The Banished One Bearing Our Banishment
“Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.” — John x. 23.
The one hindrance to His exercise of this his divine right of entrance into the holiest of all, was our iniquity, which was lying on him. That kept him out. Until that was fully borne, he could not enter either the sanctuary below or the presence-chamber above. In taking our sin upon him, as he did from the moment of his incarnation, he had consented to forego for a time his right of entrance into the Father’s presence, and into that place where the glorious symbol of that presence dwelt. He had consented to be an outcast, to stand only in the place where sin is borne, not in the place where iniquity is remembered no more. It was as the banished One that he passed through earth, having no place to lay his head. It was as the outcast that he never went beyond the outer court of the temple. It was as such that we find him walking in Solomon’s porch, thus proclaiming to all who truly understood his character and work, that he was acting as the sinners substitute, — taking
the sinner’s place of exile, not merely outside the blessed heaven, where he had dwelfc from everlasting, but outside even his Father’s house below.
Some speak much of his not having been born in a palace, and dwell on the humiliation of his being without any vestige of human royalty. But these were, after all, but common, and, we may say, carnal things. It was a light thing to be kept out of David’s house or Herod’s palace; but it was no light thing to be excluded from his Father’s house, his own proper home. More than ever David did, would he desire the tabernacles of Jehovah; his flesh and heart would cry out for God; and howpeculiar must have been his feelings, in being thus made to stand outside the sanctuary, the very place to which he had so undoubted a right, and in which it would have been his delight to dwell! Instead of communing with his Father in his own holy dwelling-place, he had to resort to the Mount of Olives, and such unsheltered solitudes, as if he had not only no place to lay his head, but no sanctuary to betake himself to, no closet into which he might enter. So strangely shut out was he from all places to which, either as Son of Man, or as Son of God, he would desire to visit or to dwell in!
When he died on the cross, the veil was rent in twain, and he might then have entered. The reasons for his exclusion were at an end; and his banished life was over. Judaic ritualism was exhausted and cancelled. Blood had been shed, to enable any one to enter in, priest or no priest, whether belonging: to Judah or to Levi; whether on the day of atonement or not. And, in testimony of all this, he might have entered the holiest of all, at his resurrection. But this would have been a small thing, and one which might have raised. misconceptions as to the meaning and importance of the very rites that were now to be done away. Instead, then, of entering the earthly sanctuary, he passed upward into the heavenly; instead of claiming his right to enter the typical holy of holies, he did that which was of far deeper signification “and higher moment, he entered in and took possession of the true holy of holies above, in token of his having fulfilled his time of banishment, finished his work, and removed every hindrance which stood in the way of those, for whom he was the substitute below, and of whom he was to be the representative above.
See him, then, in these two different conditions, — (1.) walking in Solomon’s porch; (2.) seated at the right hand of God.
1. Walking in Solomons porch. — He walks there as the Substitute; our Substitute as truly, as when he groaned in Gethsemane or died on Golgotha. As one consenting for a season to be shut out from the presence of God, that we might enter and dwell in that presence for ever, he stands, or sits, or walks outside the sanctuary. Thus it is that he bears our banishment: he takes upon him not merely the penalty of suffering and death, but that of exclusion from the house and home of God. That penalty he has endured: that exile he has undergone: that distance he has experienced: and all this as the Substitute, bearing what we should have borne, in order that we might inherit all to which he could lay claim. Through means of this substitution of the Son of God in the room of the exiled sinner, that sinner finds free access to the innermost shrine of heaven, the very presence of the Father. And the Father’s message to each banished one is, enter in! Stand no longer afar off; despair no more, as if the gate were closed. Behold, it is open, wide open! Go in at once, and end your banishment. Go in, and find peace, love, friendship, acceptance, through him, to whose finished work of glorious substitution the Father is bearing such blessed testimony! Why should we depart from the living God, seeing the Son of God has removed all reason for our departure? Why remain in alienation, seeing here is that which has taken away all the hindrances in the way of friendship? Why remain afar off, seeing God asks you to come nigh? Why stand outside, seeing God says, Come in?
Nor is it bare liberty of entrance that has been secured; as if the door had been reluctantly thrown open, and the way grudgingly cleared for us. Such is the efficacy of our Substitute’s life and death, that “we have boldness to enter into the holiest” (Heb. x. 19). We need not hide ourselves in the thicket; we need not run away from God; we need not, in terror and uncertainty, steal slowly and sadly back to our Father’s house; we need not wait, nor doubt, nor suspect, nor distrust; we may go at once, and go boldly, to God, on the simple security given to the sinner by the work of the divine Sin-bearer. That work has not simply made it possible for God to receive us, but secured our reception. It has not simply unbarred the gate, but flung it open, as widely open as God himself could fling it. or as any sinner needs that it should be flung. Nay, it has sent out messengers of peace and messages of love, assuring us not only of a welcome when we return, but of God’s sincere desire that we should do so. It has not merely removed the restraints on grace which law imposed, and set it free to pour itself out freely; but it has made grace a righteous thing; so that now love is righteousness, and righteousness is love.
It is not possible to imagine greater freeness for the sinner, in his going to God, than has been provided by the vicarious life and death of Him who is i{ the end of the law, for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Nothing can be freer, safer, surer, than “the new and living way.” Yet, who goes in; who cares for it;” who hath believed our report?’ The tread of returning feet makes no noise in our world; for the home-goers are so few, and so far between each other. But the sound of wandering feet is like the tread of millions. The noise of home-leavers, hastening from their Father’s house, they know not whither, fills the wide air of earth; and, while men hear, in that sound, only mirth and joyance, faith hears in it sadness, and unrest, and the cravings of empty hearts, and the self-tolled knell of overhanging judgment, to which, though they will not believe it, they are hastening on.
0 men, and friends, and fellow-exiles, we beseech you to turn back on your way of peril and sin. Turn back, lest ye perish! By the death of Him who died the sinner’s death, by the life of Him who lived on earth the sinner’s life of banishment, we entreat you to bethink yourselves, and turn your footsteps towards your Father’s still-open home.
2. Look at Him within the veil, at the Fathers right hand. — He remained on the outside while here; he has entered in at last, and that, not into the earthly sanctuary, the mere figure of the true, but into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us. When outside here on earth, he was our substitute; now when within, in heaven, he is our representative. He has gone up and gone in for us. He carries us in along with him, and gives those, who accept his substitution and representation, the same privilege of nearness and fellowship as he has himself. As our High Priest, he communicates between us and God. As Intercessor, he pleads our case. As Representative, he has so identified himself with our persons, that we are lost sight of under his shadow. The Father sees him in us, and us in him. All our imperfection is lost in his glorious perfection; and we, in being presented to the Father, are presented as part of his glorious self; all our uncomeliness for ever merged in the infinite comeliness of the beloved Son.
From the moment that faith linked ns to his cross, and identified us with his person, we becajne inseparable. In no aspect could God view us, save as part of his Son, — nay, wholly one with him. And this connection, though now one of faith, is ere long to be one of sight. “When he who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory.” His second coming will be the visible completion of the wondrous identification, which faith at first accomplished. Resurrection will bring out, more fully than either life or death, the mysterious oneness between the body and the Head. One cross, one death, one grave, was ours; for his cross was ours, his death ours, his grave ours. So, one glory, one crown, one kingdom, one city, one inheritance, shall be ours hereafter; for all that he has is ours. He, one with us, took our place of exile outside the veil, and bore our shame, our suffering, our death. We, one with him, get his place of nearness to the Father, within the veil, and entrance to the many mansions of the eternal house; receiving the life, the love, the blessing, the eternal gladness, which he has purchased for us, and which he so freely, so lovingly, presents to each one who is now afar off, each banished child of Adam, each prodigal of earth, wandering in the far country, without a home or a Father, without a sanctuary, and without a God.
It is to this innermost place in the heaven of heavens, this innermost glory above, that the Lord invites the outermost of the sons of men, the farthest off of all earth’s far-off wanderers. In love he took the lowest place, that he might invite us to the highest. In love he went to the farthest circle of banishment that this earth knows, in order that, by bearing that banishment, he might bring us into the very centre of divine fellowship, and nearness, and heavenly gladness, — to the very bosom of the Father, out of which he himself had come, seeking the lost, and devising means whereby his banished should be restored. Ah, surely there is not anything in our banishment that should lead us, for one moment, to prefer it to our Father’s presence, nor anything in the distant land of exile, to make us refuse for it the paradise of God!