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Colonizing the Creation
Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God,
(Hebrews 10:19 - 21 NKJV)
Because of Calvary, believers now have confident access into the holiest places of God’s dwelling. No more having to stand at a distance while others go in our stead. No more of a system where only one man could go once a year before His throne. No. The way, the road made open before us is new (Greek, PROSPHATOS – freshly slain) and yet at the same time living (Greek, ZAO – exercising the functions of life, possessed of vitality). The access before us is the veil of Christ’s flesh torn two thousand years ago – at the same time as the veil in the temple separating the Holy of Holies from the holy place was being torn from top to bottom.
Clearly, God was proclaiming that He was making the way open for all who believe. And today, many centuries later, that way unto Him is still freshly slain and yet living. The power and glory of Calvary has not grown old. Its impact upon the human soul is as vital and potent with as many benefits and blessings as it was on Resurrection Morning two thousand years ago. For example, when we repent of our sins and when we partake of the Lord’s table, we look into the past as we participate in the present power of an event whose effect has not waned and whose future impact among men is still unfolding.
But if God has gone to such lengths to open for us this doorway, then –
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies (the body – Youngs Literal Translation) washed with pure water.
Here is a picture of corporate entrance, of many individual hearts sprinkled clean, yet joined together to approach Heaven’s throne with a single sincere heart and the body (singular) washed with pure water. God has made a way for one man (made up of many) to come and to stand before Him. True Christian unity is not about a multitude of believers permeated by a spirit of compromise attempting to come together around some least common denominator. No. Christian unity is Christ, revealed in a body. It is a people moving in one Spirit, in one mind – the mind of Christ. And it is a miracle authored from heaven and still emerging on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit among those who believe.
And the pure water that this body is washed in is not some natural river sourced from the purest of glacial ice in the arctic. What water on earth could possibly be pure enough to cause a washing that Heaven would consider as significant? The only source must be heaven itself. So, we see a people made clean by the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5) as they repent and are plunged into Heaven’s holy fountain of living waters, even our Lord Himself (Jeremiah 2:13) in the waters of baptism. The result is that they then release the power of Heaven’s river from their innermost beings (John 7:37 - 39) so that wherever it flows it brings life (Ezekiel 47:9). And on either side of it can be found the tree of life (Revelation 22:1 - 2).
Notice how the writer to the Hebrews continues the thought of the corporate life of God’s people.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
A day of judgment was drawing near. Within just a few years, that day would dawn upon the Jewish nation and would be so fierce, so destructive that Jesus told those who were mourning his coming crucifixion to not weep for Him but for themselves and their children (Luke 23:27 - 28). Fearful days were coming. God was going to require of that generation all the righteous blood of the prophets that had ever been shed (Luke 11:50 - 51). And the solution, the one showing the way out of the coming devastation, the one calling them to be saved from that perverse generation (Acts 2:40), was their Messiah now revealed from heaven in a corporate body.
But they had to keep responding to his Spirit and gather together to Him. All of hell was conspiring against them to discourage them. And some had begun to pull back, away from assembling together. But gathering to encourage and to stir up one another to walk according to the nature and the character of God was essential for them if they were to be Heaven’s testimony to a nation heading toward destruction.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
If believers were to turn away from the one sacrifice that God had provided that enabled His people to come to Him and then decided to instead go back to the animal sacrifices of temple worship, they would discover that there simply was no cleansing power in them – just a growing sense of the dawning doom coming upon all who had opposed the revelation of God in Christ.
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
Notice that the above words address the subject of someone who had turned to the Lord/had been sanctified, but who had then decided that Christ’s blood was no more efficacious than that of lambs, goats, and bulls. Such a conclusion was an insult to God Himself.
For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
The Lord was coming to judge His people; a fearful day was dawning – which raises a question. What does it mean to fear the Lord? In this particular context, it could be described not as the dread of coming to Him, but the fearful recognition of the repercussions of rejecting Him and walking away.
The writer then goes on to remind the believers of their sufferings which they had embraced with joy when they first turned to the Lord and how they should not now throw away their first confidence but embrace endurance and so come into Heaven’s reward (Hebrews 10:32 - 36).
FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.
The above verses are taken from Habakkuk Chapter 2. God had just informed the prophet that He was doing something that would be difficult to believe. He was raising up the Chaldeans to bring them in judgment upon His people (Habakkuk 1:5 - 11). The prophet’s reply was that the ones God intended to use as His rod of judgment were far worse sinners than His own people. “Lord, that can’t be right. They are an evil people. And they are so deceived in spiritual darkness that when they catch lots of fish, they offer sacrifices to their fishing nets.”
The Lord responded that the prophet needed to record the vision for it was true and would come to pass at the appointed time. Even if it seemed to tarry, Habakkuk was to have the expectation of its certainty. And as far as the soul of the proud Chaldeans, the Lord knew of their true condition, but the prophet was not to focus on that but to receive what God was doing and to believe in Him (Habakkuk 2:1 - 4).
Similarly, in a matter of just a few years following the writing of the Book of Hebrews, the Lord would again come in judgment, only now through the armies of Rome. And His righteous ones were not to shrink back from Him, not to forsake their assembling together to Him, but to encourage one another and stimulate one another to love and good deeds. And all the more as the coming day of judgment drew near (Hebrews 10:24 - 25).
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving (Greek, PERIPOIESIS – the acquiring, the purchasing, the preserving) of the soul.
It was time to pay a price. The believers were not to let their souls simply drift according to the prevailing attitudes in society. They were to make the right decision no matter how costly. And as they counted the cost and brought their souls into alignment with what God was saying, they would be preserved from the coming destruction. Similarly, let us who believe today not forsake our assembling together to worship and to encourage one another, and all the more as we see the present judgments of God being released upon our own nation.
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