Let Us Draw Nigh

The twelve chapters that form this little book are part of a larger work that has just been published. They are issued separately in the hope that they may bring the tidings that the Father would indeed have us live our life in His Presence, and that Christ is able to bring and keep us there, to some whom the larger work may not reach.

The passage of which these chapters are the exposition (chap. x. 19-25) constitutes the very centre of the Epistle. It contains a summary of what had been taught in its first or doctrinal part, and indicates at the same time the chief

1 TJie Holiest of All: The Presence of God, the Sphere of Christ’s Ministry in Heaven, and our Life and Service on Earth. A Devotional Exposition the Epistle to the Hebrews (130 chapters).

thoughts which are to be enforced in the second half. “Within the compass of a very few verses it gathers up all that has been said of our Blessed High Priest and His work, all that can be said of what we need fully to enjoy the fruit of that work, and all that has yet to be said in the Epistle of the influence its teaching is to exorcise upon us. It makes all centre round tlw± one thought: Let us draw nigvh. Let us, in the power of Christ’s redemption, enter in and dwell in the Father’s presence.

In the larger book I have endeavoured to point out how the state of the Hebrews was just what we find in the churches of our days. There is a lack of steadfastness, of growth, and of power, which arises from our not knowing Jesus aright. I have there tried to show, as the Epistle led, that the true knowledge of the wonderful and blessed truths of the divinity and humanity of our Lord, of His being our Leader and Forerunner in the path of obedience and perfect surrender to God’s will, above all, of His heavenly Priesthood in the power of an endless life, and His having procured us perfect liberty of access and abode in God’s Presence through His blood, gives a strength to our faith and hope, which enables us in very deed to obtain the promise and live as God would have us do. But I am not without hope that even this smaller volume may urge some to seek and discover what the treasure is the Epistle contains, and help them to enter into the personal possession of that complete salvation our great High Priest waits and is able to bestow.

That the teaching of God’s Holy Spirit may be the portion of all my readers, is my earnest prayer.

25th September, 1894.

19 Having therefore boldness to enter into the Holy

Place by the blood of Jesus,

20 By the way which He dedicated for us, a new and

living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh;

21 And having a Great Priest over the house of God;

22 Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of

faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed with pure water:

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it

waver not; for He is faithful that promised:

24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto

love and good works;

25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,

as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.

It may help us the bettei to master the rich contents of this central passage, containing a summary of the whole Epistle, if we here give the chief thoughts it contains.

I. The four great Blessings of the new life:

1. The Holiest opened up.

2. Boldness in the Blood.

3. A New and Living Way.

4. The Great High Priest.

II. The four chief Marks of the true believer;

1. A True Heart.

2. Fulness of Faith.

3. A Heart sprinkled from an Evil Conscience.

4. The Body washed with Clean Water.

III. The four great Duties to which the opened Sanctuary calls:

1. Let us draw nigh (in the fulness of faith).

2. Let us hold fast the profession of our hope.

3. Let us consider one another to provoke unto

love.

4. Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

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