highest 
pleasure, the fullest satisfaction, from this 
dependence! 'Tis to live at the rate of a god; a 
godlike life; a living upon immense fulness; as He 
lives."--Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, Chapter 
8.

[5]	"God's excellency, His wisdom, His purity and 
love seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, 
and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, 
flowers, and trees; in the water, and all nature--
which used greatly to fix my mind."--Jonathan Edwards

[6]	Literally, "dying thou shalt die,"--that is, 
"thou shalt commence dying"; life with thee is at an 
end. Thus man was made to live, he was made immortal; 
it was sin that brought in mortality.

[7]	The true Priest,--"the High Priest of the good 
things to come"--stands at the gate to receive all who 
come. He refuses none, however imperfect they and 
their offering may be; for it is His perfection and 
His perfect offering that give the right of entrance 
to the sinner; He receives all comers. "Him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

[8]	"The veils, which were composed of four things, 
declared the four elements; for the fine linen was 
proper to signify the earth, because the flax grows 
out of the earth; the purple signified the sea, 
because that colour is dyed by the blood of a sea 
shell-fish; the blue is fit to signify the air, and 
the scarlet will be an indication of fire."--Antiq. b. 
iii. chap. 7. sect. 7.

[9]	Dr. A. A. Bonar's Commentary on Leviticus, pp. 
68, 69.

[10]	In the previous verse he had spoken of the 
"blood of Jesus,"--so here we understand him to say 
that the veil is the body of Him whose name is Jesus; 
that one name at which every knee shall bow: that one 
name of which all prophecy is the testimony (Rev 
19:10). In the above passage, in Philippians, it is 
very noticeable that JESUS by itself should be so 
specially singled out; JESUS as the special name for 
worship and for worshippers. "In the name of Jesus 
every knee shall bow." Of all His many names this is 
the one which the Father delights to honour, and round 
which the eternal adoration of heaven and earth is to 
gather. It is the name of names:--the name above every 
name,--JESUS.

[11]	Christ's calling Peter by the name of Satan, and 
thus identifying him, in what he had just been saying, 
with the old tempter, carries us back to the first 
promise, in which that tempter heard his own doom and 
man's deliverance predicted. If Jesus did not die, if 
the heel of the woman's seed were not bruised, the 
first promise fell to the ground. Satan knew how much 
turned upon the bruising of the heel of that seed, and 
how necessary it was to the bruising of his own head. 
Nothing could have more identified Peter with Satan 
than the position he took up here as to the non-
necessity for his Master's death. Nicodemus did not 
understand the person of the Lord; Peter did not 
understand His work, nor see the necessity for His 
sacrificial death.

[12]	"Therefore even that which shall be born shall 
be holy; it shall be called the Son of God."

[13]	Dr. Owen dwells at length upon this point, the 
forming of Christ's body by the Holy Spirit. "The 
framing, forming, and miraculous conception of the 
body of Christ, in the womb of the blessed virgin, was 
the peculiar and special work of the Holy Ghost...It 
was effected by an act of infinite creating power, yet 
it was formed or made of the substance of the blessed 
virgin."--On the Holy Spirit, b. ii. chap. 3.

[14]	These are defended on the ground that they teach 
certain truths. But worship is not for teaching; it is 
for the taught. To multiply teaching and symbols is to 
injure worship; for teaching is not worship, and 
worship is not teaching.

[15]	The name Father occurs but seldom in the Old 
Testament; and not in the same sense as that in which 
our Lord here uses it. In such places as Deuteronomy 
32:6, Isaiah 63:16, 64:8, Jeremiah 31:9, the word 
refers specially to Jehovah's relationship to Israel, 
as head of the family; but in our Lord's words the 
reference is to the great spiritual Fatherhead 
inherent in His nature, as the invisible God, Jehovah, 
the being of beings, God over all, head and parent of 
the universe: not in the modern sense of an equal 
fatherhood, into the possession of which every man is 
born; but in the sense contained in the words "we are 
His offspring" (Acts 17:28), and "in Him we live, and 
move, and have our being."

[16]	"The designation was most apt, of so excellent a 
creature, to this office and use, to be immediately 
sacred to Himself and His own converse: His temple and 
habitation, the mansion and residence of His presence 
and indwelling glory! There was nothing whereto he was 
herein designed whereof His nature was not capable. 
His soul was, after the required manner, receptive of 
a deity; its powers were competent to their appointed 
work and employment; it could entertain God by 
knowledge and contemplation of His glorious 
excellencies, by reverence and love, by adoration and 
praise. This was the highest kind of dignity whereto 
creature nature could be raised,--the most honourable 
state. How high and quick an advance! This moment 
nothing; the next, a being capable and full of God."--
Howe's Living Temple.

[17]	In all these passages the word used signifies 
the inner part or shrine of the building,--the holy 
place and the holy of holies. We are the holy of 
holies, where the cherubim dwelt, where Jehovah dwelt, 
where He is said to "dwell between the cherubim"; or 
as it really is, to "inhabit the cherubim"; the 
cherubim being His habitation. Into this inner shrine 
the blood was brought, but not the fire. The effects 
of the fire were there, the smoking incense, but not 
the fire itself; for into this sanctuary no wrath can 
enter. The wrath has been expended and exhausted 
outside; and this sanctuary is the abode of love and 
favour; they who belong to it have been delivered from 
wrath for ever. They are the monuments of exhausted 
wrath,--wrath which has spent itself upon another, and 
which has passed away from them for ever. I may notice 
that it was into the holy place, that Judas threw the 
pieces of silver,--going to the gate, and flinging 
them in among the priest as they were carrying on the 
service.

[18]	"Satan would keep souls from believing by 
persuading them that they are not yet qualified and 
sufficiently fitted for Christ, and that they have not 
seen themselves absolutely lost, not so much burdened 
with sin as they should. And, it is to be feared, that 
Satan makes use of many of God's ministers, as the old 
prophet mentioned, 1 Kings 13:11, &c,. to keep off, 
and drive away souls from Christ, under the notion of 
preaching peremptory doctrine for Christ, and so seek 
to fit men for him, as some have preached many months 
together this doctrine, before they would preach 
Christ at all; whereas their commission, and the 
example of Christ and His disciples, was to preach 
glad tidings first."--Powel, an old Puritan.