The Holy Spirit and the Way into the Holiest
Ix. — 8. The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the Holy Place hath not yet been made manifest, while as the first tabernacle is yet standing;
9. Which is a parable for the time now present; according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper perfect,
10. Being only (with meats and drinks and divers washings) carnal ordinances, Imposed until a time of reformation.
WE said that the Holiest of All, or, as it is literally, the Holiness of Holinesses, was the very embodiment of the holiness of God, the place of His presence. The Holy Spirit specially bears the epithet Holy, because He is the bearer of the divine holiness to impart it to man — He is the Spirit of holiness. It will appear no more than natural that there should be a close connection between the sanctuary as the revelation of God’s holiness, and the Holy Spirit as the revealer. This is what we are taught here: the whole construction of the tabernacle and the appointment of the high priest’s entrance once a year was so ordered by the Holy Spirit as to be a great object-lesson in which the truth was taught that so long as the veil hung there, the way into the Holiest was not yet open. The Holy Spirit signifying that the way into the Holiest was not yet opened. The words teach us that the truth about the way into the Holiest was entirely in charge of the Holy Spirit. It was He who devised and revealed to Moses the heavenly pattern. It was He who ordered the veil as the token that the way was not open. It was He who, by the yearly entrance of the high priest, gave the prophecy that it would one day be opened. It was He who prepared a body for Him, and later on rilled Him who was to be the opener of the way. It was He, the Eternal Spirit, through whom Christ offered Him self as the sacrifice with whose blood He might enter in. It was He, the Spirit of holiness (Rom. i. 4), through whom Christ was raised from the dead and exalted to the throne of God. It was the Holy Spirit who, when the way had been opened, came out from the Holiest of All on the day of Pentecost, to impart to men the life and the power of the glorified Christ. It is He who to-day still presides over the way into the Holiest, leading in all who are willing to dwell there.
The lesson for our spiritual life is one of deep suggestiveness. The Holy Spirit has charge of the way into the Holiest; both while that way is not yet manifest and when it is opened up. He alone hath the knowledge and the power to reveal this mystery. For it is still a spiritual mystery. Though everything that Scripture reveals of it can be studied and understood by any man of intelligence, and a clear conception can be formed, or an exposition given of what it means, the living power of the truth, the actual experience of entering in through the opened veil into the presence of God, can only be communicated and wrought in the life within by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit alone can reveal in the heart what the way means, both where it is not yet made manifest, and where it is. He can work in a man the deep conviction that he does, or does not know, the true nearness of God in his own experience.
We have seen that the two compartments of the tabernacle represent two degrees of nearness to God, two disfcbe ibolfest ot ail 239
pensations of God’s grace, or two stages in the Christian life, a lower and a higher. Into the Holy Place every priest might come daily to do there the service God had appointed. Into the Most Holy he might not enter till Christ had opened it for all believers. Many believers never in experience enter into this life of the inner sanctuary, the more complete and abiding nearness to God. They have, in the outer court, seen the altar, and received the pardon of sin; they have entered upon the service of God, they seek to do His will, but the joy of His presence as their abiding portion they know not. And very often they do not know that there is a better life, that there is an entering within the veil, a real dwelling in the secret of God’s presence; the need that the Holy Spirit signify to them, work in them the conviction that to them the way into the Holiest hath not yet been made manifest. They need — oh let us, if we have not yet entered in, let us give ourselves to pray for — the discovery that there is an inner chamber; that there is still the veil of the flesh, the life of the carnal Christian, that prevents the access; that only the possession of the Pentecostal blessing, the Spirit that came from the throne when Jesus had rent the veil, that reveals Him and links to Him, is what will bring us in. When He has signified this to us, and we yield ourselves to the full conviction that we are still without the veil, and strong desire has been awakened at any cost to enter in, the same Spirit who at Pentecost, when our High Priest had just entered with His blood, came forth from the Holiest of All, will come to us in power and bring us in too. As He reveals Jesus Himself as having gone in for us; as He makes us willing for that perfect surrender, in which nothing less than the direct and continual fellowship with God can satisfy us; our hearts will open to the wondrous mystery, that what is impossible to men 19 is possible with God, and that God of His free grace and in His mighty power does indeed grant it to His child, even now in Christ, to dwell with Him in unbroken communion.
O God! let the Holy Spirit witness to every reader who needs it, that to him the way into the Holiest hath not yet been made manifest; and to everyone who is ready for it, that in Christ the way into the Holiest is indeed open. With Pentecost, and the participation it brought of the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, began true Christianity, as a ministration of the Spirit. The enjoyment of the Pentecostal gift, as the communication of the heavenly life and the abiding presence of Jesus the glorified One, in all its Pentecostal freshness and fulness, is the only power that can enable us to live within the veil, in the living experience that the way into the Holiest has now been opened. It is the Spirit dwelling in us will fit us for dwelling in God’s presence.
1. Shall we any longer fear and doubt? The Father in heaven beckoning us into His presence; the Son, our Brother, Prophet, Priest, and King, pointing to the way He opened for us and the Holy Spirit within us to be our light and strength, to enable us to walk in that way — shall we fear? No, let us hear the voice that gives the power: Rise up and walk. Enter in.
2. Do get it very clear that the two compartments are two stages in religious life and worship and seruice. The one when the power of the rent veil is not yet understood; the other where the Holy Spirit has brought us In.